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THE SIATUE OF ARTEMIS EPHESIA IN THE LIGHT
OF PORPHYRY’S ON THE CAVE OF THE NYMPHS
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ZSUZSANNA TURCSÁN-TÓTH
ABSTRACT
Artemis Ephesia was one of the most widely worshipped deities of the Graeco¬
Roman world. Although her cult existed for almost one thousand years, most
of the replicas of her cult statue have been dated to the second century AD,
and the earliest such statue can be dated to the late Hellenic period. It is
difficult to examine the sculptures of Artemis Ephesia, as most of the statues
were restored to some degree over the centuries, so we have to analyze the parts
of the sculptures that were the least affected by the modifications, namely, the
chest. Some of the most common adornments on the Artemis Ephesia statue
are the female figures and the Cancer. Earlier research on these elements
analyzed them separately from each other, but if we consider them as one
common scene, they can be interpreted with the help of Porphyry’s De antro
nympharum.
In analyses of the figures of ancient goddesses, an inquiry into the statues
of Artemis Ephesia is one of the most exciting tasks. Many monographs,
articles, and books have been published on this topic. If we think of the first
polyhistor who studied this issue in depth, then we can state that research has
been trying to understand the secrets of this extraordinary goddess for quite
a long time now.!
Artemis was in the center of the religious life of Ephesus since the sixth
century BC, but some archaeological evidence proves that she had taken
a significant position even earlier, maybe as early as the eighth century BC.
1
The first monograph about Artemis Ephesia, entitled Symbolica Dianae Ephesia Statua,
was written by a Jesuit scholar named Claudius Menetreius. He was Cardinal Barberini’s
librarian in the 1630s, but the book was published only in 1657, after the author’s death.
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