Alexander and the gods

Alexander took religion very seriously. He respected the gods and made his daily offerings to them according to the Macedonian laws. We may accept that these references to the gods and the omens are part of ancient beliefs. It is, however, challenging for us living in today’s world to understand the role the gods played in antiquity when all major events in life were accompanied by religious ceremonies. It was unthinkable to celebrate a wedding or to organize a burial without the proper rites to the gods.

Nobody really knows what Alexander thought about religion. We don’t even know for sure if he ever believed that his father was Zeus/Ammon and not Philip, as his mother claimed. During his visit to Siwah, he is acknowledged as the son of Amon. The matter is deadly serious and not, as we might assume, a mere recognition that his mother was right. Claiming to be “the son of Zeus/Amon” or being recognized as such sealed his right to this title.

As we mainly concentrate on Alexander’s campaigns with facts and figures, we tend to ignore the role of the gods entirely. However, the king gave thanks to the gods whenever appropriate. He made various offerings before entering the battlefield or celebrating his victories afterward. Such occasions were often followed by expensive banquets and competitions of all kinds.

Almost every single river crossing was accompanied by lavish sacrifices. Many altars were constructed on such sites. The most expensive altars may be those erected at the Hyphasis to mark the border of his empire. These twelve altars, dedicated to the Olympian gods, were indeed out of proportion and were reported to be “as high as the loftiest siege towers and even broader in proportion” (see: Alexander erected twelve altars on the banks of the Hyphasis).

Alexander and his army took these sacrifices and the predictions by the diviners very seriously. What’s more, the troops expected this from their king. Alexander would demonstrate to his army and followers at every step that he acted with divine approval. The one time he worked against the will of the gods was in Babylon, where the soothsayers/ magi advised Alexander not to enter the city. He paid the ultimate price with his life.

Besides the common Olympian gods as Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Dionysus, Alexander honored several heroes. Worth mentioning are Achilles, the Dioscuri, Hector, Heracles, Asclepius, Patroclus, Priam, and Hephaistion. He consulted the gods through the priests and diviners but also listened to local soothsayers and magi.

We have plenty of examples of Alexander funding the construction or reconstruction of temples. When in Ephesos, he offered to cover all costs to rebuild the Temple of Artemis that burnt down the night he was born. In Babylon, the king had ordered the repair of the Temple of Marduk. He took great care to maintain or repair many temples and sanctuaries throughout his empire. He also accepted foreign gods and goddesses, merging them together with similar deities he and his fellow men were familiar with.

According to some sources, the list of Alexander’s offerings to the gods is quite extensive, and the number may be close to 5,000. That is much and much more than one would even consider at first sight.

Greek statues in blasting colors

We still find it difficult to imagine the buildings and statues in Greek and Roman cities in full blasting colors. In an earlier blog, Ancient Greece in full Technicolor, I marveled about the results achieved through sparse reconstructions.  

In recent years, in-depth reconstruction work has been done by the team of Prof. Vinzenz Brinkman. For more than 15 years, they analyzed the pigmentation of antique sculptures using digital methods, whereby the originals were left untouched. New technical photographic techniques using UV-light and –reflectography enabled them to disclose the painted parts of the statues. The chemical and mechanical transformations on the surface, which happened over the centuries, left areas where no pigment had survived. They applied the matching colors on copies of existing statues based on those discoveries. The results are absolutely mind-blowing. 

The earliest results were on display at the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt some 15 years ago, and the collection has traveled around the world ever since. Today, however, the artifacts have returned to Frankfurt, presented in a larger expanded exhibition.  

Since the first exhibition Bunte Götter in 2008, the number of colorized reconstructions has doubled and includes some antique bronzes in colored versions. Over 100 objects from international museum collections can be admired in their “original” colored version. Besides, another sixty artifacts from recent years have been added to the collection, including some pieces from the 19th century. A selection of 22 graphics completes the exhibition. It is a genuine and unique opportunity to submerge oneself in antiquity from an entirely different point of view.  

It is noteworthy that rather than merely coloring their sculptures, the Greeks and Romans managed to expand the formal and narrative structure of the objects.  

The exhibition Bunte Götter – Golden Edition. Die Farben der Antike will run until 30 August 2020 at the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt.

[Pictures from Liebieghaus Museum in Frankfurt]

Flooded area of ancient Smyrna to become open-air museum

Dialogues between archaeologists and government officials are always difficult. That is nothing new, and the situation in Izmir is no exception.

After demolishing an old shopping center to construct a new one in 2016, historical remains were exposed requiring the attention of archaeologists. They discovered an ancient bath complex, a gymnasium, several shops and storage areas dating from the 2nd century AD. In fact, these buildings had been newly built after a major earthquake hit Smyrna in 177 AD.

[Picture from the Hurriyet Daily News]

The Greek orator and author, Publius Aelius Aristides Theodorus, in short Aristides had delivered a great speech just a year earlier that deeply impressed Emperor Marcus Aurelius who was visiting at the time. So, when Smyrna, as Izmir was known in antiquity was destroyed by the said earthquake, Aristides appealed to Marcus Aurelius. His plea was so impressive that enough imperial funds flowed into the reconstruction of the city. In thanks, the people of Smyrna erected a bronze statue of Aristides in the marketplace. It carried the worthy inscription “For his goodness and speeches”.

Thanks to Aristides, we have a perfect picture of Smyrna’s dazzling gymnasiums and many baths, its agoras, theaters, temple sanctuaries, and harbor area.

To save whatever remains of the ancient city, authorities agreed that the ruins should be preserved, but since 2018 the entire project is on hold because of a recurring problem with the groundwater.

