Florence Gantenbein
The Greek city of Ephesos was among the largest cities of the ancient world. Located on the west coast of Asia minor with access to the Aegean Sea as well as to overland routes, the city of the goddess Artemis Ephesia flourished in trade and was appointed capital of the Roman province of Asia in the Imperial Period. It was no surprise, then, that the metropolis became an economic hub of the Empire and was home to people from various cultic-religious, socioeconomic, and ethnic backgrounds.
Among them were Christ-followers, to which recent scholarship has attested a remarkable plurality of interpretations of what it meant to identify as “Christian” within an urban Greco-Roman setting. Based on epigraphical evidence, socio-historical reconstructions, and early Christian literature, the Ephesian project focuses on the city’s record and portrayal of women in “public” offices and spaces in Ephesos and especially among residents who worshiped Jesus Christ.
