Description of the attraction
The Temple of Artemis on the island of Corfu is a once monumental structure built in the archaic style around 580 BC. in the ancient city of Kerkyra. The temple was dedicated to the goddess Artemis and functioned as a sanctuary. Its ruins were discovered during archaeological excavations near the Mon Repo villa. This temple is known as the first building made in the Doric style exclusively of stone and combining all the main elements of Doric architecture.
The temple was a rectangular structure surrounded by a colonnade (8 columns on the front and back sides and 17 columns on the sides) in the style of a pseudo-peripterus, and was the largest sanctuary of its time. It was 77 feet wide and 161 feet long. The front and back of the temple were decorated with huge pediments with sculptural images of mythological characters. Only one of them has survived to this day. Relief fragments of the temple's metopes were also found.
The most valuable find on the ruins of the Temple of Artemis is considered to be a huge seventeen-meter pediment with a sculptural image of Medusa the Gorgon, discovered in 1911. It is the oldest Greek temple pediment found to date and the finest example of archaic sculpture. You can see this most important historical relic today in the Archaeological Museum of Corfu Town, which was built in 1962-1965 specifically to house the impressive artifacts from the Temple of Artemis.
The Temple of Artemis on the island of Corfu is considered one of the 150 masterpieces of Western architecture and the most important landmark in ancient Greek architecture. To this day, little has remained of the once majestic structure, but what archaeologists managed to find during excavations was informative enough to recreate the architectural details of the temple.
