(S/HE V4 N1-2 Book Review) Carla Ionescu’s She Who Endures: The Culty and Iconography of Artemis of Euphesus by Kaarina Kailo, Ph.D.

[Editor’s Note: This was included in the journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Vol 4 No 1-2, 2025).]

She Who Endures: The Cult and Iconography of Artemis of Ephesus

Ionescu’s recent study of Artemis Ephesia is a much needed contribution in her field of study and of relevance also to other feminist disciplines. In this most recent of her series of books on Artemis, she goes into great detail and depth regarding the many variants and vagaries of this great Goddess starting with her pre-Greek origins and widespread influence. The black Artemis of Naples and Virgin Mary are also significant topics in this investigation of ancient mythology and its traces in modern life.

This detailed study is relevant for anyone interested in gender, ritual, sacred space, the presence of the past in today’s spirituality, and the transformation of pagan beliefs to Christian religion. In all the above themes, the author provides an excellent case study of these intersections through the evolution of Artemis Ephesia. Ionescu’s general thesis is that thanks to the deep cultural embedding, Artemis’s influence remained resilient and strong even after the patriarchal, Greco-Roman appropriation of the Greek Pantheon. What is more, the book is also an expression of the author’s personal spiritual commitment and experience which makes it more grounded and compelling than mere academic theory. She has devoted her energy, body, mind and spirit to The Artemis Mapping Project, a pilgrimage in disguise, a global undertaking that seeks to map every known temple dedicated to her across the Mediterranean, Anatolia, and beyond. What began for her as a scholarly pursuit ended up as something far more intimate and sacred.

Among her many in-depth depictions of Artemis, Ionescu presents the thesis that the goddess should not be regarded as merely a Greek “virgin huntress” but as a figure whose roots go far back into Anatolian / pre-Hellenic traditions. The study reveals the extent of the Goddess’ impact across the Mediterranean and she absorbs geographic and temporal influences instead of erasing their traces, wearing masks and changing names, walking so to speak through fire to reach her modern followers, like Inonescu. First, the author traces the connection between Kybele as the deep Anatolian matrix of mother-deity worship, and Artemis, showing how the latter emerges in multiple overlapping forms. From Kybele, Artemis inherits the power of motherhood, the symbol of the lion, and the immovable throne. From the Greek Artemis, she draws the role of protector, midwife, and liminal guardian. From Crete, through the figures of Britomartis and Diktynna, she receives her mobility, her mountain lineage, and her associations with the net, the bow, and the wild.

As a scholar of bear mythology, I am keen to add to this that the influence of Artemis in her many variants reached far beyond the Middle East even to Finland and Russia, as witnessed by many goddess figures among Finno-Ugric peoples. I refer here to the Permian Kyldysin with her bear feet and her central authoritarian position among Slavic and Finno-Ugric peoples, Zolataja Baba, the golden woman and the Finnish Hongotar-Mielikki. The latter is a bear goddess, protector of hunters and of game and a Great Mother guaranteeing the bear’s rebirth. She is clearly related to Artemis, especially as a bear mother. Where Ionescu refers to the importance of honey and milk, prophecy and cosmic midwifery as part of Artemis’ shape-shifting identity, I would also evoke the Irish-Celtic Brigit. Other bear goddesses evoking Greco-Roman variants also include Hrtkos, Arctos, Ursula, Ursule, Dea Arteo, Andarta, Ardwinna, Ariadne, Artio, Aveta, Mielikki, Osmotar, Kallisto, Panagia Arkoudiotissa” or “Our Lady of the Bear,” to mention some of the cross-cultural variants. I look forward to hearing about them more in Ionescu’s book series. In this book, however, Ionescu has decided to limit her study to Ephesus and another major topic, the way Virgin Mary came to carry the Artesimian torch.

In Ionescu’s fertile summary, in Ephesus, all of these evolutionary threads come together. Artemis is Mother, Queen, Mistress of Beasts, Bearer of Light, and Ruler of the First Seat. Her festivals reflect this expansive nature, celebrated monthly, woven into the civic calendar which, she argues, has been deeply felt in the lives of men and women alike for aeons. Laymen consider Artemis’ temple in Ephesos as one of the seven wonders of the world, but Ionescu focuses on what she considers to be another miracle: the success Artemis has had as the ur-Goddess to resist patriarchy and remain a strong icon and symbol for women even today. She is malleable, expansive and layered with a mythic elasticity that allows the Goddess to hold within her the wisdom of Kybele and even the mystery of the Amazons.

