The temple stood in the Greek city of Ephesus, on the west coast of what is
now Turkey. This was the largest and most complex temple of ancient times. It
was made of marble with a tile covered wooden roof. The temple was built by an
architect named Cherdiphron and his son, Metagenes. Ephesus was one of the
greatest Ionian cities. The early Greek colonists at Ephesus, in Asia Minor,
built a temple to Artemis (called Diana by the Romans) which was rebuilt and
enlarged from time to time. Its foundation measured 377 by 180 feet (115 by 55
meters). It had 106 columns, about 40 ft(12 meters) high, in a double row about
the cella (inner space). It took 120 years to build and was finished in 430 BC.
In 356 BC, on the night Alexander the Great was born, it was destroyed by fire.
Another one like it was built on the same foundation. Goths burned down the
second temple in A.D. 262. Only the foundation and parts of the second temple
remains. The British Museum in London contains sculptures from the second
temple.
