IN HONOR
OF ARTEMIS
CONSTRUCTION OF THE ARTEMIS TEMPLE began in A.D.
150, during the reign of Antoninus Pius. Artemis, the
Greek goddess of hunting (her Roman equivalent
is Diana), was the patron goddess of Jerash, and
the temple raised in her honor was one of the most
impressive sanctuaries of the Middle East. Standing
on a podium some 15 feet high, the temple was built
to be seen from distant points of the city and the
surrounding countryside. The temple complex was
vast, and sprawled a third of a mile from its eastern
access to the temple itself. It was accessed through
a splendid portico, known as the propylaea. After
ascending a staircase, visitors would then enter a
large sacred precinct or temenos (right), enclosed
by a portico supported by Corinthian columns. This
terrace was where most of the religious ceremonies
took place. An altar for sacrifices was placed near
the steps leading up to the temple. The six columns
in the front row of the temple make it a hexastyle
structure. Later, in the Byzantine era, a pottery
workshop was installed here and, after the arrival
of the Muslims, the walls of the
sacred precinct were transformed
into a fortress. In the 12th century
the crusader king of Jerusalem
Baldwin II took over this citadel, by
which time the rest of Jerash was4 already in ruins.^
ALAMY/ACIA CORINTHIAN CAPITAL BELONGING TO ONE OF THE 11
COLUMNS STILL STANDING AT THE TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS44 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019