The monumental sculpture of Pergamon reaches its height in the altar of Zeus, created around 180 BC. The reliefs of the altar complete the "heroic" period in the development of Hellenistic monumental sculpture. The art of late Hellenism could not rise to the level of sculptures Pergamon altar.

246. Pergamon altar. Fragment. Around 180 BC e. Berlin.

The altar of Zeus, built under King Eumenes II in honor of final victory over the Gauls, was one of the main monuments of the Pergamon acropolis. A high plinth rose on a wide, almost square stylobate; on one side, the plinth was cut through by a staircase leading to the upper platform. In the center of the site was an altar framed on three sides by an Ionic portico. The portico was decorated with statues. Along the plinth, which served as the basis for the portico, stretched a grandiose frieze depicting the battle of the gods with the giants. According to Greek myths, the giants - the sons of the goddess of the earth - rebelled against the gods of Olympus, but were defeated in a fierce struggle. Various episodes of this battle are depicted throughout the frieze. Not only the main, Olympic deities, but also numerous deities of water and earth and heavenly bodies participate in the struggle. They are opposed by winged and snake-footed giants, led by King Porfirion.

Sanctuary of Athena in Pergamon.

245. Zeus fighting the giants. Fragment of the frieze of the Pergamon altar. Marble. Around 180 BC e. Berlin.

Unusually large for the ancient relief scales of the image (length of the frieze - about 130 m height - 2.30 m), made in high relief technique, almost separated from the background, intertwined in mortal combat, powerful figures of gods and giants, the pathos of the struggle, the triumph and inspiration of the winners , the torments of the vanquished. In the Pergamon frieze, one of the essential aspects of Hellenistic art was most fully reflected - special grandiosity of images, their superhuman strength, exaggeration of emotions, stormy dynamics. The art of Hellenism does not know a more vivid embodiment of the theme of the titanic struggle than the depiction of the fight between Zeus and three giants. Their heads have not been preserved, but the expressiveness of their mighty bodies vividly conveys the superhuman tension of this struggle. The naked torso of Zeus is the personification of such infinite power that lightning strikes falling on the giants are perceived as its direct radiation. Equally dramatic is the episode of the battle involving Athena. Grabbing the beautiful winged giant Alcyoneus by the hair, the goddess throws him to the ground; Athena's snake bites into his chest. The giant's body is tensely curved, his head is thrown back in unbearable torment, wide-open, deep-set eyes are full of suffering. The mother of giants, the goddess Gaia, rising from the earth, vainly begs Athena to spare her son. Flying Nike crowns Athena with a victorious wreath. The sharp contrasts of light and shadow, the juxtaposition of the powerful muscles of the giant and the picturesquely fluttering folds of the goddess' clothes enhance the dramatic expressiveness of the composition.

244. Athena's struggle with the giant. Fragment of the frieze of the Pergamon altar. Marble. Around 180 BC e. Berlin.

247. Athena and the giant Alcyoneus. Fragment of the frieze of the Pergamon altar. Marble. Around 180 BC e. Berlin.

If the works of classical art glorified the greatness of man, then the Pergamon frieze is designed to exalt the power of the gods and kings. The gods defeat the giants not with their spiritual superiority, but only because of his supernatural power. With all their titanic strength, the giants are doomed - they are crushed by the lightning of Zeus, the arrows of Apollo and Artemis, they are gnawed by the animals accompanying the gods. Indicative in this case is the introduction of terrible deities that were not found in classical sculpture (for example, the three-faced and six-armed Hecate). If the compositions of the classical era, more modest in scale, aroused in a person a calm confidence in their strength and significance, then the grandiose images of the Pergamon Altar are recognized to shock a person, make him feel his weakness in front of higher powers.

The Pergamon frieze was executed by a group of craftsmen whose names are preserved on the plinth of the building. Among its creators were the sculptors Dionysades, Orestes, Menekrates and others. The skill of the sculptors is enormous: it is reflected in the brightest embodiment of the most diverse images, emotions and plastic motifs - from the superhuman power of Zeus to the beautiful lyrical image of the dawn goddess Eos; the tense muscles of the giants and the folds of the transparent chitons of the goddesses are equally successfully conveyed. The compositional structure of the frieze is exceptionally complex, plastic motifs are rich and varied. Unusually convex figures are depicted not only in profile (as was customary in relief), but also in the most complex turns, even from the front and from the back. The background is filled with fluttering fabrics, the wings of gods and giants - all this, combined with the increased relief of plastic masses and contrasting chiaroscuro, further complicates the composition, enhancing its picturesque character.

