Ephesos Museum
Encyclopedia
The Ephesos Museum in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 displays antiquities from the city of Ephesus
Ephesus
Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...

 , in modern-day Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

. Begun in the late 19th century, the collection includes original works of sculpture and architecture, and belongs to the Kunsthistorisches Museum
Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome...

.

Since 1978 the Ephesos Museum has had its own rooms in the Neue Burg. Before the museum was established, the present exhibits were provisionally displayed in various locations, including on occasion the Theseus Temple in the Volksgarten
Volksgarten (Vienna)
The Volksgarten is a public parc in the Innere Stadt, the First District of Vienna and part of the Hofburg.It was built over the city fortifications destroyed by Napoleon...

.

Lying on the Turkish Aegean
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...

 coast, Ephesus was one of the largest cities of the ancient world and is now among the most popular tourist destinations in Turkey. The Austrian Archaeological Institute has been conducting research in the ruins of the city since 1895, interrupted only by the two world wars. The museum's collection began when Sultan Abdul Hamid II
Abdul Hamid II
His Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire...

 donated some of the archaeological findings to Emperor Franz Joseph I
Franz Joseph I of Austria
Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...

. Due to a change in Turkish law, no more artefacts have been sent to Vienna since 1907. Many other Ephesus artefacts are on display in the Ephesus Archaeological Museum
Ephesus Archaeological Museum
The Ephesus Archaeological Museum is an archaeological museum in Selçuk near İzmir, Turkey. It houses finds from the nearby Ephesus excavation site. Its best-known exhibit is the statue of Artemis retrieved from the temple of the goddess in Ephesus....

 near the site of the excavation in Selçuk
Selçuk
Selçuk is the central town of Selçuk district, İzmir Province in Turkey, 2 km northeast of Ephesus.Its original Greek name, Agios Theológos referred to John the Theologian. Under the Ottoman Empire, it was known as Ayasoluk...

.

The collection

Between 1896 and 1906 a total of seven expeditions transported findings from Ephesus to Vienna. In the early 20th century these findings were exhibited in various places, including Belvedere Palace
Belvedere (palace)
The Belvedere is a historical building complex in Vienna, Austria, consisting of two Baroque palaces the Upper and Lower Belvedere, the Orangery, and the Palace Stables. The buildings are set in a Baroque park landscape in the 3rd district of the city, south-east of its centre. It houses the...

 and the antiques collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. In 1911 a provisional exhibition in the Theseus Temple had to be discontinued because of damage to the exhibits. A selection of the items was once again exhibited in the Temple between 1934 and 1944. A number of Ephesean sculptures were displayed in the Neue Burg's colonnade from 1947 until 1978, when the entire collection finally received a permanent home in the newly founded Ephesos Museum.

The museum possesses remnants from the late-Classical Altar of Artemis
Temple of Artemis
The Temple of Artemis , also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to a goddess Greeks identified as Artemis and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was situated at Ephesus , and was completely rebuilt three times before its eventual destruction...

, including a sculpture of an Amazon
Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...

. Staircases lead from the entrance hall to a large chamber containing the frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...

 from the Parthian Monument of Ephesus. Other major exhibits include a model of ancient Ephesus on a scale of 1:500, and numerous sculptures including a bronze statue of an athlete. Also in the museum are architectural and sculptural cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

 relics from the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, on the Greek island of Samothrace
Samothrace
Samothrace is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. It is a self-governing municipality within the Evros peripheral unit of Thrace. The island is long and is in size and has a population of 2,723 . Its main industries are fishing and tourism. Resources on the island includes granite and...

.

Archaeological digs, with Austrian involvement, continue in Ephesus to this day. The scientific evaluation of the museum's stock is carried out in cooperation with the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...

, the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Austrian Academy of Sciences
The Austrian Academy of Sciences is a legal entity under the special protection of the Federal Republic of Austria. According to the statutes of the Academy its mission is to promote the sciences and humanities in every respect and in every field, particularly in fundamental research...

 and the Austrian Archaeological Institute.

