The Goddess Artemis was the patron deity of Jerash. A Hellenised version of an earlier, indigenous deity, archaeology has established that her sanctuary long occupied a prominent spot in the city.

 A massive complex built by the Romans in the second century AD overlies the remains of the earlier temple. Although ruined, these Roman remains — which include the propylaea, the sacred temenos and the temple of Artemis — are still magnificent. They demonstrate the continued importance of an indigenous goddess to a city that spent most of its existence subject to foreign powers.

The Goddess Artemis of Jerash

In the Greek pantheon, Artemis was only a daughter of Zeus. Yet, in Jerash, she was the city’s patron deity.

Artemis was not the original name of Jerash’s patron goddess, whose name is now lost — that name was probably applied when the city was under the Seleucids. Artemis was chosen because her attributes closely matched those of the original deity.

Artemis was a goddess of the wild earth, hills and forests. But she was also a patron of women, especially at times of childbirth, indicating the patron goddess of Jerash was a mother goddess figure.

This goddess remained influential throughout the history of ancient Jerash. Although the sanctuaries of both Zeus and Artemis occupied prominent high spots of the city, Artemis’s took precedence. When the Romans remodelled Jerash, Artemis’s sanctuary was rebuilt first — and was the focal point of the redesigned city.

The Propylaea or Gateway

 A monumental gateway or propylaea acted as the entrance to the sanctuary from the main cardo. Although ruined by earthquakes in the sixth century AD, the propylaea was reconstructed between 1928 and 1931 by George Horsfield, later head of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, and later P A Ricci.

This reconstruction has revealed an imposing structure. Set back from the road, the propylaea consisted of a 19.5-metre wide triple portico. Each of its main columns measured 1.5 metres in diameter. From this, it was possible to calculate that the columns’ height was 16m high. This meant the entrance to the temple site not only towered over the rest of the main cardo but dominated it.

Two small doorways flanked a main central entrance of 5metres by 9metres. Above them were decorative architraves and shell niches that held statues. Reliefs of acanthus leaves and the dedicatory inscription topped off the whole structure, revealing that the patron of the propylaea was Attidius Cornelianus, a legate of the then emperor Antoninus Pius dating the propylaea to 150AD.

The propylaea led onto a walled stairway that led to the temenos or sacred space of the temple of Artemis. This stairway was divided into two, with the first stage consisting of seven flights of seven stairs that terminated at a terrace housing the altar of Artemis. A further three flights of stairs led up from the terrace to the sacred precinct or temenos itself.

The Temenos of Artemis

The sacred precinct of Artemis measured 161m by 121m. A porticoed colonnade consisting of 36 columns on the north and south sides and 26 on the east and west enclosed it, all set on a 7.5 m high wall.

Only the lower walls of the north and south porticos remain, but archaeologists have identified them as housing rooms for temple business. Of the colonnades, the south is the best-preserved with the original unweathered cream colour of the stone visible now it is fully excavated.

Little remains of the rest of the colonnade and wall of the sacred precinct, leaving the ruins of the temenos exposed to the rest of Jerash rather than sequestered as they were in antiquity.

The courtyard of the temenos was originally paved, but its stone was stripped when the sanctuary was finally abandoned in the fifth century AD. The remains of Byzantine and Umayyad kilns cutting into the earlier archaeology reveal that it subsequently became a pottery yard. But the focal point of the whole sanctuary, the temple of Artemis, remained unmolested.

The Roman Temple and Cella of Artemis

The temple lies at the back of the temenos, built on a raised platform that elevated it above its surroundings and accessed via a stairway that remains today.

Underneath the building was a barrel-vaulted crypt, which left the temple floor at an uneven height. A stairway to the adyton — the restricted area of the cella that contained the cult statue — helped disguise this sudden change in then the floor level as well as create a dramatic approach to the shrine of the goddess.

Although ruined, the remains of the adyton and the niche for the goddess’s statue survives. Bolt holes on the walls indicate that marble slabs lined both, before this decorative was removed and incorporated into Jerash’s Christian churches.

A line of columns surrounded the temple — 11 on the long sides and six on the short sides, while the east-facing main entrance faced east was marked by a colonnade three columns deep. Niches with a Nabatean element flanked the doorway — the one clue to the indigenous origins of the classically named goddess within.

The columns show how the temple’s architect designed it to withstand natural hazards. The high position of the temple exposed it to high winds, and Jerash’s region was subject to earth tremors, so the columns were designed to be flexible and sway. The movement of these “dancing columns” can be seen today by wedging a spoon between the blocks and watching it move up and down as the columns subtly sway.

Despite these measures, an earthquake did finally destroy the sanctuary. Fortunately, the capitals of the temple’s colonnade remained undamaged — curious, considering they should have been affected by the falling masonry of the entablature above them, suggesting this may not have been in place at the time of the earthquake.

Archaeologists have recovered surviving parts of this entablature from Jerash’s churches, where it was reused, but the fragments are incomplete. This suggests that not only was the entablature never raised; it may not have been completed. So it could be that, despite its magnificence and undoubted importance to Jerash, the Roman temple of Artemis was never finished.

Resources

Browning, I, 1982. Jerash and the Decapolis. Chatto & Windus: London

Gates, C, 2003. Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome. London: Routledge

Wharton, A, J, 1995. Refiguring the Post Classical City-Duras Europos, Jerash, Jerusalem and Ravenna. Cambridge University Press.