The Temple of Artemis

From Ephesus, we went to see one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In case you don't know what the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are, let me list them for you:

1.

The Great Pyramid of Egypt
2. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
4. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
5. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
6. The Colossus of Rhodes
7. The Lighthouse of Alexandria

I went to number 4, The Temple of Artemis. From the photos, you can see that not much is left. In fact only one and one third of a pillar is left, out of a huge temple. How did it get to be like this? The temple was built probably around 800 BC. It was said that the temple took 120 years to be built. It was destroyed on one day, July 21, 356 BC by one madman by the name of Herostratus.

He wanted to be famous so much that he decided to burn down the temple. Today we call such need to be famous, as 'herostratic fame'. The ancient people there was so angry that they decided to remove not write his name in history records so as to not make his plan successful. They suceeded, well almost. One historian did recorded it and that's how we now know who this madman is.

The same night the temple was burned, Alexander the Great was born. Some ancient people believed that was why the god Artemis could not save her own temple.She was too busy helping Alexander's delivery.

The Youtube video below shows how it might have looked like and how it is now.