More exhibitions about Alexander the Great this year

It is hard to understand how after so many years of waiting, we are suddenly flooded with one exhibition about Alexander the Great after the other!

It all started last year with the magnificent exhibition Alexander der Grosse und die Öffnung der Welt at the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum (REM) in Mannheim (for the full story, please read Alexander the Great Exhibition in Mannheim) and which has meanwhile moved to the Canal de Isabel II in Madrid under the title Exposición Alejandro Magno. El encuentro con Oriente, running till May 3, 2011.

Then it was Amsterdam’s turn with The Immortal Alexander the Great at the Hermitage Museum (for my full story, please read The Immortal Alexander the Great. The Hermitage Museum in Amsterdam) with in parallel the smaller exhibition at the Allard Pierson Museum, called Alexander’s Heritage – The Greeks in Egypt (for my full story, please read Alexander’s Legacy. Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam). Both exhibitions can still be visited till March 20, 2011.

Meanwhile two more exhibitions have been announced for this year. Fasten your seatbelt!

The next event will be held from April 7 till August 29, 2011 at the Ashmolan Museum in Oxford, UK, with the exhibition Hercules to Alexander: the Legend of Macedonia. Exceptionally certain artifacts from the Museum of Pella, Alexander’s hometown, that have never left the country will be on display, among which the head of young Alexander.

In the fall, the Louvre will open a special Alexander exhibition, Au royaume d'Alexandre le Grand, la Macédoine antique. Strangely enough there is no further information available on the internet site of the Louvre as yet, but the news has appeared in several newspapers and on the internet. So, make space in your agenda for this event some time between October 2011 and January 2012.

Well, I suppose this should be enough to keep us out of trouble for a while. My own impressions about these last two exhibitions will be published in time, of course, that is as soon I have visited the exhibitions in Oxford and in Paris.

Alexander the Great in Egypt. Lecture of 24 November 2010

I attended this fascinating lecture about Alexander the Great in Egypt. It was given by Prof. Olaf Kaper at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. He had my undivided attention since he has been working on the site of Siwah for several years, and he managed to give me the information I wasn't aware of before.

He started introducing Alexander the Great with his itinerary from Pella across the Hellespont, mentioning the battlefields of Granicus and Issus and the siege of Tyre and Gaza until he arrived in Pelusium, his first city in Egypt. From here, he went to Memphis, the capital of Egypt in his days, where he received a delegation from Cyrene that brought him horses among their gifts. When I was in Cyrene (now in Libya), I remember how their horses in antiquity were praised for their stamina, especially on a battlefield, so it felt like meeting up with old friends. The speaker speculated that this may have been an invitation for Alexander to visit Cyrene, a Greek colony at that time. In any case, it has to be clarified whether Alexander was heading for Cyrene or already for Siwah when he left Memphis for the northern coastline when he chose the location to build Alexandria. He must have traveled along the mainstream of the Nile to Naucratis, another Greek city that lived off the commerce with the Egyptian hinterland, before turning westward. 

The choice for the location of Alexandria is, geographically speaking, excellent, with the natural outline of a harbor and an inland lake with fresh water. Strangely enough, I heard from Richard Miles on BBC that these waters were brackish, a huge mistake of Alexander. It would have been Ptolemy's doing to build a 30 km long canal to the Nile and appropriate underground cisterns to provide the necessary water for the city! I can't believe Alexander would make such a mistake, for whoever in his right mind would found a city where there is no water? Certainly not Alexander! Besides, the cisterns shown in this documentary looked Roman to me. Back to the lecture, though, we are shown a few pictures with temple remains of Paraetonium, another Greek colony on the Mediterranean, from where Alexander turns south towards Siwah – leaving Cyrene for what it was.

Olaf Kaper then draws a comparison and parallel between the Temple of Zeus-Ammon in Cyrene, built in Greek style (note that this temple in Cyrene is larger than the Parthenon in Athens!), and the Temple of Ammon-Zeus in Siwah, built in Egyptian style. Yet the temple of Siwah shows several Greek characteristics, like the intermittent use of large and small stones in the walls and the half-Doric columns at the entrance, for instance. He assumes that Greek architects from Cyrene were hired to build the Siwah temple. Then follow a couple of views of the empty desert landscape, a stretch of 300 kilometers which Alexander and his close companions covered on horseback in eight days, getting lost a couple of times, as we know… Then there are some great pictures of the Siwah oasis, which turns out to be more than 60 km wide! I had no idea of the size! 

We know that Alexander entered the Temple of Siwah alone, but now I'm told that the temple was used only to ask the question(s) to the god, whereas the answer(s) was(were) given in the temple on the opposite hill! The announcements there were a public affair, so Alexander's entourage must have heard the god's answers, although they may not have known the questions … There was a holy road connecting both hills of which little or nothing remains today. The temple on top of the hill across the temple of Siwah itself is almost entirely gone, except for a few low walls. They were relatively complete until the end of the 19th century when the local governor decided to blow them up to use the stones for his own house. Yet, don't know where that was or is …

I also learned something new about the picture of Zeus with the ram's horns. It seems that this custom was born in Cyrene for Ammon-Zeus (Ammon, the Libyan god, is spelled with double mm, while the Egyptian Amon is written with one m). The idea has traveled from Cyrene to Egypt and has reached Alexander in the process. When I later returned to the Hermitage Museum, I noticed a coin of the “old” Ammon-Zeus with horns that looked something like these examples: 

          

And there is more exciting news, at least for me. When Alexander left Siwah, he traveled East towards the Nile along a known road, which he was told was shorter. That road runs from one oasis to the next. In the second oasis after Siwah, archaeologists have recently discovered a Greek Temple dedicated to Alexander with several inscriptions and pictures related to the great man! Unbelievable and unexpected. 