249. Head of Aphrodite from Pergamon. Marble. Beginning of the 2nd c. BC e. Berlin.

Of the other works of Pergamon sculpture, the beautiful head of Aphrodite (in the Berlin Museum), probably related to the same time, is close to the altar frieze, attractive not only by its external beauty, but also by the expression of inner inspiration - the lyricism of this image is colored by the features of pathos so characteristic of Pergamon art. . Particularly expressive is the passionate look of the slightly shaded eyes of the goddess. The modeling of the face is very generalized, without detailing, but exceptionally soft and lively.

As in other Hellenistic centers, the Pergamon and Asia Minor sculptures of the late Hellenistic period are characterized by features of undeniable decline. In related to the 2nd century. BC. the statue of a grinder slave from the sculptural group depicting Apollo preparing to flay Marsyas, there is a decline in the heroic style of early Pergamon art and an increase in naturalistic elements.

LACOON

248. Agesander, Polydorus and Athenodorus. Laocoon. Marble. Around 25 BC e. Rome. Vatican.

The famous work of the Rhodes school was the group " Laocoön”, made by the masters Agesander, Polydorus and Athenodorus around 50 BC. The group that has come down to us in the original was discovered in the 16th century. and, being one of the few known works of Greek sculpture, was considered the greatest achievement of ancient art. The discovery of a number of monuments of classical and early Hellenistic art made it possible to see the relative narrowness of the content and the one-sidedness of the figurative solution of Laocoön.

The plot of this work is taken from the myths of the Trojan War. The Trojan priest Laocoön warned fellow citizens about the danger of transferring a wooden horse left by the Greeks to Troy; for this, Apollo, who patronized the Greeks, sent two huge snakes at Laocoön, strangling the priest and his two sons. Again we have an image of a situation that is heartbreaking in its drama: giant snakes strangle Laocoön and his sons in their deadly rings: one of the snakes digs into the chest of the youngest son, the other bites into the father's thigh. Laocoön's head is thrown back, his face is distorted by suffering, with a painfully intense effort he is trying to free himself from the snakes choking him. The terrible death of the priest and his sons is shown with emphatic clarity. The sculpture testifies to the great skill of the artists who skillfully conceived a dramatic effect, to their excellent knowledge of anatomy: it is shown, for example, how the abdominal muscles of Laocoön contract from the sharp pain caused by a snake bite; the composition is skillful: the group is masterfully deployed in one plane and is exhaustively perceived from one, frontal point of view. However, the melodramatic nature of the general design, the use of external effects to the detriment of the depth of the images, the fragmentation and some dryness of the plastic development of the figures are the shortcomings of this sculpture, which do not allow it to be ranked among the highest achievements of art.

Summing up the general results of the review of Hellenistic art, one should note its great importance in the development of art in the ancient period and in subsequent eras. The role of Hellenistic architecture in the history of architecture is great. During the Hellenistic period, the progressive principles of Greek architecture spread over a vast territory; they were of essential importance in the development of architecture of various peoples in the post-Hellenistic period as well. The experience accumulated by Hellenistic architects in solving such important issues as the principles of urban planning, the problems of the architectural ensemble and park architecture, was extremely important for the architecture of Ancient Rome and for the architecture of subsequent eras. Even greater in this sense is the role of the Hellenistic fine arts; the principles of Greek realistic art spread at that time in the art of not only the Hellenistic states proper, but also in many neighboring countries. Hellenistic sculpture and painting were one of the important components in the creation of ancient Roman art, and later in the formation of medieval art in Byzantium and the countries of the Middle East. Hellenistic art was one of the important stages in the development of realism; the best works of this era are monuments of lasting artistic value.

The Galatians were a warlike Celtic tribe that invaded Asia Minor from Europe. The mighty Syrian kings, who considered themselves the heirs of Alexander the Great, preferred to pay tribute to the Galatians, rather than take the risk of battle. The hordes of Galatians chose the small but very rich state of Pergamum as their next victim, which seemed to them a sure and easy prey. In terms of numbers, the Pergamon army was inferior to the troops of Syria of the Seleucids and Egypt of the Ptolemies, but in terms of technical equipment it clearly surpassed even them, not to mention the barbarian hordes of the Galatians. King Attalus I refused to pay tribute to the Celtic aliens. In the battle at the sources of Caik, the Pergamians utterly defeated the Galatians, after which Attalus took the cult name "savior". For some time, the small state became so influential that Attalus intervened in the struggle for the throne in the Seleucid kingdom and achieved some success in this endeavor.

