An otherwise unknown head of Alexander the Great?

Among the huge amount of debris and parts of statues that have been unearthed in Pergamon, modern Bergama in Turkey, there is this colossal marble head. It probably was decorating the largest room of the upper terrace of the Gymnasium.

[Picture from the MET]

Best known in Pergamon is its unique altar dedicated to Zeus that has been entirely moved to the Altes Museum, Staatliche Museen in Berlin (see: Pergamon is simply huge). The altar is a statement in its own right and leaves little or no space for other details, whatever their size, condition or beauty.

One of such an odd artifact is the partial remainder of a head, probably designed to be the central figure of a circular medallion of approximately 1.2 meters in diameter. It seems to be one of kings that ruled over the Pergamon Empire since similar heads once decorated the walls of this Gymnasium. It is not impossible either that it represents Alexander the Great. Why not? Time-wise the marble fits the 2^nd century BC, but that is not certain either.

Pergamon is simply huge

Pergamon, whose first settlement goes back to the 8th century BC, lies on a strategic hill above the modern city of Bergama in western Turkey. The location was so well chosen that even Alexander the Great did not consider attacking this fortified city but marched instead around it with the purpose of isolating it. After his death, his general Lysimachus by then King of Thracia chose Philetairos of Pergamon to secure his share of Alexander’s treasury. As can be expected, this Philetairos used it in 281 BC to found his own kingdom. Twenty years later, he left his realm to his nephew Eumenes I who ruled from 263 to 241 BC. After Eumenes, this splendid city fell into the hands of his heir, Attalus I (241-197 BC). The Attalid rulers were allies of Rome, much to the discontent of Philip V and Perseus of Macedonia, who both fought over this wealthy territory during the three Macedonian Wars. Thanks to their support against the Seleucids, the Attalids were rewarded with extended possessions in Asia Minor. By 188 BC, Pergamon and, with it, the Pergamon Empire had grown considerably and outshone all others, certainly as far as Hellenistic art was concerned. The last Attalid ruler, Attalus III, surrendered Pergamon to the Romans in 133 BC, thus becoming the capital of their Provincia Asia.

During one of my very first and not too brightest guided trips, I sat on the bus pounding over the brilliant history of Pergamon, trying to visualize Alexander's approach. We maneuvered through the narrow old and wide modern streets of Bergama till we reached a smaller road that rose up towards the four-kilometer-long city wall above the steep slopes. Square bulges overgrown with grass revealed that there were still a lot of stone blocks hidden there awaiting excavation. This impressive wall is the work of Eumenes II (197-159 BC), who wanted to build an Acropolis that would even outshine that of Athens – nothing less. 

The size of Pergamon is simply huge. My misfortune was that I had to follow my unforgiving guide, who just marched on, ignoring the streets, columns, and arches on our way – a very frustrating experience. It’s hard to get my bearings, maybe because excavations since 1875 were done by German archaeologists who like to leave things the way they find them unless they can take them apart as they did with the Altar of Zeus to bring the pieces to their museums. It comes as quite a shock to me when my guide points out the barren space once occupied by that very altar in the landscape. Not a single hint is left of that once so proud building! Such a pity since it is considered to be one of the most beautiful altars ever built and a very unusual one as well since it never served as a crepidoma to any temple at all. This enormous marble offer table dating from 180 BC stood on a huge plinth that also supported the double row of Ionic columns. The Pergamon Museum in Berlin houses this great altar, and the visitor has to use all his imagination to mentally transpose that building to this poor wind-stricken hill.

I give up trying to locate where I am, running after my guide and secretly vowing to return one day. I am impressed by the Temple of Trajan, which was completed after his death by Emperor Hadrian, measuring 68 x 58 meters and easily recognizable by its Corinthian columns, with an extra colonnade running all around the outside of the temple.

The Library, on the contrary, needs some guesswork. In antiquity, it was one of the richest in the world, and its 200,000 parchment scrolls went to Alexandria as Marc Antony’s wedding gift to his Queen Cleopatra. I think it is worth mentioning that until that time, all writing was done on papyri. It was only when Egypt decided to stop its exports that alternative solutions had to be found. It was here in Pergamon that the idea was born to use sheep and goat skins instead. These hides were smoothened with pumice and cut into handy sheets. That is how our parchment, the name borrowed from the city of Pergamon, was born. A strange paradox of life to see parchments enter Egypt, the land of the papyri.

