Arson, murder and goddesses: secrets of a Seventh Wonder of the Ancient World

Summary

History Extra Podcast Summary Episode: Arson, Murder and Goddesses: Secrets of a Seventh Wonder of the Ancient World
Release Date: August 10, 2025
Host: Rachel Dinning
Guest: Bettany Hughes, Acclaimed Historian, Broadcaster, and Author

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Introduction to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

In this captivating episode of the History Extra podcast, host Rachel Dinning delves into the rich history of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Joined by renowned historian Bettany Hughes, the conversation unpacks the architectural brilliance, religious significance, and the dramatic events that unfolded around this magnificent ancient temple.

The Remarkable Significance of the Temple

Bettany Hughes begins by highlighting her personal admiration for the Temple of Artemis, emphasizing its often-overlooked status compared to other wonders like the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

"The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus... has something very magical... it's the most extraordinary in many ways." (03:37)

She underscores that the temple was not just an architectural marvel but also a central hub for religious and cultural activities, making it a cornerstone of ancient society.

The Temple in Its Heyday

The site of the Temple of Artemis, located in present-day Western Turkey, was once a bustling pilgrimage destination. Hughes paints a vivid picture of its grandeur before the ravages of time and natural disasters reduced it to a single standing column.

"People go to Ephesus... the city itself is brilliantly preserved... but the temple site today is just a single column." (05:55)

She explains that the temple's impressive footprint remains, surrounded by marshy grounds due to its original location near a sacred spring. This strategic placement underscored the temple's mystical and symbolic importance in the ancient world.

The Worship of Artemis: More Than the Huntress

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on the unique depiction and worship of Artemis in Ephesus. Unlike the commonly envisioned Artemis, the Ephesian Artemis was a formidable and fertile goddess, adorned with numerous symbolic elements.

"The Artemis of Ephesus... stands ramrod straight, covered in birds and bees and goats... She has what looks like a crown made from the temple itself." (11:58)

Hughes describes the "Polymastic Artemis," a depiction laden with intricate symbols representing her potency and connection to life and fertility. This portrayal emphasized her role not just as a huntress but as a powerful deity overseeing both the mighty and the vulnerable.

The Temple's Prominence in the Ancient World

The temple's exceptional status is further illustrated through historical accounts, notably by Antipater of Sidon, who extolled its magnificence above all other wonders.

"When I saw the temple of Artemis reaching up to the clouds, these other marvels dimmed... nothing can compare to this." (12:06)

As a major pilgrimage site, the Temple of Artemis attracted a diverse array of visitors, including prominent figures and ordinary pilgrims alike. Hughes highlights its particular significance for women, who often sought sanctuary and offered elaborate gifts in honor of the goddess.

The Tragic Tale of Arsinoe: Sanctuary Betrayed

One of the most dramatic stories associated with the temple involves Cleopatra's sister, Arsinoe IV. Seeking refuge within the sanctuary, Arsinoe believed the temple's protection would shield her from Cleopatra's wrath.

"[Arsinoe] is given sanctuary in the temple... but somehow she's pulled out and murdered on the temple steps on Cleopatra's orders." (18:16)

This incident underscores the temple's role as a place of asylum and the lengths to which powerful figures like Cleopatra would go to eliminate threats, even within sacred spaces.

Herostratus and the Infamous Arson

Another pivotal event discussed is the act of arson committed by Herostratus in 356 BCE, aiming to achieve fame through the destruction of the temple.

"Herostratus sets fire to the temple to be famous. The temple burns to the ground, and authorities ban any mention of his name." (20:36)

Hughes draws parallels between Herostratus's motives and modern-day celebrity culture, highlighting the timeless human desire for recognition. Despite the destruction, the temple was eventually rebuilt, testament to its enduring significance.

Rebuilding and the Touch of Alexander the Great

After the temple's destruction, efforts to rebuild it were spearheaded by influential figures, including Alexander the Great. Hughes recounts how Alexander, feeling a personal connection to the temple, took it upon himself to restore its former glory.

"Alexander says, 'I'm going to rebuild the temple. I'm going to make it great again.'" (22:43)

This reconstruction not only restored the temple but also reinforced its status as a beacon of cultural and religious unity in the ancient world.