To the list of Artemis’ myriad roles, Ionescu adds protector of animals, midwife of birth, punisher of transgression, guardian of liminal spaces, and fierce avenger of the innocent. Furthermore, we learn that Artemis ruled over rites of adolescence and sacred law. Her sanctuaries spread way across the Greek world and way beyond the Middle East. Through her connection to Kybele, the authority of Artemis Ephesus predates the Olympians altogether extending through many layers to the Titan Rhea, and even the vast, life-bearing presence of the Mother Goddess Gaia.

Most interestingly, the Amazons that Ionescu also evokes as having taken refuge in Ephesus and Artemis reflect each other: both are in the author’s view unconstrained by patriarchal norms, both live on the edges of wilderness and civilization, and both command fear and reverence in equal measure. Artemis, however, is reborn again and again in each sanctuary. It is worth noting that the Scandinavian-Norse Freyja-Gullveig likewise refers to a Goddess variant with some of the same attributes in their pagan mode, able always to be reborn despite patriarchal efforts at their erasure. Freyja, related often to Cybele, is clearly a mythic kin of Artemis, something I cannot resist adding to this study and the cross-cultural mythic affinities.

Another aspect of the study is Ionescu’s rigorous comparison of different interpretations given of the Ephesus landmark, the famous statue of the Goddess. Many myths and problematic interpretations seem to have been linked with it and its mysterious symbols. Ionescu ends up identifying them as nothing less than a collection of cosmograms beyond any simple expression of biological maternity. She compares the different interpretations of what were for long believed to be the many breasts as symbols of fertility. The enduring misrepresentation of the Ephesian Artemis as a ‘multi-breasted’ fertility goddess is an unfortunate consequence of later European reinterpretations that bear no basis in Greco-Roman artistic conventions or archaeological evidence. The erroneous classification of Artemis as a ‘mother goddess’ with exaggerated fertility traits has been perpetuated in both academic and popular discourse for centuries: yet none of the Greco-Roman replicas of the original cult statue depict these protrusions with the defining anatomical feature of a breast: a nipple or areola. Of insight and of interest to feminism, the fetishization of Artemis’ form and the theory of “breasts” can be traced to Renaissance and Enlightenment-era thinkers who, unable to conceive of a powerful goddess devoid of maternal or sexual attributes, imposed their own biases onto the ancient artifact.

As demonstrated with convincing arguments, the protrusions adorning the torso of the Artemis cult statues are then not breasts, nor are they representations of bull testicles, acorns, or any other speculative appendage. Ionescu argues that the adornments on Artemis’ chest, referred to as ‘sacred sacks,’ ‘cosmic eggs,’ or ‘swarms of bees,’ served as visual theology, illustrating that all life emanates from the Goddess and that she sustains the natural order, from the wild animals depicted on her skirt to the celestial motifs around her head. Ultimately, the protrusions on Artemis Ephesia’s chest are symbolic elements tied to her role as a divine distributor. We learn that such protrusions were part of an Anatolian visual vocabulary related to divine abundance and cosmic power, rather than biological reproduction. Instead, they can be seen as a powerful intermediary of sacred nourishment and cosmic equilibrium. She elaborates on the symbolism of the bee hive and how having the bee eggs as her protrusions symbolizes that bees were more than just creatures of labor; rather they were conduits of divine wisdom and foresight. The new interpretation of the protrusions as bee eggs is then given as an unmistakable reference to the structured, matriarchal society of the hive. Artemis of Ephesus embodied a distinct spiritual ideology that interwove concepts of fertility, nature, and structured order, much like a beehive itself. The ecological role of bees further enhances their mythological significance. Just as the queen bee ensures the hive’s cohesion through pheromonal communication, Artemis governs the balance between human communities and the untamed natural world. This alignment reinforces the symbolic connection between the queen bee and the goddess’ divine attributes.

Ionescu also addresses the Naples Artemis associated with a dark stone Legacy in the Cult of the Ephesian Goddess. This Artemis, with its black head and limbs, preserves the memory of a “dark” goddess image, even within a later Roman marble copy, reinforcing its connection to the long-standing tradition of dark-stone goddess worship.

