Gateway to the Temple of Artemis, Jerash · Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Propylaea Artemisii

Propylaea of the Sanctuary of Artemis

MonumentArabia Petraea · Jerash, JordanBuilt 150 CE

Not standing in 117 CE

About

A dedicatory inscription dates this monumental gateway to 150 CE under the governor Attidius Cornelianus. Three doorways opened off the Cardo onto a stair of seven flights of seven steps that climbed to the goddess's terrace. The processional route behind it ran more than 400 metres back from a bridge over the wadi. It postdates the 117 CE snapshot by a generation, and its carved door frames still stand nearly full height.

What happened here

It was put up to be argued with. Public monuments carry an inscription at eye height naming who paid, what for, and by whose authority, because being read is the whole return on the investment. People meet at them, give directions by them, and shelter under them. Children climb them. The bronze fittings are stolen often enough that they are re-attached with lead. On anniversaries the base is garlanded and the local council makes a short speech nobody listens to. Monuments also date the town for you: a run of them along one street shows which families were rising in which decade, and which ones stopped. When a family falls out of favour, the name is chiselled out and the stone is quietly reused.

In ancient writing

Anonymous, Greek dedicatory inscription of the Artemis propylaea, Gerasa dated 150 CE
Names Attidius Cornelianus, legate under Antoninus Pius, as patron of the gateway.