Guide
The Ephesus Museum is at Selçuk in the province of İzmir and holds the finds from the excavation at Ephesus nearby. The best-known of them is the statue of Artemis found in the temple of Artemis. The museum falls into two parts, archaeology and ethnography. It closed at the end of 2012 and opened again in November 2014 after a thorough renewal; the source records it as open every day of the year.
The Artemis carries features merged with those of Cybele, the mother goddess of Anatolia since prehistoric times. The high polos on her head is in the form of a temple and rises in three tiers. She wears earrings and a pearl necklace, and below the breast are four rows of small spheres associated with fertility and abundance. She has a four-part rosette and, around her waist, a narrow belt decorated with the bee, the emblem of Ephesus. Figures such as lions, rams, deer, griffins and bees are set within each rectangular panel.
A young warrior, shown half reclining, was found in the excavations of the Pollio fountain. The weight of the body rests on the left arm, which leans on a rock. The warrior's wavy hair is held by a band across the forehead and his face is calm. He holds a shield on his arm and a sword in his hand; the left leg is stretched back from the knee while the right is bent at the knee and stretched forward.
A white marble statue of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, shows fine workmanship. The lines on the emperor's forehead are marked, and he wears a paludamentum fastened at the right shoulder with a fibula. The back of the piece was left rough. It is dated to the second century AD.
The white marble head of Eros is also finely worked, though it is unfortunately broken at the neck. Eros is shown leaning slightly to the right, looking towards the bow he holds, with an innocent, childlike expression and curly hair tied back from the centre. The piece is a copy of the Eros Stringing his Bow made by Lysippos between 330 and 320 BC.
Visit status for this record: open to visitors.
Entry fee
- Single entry to the museum or site · Local
- MüzeKart
- Single entry to the museum or site · Foreign
- €10
