According to ancient legends, it was here that one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, John the Theologian, was buried, and Saint Mary spent her last years of life. The outskirts of the rural town of Selçuk are full of monuments of ancient architecture, perfectly preserved to this day. The ruins of an entire ancient city Ephesus, which are now a giant archaeological open-air museum, are open to the public. Excavations are still ongoing there. They began in the middle of the 19th century when John Turtle Wood went in search of one of the seven wonders - the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. Ephesus got famous due to the cult of the worship of the Greek goddess of fertility and continues to attract hundreds of thousands of travelers and admirers of ancient history. There are stone witnesses of the events described in the New Testament on these lands. All the unique ancient artifacts discovered during two centuries of excavations can be seen in the spacious halls of Selçuk Museum. Life on the territory of the ancient city of Ephesus originated in the Neolithic period, but the most ancient artifacts found there was pottery dating back to the Bronze Age. The remains of the defensive walls built during the reign of Lysimachus in the 3rd century BC are considered to be the oldest monument on the territory of Ephesus. However, the city reached its peak during the period of the Roman Empire, whose majestic architectural monuments, such as the famous Celsius library and the large marble amphitheater, the Odeon small theatre and the brothel named after Aphrodite, as well as the Temple of Hadrian, pedestals, and fountains can still be seen today. As for the wonderful temple of Artemis: only one column remained. It was restored from numerous fragments. The rest of the columns formed the basis for the construction of St. Sophia Cathedral. Other sculptural fragments of the world-famous temple can be seen in the British Museum, Istanbul Archaeological Museum, and Ephesus Museum.