Major exhibits

Amazon from the Artemision Altar

The Temple of Artemis
Temple of Artemis
The Temple of Artemis , also known less precisely as the Temple of Diana, was a Greek temple dedicated to a goddess Greeks identified as Artemis and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was situated at Ephesus , and was completely rebuilt three times before its eventual destruction...

, first built in the 6th century BC, was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. After being burned down in the 4th century BC, it was rebuilt, during which the sacrificial altar to Artemis
Artemis
Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. Some scholars believe that the name and indeed the goddess herself was originally pre-Greek. Homer refers to her as Artemis Agrotera, Potnia Theron: "Artemis of the wildland, Mistress of Animals"...

 was encircled with a spectacular surrounding wall. The sculpture of the upper part of a wounded Amazon
Amazons
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...

 stems from this wall.

Parthian Monument

The Parthian Monument is one of the most important Roman-age relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...

s from Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...

. In five thematic cycles it commemorates the Roman Emperor Lucius Verus
Lucius Verus
Lucius Verus , was Roman co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius, from 161 until his death.-Early life and career:Lucius Verus was the first born son to Avidia Plautia and Lucius Aelius Verus Caesar, the first adopted son and heir of Roman Emperor Hadrian . He was born and raised in Rome...

, who established a camp in Ephesus during his Parthian Campaign of 161-165 AD. The individual pieces have been arranged in the form of a monumental altar, but this is only a guess at their correct arrangement, as they were not found in their original state. The friezes have a total length of about 70 metres, of which 40 metres are on display.

Bronze Statue of an Athlete

This Roman statue from the first century AD, copied from a Greek original from the fourth century BC, has been recreated from 234 fragments; it shows a young athlete cleaning his strigil
Strigil
A strigil was a small, curved, metal tool used in ancient Greece and Rome to scrape dirt and sweat from the body before effective soaps became available. First perfumed oil was applied to the skin, and then it would be scraped off, along with the dirt. For wealthier people, this process was often...

, an implement used to wash the body after a contest. This motif was well-known and widely popular in the ancient world, and the statue cannot be attributed to any specific Greek artist.

Further reading

  • Kunsthistorisches Museum: Führer durch die Sammlungen. Brandstätter, Vienna, 1988, ISBN 3-85447-308-7, S. 59–119 (editors Alfred Bernhard-Walcher, Kurt Gschwantler and Wolfgang Oberleitner).
  • Ulrike Muss: Die Archäologie der ephesischen Artemis. Gestalt und Ritual eines Heiligtums. Phoibos, Vienna, 2008, ISBN 978-3-901232-91-6.
  • Wolfgang Oberleitner: Funde aus Ephesos und Samothrake. Vienna, 1978, ISBN 3-8000-3157-4 (A guide to the Kunsthistorisches Museum
    Kunsthistorisches Museum
    The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome...

    , antiques collection no. 2.)
  • Wolfgang Oberleitner: Schätze aus der Türkei Künstlerhaus, Vienna, 1987, ISBN 3-900926-05-0.
  • Wilfried Seipel (editor): Das Partherdenkmal von Ephesos. Akten des Kolloquiums, Wien, 27.-28. April 2003. Kunsthistorisches Museum
    Kunsthistorisches Museum
    The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome...

    , Vienna, 2006, ISBN 978-3-85497-107-8.
  • Gilbert Wiplinger, Gudrun Wlach (editors): Ephesos. 100 Jahre österreichische Forschung. 2nd edition. Böhlau, Vienna/Cologne/Weimar 1996, ISBN 3-205-98582-6.
  • Wolfgang Oberleitner: Das Partherdenkmal von Ephesos. Schriften des Kunsthistorischen Museums 11, Vienna, 2009, ISBN 978-3-8549-7150-4.

External links

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