Everything about The Pergamon Altar totally explained
The
Pergamon Altar is a magnificently opulent structure originally built in the
2nd century BC in the
Ancient Greek city of
Pergamon (modern day
Bergama in
Turkey) in north-western
Anatolia, 25.74
kilometers (16
miles) from the
Aegean Sea.
It has long been assumed that the temple was dedicated to
Zeus. The altar appears to be mentioned in the
Book of Revelation, : "In Pergamos where Satan's Throne is".; more firmly, the only lengthy reference to it in Antiquity is in the
Liber Memorialis of Ampelius
(8.14)
, where it's described as "a large marble altar, forty feet high with a great many sculptures, among which a Battle of the Giants."
Some fragments from the frieze (the back view of a Giant, probably from
Worksop Manor, and a dead giant, found at
Fawley Court have been identified), perhaps collected by
William Petty, were part of
Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel's collection of Antiquities at
Arundel House,
Strand, London, but rejected, as too weathered, for inclusion in the gift to the
Ashmolean Museum. However, the main excavation was carried out in two campaigns, in 1879 and 1904, and shipped out of the Ottoman Empire by the German archaeological team led by
Carl Humann; it was reconstructed in the
Pergamon Museum in
Berlin, built in part to receive it, from 1910, where it can be seen alongside other monumental structures such as the
Market Gate of Miletus and the
Ishtar Gate from
Babylon.
The Altar has a 113
metre (371
feet) long sculptural
frieze depicting the
gigantomachy, or struggle of the gods and the giants. "the frieze is composed of a sequence of isolated, tightly-knit and self-contained groups and figures" each unit assigned to one workshop. Many inscriptions on the lower moulded margin identify the sculptor responsible and his city.
The date of construction
The Pergamene Altar, which consisted of a stepped square podium (remaining in situ,
illustration, right) and an
Ionic colonnade, synthesized in an innovative way two features of
Ionian architecture and cult practice: the monumental open-air altar block raised on a
podium, with Egyptian precedents, combined for the first time with features of the Ionic funerary monument or
heroon of heroic ancestor-cult— the peristyle raised on a high podium. It forms the traditional fixed point against which the chronology of Hellenistic sculpture styles has been based. Unfortunately the date of the Altar isn't secure; its two friezes (
illustration, left) differ in their stylistic character, an anomaly that has been explained on the basis of their presumed chronological difference of twenty years (180-160 BCE). When the initial excavations were made, the chronology of Hellenistic pottery types hadn't yet been established. Another excavation in 1961 yielded some more ceramic material, which, if they're interpreted as downdating the altar's first construction to ca. 165 BC, would associate it with Eumenes II's victories against
Galatia in 167-166. Further test trenches in 1994 yielded yet more ceramic fragments, which were dated to just after 172 BC, which would associate with the date of the recovery of Eumenes II from a reported assassination attempt at Delphi that almost cost him his life. Prevailing cautious opinion leaves its construction date open. Construction of the monument may have started as early as ca. 160 BC.
Interpreting the Gigantomachy frieze
Due to the pedantic nature of Hellenistic art, it has been theorized that the program of the external frieze of the Great Altar, which only partially survives, was deeply scholastic. The library at
Pergamon was second only to
Alexandria in the ancient world, and scholars such as Pergamon's own
Krates of Mallos were probably commissioned to collaborate on its design. The original interpretation of
Carl Robert and
Otto Puchstein divided the four sides of the great altar's frieze into the realms of the
Olympians (east), water and earth gods (west), celestial/light gods (south) and gods of night and constellations (north). Robert and Puchstein drew on three sources for their interpretation:
Hesiod's
Theogony,
Bibliotheke, by the pseudo-Apollodorus and, for the north frieze,
Phainomena by
Aratos.
The interpretation that's currently most accepted is from Erika Simon's 1975
Pergamon und Hesiod, which draws exclusively on Hesiod's Theogony for a reading of the Great Altar. According to Simon, the frieze is arranged genealogically, with the descendants of
Ouranos and of
Ge, the
Titans and
Olympians, on the South and East friezes, respectively. On the left portion of the West frieze begin the descendants of
Pontos, deities associated with water, who curl around to the right portion of the North frieze. Lastly are the descendants of
Nyx, associated with darkness, mortality, and fate, who occupy the central portion of the North Frieze.
There are some inconsistencies with Simon's interpretation, such as the presence of
Dione, mother of
Aphrodite, who didn't exist in Hesiod's Theogony but was instead a
Homeric character. A more recent yet less respected interpretation by
Michael Pfanner asserts that
Nyx is in fact
Persephone, as shown by the nearby presence of a
pomegranate flower. In any event, of the near-hundred figures on the frieze surrounding the Great Altar, only fourteen have both name and position confirmed by surviving inscriptions; these include
Athena and
Ge (east),
Aphrodite and
Dione (north),
Triton and a host of
satyrs (west), and
Themis and
Asteria (south). Figures whose inscriptions have not been preserved but who may iconographically be identified beyond a doubt include
Artemis,
Zeus and
Nike (east).
Political use
The Great Altar was probably constructed in the wake of
Eumenes II's military victories over his opponents in the eastern
Mediterranean and the mainland of
Asia Minor. Pergamon sought to cultivate an image of itself as the inheritor of Athen's cultural and political legacy over the Greek-speaking world—Athens had fallen from primacy in the fifth century BCE, and no city-state had risen to replace it. Pergamene building projects aimed at this goal were extensive and included the sponsorship of monuments on the distant
Acropolis and other Greek city-states in Asia Minor. The gigantomachy frieze on the Great Altar bolsters these claims by making direct reference both to the
Parthenon at
Athens and Attalid naval victories over
Hannibal of Carthage. Most significantly, the extensive theme of Greek gods defending a natural order against the Giants who represented chaos paralleled the Attalid conception of the Pergamene dynasty as defenders of Greek culture against Gallic barbarians.
On the interior of the great altar is a separate frieze depicting the life of
Telephos, son of
Herakles, whom the ruling
Attalid dynasty associated with their city and utilized to claim descendance from the Olympians and links with mainland Greece. Pergamon, having entered the Greek world much later than their counterparts to the west, couldn't boast the same divine heritage as older city-states, and had to retroactively cultivate their place in the Greek tradition.
The Nazi-era architect
Albert Speer used the Pergamon Altar as the model for the
Zeppelintribüne, 1934-37. The Führer's pulpit was in the center of the
tribune. After
World War II the frieze reliefs were translocated to the
Hermitage Museum, ostensibly as a compensation for damage inflicted by the German invaders on Soviet museums. At the behest of
Nikita Khrushchev, the frieze reliefs were returned to
East Germany, together with the entire collection of the
Dresden Gallery, in 1956.
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