2022/06/21 by Thür, Hilke
paper · doi:10.25364/26.44:2021.21
The existence of a mouseion in Ephesus, to which also belonged a medical school, is known from numerous inscriptions that were built into the Church of Mary as reused ashlars. Since a previous building dating from the Imperial era can be ruled out for them, the neighboring harbour gymnasium is primarily predestined as the location of a mouseion. Its palaestra had two large exedrae, the ‚marble hall‘ and the north exedra. The latter is designated as a two-storey lavish library by means of alternating book and statue niches. Due to the library, strikingly deep peristyle halls without central supports and other rooms suitable as lecture and banquet halls, the university facility of a mouseion could have been well housed in the palaestra of the harbour gymnasium.