Photos

This is the only one of a hundred columns which once formed part of the temple of Artemis (one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world) in Ephesus (now Selcuk) in western Turkey. The proportions of the temple were gigantic...longer and wider than a football field! Each column was 15 m high and 2 m in diameter (all paid for by Croesus, himself in 560 B.C.) In the VIth C A.D., the builders of the basilica of St. John in Selcuk used the temple grounds a veritable stone quarry, as did the builders of Saint Sophia in Istabul. One wonders! The object on top of the column, by the way, is a stork's nest.