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128-589: The Temple of Artemis or Artemision ( Greek : Ἀρτεμίσιον ; Turkish : Artemis Tapınağı ), also known as the Temple of Diana , was a Greek temple dedicated to an ancient, localised form of the goddess Artemis (equated with the Roman goddess Diana ). It was located in Ephesus (near the modern town of Selçuk in present-day Turkey ). By AD 401 it is belived it had been ruined or destroyed. Only foundations and fragments of

256-522: A "typical" imagery preserved in ancient iconography is that of two symmetrical figures facing each other, with a tree standing in the middle. The two characters may variously represent rulers, gods, and even a deity and a human follower. The Assyrian tree of life was represented by a series of nodes and crisscrossing lines. It was apparently an important religious symbol, often attended to in Assyrian palace reliefs by human or eagle-headed winged genies , or

384-596: A "water-monster," symbolic of the underworld. The central world tree has also been interpreted as a representation of the band of the Milky Way . In a myth passed down among the Iroquois , The World on the Turtle's Back , explains the origin of the land in which a tree of life is described. According to the myth, it is found in the heavens, where the first humans lived, until a pregnant woman fell and landed in an endless sea. Saved by

512-570: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,

640-405: A dying tree that has never bloomed he is transported to the other world (spirit world) where he meets wise elders, 12 men and 12 women. The elders tell Black Elk that they will bring him to meet "Our Father, the two-legged chief" and bring him to the center of a hoop where he sees the tree in full leaf and bloom and the "chief" standing against the tree. Coming out of his trance he hopes to see that

768-552: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in

896-556: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on

1024-531: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near

1152-616: A gallery of images above this altar, including an ancient figure of Nyx (the primordial goddess of Night) by the sculptor Rhoecus (6th century BC). Pliny describes images of Amazons, the legendary founders of Ephesus and Ephesian Artemis' original protégés, carved by Scopas . Literary sources describe the temple's adornment by paintings, columns gilded with gold and silver, and religious works of renowned Greek sculptors Polyclitus , Pheidias , Cresilas , and Phradmon . This reconstruction survived for 600 years and appears multiple times in early Christian accounts of Ephesus. According to

1280-521: A giant turtle from drowning, she formed the world on its back by planting bark taken from the tree. The tree of life motif is present in the traditional Ojibway cosmology and traditions. It is sometimes described as Grandmother Cedar, or Nookomis Giizhig in Anishinaabemowin . In the book Black Elk Speaks , Black Elk , an Oglala Lakota (Sioux) wičháša wakȟáŋ ( medicine man and holy man), describes his vision in which after dancing around

1408-571: A gift and honor to the goddess – brought further prosperity. Large numbers of people came to Ephesus in March and in the beginning of May to attend the main Artemis Procession. Artemis' shrines, temples and festivals ( Artemisia ) could be found throughout the Greek world, but Ephesian Artemis was unique. The Ephesians considered her theirs, and resented any foreign claims to her protection. Once Persia ousted and replaced their Lydian overlord Croesus ,

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1536-446: A lantern like flower towards the top of the niche above which is a small roundel. The curvature of the niche accentuates the undulating movement which despite its complexity is symmetrical along its vertical axis. The representations of varying palm leaves hints to spiritual growth attained through prayer while the upwards and side wards movement of the leaves speaks to the different motions of the worshiper while in salah . According to

1664-528: A powerful religious edge. Under Hellenic rule, and later, under Roman rule, the Ephesian Artemisia festival was increasingly promoted as a key element in the pan-Hellenic festival circuit. It was part of a definitively Greek political and cultural identity, essential to the economic life of the region, and an excellent opportunity for young, unmarried Greeks of both sexes to seek out marriage partners. Games, contests and theatrical performances were held in

1792-549: A synthetic account of the Lady of Ephesus by drawing together documentation that ranges over more than a millennium in its origins, creating a falsified, unitary picture, as of an unchanging icon. 37°56′59″N 27°21′50″E  /  37.94972°N 27.36389°E  / 37.94972; 27.36389 Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ )

1920-529: A tapering pillar-like term , from which the goddess' feet protrude. On the coins minted at Ephesus, the goddess wears a mural crown (like a city's walls), an attribute of Cybele as a protector of cities (see polos ). The traditional interpretation of the oval objects covering the upper part of the Ephesian Artemis is that they represent multiple breasts, symbolizing her fertility. This interpretation began in late antiquity and resulted in designations of