The reason and civilization of the Pergamians prevailed over the superior numbers of the Galatians and the blind thirst for robbery. In memory of the great victory, the Pergamonians erected in the middle of their capital, the city of Pergamon, the altar of Zeus - a huge stone platform for sacrifices. The relief, which surrounded the platform from three sides, was dedicated to the battle of gods and giants. Giants - the sons of the goddess of the earth Gaia, creatures with a human body, but snakes instead of legs, according to myths, once went to war against the gods. The sculptors of Pergamum depicted on the relief of the altar a desperate battle between gods and giants, in which there is no room for doubt or mercy. This struggle of good and evil, civilization and barbarism, reason and brute force was supposed to remind the descendants of the battle of their fathers with the Galatians, on which the fate of their country once depended.

The figure of Zeus surpasses the rest in size and strength. His whole body, every muscle, is permeated with passion. Armed with lightning, the supreme god fights with three giants at once. One of them is turned sideways to the viewer, the other is frontal, the third, the main one - the leader of the giants Porfirion, turned his mighty back to the viewer. This is a worthy rival of Zeus, just as angry, just as hating. But if Zeus, like the rest of the gods, is a strong and beautiful person, then Porphyrion and the giants are carriers of rough, primitive, almost animal strength, stupid and also animal malice.

Near Zeus, his beloved daughter Athena is fighting. Grasping the hair of a young four-winged giant with her right hand, she tears him away from mother earth. The sacred serpent, Athena's inseparable companion, dug its teeth into the giant's body. The goddess Cybele, riding a lion, pursues a giant with an animal head. The sun god Helios tramples enemies with the hooves of his fiery horses. Hercules finishes off opponents with a club, and Phoebe acts with a heavy spear.

By the end of the 2nd century BC. e. Pergamon was conquered by the Romans. They took many sculptures from Pergamum, and the emperor Claudius took a library second only to that of Alexandria, and presented thousands of scrolls to Queen Cleopatra. And yet, until the VIII century, Pergamum continued to flourish, until it fell under the onslaught of the Arabs. Further destruction was continued by the Byzantines, who exported fragments of temples to Constantinople, and at the beginning of the 14th century Pergamum was captured by the Ottoman Turks, who turned it into ruins. The hordes of the lame Timur completed the defeat of the city in 1362, after which Pergamum ceased to be mentioned in historical chronicles.

Already in antiquity, the Pergamon altar began to acquire a halo of notoriety. The Apostle John the Theologian in his Revelation wrote: “And write to the Angel of the Church of Pergamon: thus says He who has a sharp sword on both sides: I know your deeds, and that you live where the throne of Satan is, and that you keep My name and have not denied My faith even in those days in which Antipas, my faithful witness, was slain among you, where Satan dwells."

In the XIV century after the Fourth Crusade, the Pergamon Altar for some time allegedly became the object of worship of some secret neo-pagan sect, which operated in the depths of the spiritual and chivalric Order of the Hospitallers, better known as the Order of Malta. At this time, human sacrifices were allegedly performed on the altar.

In 1864, the Turkish government signed a contract with the German engineer Karl Humann to build a road from the small town of Bergamo to Izmir. Examining the site of future construction, the engineer noticed a steep rocky hill more than three hundred meters high on the eastern outskirts of the town. Climbing it, Humann discovered the remains of two rings of fortress walls. He managed to get the workers hired from the surrounding villages to build the road to talk. One of them stated:

Effendi! You can't dig here. White she-devils and red-haired devils live in the mountain. Allah has repeatedly punished those who mined a stone here. They would scab over and then be paralyzed. And the mullah punishes those who dig here.

Others have said:

At night, the disembodied spirits of pagan devils come out and arrange demonic dances. If they are disturbed during the day, as our grandfathers said, an earthquake will begin.

The mountain is magical, it hides the gods of a very ancient pagan country. Their curse over Bergamo has lasted for thousands of years. But if they are dug up and taken out, then our city will flourish again. I heard this in the mosque.

Humann realized that there had once been a city here. Historians forgot about him, but he continues to live in folk legends. After analyzing the stories of workers and historical works urgently ordered from Berlin, Humann came to a firm conviction: the hill hides ancient Pergamon with its famous altar. Having begun excavations, he, among other things, discovered parts of the relief picture of the altar, from which he gradually managed to restore the integral appearance of the Titanomachia.

