DRUM FROM A COLUMN OF THE TEMPLE OF DIANA OF EPHESUS, 323-300 BCE. THE BRITISH MUSEUM The site of the Artemision at Ephesus had been sacred since the Bronze Age. The second temple on the site burnt down in 356 BCE, on the day of the birth of Alexander the Great (c. 20 July). The Ephesians rebuilt it beginning in 323 BCE, on a grand scale, and, like its predecessor, its columns were covered in reliefs. Of all this glory, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, very little survived the Christians. Here we have the most intact fragment of one of the column drums, evidently describing an event in the Underworld. Death, Thanatos, stands at left, a nude youth with wings. A woman in a beautiful peplos and chiton at centre might be Alkestis or Euridike, both mortals on their way up to the Sunlit Lands, and at right is Hermes Psychopompos, leader of souls, another beautiful nude youth.
#ReliefWednesday at the #BritishMuseum offers us a drum from the base of a column from the temple of #Diana of #Ephesus in modern #Turkey. Here, in delicate #relief, we find winged #Thanatos, Death himself, beside a female figure, with #Hermes #Psychopompos at far right. #AncientBluesky 🏺