2048-399: A tree that its vivacity would certify continuance of life in the universe; the bas tokhmak, a tree with remedial attribute, retentive of all herbal seeds, and destroyer of sorrow; Mashya and Mashyana , the parents of the human race; barsom , copped offshoots of pomegranate , gaz ( Tamarix gallica ), or haoma that Zoroastrians use in their rituals; and haoma, a plant, unknown today, that was

2176-462: Is Christ: All these things stood for something other than what they were, but all the same they were themselves bodily realities. And when the narrator mentioned them he was not employing figurative language, but giving an explicit account of things which had a forward reference that was figurative. So then the tree of life also was Christ... and indeed God did not wish the man to live in Paradise without

2304-635: Is a distinctive form of their goddess Artemis . In Greek cult and myth, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo , a virgin goddess of the hunt, the wilderness and the moon, who, despite being a goddess of childbirth was nevertheless known for her chastity. At Ephesus, a goddess whom the Greeks associated with Artemis was venerated in an archaic, pre-Hellenic cult image that was carved of wood (a xoanon ) and kept decorated with jewelry. The features are most similar to Near-Eastern and Egyptian deities, and least similar to Greek ones. The body and legs are enclosed within

2432-515: 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 so grand". The Temple of Artemis (artemisia)

2560-533: Is a shining white tree that grows on a paradisiacal mountain . Sprigs of this white haoma were brought to earth by divine birds. The tree is considerably diverse. Haoma is the Avestan form of the Sanskrit soma . The identity of the two in ritual significance is considered by scholars to point to a salient feature of an Indo-Iranian religion antedating Zoroastrianism. Another related issue in ancient mythology of Iran

2688-688: Is a tree of life; but perverseness therein is a wound to the spirit." In the Ashkenazic liturgy, the Eitz Chayim is a piyyut commonly sung as the Sefer Torah is returned to the Torah ark . The Book of Enoch , generally considered non-canonical , states that in the time of the great judgment, God will give all those whose names are in the Book of Life fruit to eat from the tree of life. Jewish mysticism depicts

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2816-413: Is a type of biomorphic pattern found in many artistic traditions. It is considered to be any vegetal pattern with a clear origin or growth. The pattern in al-Azhar Mosque , Cairo 's mihrab , a unique Fatimid architectural variation , is a series of two or three leave palmettes with a central palmette of five leaves from which the pattern originates. The growth is upwards and outwards and culminates in

2944-699: Is a vine that grows on both sides of the river, as John 15:1 would hint at. Pope Benedict XVI has said that "the Cross is the true tree of life." Saint Bonaventure taught that the medicinal fruit of the tree of life is Christ himself. Saint Albert the Great taught that the Eucharist , the Body and Blood of Christ, is the Fruit of the Tree of Life. Augustine of Hippo said that the tree of life

3072-766: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout

3200-458: Is also used to describe each of the wooden poles to which the parchment of a Sefer Torah is attached. The tree of life is mentioned in the Book of Genesis ; it is distinct from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil . After Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were driven out of the Garden of Eden . Remaining in the garden, however,

3328-742: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system

3456-474: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During

3584-498: Is another tree of life. The ceramic base is guarded by a horned beast with wings. The leaves of the tree represent coins and people. At the apex is a bird with coins and the Sun . The tree of life first appears in Genesis 2:9 and 3:22–24 as the source of eternal life in the Garden of Eden , from which access is revoked when man is driven from the garden. It then reappears in the last book of

3712-532: Is clear that at Ephesus, the identification with Artemis that the Ionian settlers made of the "Lady of Ephesus" was slender. Nevertheless, later Greeks and Romans identified her with both Artemis and Diana, and there was a tradition in ancient Rome that identified her with the goddess Isis as well. The Christian approach was at variance with the syncretistic approach of pagans to gods who were not theirs. A Christian inscription at Ephesus suggests why so little remains at

3840-410: Is known of her cult. The literary accounts that describe it as " Amazonian " refer to the later founder-myths of Greek émigrés who developed the cult and temple of Artemis Ephesia . The wealth and splendor of temple and city were taken as evidence of Artemis Ephesia's power, and were the basis for her local and international prestige: despite the successive traumas of Temple destruction, each rebuilding –

