Artemision

The Artemision at Ephesus, on the coast of Ionia, was the great temple of Artemis and one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. The marble temple begun around 550 BC by the architect Chersiphron and paid for by Croesus of Lydia made the sanctuary famous.

In 356 BC Herostratus burned it down to immortalise his name, an act that tradition placed on the night Alexander the Great was born. The Ephesians refused Alexander's offer to pay for its rebuilding; after his death in 323 BC they raised a larger temple with more than a hundred and twenty-seven columns.

Gothic raiders destroyed it in 262 AD. Worship of Artemis lingered until about 401, but the temple was never restored; by the later Middle Ages only foundations remained beside the village at Selçuk.