Recent Archaeological Discoveries: Karahantipi

Shifting to contemporary times, Hughes discusses recent archaeological findings at Karahantipi, an 11,000-year-old site near the Syrian border in Turkey. These discoveries challenge traditional narratives about early human societies, suggesting advanced communal and religious practices much earlier than previously thought.

"Karahantipi... completely rewrite history... people were developing fixed farming and creating massive settlements." (25:21)

These insights provide a deeper understanding of the roots of religious and communal structures that would later manifest in monumental sites like the Temple of Artemis.

Personal Reflections: Visiting the Seven Wonders

Hughes shares her experiences traveling to each of the Seven Wonders for her book and upcoming television series. She emphasizes the importance of firsthand exploration to truly grasp the significance and grandeur of these ancient marvels.

"We wanted to retrace those journeys... to recreate that feel of civilizations on the move." (28:24)

Her adventures underscore the blend of historical scholarship and personal exploration, bringing the wonders to life for contemporary audiences.

The Enduring Fascination with the Seven Wonders

In discussing why the Seven Wonders continue to captivate us, Hughes identifies three key reasons: their extraordinary nature, embodiment of human ambition, and their ability to inspire wonder and engagement.

"Wonder matters because if you wonder, you engage... if you engage, you understand, and if you understand, you care." (31:13)

She reflects on how these ancient marvels serve as timeless symbols of human creativity, collaboration, and the perpetual quest for excellence, making them relevant and inspiring even today.

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Notable Quotes:

• "The Artemis of Ephesus... stands ramrod straight, covered in birds and bees and goats... She has what looks like a crown made from the temple itself." — Bettany Hughes (11:58)

• "Herostratus sets fire to the temple to be famous. The temple burns to the ground, and authorities ban any mention of his name." — Bettany Hughes (20:36)

• "Wonder matters because if you wonder, you engage... if you engage, you understand, and if you understand, you care." — Bettany Hughes (31:13)

Conclusion

This episode of the History Extra podcast offers an enthralling exploration of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, weaving together ancient history, personal anecdotes, and contemporary archaeological discoveries. Bettany Hughes' insightful commentary brings to life the complexities and enduring legacy of one of the ancient world's most magnificent wonders, making it a must-listen for history enthusiasts and curious minds alike.

Transcript

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[Rachel Dinning]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine. Today we're journeying back to the ancient world to shine a spotlight on one of its most captivating marvels, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, this magnificent temple was not just a feat of architectural brilliance, but a vibrant centre of religious and cultural life. To find out more, Rachel Dinning is joined by the acclaimed historian, broadcaster and author Bettany Hughes, who's the presenter of a new series on the 7 wonders that's airing now on channel 5 or available to stream on 5.

[Bettany Hughes]

Welcome, Bettany, to the History Extra podcast. It's great to have you back.

Lovely to be back. Lovely to see you again.

Very lovely to see you. And today we are going to be talking about the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, which is now in Western Turkey. And this was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient world. So this great temple was built by Croesus, King of lydia, in about 550 BC, and it was rebuilt after being burned by a madman in 356 BC. And we're going to get onto all of that a little bit later. But, Bettany, I wanted to kick start off this podcast by asking you, what was it about this temple that made it so remarkable that it was deemed a place on the list of the seven ancient wonders?

Yeah, well, I'm a big fan of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. I have to say that I know that we were talking about chatting now and everybody said, which wonder are you going to talk about? And people expect you to talk about the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or the Lighthouse of Alexandria. And they are all exceptional, they're all extraordinary places. But there's something very magical about the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. And I feel personally very protective of it because often it's one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient world that gets left off the list that people forget, you know, they manage. If you ask somebody down the pub list me the Seven Wonders, it's often the last one and yet it's the most extraordinary. In many ways. It's the same as the other wonders. And we should remind ourselves, you know, the Seven Wonders was a real list of real places. There are physical lists that exist, scratched onto bits of ancient papyrus, and the very oldest one that we have, a thing called the Laticuli Alexandrini. So the oldest evidence for a 7 wonders list actually starts with the Temple of Artemis. So it's the very first on the list. So it's a real place and it was huge. So it's the kind of mothership of what we think of as Greek and Roman temples. It was the inspiration for all of those. It was this enormous building and it was a building that was more written about than almost, almost any other temple in the ancient world. So it was incredible, it was ambitious, it was beautiful, it was gaudy. And I love it for all of those reasons, but also because of what it meant to the Populations of the ancient world. I'll let you in on those secrets later. But it's a very, very special, special place.