3968-503: Is not specified in ancient myth, many assume that Aphrodite gathered those apples from Hera's tree(s). Eris stole one of these apples and carved the words ΤΗΙ ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΗΙ, "to the fairest", upon it to create the Apple of Discord . Heracles retrieved three of the apples as the eleventh of his Twelve Labors . The Garden of the Hesperides is often compared to Eden , the golden apples are compared to

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4096-453: Is pleased, it grants every wish. Hindu tradition holds that there are five separate kalpavrikshas and each of them grant different types of wishes. These trees also appear in the beliefs of Jainism . In Chinese mythology , a carving of a tree of life depicts a phoenix and a dragon ; the dragon often represents immortality. A Taoist story tells of a tree that produces a peach of immortality every three thousand years, and anyone who eats

4224-405: Is promised as a reward to those who overcome. Revelation 22 begins with a reference to the "pure river of water of life" which proceeds "out of the throne of God". The river seems to feed two trees of life, one "on either side of the river" which "bear twelve manner of fruits" "and the leaves of the tree were for healing of the nations" (v. 1–2). Alternatively, this may indicate that the tree of life

4352-510: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to

4480-406: Is responsible for all good (including life). Haoma is another sacred plant due to the drink made from it. The preparation of the drink from the plant by pounding and the drinking of it are central features of Zoroastrian ritual. Haoma is also personified as a divinity. It bestows essential vital qualities—health, fertility, husbands for maidens, even immortality. The source of the earthly haoma plant

4608-958: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Tree of Life Various trees of life are recounted in folklore , culture and fiction , often relating to immortality or fertility . They had their origin in religious symbolism. According to professor Elvyra Usačiovaitė,

4736-518: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around

4864-758: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,

4992-630: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with

5120-515: Is the myth of Mashya and Mashyana, two trees that were the ancestors of all living beings. This myth can be considered as a prototype for the creation myth where living beings are created by Gods. A genre of the sacred books of Hinduism , the Puranas , mention a divine tree called the Kalpavriksha . This divine tree is guarded by gandharvas in the garden of the mythological city of Amaravati under

5248-479: Is used as an example of a concept, idea, way of life or code of life. A good concept/idea is represented as a good tree and a bad idea/concept is represented as a bad tree Muslims believe that when God created Adam and Eve, he told them that they could enjoy everything in the Garden except this tree (idea, concept, way of life). Satan appeared to them and told them that the only reason God forbade them to eat from that tree

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5376-537: The British Museum . These excavations continued until 1874. A few further fragments of sculpture were found during the 1904–1906 excavations directed by David George Hogarth . The recovered sculptured fragments of the 4th-century rebuilding and a few from the earlier temple, which had been used in the rubble fill for the rebuilding, were assembled and displayed in the "Ephesus Room" of the British Museum. In addition,

5504-486: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It

5632-506: The Galli . The Megabyzoi of Ephesian Artemis were assisted by young, virgin girls ( korai ). A votive inscription mentioned by Bennett (1912) , which dates probably from about the 3rd century BC, associates Ephesian Artemis with Crete: The Greek habits of syncretism assimilated all foreign gods under some form of the Olympian pantheon familiar to them – the interpretatio graeca – and it

5760-721: The Gnostic religion Manichaeism , the Tree of Life helped Adam obtain the knowledge ( gnosis ) necessary for salvation and is identified as an image of Jesus. In Greek mythology, Hera is gifted a branch growing golden apples by her grandmother Gaia , which are then planted in Hera's Garden of the Hesperides . The dragon Ladon guards the tree(s) from all who would take the apples. The three golden apples that Aphrodite gave to Hippomenes to distract Atalanta three times during their footrace allowed him to win Atalanta's hand in marriage. Though it

5888-529: The Goths , under their leaders "Respa, Veduc, and Thurar", "laid waste many populous cities and set fire to the renowned temple of Diana at Ephesus." The extent and severity of the damage are unknown; the temple may have been repaired and open to us again, or it may have lain derelict until its official closure during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire . There are signs that it may have been of use after 268, since Christians authors refers to its closure in

6016-574: The Hagia Sophia were taken from the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, but there is no truth to this story. The main primary sources for the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus are Pliny the Elder 's Natural History , writings by Pomponius Mela , and Plutarch 's Life of Alexander . The site of the temple was rediscovered in 1869, after six years of searching by an expedition led by John Turtle Wood and sponsored by

