“I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, ‘Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught [anything] so grand’” – Antipater of Sidon

Word has come from Turkey that the famous Temple of Artemis at Ephesus is going to be rebuilt and restored to its former glory.

Artemis of Ephesus

The project will cost an estimated 150 million dollars, and will involve sculptors from around the world. The government of Turkey, while not directly financing the project, is supportive of Ileri’s efforts. The new temple will be 1,500 meters from the original temple, and is expected to break ground once official permission is granted. Ileri hopes the rebuilt temple will become a new “center of world sculpture”.

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and was initially destroyed by the world’s first fame-seeker (who shall not be named here) in 356 BCE. The temple was rebuilt in 323 BCE, only to be destroyed once more by Goths (the Germanic tribes, not the clove-smoking black-clad subculture) in 262. The Ephesians rebuilt it once again (you have to admire their dedication), only to have it dismantled by a mob led by St. John Chrysostom in 401 CE. Some of the columns were then used to build the Hagia Sophia.

While I’m certain the new temple will be a hive for tourism and the arts, I can only imagine how rebuilding one of the most famous goddess temples will resonate culturally around the world. Will it become a place of pilgrimage? Will a new cult to the Ephesian Artemis revive? Will it signal a new trend in not simply preserving old temples and landmarks, but actually rebuilding them to their former glory? Could we see a new Delphi or Colossus of Rhodes? An embracing of our pre-Christian heritage slipped through the side-door of “tourism”, “art”, and “culture”.

I’ve got some great links for any of my readers looking for some new online reading material. To start with, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, which recently heard the testimony of Pagan chaplain Patrick McCollum on religious discrimination in prisons, has posted the full transcript of the proceedings.

“If the same standards that are being required of the Wiccans were applied to the Protestants, you guys would have to fire all the Protestant chaplains right now because they don’t have any ground to stand on at all in all the services that they’re getting.”

This is historic testimony on behalf of minority faiths before a U.S. governmental body, and should be required reading for any Pagan concerned about our religious freedoms.

Turning from political concerns, the comics/pop-culture web site Sequential Tart interviews Thista Minai about her Hellenic faith, and her recently published book “Dancing In Moonlight: Understanding Artemis Through Celebration”.

“And, of course, I’m nuts about animals and wilderness. I work as a veterinary technician, and I remember a rather amusing trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with my (very Catholic) father. There was a pendant on display showing Artemis as Potnia Theron, the Mistress of Animals, and I was explaining to my father (who by then was well aware of my obsession with Artemis and suspected that it was more than academic) exactly what all that meant. When I finished, he looked at me, looked at the pendant, then looked back at me and said, ‘So, basically, She’s the Goddess of veterinary technicians.’ And I said ‘… Yeah, dad.’”

An interesting and wide-ranging interview that provides a nice look into Pagan religion and ethics outside the Wiccan paradigm.

Finally, the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR) has posted all the papers from its 2008 international conference. A wealth of academic papers on modern Paganism, the New Age movement, syncretic faiths, and several papers dealing with Aleister Crowley and Thelema.

“CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions, was established in 1988 by a group of religious scholars from leading universities in Europe and the Americas … CESNUR’s original aim was to offer a professional association to scholars specialized in religious minorities, new religious movements, contemporary esoteric, spiritual and gnostic schools, and the new religious consciousness in general. In the 1990s it became apparent that inaccurate information was being disseminated to the media and the public powers by activists associated with the international anti-cult movement. Some new religious movements also disseminated unreliable or partisan information. CESNUR became more pro-active and started supplying information on a regular basis, opening public centers and organising conferences and seminars for the general public in a variety of countries. Today CESNUR is a network of independent but related organizations of scholars in various countries, devoted to promote scholarly research in the field of new religious consciousness, to spread reliable and responsible information, and to expose the very real problems associated with some movements, while at the same time defending everywhere the principles of religious liberty.”

Some interesting looking papers include “The Rise and Fall of a Public Witch Hunt: Changing Media Attitudes to New Religious Movements Since 1988″, by Suzanne Evans, “Online and Offline – Locating Pagan Community”, by Angela Coco, and “Minority Religions and Law Enforcement: A Human Rights Perspective”, by Alessandro Amicarelli. I recommend browsing the entire list.

Happy reading!

For those wondering what the goddess Aphrodite (Venus to the Romans) smelled like, wonder no longer. Archaeologists in Cyprus claim to have found the oldest perfume factory in the world with scents dedicated to the goddess of love (among others).

“The prehistoric scents and 60 objects from the site in Cyprus have been placed on display at the Capitoline Museums in Rome, having been found in 2003. Perfumes named after Greek goddesses and made from pine, coriander, olive oil, parsley, bergamot, bitter almonds and laurel were discovered in alabaster vials. Research Council archaeologist, Maria Rosa Belgiorno, told ANSA: ‘We were astonished at how big the place was … Perfumes must have been produced on an industrial scale. No wonder the island got its reputation for possessing the skills of Aphrodite.’”

Science Daily lets us in on which goddesses had perfumes named after them.

“Perfumes are displayed in alabaster vials found in 2003 and are made of olive oil, pine, coriander, laurel, bergamot, parsley and bitter almonds, ANSA said. The scents are named after the Greek goddesses Aphrodite, Hera, Athena and Artemis.”

So how long before some enterprising perfume-makers try to crack the formula for these perfumes and offer them for sale?