The Ephesian Artemis and the interpretation of her image

The Ephesian Artemis and the Interpretation of Her Image, by Lynn R. LiDonnici, published in the Harvard Theological Review in 1992, is a peer reviewed scholarly article reexamining the famous multi-breasted cult statue of Artemis at Ephesus, arguing against the long standard interpretation that the rounded protrusions on her chest represent breasts symbolizing fertility, and proposing instead that they may represent another kind of ritual ornament entirely. Its strength is close art historical and archaeological engagement with the actual surviving statue types and ancient textual descriptions, directly challenging an interpretation many earlier and popular accounts simply repeated without reexamining the evidence. Its limit is that LiDonnici's own alternative identification remains one contribution to a genuinely unresolved scholarly debate, not a settled replacement consensus, so a claim asserting definitively what the protrusions represent, in either direction, overstates how settled the question actually is among specialists.