As time passed, nothing was done to protect and secure the archaeological site. As a result, the groundwater kept rising, and excessive rainfall raised the water to an even higher level. It is clear that this water table causes physical, chemical and biological degradation of the exposed walls and floors. 

Instead of building a shopping mall, the construction company will now collaborate to protect the site and create an open-air archaeological area that should be completed in August 2020. Maybe we should put a question mark behind the date, I wonder?

Priority should be given to a drainage system to safeguard the site from any future flooding. The constructors have great ideas to cover the mosaic floors with glass panels and by doing so, to protect them from the weather conditions. Such glass panels can only be efficient as long as the groundwater problem is thoroughly solved. Let’s hope it will work out and that this part of Smyrna will soon be accessible for tourists.

Merv, Alexandria Margiana

The origins of Merv seem to go back to Cyrus the Great, who founded the city in the 6th century BC. As Margu, it is mentioned in the Bisutun inscription (see: The Bisutun relief of King Darius I), meaning that it was one of the many satrapies ruled by the Achaemenids.

It is still uncertain whether Alexander took Merv in today’s Turkmenistan, although the area of Margiana became part of his empire. When he was in Central Asia, he may or may not have conquered the city. According to some theories, it was Craterus who founded the town. If this were the case, Alexandria Margiana would be the first and only “Alexandria” founded in Alexander’s absence. A questionable assumption. If Alexander went to Merv, the only plausible time would be while he was in Bactra, in modern Afghanistan. Pending confirmation and further excavations, this question remains unanswered (see: Alexander in Bukhara).

In any case, after the king’s death, Alexandria Margiana became the capital of the Seleucid Empire. It was his son, Antiochus I Soter, who expanded the site and built the fortress of Gyaur Gala. He named it after himself, Antiochia Margiana.

The rulers of the later Graeco-Bactrian Empire, the Parthians, the Kushans, and the Sassanids all recognized the importance of its strategic location. Before the arrival of Islam, Merv was renowned for its Buddhist monasteries and stupas.

Its defensive walls were almost eight kilometers long, fortified by sturdy towers. Through one of the four entrance gates, traders and other visitors would access the clean streets divided into quarters among the branches of the Murghab River and its canals. The principal buildings were mosques and madrasas, libraries, and bathhouses. The marketplace was centrally located and well-organized. Under the Seljuk sultans, Merv was enhanced with a palace and several administrative buildings.

As a significant stopover on the prosperous Silk Road, Merv was a welcome oasis full of gardens and orchards surrounded by richly cultivated lands amidst the barren Karakum Desert. Some sources tell us that around 1150 AD, Merv was the largest city in the world. Merchants from as far as India, Iraq, and China would have crowded the narrow streets and spent the night in one of the many caravanserais. Besides the trade of silk, Merv was also famous for the high-quality cotton that was grown in the nearby fields.

Unfortunately, Genghis Khan razed the city to the ground, killing all its 700,000 inhabitants. The many dams and dykes that supported an efficient network of canals and reservoirs were forever destroyed. Genghis Khan and his Mongols annihilated this lifeblood so thoroughly that Merv never truly recovered, in spite of the numerous attempts to rebuild and resettle the city over the centuries.

By 1888, Merv was entirely abandoned. George Curzon, who was the Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, visited the remains at that time. He describes the city as “Very decrepit and sorrowful looked those wasting walls of sun-dried clay, these broken arches and tottering towers; but there is magnificence in their very extent and a voice in the sorrowful squalor of their ruin.”

Merv today exposes, in fact, four separate walled cities. The oldest settlement from the Achaemenid times is Erkgala, whereas the Hellenistic and Sassanid capital Gyaur Gala is built around the Erkgala fort. The Abbasid/Seljuk city is Soltangala, and the largest as it sits on the edge of Gyaur Gala. Just south lies the smallest town, Abdyllahangala, which was founded by the descendants of Tamerlane. 

The archaeologists are clearly facing a daunting task. A joint team from Turkmenistan and the UK worked here from 1992 to 2000. A year later, a new collaboration was started between the Turkmen authorities and the University College London. It will be fascinating to learn if they ever retrieve some relics of Alexander’s short passage in the area.

[Pictures from The Guardian]

The hidden Temple of Artemis in Syracuse

Today’s visitor of Syracuse and more specifically to the island of Ortygia, will stare in awe at the Duomo with its Sicilian-Baroque façade rebuilt in 1728-1754 after several earthquakes had damaged the Norman entrance. The true treasure, however, is hidden inside as the entire church is built in and around the Doric columns of the Temple of Athena from the 5^th century BC (see: Syracuse rivaled with Athens to be the most powerful city).

What few people know it that hidden underneath the adjacent Palazzo Senatorio or City Hall we can find the remains of an older temple dedicated to Artemis. While this Ionian temple was still under construction (no remains of the roof were ever found), it was destroyed after the Battle of Himera in 480 BC (see: The Battle of Himera, a major confrontation). This grand Artemision was only discovered in the 1960s when reinforcement works to the City Hall were carried out.

It appeared that the temple was inspired by the famous Temple of Artemis from Ephesus (see: Alexander’s presence in Ephesus). During the 15^th century a church of San Sebastian arose on the spot and the remains of that church are now mixed with those of the Artemision together with relics from an early Greek Sacred area and from prehistoric and proto-historic times.

Although much of the Artemision was used as construction material for the Temple of Athena, enough was still standing in 70 BC when Cicero visited the place and left us an interesting description of this temple.