Absolutely. Yeah. We'll get onto some of those later. And I'll also give a little flag right now to a podcast we did together about a year ago when your book the 78 Ancient World came out, because we go into all of the wonders. If people want context on that, they can find that in the description of this podcast. So Bettany, the temple. So for some people today, if you go and visit the site today, it might seem a little bit underwhelming. There's only one column remaining. But what was the temple like in its heyday?

Yeah, so you're right. So people go to Ephesus, you know, in what is modern day Turkey now. It's a very popular tourist and traveler destination. And the city of Ephesus itself is remarkable. It's brilliantly preserved. People have compared it to Pompeii. You know, arguably bits of it are even more beautiful and more extraordinary than Pompeii. And you, you can walk down streets, the original paved streets. You know, this is incredible library of Celsius that exists there that, you know, kind of towers above you. But if you go out to the temple site exactly as you say, unfortunately, sometimes you see people are genuinely crestfallen and disappointed because there is pretty much just a single column that's left standing. It's a bit marshy, it feels a little bit neglected. It's less popular. Dogs are kind of roaming around. And so it's not quite this sort of exquisite, majestic wonder site that you imagine, but you just have to spend a little bit more time with it and realize that what you're looking down on is just the inner sanctuary of this extraordinary temple. So you've still got the footprint of the temple left. It's marshy because it was originally built, built next to a sacred spring. And it's really important to remember with this temple that it's not just a classical temple. There was actually a religious building on that site that goes right the way back to the Bronze Age and then almost certainly before that to pre history because it's on a very magical place where sweet water, so the water of the spring met the salt water of the sea originally. And these were often deemed to be mystical, magical, symbolic places in the ancient world. So it's kind of got an extraordinary setting and it, there is definitely something about the place. I mean, I'm not, you know, woo, woo. But there is something very inspiring and transporting about it. So when you go there, don't be disappointed by the fact there's just a single standing column. Just allow yourself to be immersed with the atmosphere of the place. And one of the reasons that there's very little left is that it was built directly above a fault line. So it suffered huge amounts of damage through earthquakes through its lifetime. There were lots of different phases of the building and actually it was so endangered by earthquakes. The temple itself involved anti earthquake engineering. So there were special pads of charcoal and sheep's fleeces that were put into the foundations. It was raised downtime. There were more and more steps that were added because it was so denuded by earthquake, by being decimated by earthquakes. So the fact that anything has survived is, is pretty remarkable.

And can you explain a bit about the origins of the temple? You've touched on it a little already about the religious elements. But why was it built and for what purpose?

Well, you know, the very distant origin of the temple we're still excavating and analysing and trying to understand, because I said you have these very early figurines there, so figurines from the ancient Hittite world, from the Greek Mycenaean world. And it seems as though there was pretty constantly the adoration of some kind of female deity or spirit or sort of superpower tower there. And it comes to be the temple of Artemis. So great Artemis, but not the Artemis that you probably all have in your heads when we talk about Artemis, who this is the goddess of the hunt and hunters and of the moon, who becomes Diana in the Roman canon. So if you say Diana goddess of the moon, or Artemis goddess of the moon, probably what you have in your head is this image of a sort of beautiful young woman in a little tiny Greek kite on, you know, artfully pulling a bow and arrow. But the Artemis who was worshipped in Ephesus was an Eastern Artemis. So she's actually a direct descendant of the great nature goddesses of the Eastern world. So goddesses like Kibale who come from that region, who then becomes magna mater in the Roman canon. And as soon as you see an image of the Artemis who's worshipped at Ephesus, you realize just how feisty she is. So, as I said, wipe from your heads the idea of somebody floating around in a pretty little skirt. So the Artemis of Ephesus, and there are still surviving sculptures of her, stands ramrod straight, huge, a towering figure covered in birds and bees and goats and curious magical creatures. And then on top of her head she has what looks like A crown. And when you get a bit closer, you realize it's actually the temple itself has been used as the crown on the top of her kind of regal, extraordinary face. And what none of you will miss, I hope you're all googling away now trying to find an image of Artemis as I speak, is that she looks as though she has kind of 30 or so breasts on her chest. And because of that, she's called the Polymastic Artemis. They're not breasts. They're definitely made to look like breasts. So, you know, those ancient craftsmen are playing a game with us. But they're either bulls, testicles, or sacks of honey that have been hung around her chest. And the reason for this is that Artemis, this great goddess Artemis, who was a virgin, was thought to be so fertile, so fecund, so full of life, that she didn't need anything as mundane as sex to procreate. She could just go kind of, and all these amazing organisms would emerge from her body. And that's what you see on the. On the stat. The great Artemis of Ephesus. So immediately, anybody, any ancient traveler who went to visit the temple and went to pay honor to her would have been left in no doubts of quite how extremely strong and potent she was.

