The Temple of Artemis also known less precisely as Temple of Diana was a temple dedicated to Artemis completed in its most famous phase, approximately 550 BC at Ephesus (in present-day Turkey) under the Achaemenid dynasty of the Persian Empire. Nothing remains of the temple, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Temple of Artemis was not the first on its site, where proof of a sanctuary dates as early as the Bronze Age.
The temple was a 120-year project in progress by Croesus of Lydia. It was described by Antipater of Sidon, who compiles a list of the Seven Wonders:
I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never look on aught (anything) so grand".
The temple was a 120-year project in progress by Croesus of Lydia. It was described by Antipater of Sidon, who compiles a list of the Seven Wonders:
I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never look on aught (anything) so grand".