The parts of the altar sent as a gift to the Berlin museums for the first time in their entirety with all the friezes and columns were put on public display in 1880 in a temporary building. It was visited by the great Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev and spent hours looking at scenes of a fierce battle between gods and giants. The writer until the end of his life could not forget his deep delight. In his diary, Turgenev noted: "How happy I am that I did not die without living up to these impressions. I saw all this!"

The construction of the permanent building began only in 1912, and even by 1924 it was hardly even half finished. In the eventually built special museum, the altar of Zeus was displayed for 12 years - until 1941, when the Nazi authorities ordered it to be buried in damp clay soil under a military warehouse, which burned down during the next bombing of the German capital. In 1945, the Soviet occupation authorities took the Pergamon Altar to the USSR, but not as a trophy, but as an exhibit requiring urgent restoration, which was carried out by the Hermitage specialists. In 1958 the altar of Zeus returned to Berlin.

All this time, members of occult societies and frankly satanic sects showed keen interest in the restored monument of history and architecture. The altar was examined with interest by one of the leaders of the Golden Dawn of the Outer World secret society, Samuel Mathers, and a member of the same hermetic organization, the writer Mary Violetta Fet, who published under the pseudonym Dion Fortuna. In the late 20s of the XX century, another adherent of the Golden Dawn, a magician and Satanist, the creator of the anti-Christian doctrine of "Thelemicism" Aleister Crowley, was also interested in the Pergamon Altar. Crowley himself did not see the altar, but on his instructions, Leah Hirag, known in occult circles as the Purple Whore, standing in front of the ancient shrine, mentally performed some secret rite designed to "release the vibes of the ancient natural gods."

A little later, the Pergamon altar was subjected to a real invasion by German occultists from the O.T.O. - a society that had a significant impact on the formation of the occult world of National Socialism. Among them was a certain Martha Künzel, who for some time served as a liaison between German and British occult organizations. In the thirties, the famous neo-pagan Karl Maria Willigut, personal magician and mentor in the occult teachings of Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, also examined the altar. The Pergamon altar generally seemed to attract close associates of the SS chief. For example, it was studied by Walter Darre, one of the founders of the Ahnenerbe Institute. Himmler's favorite journalist Helmut d'Alcuen, editor of the SS newspaper Black Corps, also admired the altar. It is curious that a number of researchers believe that Bolshevik occultists also used the architectural ideas and elements of the Pergamon Altar in the construction of the Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin, thanks to which the dead leader of the world proletariat continued to live in a mystical way among the living.

Viktor BUMAGIN

#rainbow#paper#Countess#Dubarry

TO HOMENEWSPAPER RAINBOW

The most outstanding exhibit of the ancient collection is the Pergamon Altar, after which the museum is named. The altar is decorated with a grandiose frieze depicting the battle of the gods with the giants.

This is what the Pergamon Altar looks like in the museum hall (photo from Wikipedia)

Around 180-159. BC e. Marble. Altar base 36.44 × 34.20 m

What is this altar, why is it called that and how did it get into the museum in Berlin? That's what I wanted to find out after I saw it with my own eyes. The Internet and Wikipedia helped me with this.

Pergamon- an ancient city off the coast of Asia Minor (now the territory of Turkey), the former center of the influential state of the Attalid dynasty. Founded in the 12th century. BC e. immigrants from mainland Greece.

Here is a very interesting article by N.N. Nepomnyashchy about how this city was formed, what it was like and what happened to it. http://bibliotekar.ru/100velTayn/87.htm

In memory of the great victory over the barbarian tribe, which was called the "Galatians" (in some sources - the Gauls), the Pergamians erected an altar of Zeus in the middle of their capital city of Pergamum - a huge marble platform for sacrifices to the supreme god of the Greeks.

The relief, which surrounded the platform from three sides, was dedicated to the battle of gods and giants. The giants, as the myth said - the sons of the goddess of the earth Gaia, creatures with a human body, but with snakes instead of legs - once went to war against the gods.

The sculptors of Pergamum depicted on the relief of the altar a desperate battle between gods and giants, in which there is no room for doubt or mercy. This struggle between good and evil, civilization and barbarism, reason and brute force was supposed to remind posterity of the battle of their fathers with the Galatians, on which the fate of their country once depended.

In Pergamon, this building was located on a special terrace on the southern slope of the acropolis mountain, below the sanctuary of Athena. The building consisted of a plinth raised on a five-step foundation, in the western side of which an open staircase 20 m wide was embedded. The building of the altar, measuring 36 × 34 m, rested on a four-stage base and reached about 9 m in height. A relief frieze 2.30 m high and 120 m long covered the high smooth wall of the basement and the side walls of the stairs. A jagged cornice completed the upper edge of the frieze.