And just how important was this site in the ancient world? I mean, obviously it was for them, one of the seven wonders.

Well, wonders generally. The seven wonders are all huge buildings. You know, we've talked about it before. It's a size matters list. And so they're all kind of enormous, enormous structures, really ambitious. And they go onto the list because they're all huge. And I'll just read you what one of the travelers who writes about the Temple of Artemis said. This is a man called Antipater of Sidon, one of the very first authors who writes about the seven wonders, for whom we have a full list. And we think he probably went to visit all of them. And he wrote this in around 140 BCE, and he says, I personally, I have set eyes on the very wall of lofty Babylon supporting a chariot road and the statue of Zeus by the Alphaos in Olympia and the hanging gardens of Babylon and the Colossus of Helios. So that's the Colossus of Rhodes and the huge labor of the steep pyramids and the vast tomb of Mausolus. So that's the mausoleum in Halicarnassus. But when I saw the temple of Artemis reaching up to the clouds, these other marvels dimmed. They lost their brilliance. And I declared, look apart From Olympus itself. The sun has never shone on anything that can compare to this. So, you know, if you've got write ups like that, you're going to be a pretty attractive monument for people to visit. And this was a pilgrimage site, so it was a place where tourists went, but people also went with a very real religious purpose. They went as pilgrims to go to pay their honor to the great goddess. And it's one of the reasons that I'm personally, as I said, have a real soft spot for this place because it was an incredibly important temple for women. So there were high priestesses who looked after the temple and they were sort of described as like being like queen bees with, with all the rest of the hive buzzing around, serving the queen bee, who is the high priestess actually called Melissa, which is a word that relates to bees and to honey. A lot of the priests who served there were eunuchs because they weren't allowed to bring their maleness. I mean, I'm not a fan of this, I should say, but you know, it's just very interesting in the kind of ancient psyche that this kind of potency of female presence and power was being honored. So eunuchs would serve the great goddess, but ordinary women, poor ordinary female pilgrims would beat a path to Artemis's door and some of them would leave extraordinary gifts, beautiful gold offerings. And, and we know this because a lot of these have been discovered actually on the site. So left as temple dedications and then buried as hoards. I mean, incredible things, you know, beautiful little golden, solid golden falcons because she's the goddess of the hunt. Or little ivory shields or little ivory images of the eunuch priests who served her. Or these lovely little solid gold figurines that are either priestesses or worshippers or a kind of version of the goddess herself.

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[Bettany Hughes]

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[Bettany Hughes]

And what would they be hoping by leaving these, these little trinkets and gifts? What. What would they be hoping to. To receive in return from the goddess?

Her protection. Because she is the goddess of both hunters and the hunted. She was also a goddess who looked after young girls in childbirth and pre marriage. She was thought to kind of prepare girls for marriage and to be there during childbirth. So if you suffered terrible childbirth, you would blame the arrows of Artemis because for some reason, the God she loves not just the mighty, but the weak. And that's another reason that she's unusual in the ancient world. In the sanctuary of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, all temples have sanctuaries, but this really was a sanctuary. So this really was a place where if you were being persecuted politically, even if you were a woman escaping domestic abuse, you could go to the sanctuary, you could claim sanctuary. And we know that these refugees who was seeking Asylia, which gives us our modern word asylum. So Asilia is an ancient Greek word, would be given asylum. And one of the reasons we know about this, and I just love the fact that this, this information comes to us kind of from a Roman source, is that Romans, once they take over the Greek world, including the city of Ephesus, really complain about the number of refugees that there are in Ephesus who are being taken care of by the sanctuary of Artemis. And they say, oh, you know, it's really appall. Their dormitories are so close and the living conditions are really squalid and the crime rate is going up. I mean, it's so kind of nimby, you know, you couldn't, you absolutely couldn't make it up. So they're going to honor her, to seek her protection, but also to have get physical protection from her. So all kinds of people went to the temple of Artemis.