6144-510: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as

6272-557: The King of Kish , searched for a 'plant of birth' to provide him with a son. This has a solid provenance of antiquity, being found in cylinder seals from the Akkadian Empire (2390–2249 BCE ). In Urartu in the Armenian highlands , the tree of life was a religious symbol and was drawn on walls of fortresses and carved on the armor of warriors. The branches of the tree were equally divided on

6400-611: The Maya , Aztec , Izapan , Mixtec , Olmec , and others, dating to at least the Mid/Late Formative periods of the Mesoamerican chronology . The tomb of Kʼinich Janaabʼ Pakal of the Maya city-state of Palenque , who became its ajaw or leader when he was twelve years old, has tree of life inscriptions within the walls of his burial place, showing just how important it was. Among the Maya,

6528-536: The New Testament , the appearance of the first Christian missionary in Ephesus caused locals to fear for the temple's dishonor. The 2nd century Acts of John includes an apocryphal tale of the temple's destruction: The apostle John prayed publicly in the Temple of Artemis, exorcising its demons and "of a sudden the altar of Artemis split in many pieces ... and half the temple fell down," instantly converting

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6656-547: The Renaissance onwards, Kabbalah became incorporated as tradition in Christian Western esotericism as Hermetic Qabalah . Mandaean scrolls often include abstract illustrations of trees of life that represent the living, interconnected nature of the cosmos. One of these trees is given the name of Shatrin . The concept of world trees is a prevalent motif in the Mesoamerican cosmovision and iconography , appearing in

6784-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in

6912-456: The pre-Columbian era . World trees embody the four cardinal directions , which represented also the fourfold nature of a central world tree, a symbolic axis mundi connecting the planes of the Underworld and the sky with that of the terrestrial world. Depictions of world trees, both in their directional and central aspects, are found in the art and mythological traditions of cultures such as

7040-465: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into

7168-442: The 5th-century. Ammonius of Alexandria comments on its closure, perhaps as early as 407 CE, or no later than the mid 5th century. After the city had been made Christian and the temple had been closed, the name of Artemis appears to have been erased from inscriptions throughout Ephesus. Cyril of Alexandria credited Archbishop of Constantinople John Chrysostom with destroying the temple, referring to him as "the destroyer of

7296-507: The 7th century BC, a flood destroyed the temple, depositing over half a meter of sand and flotsam over the original clay floor. Among the flood debris were the remains of a carved ivory plaque of a griffin and the Tree of Life , apparently North Syrian, and some drilled tear-shaped amber drops of elliptical cross-section. These probably once dressed a wooden effigy ( xoanon ) of the Lady of Ephesus, which must have been destroyed or recovered from

7424-569: The Bible, the Book of Revelation , and most predominantly in the last chapter of that book (Chapter 22) as a part of the new garden of paradise. Access is then no longer forbidden, for those who "wash their robes" (or as the textual variant in the King James Version has it, "they that do his commandments") "have right to the tree of life" (v. 14). A similar statement appears in Rev 2:7, where the tree of life

7552-441: The Ephesian goddess as Diana Efesia Multimammia and other related descriptions. This interpretation was rooted in Minucius Felix and Jerome 's Christian attacks on pagan popular religion, and modern scholarship has cast doubt on the traditional interpretation that the statue depicts a many-breasted goddess. Evidence suggests that the oval objects were not intended to depict part of the goddess' anatomy at all. In some versions of

7680-439: The Ephesians played down his contribution to the temple's restoration. On the whole, the Persians dealt fairly with Ephesus, but removed some religious artifacts from Artemis' Temple to Sardis and brought Persian priests into her Ephesian cult; this was not forgiven. When Alexander conquered the Persians, his offer to finance the temple's second rebuilding was politely but firmly refused. Ephesian Artemis lent her city's diplomacy

7808-405: The Ephesians, who wept, prayed, or took flight. Against this, a Roman edict of 162 AD acknowledges the importance of Artemesion , the annual Ephesian festival to Artemis, and officially extended it from a few holy days over March–April to a whole month, "one of the largest and most magnificent religious festivals in Ephesus' liturgical calendar". In 268 AD, according to Jordanes , a raid by

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7936-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit

8064-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than

8192-442: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in

8320-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow

8448-446: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community

8576-475: The Indian Ahmadiyya movement founded in 1889, Quranic reference to the tree is symbolic; eating of the forbidden tree signifies that Adam disobeyed God. Etz Chaim ( Hebrew : עץ חיים ), Hebrew for "tree of life," is a common term used in Judaism. The expression, found in the Book of Proverbs , is figuratively applied to the Torah itself. Etz Chaim is also a common name for yeshivas and synagogues as well as for works of Rabbinic literature . It

8704-422: The King, and blessed or fertilized with bucket and cone . Assyriologists have not reached consensus as to the meaning of this symbol. The name "Tree of Life" has been attributed to it by modern scholarship; it is not used in the Assyrian sources. In fact, no textual evidence pertaining to the symbol is known to exist. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a similar quest for immortality. In Babylonian religion , Etana ,

8832-421: The Lady of Ephesus, it now appears, were likely based on amber gourd-shaped drops, elliptical in cross-section and drilled for hanging, that were rediscovered in the archaeological excavations of 1987–1988. These objects remained in place where the ancient wooden statue of the goddess had been caught by an 8th century flood. This form of jewelry, then, had already been developed by the Geometric Period . On

8960-431: The Norse myth of Yggdrasil took root. The Celtic god Lugus was associated with the Celtic version of the tree of life. The Borjgali ( Georgian : ბორჯღალი ) is an ancient Georgian tree of life symbol. In Germanic paganism , trees played (and, in the form of reconstructive Heathenry and Germanic Neopaganism , continue to play) a prominent role, appearing in various aspects of surviving texts and possibly in

9088-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),

9216-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of

9344-578: The apples from Iðunn 's ash box provide immortality for the gods. The "Tree of Immortality" ( Arabic : شجرة الخلود ) is the tree of life motif as it appears in the Quran . It is also alluded to in hadiths and tafsir. Unlike the biblical account , the Quran mentions only one tree in Eden, also called " the tree of immortality and power that never decays", which God specifically forbade to Adam and Eve. The tree in Quran

9472-409: The central world tree was conceived as or represented by a Ceiba pentandra and is known variously as a wacah chan or yax imix che in different Mayan languages . The trunk of the tree could also be represented by an upright caiman , whose skin evokes the tree's spiny trunk. Directional world trees are also associated with the four Year Bearers in Mesoamerican calendars and associated with

9600-436: The coins she rests either arm on a staff formed of entwined serpents or of a stack of ouroboroi – the eternal serpent with its tail in its mouth. In some accounts, the Lady of Ephesus was attended by eunuch priests called "Megabyzoi" ; this might have been either a proper name or a title. The practice of ritual self-emasculation as qualification to serve a deity is usually identified with Cybele 's eunuch mendicant priests,

9728-480: The control of Indra , the king of the devas . In one story, for a very long time, the devas and the asuras decided to churn the milky ocean to obtain amrita , the nectar of immortality, and share it equally. During the churning, along with many other mythical items, emerged the Kalpavriksha. It is described to be gold in colour and bear a mesmerising aura. It is said to be pleased with chanting and offers: when it

9856-464: The demons and overthrower of the temple of Diana". A later Archbishop of Constantinople, Proclus , noted the achievements of John, saying "In Ephesus, he despoiled the art of Midas," but there is little evidence to support this claim. At least some of the stone from the abandoned temple was used in construction of other buildings. A legend of the Late Middle Ages claims that some of the columns in

9984-517: The directional colors and deities. Mesoamerican codices which have this association outlined include the Dresden , Borgia and Fejérváry-Mayer codices. It is supposed that Mesoamerican sites and ceremonial centers frequently had actual trees planted at each of the four cardinal directions, representing the quadripartite concept. World trees are frequently depicted with birds in their branches, and their roots extending into earth or water, sometimes atop

10112-414: The earliest coins made from the silver-gold alloy electrum . The deposit contains some of the earliest inscribed coins, those of Phanes , dated to 625–600 BC from Ephesus , with the legend ΦΑΕΝΟΣ ΕΜΙ ΣΗΜΑ (or similar) ("I am the badge of Phanes"), or just bearing the name ΦΑΝΕΟΣ ("of Phanes"). Fragments of bas-relief on the lowest drums of the temple columns, preserved in the British Museum, show that