After passing a large marble column carrying the symbols of Asclepius, i.e., two intertwined snakes facing each other across a wheel, I reach the Asclepion Complex. It was believed that since snakes shed their skins to be ‘reborn”, the patients would shed their ailments and illnesses to recover their health. The Asclepion was founded by the great healer Galen (Aeleus Galenus), who was born in Pergamon in 130 BC, where he studied medicine. Asclepius, the Greek god of health and medicine, was known since the 4th century BC, and Galen made great use of his knowledge not only as a doctor but also as a psychologist, although the very word did not yet exist. Galen had a thorough knowledge of human anatomy, physiology, and neurology. He had acquired his knowledge by studying wounded gladiators at the healing shrine of Asclepius. As the patients were led through a long vaulted corridor that had at regular intervals circular openings in the ceiling to let in the light, he may have resorted to the therapeutic use of water and music. Water from a nearby source runs down the stairs and follows the entire length of the corridor wall - the longest such passageway I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure if the echo under these vaults was beneficial to the patients and if I can believe my guide, who suggested that the patients were drugged with opium in their drinking water, meaning that by the time they reached the end of the corridor, they were so confused that they wandered around in the labyrinth that awaited them at the end of this dark passage. Of course, there were caretakers to guide them further to the Temple of Asclepion, where the priests gave them psychoanalysis two thousand years before Sigmund Freud was born! Next to the temple lies the theater belonging to the Asclepion Complex, in front of which one can still see several sacred pools that, even today, are generally filled with water in spring. The entire complex was, without any doubt a top-notch spa in antiquity! Well, even now, it is quite rewarding to walk here and imagine what must have been going on. 

In the center of Pergamon, one simply can’t miss the large theater, the steepest in the world. The oldest parts date from the 3rd century BC but, as always, it has been improved and enlarged several times, particularly under Emperor Caracalla. The portico of this theater measures no less than 246 meters and is approximately 16 meters wide. Unique is that this portico was removable since it covered the adjacent street. Strange, however, that it seated only 15,000 people, less than the theater in Ephesos, although this theater in Pergamon looks much larger. 

It is frightening to walk down the steep steps for the precipice is luring below. From the top rows, however, the visitor has a commanding view over the land around this acropolis and easily can appreciate the strategic location of Pergamon. Undoubtedly the very location of this city must have impressed Alexander. I definitely have to come back one day, were it only to put the many remains of so many buildings on the map of my mind, and more so after seeing its treasures in Berlin.

At the Pergamon Museum of Berlin, the entire Altar of Zeus has been carefully reconstructed, meaning that all the friezes that ran around it have been put in their right sequence. However, the visitor is looking at them inside-out. Instead of actually walking around the altar, the elements have been placed against the wall surrounding the central part with the flight of stairs leading to the platform. Somehow I find it hard to figure this out properly. But then there is a wonderful reduced model in what looks like marble, reflecting the full impact of what this famous altar must have looked like. Such a shame there is close to nothing left in Pergamon, though …

[Click here to see all pictures of Pergamon]

My heart is bleeding for Allianoi

With the change of weblogs, I somehow lost track of Allianoi till I was looking for it the other day and couldn’t find it. Luckily I still had the original texts on my tablets and although the news is “passé” by now, I feel that it is never too late to draw attention to what has happened there and is still happening elsewhere in Turkey’s frenzy to build ever more dams. 

It was in October 2010 when I first read that the gorgeous site of Allianoi would be flooded in spite of all the pleas and contacts with "authorities" over the past three years or so. I couldn't believe my eyes for this is no way to treat our heritage. It is like throwing away the bones of our ancestors. How dare we?

[Picture from the Art Newspaper]

For those who hear the name Allianoi for the first time, I owe some further explanation. Allianoi is located to the northeast of ancient Pergamon, in the vicinity of Izmir, and right in the middle of the Yortanlı Dam Reservoir Area.

Because of its hot springs, the place was known already in antiquity but the big boom occurred under Roman rule. In the 2nd century AD, Allianoi was one of the largest thermal baths in that part of the Empire that attracted crowds from the nearby Asclepion in Pergamon as well as from more distant areas. In Byzantine times most of Allianoi was taken down and the materials were reused elsewhere in the city, but the thermal Baths and the Nymphaeum, i.e. the most important buildings continued to be used as they were. The Ottomans renamed the settlement Paşa Ilıcası (The Thermal Baths of the Pasha), but after that, Allianoi slumbered into oblivion, although the use of the hot spring continued. The nearby Roman bridge was also still used until recently as a connection on the road from Bergama and İvrindi.

