Where goddesses loved and fought
Today the mortals have long perished, while the once powerful presence of the immortals is still felt across Turkey, through what remains of the ancient cities where they were once worshipped.
Topping that list is Ephesus, built by Greek colonists in the 10th century BC and located near the modern town of Selcuk, in the southwest of present-day Turkey. The city, a UNESCO World Heritage site and Asia Minor's largest Greco-Roman city, has long been famed for the Temple of Artemis, which in turn was completed around 550 BC.
Little remains of the temple site today. The grandest heritage of Ephesus, which is also a reminder of its golden days under the control of the Roman Republic, is the Library of Celsus. However, in the on-site Ephesus Museum, two large marble statues of Artemis stand facing each other, both created around the first century AD. In both cases, Artemis was rendered with multiple breasts - a distinct feature befitting her unique role as the "Great Mother Goddess". (Others believe that the spherical objects covering the lower part of her chest are not female breasts, but the testicles of a bull, an animal that has appeared in large numbers as her hair and robe decorations.)
