Temple to a Milky Goddess

Considering how well preserved the ruins at Ephesus are, we were a little surprised when we had difficulty even finding the Temple of Artemis - reputed to have once been one of the seven wonders of the world.

There were some statues of Artemis in the Ephesus Museum, but we were not allowed to photograph them. However in the hotel we found a picture on the wall.


In the museum we did manage to snap a little picture of the model of what the temple used to look like.


All those pillars? There is only one left standing - and even that one looks like someone has recently plonked it there piece by piece.

A large part of the temple area is under water even in these dry winter months.

Someone has added some fountains to make this into a pleasant picnic spot for the tourists when the weather is fine. A local farmer lets his ducks swim there - although they seemed a little confused when they found it had frozen over.

Old Coins

In these lean winter months especially some of the local farmers resort to the old favourite - selling ancient coins to the tourists. We have heard that a home-made coin can be made "ancient" by allowing it to pass through the guts of a sheep - but we don't know if that's true.

Nevertheless we were beset at every point by friendly locals offering us a grubby handful of coins for 20 lira, or 10? maybe 5?