Temple of Artemis in Magnesia on the Maeander

The Temple of Artemis Leucofriene was an ancient Greek temple dedicated to Artemis Leucofriene in the city of Magnesia on the Maeander, in Asia Minor, Turkey. It was the main place of worship of the city.

History

The temple of Artemis Leucofriene was built in the Hellenistic period. However, scholars do not agree on the exact date, with various dates ranging between 221 and 130 BC. Nevertheless, it replaced an earlier predecessor from the Archaic era, which was located at the beginning of the Classical period during the reign of Themistocles. According to Vitruvius, the architect of the Hellenistic temple was Hermogenes of Priene. It was praised for its beauty and harmony.

The epithet Leucofriene (‘white eyebrows’) of the temple of Artemis originates from a city called Leucofris, which was formerly situated at the site of Magnesia on the Maeander. In Greek mythology, its name was related to the maiden Leucofriene, who betrayed her homeland when the Greek colonists of Magnesia arrived to colonize the area. She is believed to have been buried at the site of the temple.

The cult of the temple was linked to the Leucofrienae festivals dedicated to Artemis in the city.

Description

It was located on the plain east of the agora and its ruins are near the current highway. The building was of Ionic style and was a pseudodipteral temple. It was built on a high podium of nine levels, about 41 × 67.5 meters. The peristyle had 15 columns on the long sides and 8 columns on the short sides.

Inside it were the usual pronaos, naos and opisthodomos. The pronaos was exceptionally deep and the same size as the naos. The opisthodomos was also exceptionally deep. The interior of the temple had an unusually large number of columns: the pronaos had two columns in front (distyle in antis) and two inside. Inside the naos there were six columns, and two in front of the opisthodomos.

It was built with an east‑east/west‑southwest orientation. Exceptionally, its main entrance and the altar were on the west side, as in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus among others. The main entrance, on the western end, faced Mount Taurus. It was surrounded by a wide temenos area, which emphasized the orientation of the temple and deviated from the grid layout of the city, where the main streets ran east to west. In the Roman period, a propylaea (monumental entrance) was built that connected the sanctuary area with the agora, to the west.

The 43 panels of the frieze, which depicted Amazonomachies, are currently in the Louvre Museum in Paris and in the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul. The ornaments of the temple's acroterion and the friezes of the pronaos and the opisthomdos are in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. In 2018 six statues were discovered during excavations of the temple.

The earlier temple of the Archaic period was presumably hexastyle and also of Ionic style. It was made of local limestone.