Ephesus has been a city since neolithic times, but it came to full prominence under the Roman Empire, as the capital of Asia Minor. As the second most important city of the Roman Empire, Ephesus grew and prospered. Its populace was largely educated and wealthy, while its buildings were richly decorated and celebrated the interests and the good fortune of its inhabitants. Today, visitors come to see the city’s impressive historical imprint for themselves.

The House of Virgin Mary - The belief that the Virgin Mary had spent her last days in the vicinity of Ephesus and that she had died there, focused attention on a nun named Anna Katherina Emmerich who had livid in the late 18th century (1774-1820). The efforts to find the house were greatly influenced by her detailed description of the Virgin Mary's coming to Ephesus, her life and her last home there and the characteristics of the city although she had never been to Ephesus.

Temple of Artemis, also called Artemesium, temple at Ephesus, now in western Turkey, that was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The great temple was built by Croesus, king of Lydia, about 550 BCE and was rebuilt after being burned by a madman named Herostratus in 356 BCE. The Artemesium was famous not only for its great size, over 350 by 180 feet (about 110 by 55 metres), but also for the magnificent works of art that adorned it. The temple was destroyed by invading Goths in 262 CE and was never rebuilt. Little remains of the temple (though there are many fragments, especially of sculptured columns, in the British Museum). Excavation has revealed traces of both Croesus’s and the 4th-century temple and of three earlier smaller ones.

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