The Romans were master builders, as we know. They built the Bath Complex on both sides of the Ilya Creek and in order to control its flow they diverted the water to run through a vaulted tunnel. The hot spring has a nearly ideal temperature of about 45-50˚C. The Roman baths like all other buildings on the site date from the 2nd century. The brave archaeologists have discovered and uncovered many of them, to be unfortunately buried again. Allianoi counted at least four insulae, a beautiful Nymphaeum much like the one dedicated to Herodus Atticus in Olympia, Greece, a Propylon, an unknown Cult Building, and a so-called Connection Building along with several streets and the bridge over the creek I mentioned above. Also, remains of a Byzantine Basilica from the 9th century measuring no less than 19 x 21 meters have been located. And yet, all these jewels will disappear forever!

It is quite frustrating to find out that everything on this planet has to make way for politics and money. The average lifespan of any dam is 80 years, I learned, and this one is calculated to last only for 50 years. Is it really worth being built? What will we do fifty years from now? Dismantle the barrage and excavate Allianoi again, at huge costs once more? Haven’t we learned anything from our past dam building? The irrigated lands remain fertile for a short time only, seven to ten years maximum. After that, the soil is highly alkaline and crops are hardly worth the effort of planting. As always, when it comes to politics, nobody listens to the environmentalists and nobody takes their analysis seriously. In this case, nobody listens to the archaeologists either.

But that is only one aspect of building a dam. Here at Allianoi we are voluntarily burying our heritage. Old stones have to make way for new concrete, yet we forget that our concrete will not survive 2,500 years like this old city did. One would expect that enough damage has been done already to other locations, for instance at Zeugma, Turkey, a unique site at the frontier of the Roman Empire on the banks of the Euphrates River. Archaeologists were able to save a handful of gorgeous mosaics and some wall frescos that have found shelter at the Museum of Gaziantep, but they are taken out of their context and the proud city no longer awaits our embrace.

What will it take to stop this madness of building dams that in the end only scar and deplete the land? Water is vital to our life, I agree, but barrages are not the one and only solution and their lifespan is not as eternal as governments all over the world want us to believe. What will happen in 50 or 100 years from now when this barrage and so many others give way? No water then, no crops, no dam, nobody to take responsibility, and sadly no cities like Allianoi to be revived from underneath the sediments. 

Meanwhile, the site of Allianoi has been filled up with sand in an impossible dream that this measure will safeguard the precious remains of this two-thousand-year-old wealthy spa resort. The theory is that at the death of the dam, Allianoi can still be re-excavated, but what about the heavy layers of silt deposited on top of these remains? What damage will they have done?

A sad day for Allianoi. My heart is bleeding indeed…

Hopes may have been high still but by March 2011, the dies were cast. A painful picture of a man sitting on the edge of the 2nd-century Roman bridge in the middle of a nearly flooded city publicized in the Christian Science Monitor says it all. In spite of the pleas and protests formulated by UNESCO, ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites), and Europa Nostra (the pan-European Federation for Cultural Heritage), it didn’t take long before the entire site disappeared to the bottom of the new reservoir at the foot of the irrigation dam, covered beneath nearly 100 feet of water and silt. The Yortanli Dam is part of another huge hydro-engineering program aiming to keep up with the country's rapid economic development – that is at least what the officials say. 

The positive news is that archaeologists have been able to salvage some 11,000 artifacts after uncovering only about 20 percent of the site that is now lost forever – a rather poor consolation if any. The beautiful mosaic floors of this ancient health center believed to be one of the largest and best preserved in the world have disappeared once again. The Turkish government doesn’t seem to care or not to care enough, the race to double their power output by 2020 prevails over the preservation of the country’s and the world’s history.

The site was first filled up with sand in an attempt to protect the ruins although archaeologists disagree. In the last days of 2010, the flooding was set in motion. The water, according to the latest news of early 2011, has risen approximately 6 feet but will eventually reach 100 feet. I am not aware of a more recent update on the site if any. I only could trace this picture of the flooded area taken in June 2012 (from Alberti's Window). Regretfully, we’ll never know the full meaning and extent of Allianoi. Sadly, this is only one example among so many others. How many more will follow?

Click here for the complete article Dams power Turkey’s future, but drown its rich history by Alexander Christie-Miller, which also maps other natural and culturally threatened areas all over Turkey. National Geographic offers some meaningful pictures on this link.