Didyma is located in the village of
Yenihisar.4 km ınland from the coast
called Altınkum(Golden sand) and 15
kms South of Akköy,near Söke.Didyma
was actually a sacred site and not a
city,in whose centre was a great
temple built in the name of the sun
sun Apollo.
However much Apollo may be considered as
one of the twelve deities dwelling
on Mount Olympus in Grek mythology,he
is actually an Anatolian god,the
counterpart of the Hittite god,Apulunas.The
research concerning the origins of
the names of Didyma and didymaion
has been a subject of discussion
going on for years Apollo is the one
of the son of,of Zeus and twin
brother to Artemis,the Moon-goddess.The
word Didymaion means twins and this
is the reason why the place the
Temple of Apollo stands was called
so.The Greeks,believing in fate,
looked upon Apollo as an oracle as
well.The oracles received from the
priests in the temple of Apollo at
Delphoi influenced and changed the
lives of people to a great extent.The
Ionians built the temple in Didyma
as the second oracle centre,and they
constructed it with such care that
it was one of the most magnificent
temples of the times.
Apollo was renowed for his ability to
prosphesy and the communicated to
people through mediums and oracles
his knowledge of the future. The
dependence of communities on
religion increased as it was seen
that gods possessed forces to direct
according to their will,all
phenomena and events relating to
nature and society.as a natural
consequence of the increase in
religion ,belief in the power to
prophesy of the gods who could
foresee events and phenomena was
intensified.
In the Archaic period the
oracle of Apollo had great fame.The
number of temples erected in
Anatolia as seats of oracles is
evidence that belief in gods had
reached enormous proportions.the
most important of the temples
dedicated to Apollo were the Temple
of apollo at Delphi in Greece and
the Didymaion in Anatolia.
In the mid 7th century BC,in oracles
of apollo,the god could be consulted
once a year for offical matters and
the answers received to questions
directed would be in the form of “ye
sor no”.When in later years,consulting
the god also for private matters
became a tradition,these
consultations became gradually more
frequent.the oracles of apollo grew
very rich as a result of this and
their fame and influence spread over
large areas.they became as powerful
as the state they were effective in
shaping the destinies of persons and
communities and particularly in
politics where they played a very
important role,they very often
caused wrong decisions to be taken.
Pausanias states that the apollo
temple at Didyma had been built
before the Grek colonization(10th
century BC9.ıt is believed in the
light of this existence of Didyma,like
that of Miletus and Priene goes back
to the 2nd millennium BC.
One learns from Herodotus that valuable
votive offerings were presented to
the temple by King Necho of Egypt at
the end of the 7 th century BC and
King croesus of Lydia in the 6 th
century BC.
It is believed that the construction of the
Archaic temple was begun in the mid
6th century BC and was completed at
the end of the same century.In the
6th century BC,the Didymaion was
administered by a priestly caste
named Branchids.During this period
which lasted about 100 years,the
temple flourished and went through
its most brilliant era.
It was completely burned and plundred by the
Persians during the battle of Lade,the
priests of the temple were driven to
Susa and the cult statue of Apollo
was taken to Ecbatana.The statue of
Apollo which was dated back to 500
BC,was made by the sculptor Kanachus
of Sicyon and reflects Anatolian-Hittite
characteristics.
The construction of the Hellenistic temple was begun
after the victory of Alexander the
Great over the Persians.However,it
was understtod from the remains that
this Hellenistic temple was not
completed.
The Temple of which the construction was continued
under Emperor Caligula who wanted to
be though of as the god of the
temple and later under hadrian was
never completed.With the alterations
made in the 3rd century AD to
protect from plunder,the temple took
on the apperance of a fortress and
flourished under the reigns of
aurelian and Diocletian.
There are findings which indicate that work was done on the
temple during the reign of Emperor
Julian.
In the beginning of the 5th century AD,Emperor Theodosius had
a church built in the sacred
courtyard.this church which had the
appearance of a three winged
basilica,was destroyed in an
earthquake and later rebuilt with
one wing .
In the 10th century AD,the two-columned hall(Chresmographeion-hall
of the oracle) and the pronaos,which
were used as storage areas,were
greatly damaged in a fire and most
of the marble turned into lime.
After the seljuks and the Mongols conquered the region the temple
was completely abondoned
An Italian traveler who visited Didyma in 1446 records that
the wholw temple was standing,however
at the nd of the 15th century the
temple was completely destroyed by
an earthquake and turned into a heap
of marble.In the later years the
temple was used as quarry and many
of its architectural elements were
used as building material ain the
construction of dwelling and other
buildings by the local people.
EXCAVATIONS:
The first excavation in Didyma were made in 1858
by the English under the direction
of Newton.The area was the Sacred
Road.
In the temple excavations were first begun in
1872 by the French under O Rayet and
A Thomas.the aim was to find the
cult statue of Apollo but at the end
of the work which lasted two years,the
cult statue had not been found.However,it
had been possible to determine the
dimensions of the temple and to
reconstruct its plan.
In order to finf solutions to certain problems
concerning the temple and its
surroundings,excavations were begun
again in 1962,this time for the
German Institute of Archaology under
the supervision of R.Naumann.
