DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4615#0058
-fi MODERN DISCOVERIES AT ANCIENT EPHESUS.
extremity on the north side of the pronaos of the temple,
we soon found two large sculptured blocks which might
have been the angle and adjoining block of the frieze at
the north-west angle, or part of a large altar. Portions
of two life-size male figures are carved on one face, and
the lifting of Antaeus by Hercules seems to be here
represented. On the return side of the angle-block there
had evidently been a female figure (perhaps Artemis
herself) and a deer, of which little remains but the head
and antlers.
The Goths are credited with the partial destruction of
the last temple, A.D. 260; and some twenty years later the
early Christians accomplished its total destruction. After
which, at a period unknown, but probably near the close
of the third century A.D., they determined to build a
church within the cella walls, which had been allowed to
remain standing for some feet above the pavement of the
earliest temple. The early Christians, before removing
what at that time was left standing of the cella walls,
built against them massive piers of rubble masonry;
when they had proceeded so far, a tremendous earth-
quake occurred, which, running from south-east to north-
west, overthrew several of the foundation-piers, and raised
part of the pavement five feet above its original level,
with a large mass of the mortar which had been mixed
upon it. It was quite evident that they then abandoned
the idea of building a church within the cella walls ; they
therefore proceeded to remove them, and as the piers
had been built with large quantities of mortar, the im-
pression of every stone, with its marginal draft and bevilled
edge, remained on the piers, and could be easily discerned
when the excavations laid them bare. A few cut stones
extremity on the north side of the pronaos of the temple,
we soon found two large sculptured blocks which might
have been the angle and adjoining block of the frieze at
the north-west angle, or part of a large altar. Portions
of two life-size male figures are carved on one face, and
the lifting of Antaeus by Hercules seems to be here
represented. On the return side of the angle-block there
had evidently been a female figure (perhaps Artemis
herself) and a deer, of which little remains but the head
and antlers.
The Goths are credited with the partial destruction of
the last temple, A.D. 260; and some twenty years later the
early Christians accomplished its total destruction. After
which, at a period unknown, but probably near the close
of the third century A.D., they determined to build a
church within the cella walls, which had been allowed to
remain standing for some feet above the pavement of the
earliest temple. The early Christians, before removing
what at that time was left standing of the cella walls,
built against them massive piers of rubble masonry;
when they had proceeded so far, a tremendous earth-
quake occurred, which, running from south-east to north-
west, overthrew several of the foundation-piers, and raised
part of the pavement five feet above its original level,
with a large mass of the mortar which had been mixed
upon it. It was quite evident that they then abandoned
the idea of building a church within the cella walls ; they
therefore proceeded to remove them, and as the piers
had been built with large quantities of mortar, the im-
pression of every stone, with its marginal draft and bevilled
edge, remained on the piers, and could be easily discerned
when the excavations laid them bare. A few cut stones