Well, that brings me on to the story of Cleopatra's sister. So we've established that the temple was a renowned as a place sanctuary and many people sought it, especially women. And this included Cleopatra's sister, Arsinoe. So this is a really interesting tale with a very unfortunate ending. Can you tell our listeners a bit about this incident?

Yeah, definitely. So. So yeah, you're right. You know, people go there to seek sanctuary And a lot of famous people. So, you know, some of the murderers of Julius Caesar and, you know, during the great Persian wars at, at the time of the classical Greeks, the children of Xerxes are taken there by this amazing woman called Artemisia who seeks sanctuary and hides them in the temple. And then exactly as you say. So Arsinoe, Arsinoe iv, who's the sister of Cleopatra, basically knows that Cleopatra's got it in for her and Cleopatra, Mark Anthony love Ephesus. You know, they've kind of. It's one of the places that they meet, actually. It's where. Where it's from Ephesus that Cleopatra and Mark Anthony sail to the battle of Actium, for instance. But Arsinoe knows that the goddess offers people sanctuary, particularly women. So Arsenio thinks, where in the world I know that Cleopatra is trying to kill me? Where in the world can I go where I'll be safe? I'll go to the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. So she goes there, she's given sanctuary. Arsinoe is given sanctuary in the temple. But even the great goddess Artemis is not a match for Cleopatra. And we don't know exactly what happened. We don't know whether she threatened somebody or bribed them, but somehow Arsenouy is pulled out of the temple and murdered on the temple steps on the order of Cleopatra. So it was a sanctuary, but not if you're up against somebody, you know, a character who does not like no for an answer, like Cleopatra, of course.

And then the other incident that we should talk about at the temple is Heristratus famous act of arson. So in the 4th century, a man called Herostratus burned the temple. His goal was to achieve fame. How did this act influence how the temple has been remembered in history?

So Herostratus, it is an incredible story. So Herostratus, in 356, in July 356 BCE, sneaks into the temple. We think he might have been an individual who was. Had been enslaved, so he might have had some access to the temple, but he sets fire to it. And the reason he sets fire to it is in order to be famous. So there's something now called Herostratum fame, where you do something for no other purpose other than to be famous. Which actually makes you think a lot about the world today of celebrities, when people literally do things just in order to be read about and spoken of and in order to be famous. And it doesn't go so well for Herostratus because of course, the temple authorities are horrified. The temple Burns to the ground. I mean, this extraordinary. This thing that is getting onto the Seven Wonders of the World lists at this time is just reduced to cinders. And because, really, interestingly, because the temple authorities don't want there to be any copycat incidents where other people try something similar, either at Ephesus or elsewhere, they ban the mention of Herostratus's name. So on pain of death, you're not allowed to speak about him.

So we shouldn't be speaking about him today.

Well, we should. We shouldn't. We shouldn't. I know what's gonna happen to us after this podcast. You're right. But then, as ever, there's a whistleblower, the kind of Julian Assange of the day, who's a pamphleteer from a nearby island. Guy called Theopompus of Chios. And he says the world needs to know about this and about this story. And he speaks about Herostratus, and that's why you and I are talking about him today. It's really fascinating that there's a lot going on there, and it is. It definitely burnt to the ground at that time. So whether, you know, at some point they wanted a scapegoat and this story is invented because maybe it was a recalcitrant priest or maybe there was a sort of lack of health and safety awareness, they didn't want the priestly society to be blamed. You know, all of those things are possible, but Herostratus was definitely a real person. And his ultimate act was to try to destroy Artemis's temple. But it didn't work.

No. And what happened after? How was the temple rebuilt?

