<P> Modern archaeology cannot confirm Callimachus's Amazons, but Pausanias's account of the site's antiquity seems well - founded . Before World War I, site excavations by David George Hogarth identified three successive temple buildings . Re-excavations in 1987--88 confirmed that the site was occupied as early as the Bronze Age, with a sequence of pottery finds that extend forward to Middle Geometric times, when a peripteral temple with a floor of hard - packed clay was constructed in the second half of the 8th century BC . The peripteral temple at Ephesus offers the earliest example of a peripteral type on the coast of Asia Minor, and perhaps the earliest Greek temple surrounded by colonnades anywhere . </P> <P> In the 7th century BC, a flood destroyed the temple, depositing over half a meter of sand and flotsam over the original clay floor . Among the flood debris were the remains of a carved ivory plaque of a griffin and the Tree of Life, apparently North Syrian, and some drilled tear - shaped amber drops of elliptical cross-section . These probably once dressed a wooden effigy (xoanon) of the Lady of Ephesus, which must have been destroyed or recovered from the flood . Bammer notes that though the site was prone to flooding, and raised by silt deposits about two meters between the 8th and 6th centuries, and a further 2.4 m between the sixth and the fourth, its continued use "indicates that maintaining the identity of the actual location played an important role in the sacred organization". </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (July 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (July 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr>

How many times was the temple of artemis rebuilt