10240-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of

10368-512: The enriched columns of the later temple, of which a few survive ( illustration below ) were versions of this earlier feature. Pliny the Elder , seemingly unaware of the ancient continuity of the sacred site, claims that the new temple's architects chose to build it on marshy ground as a precaution against earthquakes, with lower foundation layers of fleeces and pounded charcoal. The temple became an important attraction, visited by merchants, kings, and sightseers, many of whom paid homage to Artemis in

10496-555: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute

10624-442: The flood. Bammer notes that though the site was prone to flooding, and raised by silt deposits about two metres between the 8th and 6th centuries, and a further 2.4 m between the sixth and the fourth, its continued use "indicates that maintaining the identity of the actual location played an important role in the sacred organization". The new temple was sponsored at least in part by Croesus , who founded Lydia 's empire and

10752-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in

10880-513: The forbidden fruit of the tree in Genesis , and Ladon is often compared to the snake in Eden , all of which is part of why the forbidden fruit of Eden is usually represented as an apple in European art, even though Genesis does not specifically name nor describe any characteristics of the fruit. In Dictionnaire Mytho-Hermetique (Paris, 1737), Antoine-Joseph Pernety , a famous alchemist , identified

11008-471: The form of jewelry and various goods. It also offered sanctuary to those fleeing persecution or punishment, a tradition linked in myth to the Amazons who twice fled there seeking the goddess's protection from punishment, firstly by Dionysus and later, by Heracles . Diogenes Laertius claims that the misanthropic philosopher Heraclitus , thoroughly disapproving of civil life at Ephesus, played knucklebones in

11136-524: The fruit receives immortality. An archaeological discovery in the 1990s was of a sacrificial pit at Sanxingdui in Sichuan , China . Dating from about 1200 BCE , it contained three bronze trees, one of them 4 meters high. At the base was a dragon, and fruit hanging from the lower branches. At the top is a bird-like (Phoenix) creature with claws. Also found in Sichuan, from the late Han dynasty (c. 25–220 CE),

11264-407: The goddess's cult image. Thirty-six of these columns were, according to Pliny the Elder , decorated by carvings in relief. A new ebony or blackened grapewood cult statue was sculpted by Endoios, and a naiskos to house it was erected east of the open-air altar. A rich foundation deposit from this era, also called the "Artemision deposit", yielded more than a thousand items, including what may be

11392-456: The goddess's name, and Pliny describes her procession as a magnificent crowd-puller; it was shown in one of Apelles ' best paintings, which depicted the goddess's image carried through the streets and surrounded by maidens. In the Roman Imperial era , the emperor Commodus lent his name to the festival games, and might have sponsored them. From the Greek point of view, the Ephesian Artemis

11520-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn

11648-569: The last temple remain at the site. The earliest version of the temple (a Bronze Age temenos ) antedated the Ionic immigration by many years. Callimachus , in his Hymn to Artemis , attributed it to the Amazons . In the 7th century BC, it was destroyed by a flood. Its reconstruction, in more grandiose form, began around 550 BC, under Chersiphron , the Cretan architect , and his son Metagenes . The project

11776-463: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write

11904-621: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek

12032-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and

12160-551: The motive of Herostratus since he only divulged his purpose under torture, which does not fit a man seeking fame. Knibbe (1998) considers Herostratus a "useful idiot in the service of the priesthood". Alexander offered to pay for the temple's rebuilding; the Ephesians tactfully refused, saying "it would be improper for one god to build a temple to another", and eventually rebuilt it after his death, at their own expense. Work started in 323 BC and continued for many years. The third temple

12288-461: The museum has part of possibly the oldest cache of coins in the world (600 BC) that had been buried in the foundations of the Archaic temple. Today the site of the temple, which lies just outside Selçuk , is marked by a single column constructed of miscellaneous fragments discovered at the site. The archaic temenos beneath the later temples clearly housed some form of " Great Goddess " but nothing

12416-458: The mysteries of spiritual things being presented to him in bodily form. So then in the other trees he was provided with nourishment, in this one with a sacrament... He is rightly called whatever came before him in order to signify him. In Eastern Christianity the tree of life is the love of God. The tree of life vision is described and discussed in the Book of Mormon . According to the Book of Mormon,