Yeah, so it's. Again, it's a great story. So the temple that was burnt down was exactly as you said in your introduction, was the one. The version from the 6th century BCE, when Croesus, the king of Sardis, king of a neighboring region rich in gold, who came from a land rich in gold. He comes from a land where the river Pactolis literally runs with gold from the mountains. And so Croesus had extraordinary wealth, and he had come into the temple again in order to. For him to be the guy that everybody talked about, you know, to be associated with this incredible place. And he covers the columns with gold foil. He dedicates solid gold oxen to the temple. You know, he. His name. There are still some sections of the temple where he's had his name carved into the temple so people will remember him. So this was the temple that was burnt down. It'd been kind of refurbished because of these earthquakes. I'VE been talking about over the, the centuries that followed. But what happens then? They start this major rebuild program and then who should rock up but Alexander the Great? Alexander the Great, who always loves to inject himself into any international drama. And he turns up, he sort of liberates Ephesus and then he says, and I am now going to rebuild the temple. I'm going to make it great again. And the people of Ephesus are fantastically diplomatic and go, look, oh, we don't think this is what the gods want. You know, we don't think, you know, it's not advisable for somebody who's almost godlike, like you to be doing this kind of work. And they obviously basically going like, let's try and get rid of him. But the temple is rebuilt and Alexander feels as though he has a very intimate connection to the temple because it was on the night of his birth, the very night of his birth, we're told that Herostratus had burnt it down first of all. And we're told that the reason that this happened is because Artemis, being a goddess of childbirth, had been away attending Alexander the Great's birth, which is why she wasn't around to physically protect her temple. So it's almost like he have grown up with that story as well. So it's almost as though he's trying to kind of prove that there's no bad karma and there's no bad feeling.

I wanted to ask because you wrote a Guardian article recently about the temple of Artemis at Ephesus and you mentioned in this article about some of the recent archaeological developments linked to the site in Turkey. So I think it's southeast of Turkey, close to the Syrian border. They've uncovered this amazing 11,000 year old site called Karahantipi. Yeah, yeah. What can you tell us about this place and how it's linked to the temple?

Well, it's, it's an interesting kind of, it's a distant, distant, distant, distant, distant ancestor of the temple in that it's in Asia Minor. And this amazing site of Karahantapi, as you said, you know, 11,000, 12,000 years old, extraordinary site. Only, only 5% of it has been excavated so far. And it's going to completely rewrite history. This because the sort of orthodox understanding is that we were hunter gatherers, then we invent farming and then we realize that we have to sort of settle down in towns to look after our crops and then we sort of invent religion so that we've got this kind of moral code. You know an understood code of practice that will allow us all to live harmoniously together in our particular little settlements and, and places like Gobekli Tepe, which have already been excavated, and Karahan Tepe, which is pretty close by, totally rewrite that story. And it looks like even while we're what we thought of as hunter gatherers, we're developing some forms of fixed farming and we're also creating these huge, huge, enormous settlements, almost like sort of super cities where people come to live together and also to celebrate together. So it's almost though people are actually not living together and then inventing religion. They're coming together to have a religious experience, to understand the world in this kind of big cosmic, supernatural way, and also just to have a massive party. So what's been excavated so far in Karahan Tepe is this extraordinary chamber of phalluses, huge column phalluses with this male face overlooking them, this beautiful green guy with this kind of wonderful handlebar moustache and a snake for a body with a carved jaguar in the middle. And there are other animal carvings elsewhere in the site. So it's a really, really spectacular place. And it looks as though there are proto deities of hunting female deities who are there partly to look after animals. And I say that really carefully about proto deities because this is terrible mistake we make because a lot of people have been brought up in a kind of monotheistic culture. You imagine that basically you're looking back to this story when there was, if there wasn't a single male God, there was a single female goddess and this sort of mother goddess idea. And that definitely wasn't the case. It was much more a sense of there being spirits everywhere in everything. It was a much more animist society. So we, you know, we haven't got the kind of pantheon of gods that early on, but it's just very, very exciting that it's being uncovered. I'm going there actually in a couple of weeks, so I'll report back on any new digs from Karahan Tepe next time we meet.

Now, you wrote and published a book last year, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which is now being turned into a three part docu series that will be airing on Channel 5 this summer. And you have traveled across the world to visit all the wonders as part of making this series. What did you learn from going and visiting all these sites?