 Following the sections that focus on Cybele and the black Artemis of Italy, Ionescu concentrates on Virgin Mary as the Christianized version of the pagan Goddess. In her view, Virgin Mary was not only a transformation of Artemis but much more; she was infused into communal worship and practices reserved for the goddess and awarded these titles because Artemis already held them for hundreds of years before Christianity. In this way, Mary did not overwrite Artemis; rather, she wore her skin cloaking ancient forms in new theological dress, one acceptable to the Christian paradigm. Yet while Artemis plays an independent role in the redemption of her followers, Mary needs Jesus as the anchor to her role as Saviour. We are provided with another in-depth view of Virgin Mary as she has been addressed by different biblical scholars and legends. She shows how Artemis’ presence is echoed through the titles given to Mary: Queen of Heaven, Soteira (Saviour), Parthenos (Virgin), Theotokos (God-bearer). She is found behind the images of bees, milk, honey, cosmic fertility. Thus we find in Virgin Mary the empowering echoes of Artemis, the pagan goddess as Ionescu is able to discard the patriarchal elements applied to the Christianized version of the parthenos virgin. As Christianity became more and more restrictive in worship and belief, Ephesian converts influenced the early Church to amalgamate the characteristics of their ancient virgin goddess, into the new religion’s representations of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God. Consequently, for the author an argument could be made that Christianity and its ‘heroes’ developed not out of a vacuum of spiritual belief, but rather as a result of absorbed historical traditions and ritual practice. Mary’s attributes of purity, virginity, and unwavering chastity, as well as her warmth, nurturing and protection are inherited from the observance and worship of Artemis.

Although I greatly enjoyed Ionescu’s book, I continue, for all that to feel baffled about many aspects of the Greek stories regarding goddesses like Artemis. As the virgin goddess initiating her priestesses, she is described in what to me sound like the most patriarchal ways of punishing the girls for their transgressions in matters of the imposed abstinence and dedication to the divine feminine. They remind me in some legends more of egocentric, narcissistic and controlling patriarchal “heroes” than of everything I have learnt about matriarchal social mores and the respect for personal freedom. Artemis turning Callisto into bear for having been “made pregnant” by Zeus does not sound empowering for non-patriarchal readers. All the jealousy and acts of revenge between the male and female deities strike me as a patriarchal overlay on formerly matriarchal cultures, but this is not addressed. Is this indeed part of the cult of Artemis in the spirit of the many matriarchal societies described by Heide Goettner-Abendroth and others? Is modern matriarchal studies mistaken in painting an idealistic image of peaceful mother-focused societies where this kind of dominating goddess behavior does not seem to fit? There are many unanswered questions regarding Amazons whose “masculated” behavior and warring does not fit the image of peace-oriented and egalitarian cultures. Have they been projectively described through male propaganda as ferocious aggressors whereas they may have been simply good at defending themselves vs male enemies? The same ambivalence touches Artemis at Brauron. Whereas Native women are quite capable of being self-determining “virgins” with many partners, why do the Artemisian initiates need to give up their sexuality? What do we make of such descriptions that strike me as the binary opposite of men in patriarchy also controlling young women’s sexuality? I leave it up to the reader to continue this debate, while concluding as follows.

It is evident that the communal rituals and traditions of worship of the goddess Artemis remained fundamental in the veneration and devotion to Mary. One of the main aspects of fusion, however, is the community itself. The veneration of the feminine ideal, together with the peculiar relationship of Mary and Christ, designated her the Queen of Heaven, and made her the singular candidate to embody the archaic traditions of earlier societies. What we witness in Ephesus is not a passive adoption of a new doctrine, but a strategic spiritual continuity: a people finding a familiar feminine divinity within the unfamiliar system of Christianity, and granting her legitimacy through inherited symbols, rituals, and emotional resonance. But are Artemis and Virgin Mary empowering and fully positive role models since the former, at worst, controls adolescent girls or changes transgressive women into bears while Virgin Mary as the idealized and idolized woman is also made pure by denying her her maternal body and sexuality? I feel ambivalent about these figures that Ionescu feels a strong connection to, but then, are we expecting too much of the mythic herstory? The goddess and the Great Mother are as ambivalent as life and death, and so are we as humans seeking the golden age.

[Editor’s Note: This was included in the journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies (Vol 4 No 1-2, 2025).]

(Meet Mago Contributor) Kaarina Kailo