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| The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus |
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Historical Notes
The ancient Greeks are known for their temples and for their pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. Artemis (also called Diana by the Romans) was Goddess of the hunt, fertility, birth, the woodlands, and the creatures of the forests. In the rural areas of the Greek world, she was beloved by the common people who lived off the land and particularly revered in Ephesus. In the 6th century BC, King Croesus of Lydia, one of the richest rulers of the time, worshipped Artemis with particular devotion and chose to build a temple for her that demonstrated both his great wealth and his great respect for her honor.
The resulting Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was undoubtedly one of the most spectacular accomplishments of the Golden Age of Greece. Most of us today, when asked to think of a Greek Temple, will think of the Parthenon still standing today at the Acropolis. But imagine a temple twice as high, eight times as large, a temple so big that a regulation NFL football field could fit inside. That's what Croesus imagined, and his fabulous wealth afforded.
The Temple of Artemis was finished around 560 BC, and stood for two hundred years before being burned to the ground by a deranged man named Herostratos, who (according to history) did this horrible act of vandalism for the sole purpose of becoming famous for having destroyed it.
But Alexander The Great, believed to have been born on the day the temple was destroyed, grew to manhood and power enchanted by this lost wonder, and he finally ordered it rebuilt. It stood for another five hundred years, before being plundered in the third century AD. Today, the foundation still exists and one solitary column, broken at the top and extensively restored, still stands to remind modern visitors of the glory that once was.
This Wonder is well documented in its design and many of its details. The exact size, number, and arrangement of its incredible columns is well known. The front row of columns had ornate relief sculptures around the base, depicting human subjects in festive poses. One of these relief column sculpture pieces is well preserved in the collection of the British Museum. The Goddess herself, Artemis, was represented by a statue in the center of the ceiling panel, and copies of that statue are in several museum collections.
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Construction Notes
In building this temple, I started with documented ground plans that showed size, position and arrangement of the foundation and all 127 columns. I laid out a simple primitive mockup at the scale of 4 Bryce Units equals one foot.
I immediately started with creating one detailed column, my master object from which I'd duplicate the rest. It is an Ionic column (has the scrolls on top), had several visible segments or blocks one atop the other, and it tapered slightly as it rose to it's height of about 60 feet. The scroll at the top was a symmetrical lattice, formed from a Light Map (also called a grayscale map) that I made by assembling various primitive objects in the desired shape and rendering out a black and white version of them.
The tapering of the column required that my 20 negative cylinders cutting the flutes in the column be angled 0.5 degrees inward. The surface texture of the column was created by the negative cylinders and I used a texture map from another Bryce file to make the desired stone texture as well as the segment joints. I actually made four slightly different Image Texture Maps, keeping the joint seams the same but varying the texture of the stone for each. If you use only one texture map on all the negative cylinders, you will see the rock/stone pattern repeat with disturbing unnatural regularity. Using four images alternately, you don't see a repeating pattern.
Once the column master was built, I could position it in my master ground plan and duplicate it as needed. I didn't create all 127 columns, but rather just enough of them to make it appear all were there from a front or perspective view. If you looked around the back, you'd see the missing ones.
Next step was building the ceiling frame and some of the interior walls. Then I started laying out some of the outer stairs and surrounding grounds. The ornate statuary was last because I was experimenting with devices to create sculptured figures.
The statue of Artemis herself, centered in the ceiling panel, was well documented, so I tried to copy it faithfully. The remainder of the ceiling sculptures were more my imagination than historical fact. I chose the woodland scene and creatures because Artemis was goddess of the woodlands.
According to my references, Artemis supposedly rode in a chariot drawn by ivory stag deer, not horses, and the stags had golden antlers. So I thought I'd add sculptures of her chariot and stags standing ready at the front of her temple, in case she chose to step down from the ceiling panel and go for a trip. These are purely speculative.
On the other hand, the human relief statuary around the front column bases is factual and well documented, so for these I tried to copy exactly the human figure and pose of the best preserved sculpture in my reference books. It was without a doubt one of the most strenuous lattice modeling projects I ever attempted in Bryce but I'm happy with the results.
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