12544-544: The name of gods. The tree of life appears in Norse religion as Yggdrasil , the world tree, a massive tree (sometimes considered a yew or ash tree ) with extensive lore surrounding it. Perhaps related to Yggdrasil, accounts have survived of Germanic Tribes honouring sacred trees within their societies. Examples include Thor's Oak , sacred groves , the Sacred tree at Uppsala , and the wooden Irminsul pillar. In Norse Mythology ,

12672-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks

12800-521: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It

12928-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as

13056-639: The pre-Ionic inhabitants of the city were Leleges and Lydians . Callimachus , in his Hymn to Artemis attributed the earliest temenos at Ephesus to the Amazons , legendary warrior-women whose religious practise he imagined already centered upon an image ( bretas ) of Artemis, their matron goddess. Pausanias believed that the temple pre-dated the Amazons . Pausanias's estimation of the site's antiquity seems well-founded. Before World War I, site excavations by David George Hogarth seemed to identify three successive temple buildings. Re-excavations in 1987–1988 and re-appraisal of Hogarth's account confirmed that

13184-525: The right and left sides of the stem, with each branch having one leaf, and one leaf on the apex of the tree. Servants stood on each side of the tree with one of their hands up as if they are taking care of the tree. In the Avestan literature and Iranian mythology , there are several sacred vegetal icons related to life, eternality and cure, such as Amesha Spenta ; Ameretat , the guardian of plants and goddess of trees and immortality; Gaokerena or white haoma ,

13312-501: The site was occupied as early as the Bronze Age , with a sequence of pottery finds that extend forward to Middle Geometric times , when a peripteral temple with a floor of hard-packed clay was constructed in the second half of the 8th century BC. The peripteral temple at Ephesus offers the earliest example of a peripteral type on the coast of Asia Minor, and perhaps the earliest Greek temple surrounded by colonnades anywhere. In

13440-416: The site: The assertion that the Ephesians thought that their cult image had fallen from the sky, though it was a familiar origin-myth at other sites, is only known for the temple at Ephesus from Acts 19:35 : Lynn LiDonnici observes that modern scholars are likely to be more concerned with origins of the Lady of Ephesus and her iconology than her adherents were at any point in time, and are prone to creating

13568-441: The source of sacred potable . The Gaokerena is a large, sacred haoma planted by Ahura Mazda . Ahriman created a frog to invade the tree and destroy it, aiming to prevent all trees from growing on the earth. As a reaction, Ahura Mazda created two kar-fish staring at the frog to guard the tree. The two fish are always staring at the frog and stay ready to react to it. Ahriman is responsible for all evil including death; Ahura Mazda

13696-554: The standard works [scriptures]." Different views on the Tree of life can be found in the Nag Hammadi library codices, writings belonging to Gnosticism . In On the Origin of the World , the Tree of Life is said to be located to the north of paradise , providing life to the innocent saints who will come out of their material bodies during what is called the consummation of the age. The color of

13824-512: The statue, the goddess' skin has been painted black, likely to emulate the aged wood of the original, while her clothes and regalia, including the so-called "breasts", were left unpainted or cast in different colors. Fleischer (1973) suggested that instead of breasts, the oval objects were decorations that would have been hung ceremonially on the original wood statue (possibly eggs, or the testicles of sacrificed bulls), and which were incorporated as carved features on later copies. The "breasts" of

13952-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of

14080-465: The temple with the boys, and later deposited his writings there. In 356 BC, the temple burned down. Various sources describe this as a vainglorious act of arson by a man, Herostratus , who set fire to the wooden roof-beams, seeking fame at any cost; thus the term herostratic fame . For this outrage, the Ephesians sentenced the perpetrator to death and forbade anyone from mentioning his name , although Theopompus later noted it. Aristotle describes

14208-497: The temple's conflagration, but not its cause. In Greek and Roman historical tradition, the temple's destruction coincided with the birth of Alexander the Great (around 20–21 July 356 BC). Plutarch remarks that Artemis was too preoccupied with Alexander's delivery to save her burning temple; he does not specify a cause for the fire. Herostratus' part in the temple's destruction has been questioned in modern scholarship. Stefan Karweise notes that any arsonist would have needed access to