Well, it was a great, it was an amazing experience. I have to say. My crew loved it. All the team, you know, were delighted to be doing on, going on this wonder, massive wonder trip. I mean, when I was writing the book, I'd already gone to visit all of them, apart from the site of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Because it has just been. When I've been traveling, it's just been too difficult to get into Babylon itself. But you have to, in order to write about them properly, historically, you have to travel to them because these were sites that were traveled to by ancient tourists. You know, it wasn't just. Just the 7 wonders list wasn't just a random list or a dry list. This was a bucket list. It was a really practical guide to the most important places in the world that you should go to visit as a human. So we wanted to retrace those journeys. In some cases, we travel a little bit like they would have traveled in the ancient world. We did a lot of boat journeys. I get in a horse and cart at one point. Well, I'm in Alexandria. So we wanted to kind of recreate that feel of civilizations and societies on the movement. Because, you know, something I always think about the ancient world is that people often imagine it to be static and that you didn't get much of a chance to kind of leave your village. But people were, if it was possible, people were moving the whole time. Pilgrimage was a huge thing. People loved to travel, to trade, to exchange ideas, to have adventures. So, yeah, so we did that in the, in the series. I was just actually, when I was talking about that, I was just thinking about the. Again, these pilgrims to the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, and we were talking about all those women who brought beautiful gold and these really rich gifts, but really poor women would come and just leave a simple seashell for Artemis as well. So, you know, you didn't have to be super wealthy to be making these journeys. But yeah, so we had a really adventurous time going to visit them for the television series.

Amazing. And what are you excited for people to see?

A lot of new archaeology, I can promise some of the of it that I can't talk about now because it's so new. So you'll. You'll learn about it when you see it. But in each case, the reason it felt like it was the right time to write the book and to do the television series is there are so many new archaeological digs that are telling us in a much more precise way about how the pyramid was built, for instance, about where the Colossus of Rhodes actually stood in the island of Rhodes. You know, what the real meaning of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus is? So we went to a lot of. A lot of territories and we've also had a very cool collaboration with interesting augmented reality tech. So it's going to be a very immersive experience for the, for the viewer, I think. I hope and think it's something that people are going to really, really, really enjoy.

Very exciting. I guess my final question to you, Bethany, is about the Seven Wonders, of which the Temple of Ephesus is part of. Why do they continue to fascinate us today?

It's interesting, isn't it, because everyone has heard of them. You know, even if you can't list them, they really mean something to us. And I think. I think there are three key reasons for that. They are extraordinary. I mean, when I was writing the book and doing the television series, I kept on thinking, oh, you know, is one of them going to be a bit of a letdown? You kind of, kind of think, who paid for this to get into the 7 wonders list? And of course, there are some places that have been missed off, you know, kind of Didymer and Persepolis and, you know, there are other places that could have been worthy of being on that list. But all of these seven are worthy. They are remarkable incarnations of human ambition generally, these wonders. And the act of wonder is something that proves that we need to achieve beyond the potential of the individual, that we want to collaborate to create. And basically, that's the thing about wonder that we want to create as well as to destroy. And we want to create wonderful things that we are amazed by, that we travel to see, and we then want to share those stories with others. So we. So we want to talk about wonder, you know, and as a historian, I see that in good times and bad, we need wonder in our lives. It's something we. We really, really seek out as a species. But it just always strikes me as well that why wonder matters is because if you wonder, you engage, and if you engage, you understand, and if you understand, you care, and if you care, you love. So engaging with the wonders is something that makes us love the world, world a little bit more. And I think, you know, we're living in a world now that can seem quite unwonderful in many ways, but we have these wonders to talk about to inspire us, to nourish us, to cherish us. So, yeah, wonder. Wonder definitely matters.

[Rachel Dinning]

That was author, historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes in conversation with Rachel Dinning. Bettany, is your thing of the seven wonders of the ancient world, which has now been brought to life in a new three part TV docu series currently airing on Saturdays on Channel 5 or available to catch up online on 5. And if you're curious to find out more about the other six Wonders, then be sure to check out Bettany's previous episode with us, where she answered your top questions on the subject. You can find that by searching for seven Wonders, Wonders of the Ancient World Everything you wanted to know in this podcast feed.