Prytaneion (Ephesus)

The Prytaneion of Ephesus was a central municipal administrative and cult building of ancient Ephesus in present-day Turkey.

The Prytaneion was discovered during the excavations of Franz Miltner in 1955 and after final investigations in 1956 was identified by the excavator as a Prytaneion. In addition to this today largely accepted identification of the complex as the official seat of the Prytanes and a central municipal cult building, Miltner was able to distinguish several construction phases: the erection of the building in Augustan times, a conversion or redesign of the complex in Severan times, as well as the destruction of the complex before the end of the 4th century AD.

With its erection in Augustan times the Prytaneion forms an integral part of Augustan building policy in the governmental quarter of Ephesus. The approximately 1,000 m² large building consists of a roughly 26 × 22 m peristyle in the south, whose Doric columns have been partially re‑erected. The overwide northern walkway of the peristyle also forms the vestibule to the main room located to the north. The main room, architecturally highlighted by heart‑shaped interior corner columns and measuring about 15 × 14 m, with a centrally positioned counter, served the honorable state‑funded meals. The transverse room north of it housed the sacred fire of Hestia and thus the state hearth. The passage to this room in the north was walled up in Late Antiquity, the transverse room was divided and repurposed as a water reservoir. In the two rooms west of the main room, which were heavily altered in Late Antiquity, the priestly college and the municipal archive were accommodated.

In the late Severan period significant renovations were carried out in the Prytaneion. The destruction and abandonment of the complex occurred in the following century: Since several architectural elements of the Prytaneion were incorporated into the Ephesian Scholastikia baths and the Kureten street, which is named after the long lists of cult personnel on the columns, the destruction of the building must have taken place before the end of the 4th century AD. In addition to the culturally significant finds of inscriptions, the three Roman copies of the cult statue of Artemis Ephesia found in the area of the Prytaneion are of overriding importance. In Late Antiquity the area of the Prytaneion was further used for craft workshops and as a simple residential quarter.