In 1912, F M Bennett, using the Classical writings which had been preserved in large measure at Constantinople (= Istanbul, The City), as her source, was able to write in her erudite and important work, ‘Religious Cults Associated with the Amazons’:
The early version of the Ephesian Artemis statue was ‘primitive and oriental; carved from a block of wood; shaped like a herm in its lower part, and showing (H)er feet. The statue depicts a draped, many breasted woman with a (Kybeline) turret crown.
The Artemisium was ‘served by eunuch priests. The cult is, in origin far older that the Ionian settlement. The place of worship provided inviolable sanctuary, (a very un-Greek feature).
This article has attempted to show where scientific analysis of these idols has reached since Bennett’s time, and by what means. It suggests directions in which invesstigations may proceed from our current position.
The chief methods are to erect and evaluate hypotheses, and to cross-reference evidence between usually unrelated disciplines.
