Abstract:

The so-called Hadrian's Temple is one of the most famous monuments in the ancient city of Ephesus (Turkey) and occupies a prominent location in the western section of Curetes Street, one of the chief thoroughfares of the site. This paper explains the on-site conditions for creating an up-to-date architectural documentation including three-dimensional digital scan data of the temple and also discusses the different 3D surface scanning systems which were employed for this task: fringe projection and time of flight laser scanning based on phase shifting. With respect to the required resolution and the scale of the documentation both methods are ideally suited to digitally record certain areas of the Temple. Furthermore, this paper puts a focus on how both types of 3D scan data can be combined in a final 3D model within specific postprocessing steps. The scanning results as well as the virtual reconstruction of Hadrian's Temple will be presented in this paper.

Key Words: Archaeological Documentation, Hadrian's Temple in Ephesus, 3D Scanning, Virtual Reconstruction

Introduction

A project currently conducted at the Austrian Archaeological Institute and funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF Project P20947-G02) includes the so-called Hadrian's Temple (Fig. 1) - located in the western section of Curetes Street. Its building type is essentially a variation of the tetrastyle prostylos temple layout, with an oblong pronoaos or front hall and a larger main room. The street facade is formed by two pillars anchoring the axis of the antae and two regular columns between them. The small Temple which was re-erected in 1957/58 is one of the most famous monuments in Ephesus (Turkey). Since its discovery more than 50 years have passed but a systematic study and publication of the arrangement of building remains are not available yet.

Although the original interpretation - a Temple of Emperor Hadrian - is now widely rejected, questions about chronological function and details of reconstruction are widely and often controversially discussed by researchers, and remain unresolved. In the framework of the project currently conducted at the Austrian Archaeological Institute, a detailed study of the construction history as well as archaeological research is being carried out for the first time.