My knowledgeable speaker also mentions Alexander's instructions to rebuild the "bark" area of the temples of Karnak and Thebe, in fact, the sacred inner area of the temple that held the bark in which the god was carried around on heydays. He also had beautiful photographs of some walls in Karnak where hieroglyphic inscriptions referred to King Philip Arrhidaeus. I have no idea why he is being mentioned here, and I forgot to ask Olaf Kaper… sorry. 

And to conclude, Olaf Kaper warmly recommends the book Sunset Oasis by Bahaa Taher, a contemporary story in the oasis of Siwah and gives an excellent idea of the location. So more reading material is to be put on my wish list!

From Boy to King, Alexander the Great: a trip you shouldn't miss!

After running his Alexander the Great tour in Turkey for several years now (In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great), Peter Sommer is organizing an entirely new one in Greece this year: From Boy to King, led this time by the knowledgeable Michael Metcalfe.

It will be a unique opportunity to explore Alexander’s homeland, starting in Pella where he was born, and visiting Aigai where the old Macedonian Palace once stood with the theater where his father, King Philip II, was murdered in 336 BC and young Alexander was crowned King of Macedonia.

As always, Peter Sommer makes sure to stop at the places that played the most important role in Alexander’s life. There are for instance Mieza where Aristotle taught young Alexander and his companions; Stagira the city of Aristotle’s birth; the battlefield of Chaeronea where young Alexander annihilated the Sacred Theban Band in a cavalry charge in Philip’s left wing; Thebes that was besieged by the Macedonians and razed to the ground by Alexander; Olynthos where King Philip lost an eye, and the city of Crenides which Philip renamed Philippi after taking possession of the gold and silver mines; Dion where Alexander feasted and made offerings to the gods before setting out to Asia.

The tour wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the sanctuary of Delphi that was consulted by Alexander; Olympia where a grand tholos was erected by King Philip with life-size statues of himself and his family (including Alexander); Athens, which Alexander most certainly has visited; and Corinth where Philip was appointed hegemon (leader) of the incomparable League of all Greek States, a title which Alexander took over after his death.

It is approximately a three-week round trip that I would warmly recommend to those who are interested in Alexander the Great or who would like to get some insight into this fascinating and ever-captivating historical figure. For full details, please click on Peter Sommer’s link In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great. From Boy to King.

For 2013, this trip has been updated to The Birth of a Legend.

Historical Sources in Translation, Alexander the Great by W. Heckel and J.C. Yardley

Historical Sources in Translation, Alexander the Great by W. Heckel and J.C. Yardley (ISBN 0631228217) is a true gem, not for those looking for a historical account of Alexander’s life but for whoever just wants to grasp a moment in time. Heckel and Yardley have researched many antiquity sources to present them to us in a handy succession of excerpts. What a job! Yet this is so terribly appealing if you are looking for that one date or event in Alexander’s thrilling life.

We know that his secretary, Eumenes of Cardia, kept official records while Alexander was still alive. Only fragments of those records have survived, and they seem to present a rather dull account of daily business with little military or political information. For that part, we have to refer to Callisthenes of Olynthus, but one may wonder how much truth there is in the propaganda he wrote to plead the Hellenistic cause and to please the Greeks at home.

More realistic are probably the accounts of Nearchus, Alexander’s general who commanded his fleet sailing from the Indus to Babylon, and those of Ptolemy, another of his generals who ruled over Egypt and lived to a blessed old age. But then there is Onesicritus of Astypalaea, who made the voyage with Nearchus and had his own version of this experience. These men all wrote while Alexander was still alive or shortly after that. Better known is Cleitarchus, who made use of texts from both Onesicritus and Nearchus, but in the end, it seems that most of the workable elements come from two men, Ptolemy and Aristobulus who told their version late in life - which makes us wonder how much they genuinely remember or believe to remember.

In any case, we are left with five extant historians of Alexander, which Heckel and Yardley use in their book. They are Diodorus Siculus, Curtius Rufus, Plutarch (later Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus), Arrian of Nicomedia, and Justin (Marcus Junianius Justinus), who summarized the work of Pompeius Trogus that is mostly lost.

In addition, Heckel and Yardley also have searched for relevant information from other authors. This list is a long one, and I won’t go into details but just name the sources: Aelian, Aristotle, Athenaeus of Naucratis, Cassius Clio, Cicero, Frontinus, Livy, Lucian, Pausanias, Pliny the Elder, Polyaenus, Polybius of Megalopolis, Stephanus of Byzantium, Strabo, Suetonius, and Valerius Maximus – i.e., geographers, tacticians, orators, and rhetoricians. Additionally, Heckel and Yardley consulted the Alexander Romance, The Metz and Heidelberg Epitomes, and the Itinerarium Alexandri (Itinerary of Alexander) of an unknown writer from about 340 AD.

It is evident that both Professors did their homework. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to investigate and explore Alexander’s character more in-depth. It is such a handy and pleasant tool to work with!

Also available as an ebook.