The Seven Sleepers, also known in Christendom as Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, and in Islam as Aṣḥāb al-Kahf, lit. Companions of the Cave, is a late antique Christian and later also Islamic legend. The Christian legend speaks about a group of youths who hid inside a cave outside the city of Ephesus around AD 250 to escape Roman persecutions of Christians and emerged many years later. The Qur'anic version of the story appears in Sura 18 (18:9–26).
Illustration from the Menologion of Basil II
Decius orders the walling in of the Seven sleepers From a 14th-century manuscript.
A 19th century German votive painting of the Seven Sleepers. The writing says Bittet für uns Ihr hl. sieben Schläfer (Pray for us, Holy Seven Sleepers).
Roman headstones misinterpreted as to show the Seven Sleepers, in a Church in Rotthof, Germany named after the legend
Ephesus was a city in Ancient Greece on the coast of Ionia, 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in the 10th century BC on the site of Apasa, the former Arzawan capital, by Attic and Ionian Greeks. During the Classical Greek era, it was one of twelve cities that were members of the Ionian League. The city came under the control of the Roman Republic in 129 BC.
The Library of Celsus in Ephesus
Site of the Temple of Artemis in the town of Selçuk, near Ephesus.
Street scene at the archeological excavations at Ephesus.
Electrum coin from Ephesus, 620–600 BC. Obverse: Forepart of stag. Reverse: Square incuse punch.
