Temple of Artemis Sardis

“Sardis”; ruins of the Temple of Artemis, Sardis, ca. 1830–35, looking west; brown wash and pencil on paper, 24.9 x 29.4 cm. London, Victoria and Albert Museum SD.639 (© Victoria and Albert Museum).

Marble relief fragment
Roman, 1st–2nd century CE
The relief shows part of a scene of a venatio (a series of games in the theater or circus comprising fights between men and animals or between different types of animals). At the bottom is what remains of a Greek inscription, indicating that the scene represents the third day of the games. The relief may have decorated a monument set up to honor the magistrate or other leading citizen who paid for the games. The slab was found during the American excavations at Sardis in 1912, near the Temple of Artemis, where it had been reused in a Byzantine tomb.

Paris, Musée du Louvre

Relief with Artemis-Cybele and two goddesses, possibly from Kula.

Buried over time with flooding and landslides, waiting to be rediscovered.Society of Dilettanti • 1915

Stele with Artemis, Cybele, and Two Worshippers
Ca. 400 BC, Late Lydian (Persian)

Two frontal goddesses occupy two thirds of the niche space. They are approached from the r. by two worshippers shown in profile. The taller goddess, Artemis, holds a hind, the shorter, Cybele, a lion. Her tympanum is hanging on the “wall” in the background. The worshippers raise their r. hands in adoration.

Sardes Antik Kenti Kazıları, Artemis Tapınağı 1910-1914
Howard C. Butler

A Camel Train at the Temple of Cybele, Sardis, ca. 1828

William Page (1794–1872), Watercolor over traces of graphite on paper, 36 × 56.5 cm.

Sandstone Lion from Altar of Cybele, Pactolus North

One of two and one-half sandstone lion sculptures that were set up on the corners of the Altar of Cybele in the gold refining area at Sardis

View of the Temple of Artemis

©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College

The ruins of the Temple of Artemis in Sardis in Lydia (modern-day western Turkey), originally built by the Greeks in 300 BCE and later renovated by the Romans in the 2nd century CE. The Temple of Artemis in Sardis was the fourth largest Ionic temple in the ancient world.

The archetypal und archaic Anatolian goddess, Cybele, was revered not only throughout Anatolia but also on the neighboring (modern day) Greek islands.

Evidence of her cult can still be seen today in the cave formations and niches carved into hillsides. Her great gift to humanity is the mystery of rebirth.

Many of these caves symbolize the birth canal and end in womb-like forms. On the island of Samos, for example, one enters the caves as if stepping back into the darkness of the womb—not of a biological mother and father, but of the Great Goddess of eternity.

During our journey through Anatolia, we will visit many such places—caves and rock niches where Cybele was likely venerated long before the appearance and unveiling of the many goddesses who later emerged in human consciousness, in our hearts and in our souls.