14336-470: The tree is described as resembling the Sun, its branches are beautiful, its leaves are similar to that of cypress , and its fruit is like clusters of white grapes. However, in the Secret Book of John , the Tree of Life is portrayed negatively. Its roots are described as bitter, its branches are death, its shadow is hatred, a trap is found in its leaves, its seed is desire, and it blossoms in the darkness. In

14464-520: The tree of life in the form of ten interconnected nodes, as the central symbol of the Kabbalah . It comprises the ten Sefirot powers in the divine realm. The panentheistic and anthropomorphic emphasis of this emanationist theology interpreted the Torah, Jewish observance, and the purpose of Creation as the symbolic esoteric drama of unification in the sefirot , restoring harmony to Creation . From

14592-784: The tree of life with the Elixir of life and the Philosopher's Stone . In Eden in the East (1998), Stephen Oppenheimer suggests that a tree-worshipping culture arose in Indonesia and was diffused by the so-called "Younger Dryas" event of c. 10,900 BCE or 12,900 BP, after which the sea level rose. This culture reached China ( Sichuan ), then India and the Middle East . Finally the Finno-Ugric strand of this diffusion spread through Russia to Finland where

14720-475: The vision was received in a dream by the prophet Lehi , and later in a vision by his son Nephi , who wrote about it in the First Book of Nephi . The vision includes a path leading to a tree, the fruit of the tree symbolizing the love of God, with an iron rod, symbolizing the word of God, along the path whereby followers of Jesus may hold to the rod and avoid wandering off the path into pits or waters symbolizing

14848-445: The ways of sin. The vision also includes a large building wherein the wicked look down at the righteous and mock them. The vision is said to symbolize love of Christ and the way to eternal life and is a well known and cited story with members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A member of the church reflected that the vision is "one of the richest, most flexible, and far-reaching pieces of symbolic prophecy contained in

14976-509: The wooden roof framing; Knibbe (1998) writes of an "entire corps" of attested temple guards and custodians. The fire might even have been deliberately and covertly set by the temple's administrators, who were aware that the temple's foundation was sinking but were prevented from re-siting it elsewhere by religious constraints; Bammer has noted the conservation of the original sacred location throughout successive rebuildings, despite continued problems with flooding and foundations. Karwiese questions

15104-568: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

15232-549: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of

15360-546: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

15488-472: Was funded by Croesus of Lydia , and took 10 years to complete. This version of the temple was destroyed in 356 BC by an arsonist , commonly thought to have been a madman named Herostratus . The next, greatest, and last form of the temple, funded by the Ephesians themselves, is described in Antipater of Sidon 's list of the world's Seven Wonders : I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which

15616-406: Was larger than the second; 137 m (450 ft) long by 69 m (225 ft) wide and 18 m (60 ft) high, with more than 127 columns. Athenagoras of Athens names Endoeus , a pupil of Daedalus , as sculptor of Artemis' main cult image. Pausanias (c. 2nd century AD) reports another image and altar in the temple, dedicated to Artemis Protothronia (Artemis "of the first seat") and

15744-543: Was located near the ancient city of Ephesus, about 75 kilometres (47 mi) south from the modern port city of İzmir , in Turkey. Today the site lies on the edge of the modern town of Selçuk . The sacred site ( temenos ) at Ephesus was far older than the Artemision itself. Pausanias was certain that it antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, being older even than the oracular shrine of Apollo at Didyma . He said that

15872-413: Was overlord of Ephesus. It was designed and constructed from around 550 BC by the Cretan architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes . It was 115 m (377 ft) long and 46 m (151 ft) wide, supposedly the first Greek temple built of marble. Its peripteral columns stood some 13 m (40 ft) high, in double rows that formed a wide ceremonial passage around the cella that housed

16000-488: Was that they would become angels or they start using the idea/concept of Ownership in conjunction with inheritance generations after generations which Iblis convinced Adam to accept When Adam and Eve ate from this tree their nakedness appeared to them and they began to sew together, for their covering, leaves from the Garden. The hadiths also speak about other trees in heaven. The tree of life in Islamic architecture

16128-410: Was the tree of life. To prevent their access to this tree in the future, Cherubim with a flaming sword were placed at the east of the garden. In the Book of Proverbs, the tree of life is associated with wisdom : "[Wisdom] is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, and happy [is every one] that retaineth her." In Proverbs 15:4, the tree of life is associated with calmness: "A soothing tongue

16256-566: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect

16384-653: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage

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