The Ephesos Museum in Vienna— The Model

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:50 pm by Ben Witherington

The Ephesos Museum in Vienna— The Model 2015-03-13T22:50:21-04:00 Ben Witherington

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An important though relatively small part of the Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna is the Ephesos wing of the museum. It has two main features…. statuary remains from the Greco-Roman period and friezes from that period, and a reconstructed temple front. In addition it has an excellent recreated layout of the Ephesos site, which frankly should be in the museum in Selcuk— they need one this clear.

We will begin with the model with is a 1 to 500 scale model, and work our way to the statuary. We will start from the furthest point out working back to the site itself, from the temple of Artemis. Here is the view from just beyond that temple looking towards the city.

Even on this scale model, you can see it is a very long way, in fact it is over two miles away (in antiquity the sea was said to be three miles from the temple, and the sea came up to the harbor at the bottom of the city’s south agora. Here is a replica of the temple itself, found in a park in Istanbul. The original was 377 feet long and 150 feet wide.

Here is a view of the scale model in the museum looking toward the front of the temple of Artemis.

This view looks from south of the city to the west of the south agora looking back towards the great theater on the left, and then you can just see Curetes street winding up the hill to the left as well.

The temple you see at the bottom of the model here has not yet been fully excavated. Next we have a shot of the hippodrome (where the hippos raced of course) and the bath complex and gymnasium next to it.

Again this is not something one currently sees on the tours. It is on the right as one exits the from the lower side of the site, and it too has not been thoroughly excavated, but its remains are visible.

This shot looks down Curetes street to the slope houses on the near side of the model, and down to the south agora. You can just see the odeon as well as the area where the Kelsus library was to be built in the second century A.D.

Here is a map to give you something of an overview as well.

Ephesos/Ephesus was definitely a city on the rise in Paul’s day, growing in size and economic abilities, except that the harbor kept silting up. A single bronze statue from our period is on exhibit in the museum, which was perhaps cast in the bronze works at Corinth, a shipped to Ephesos across the Aegean. It is in remarkable condition.

Here is another image of a young man, a bust found on site. This bust comes from the Constantinian period and is a reminder that the city remained a Greco-Roman city, even after Constantine became both a Christian of sorts and an Emperor.

We can contrast that bust with this realistic one of an older Roman man, undoubtedly a member of the local elite.

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