The legend tells how the giants, the sons of the goddess of the earth Gaia, once decided to attack Olympus and overthrow the power of the gods. According to the prediction of the oracle, the gods could win this fight only if a mortal man came out on their side. Hercules, the son of the god Zeus and the earthly woman Alcmene, is called to participate in the battle.

The large frieze of the Pergamon Altar impresses not only with its grandiose scale and colossal number of characters, but also with a very special compositional technique. The extremely dense filling of the surface of the frieze with high-relief images, leaving almost no free background, is a remarkable feature of the sculptural composition of the Pergamon Altar. The creators of the altar seemed to be trying to give the picture of the combat of the gods and giants a universal character, throughout the frieze there is not a single segment of the sculptural space that is not involved in the active action of a fierce struggle.
The altar, with its famous frieze, was a monument to the independence of Pergamon. But the Pergamonians perceived this victory deeply symbolically, as the victory of the greatest Greek culture over barbarism.

Here is how M.L. Gasparov describes these events in his book "Entertaining Greece":

It was an impregnable city on a steep mountain, where once King Lysimachus laid down his treasures and left with them a faithful man from the Attalid family. Lysimachus died, the Attalids became the princes of Pergamon, they built it with beautiful temples and porticos for Lysimachov's money, they opened the second library in the world with its parchment books. The riches of Pergamon haunted the Gauls: they went to war against Pergamon and were defeated by Prince Attalus. And this victory was immortalized in a royal way: the son of Attalus, Eumenes, erected an altar of unprecedented size in Pergamon with the inscription "To Zeus and Athena, the giver of victory, for the favors received." It was a building half the size of the Parthenon; above there was a colonnade surrounding the altar, to which a staircase led twenty steps high and twenty steps wide, and below there was a relief frieze, the height of a man, enveloping the building with an endless strip, and this frieze depicts the same that was woven on the coverlet of the Parthenon Athena , - the struggle of the gods with the giants, the victory of a rational order over an unreasonable element. Here arms are clashed, bodies are bent, wings are stretched, snake bodies are wriggling, faces are distorted by flour, and powerful figures of Zeus, throwing lightning, and Athena, plunging the enemy, loom among the crowded bodies. Such was the Pergamon altar - all that remains to us from the Gallic invasion.

This fragment of the frieze depicts Athena's struggle with Alcyoneus .

(Fragment of the eastern frieze of the Pergamon altar).

Athena is the daughter of Zeus. The inscription on the cornice tells us her name. The goddess is dressed in a wide peplos, girded with two snakes. An amulet with the head of the Gorgon Medusa, which drives away evil forces, is placed on the left chest of Athena. Armed with a large round shield, she holds it so that we can see its inner side. The goddess entered into a fight with the winged giant - Alcyoneus, grabbed him by the hair and tries to tear him off the ground, in contact with which he draws strength. Tormented by unbearable pain, the young man stretches out his left arm and left leg towards his mother, Gaia. With eyes full of sorrow, she begs Athena to spare her beloved son. But the snake has already sunk its deadly teeth into the body of a giant, and the goddess of victory Nike is already flying to Athena and crowning her with a laurel wreath.

These are fragments of the frieze of the altar, which I photographed in the museum

What happened to the altar of Zeus in Pergamon?

Anastasia Rakhmanova wrote about this in the magazine No. 11 "Around the World" for November 2006:

The kingdom of Pergamon fell, the temples were destroyed, the frieze was broken.
More than one and a half thousand years, its fragments lay in clay soil near the city of Pergamum (modern Bergama) in Turkey. Local residents slowly dug out pieces of old marble to burn them for lime in chalk stoves. And in 1878, an expedition of German archaeologists led by engineer Karl Human arrived in Pergamon. For several seasons of excavations, she removed the powerful columns of the ancient temple from underground. The broken pieces of the frieze - the arms, legs, heads and tails of the titans - were put into wooden boxes and sent to Berlin. Moreover, as the Germans do not get tired of repeating, with the personal permission of the then Sultan.

By the way, while scouring various sites in order to better understand what exactly I saw in the Pergamon Museum, I found that the parchment also comes from Pergamon, and here is a little about it from the site
http://maxbooks.ru/parchment.htm

Parchment is a writing material made from dressed animal skin, usually calf, sheep or goat.

In the production of parchment, the skin was not tanned, but carefully cleaned, scraped and dried under stress, obtaining sheets of thin and durable skin of white or yellowish color.

Although dressed animal skin has been used for writing before, the invention of parchment is usually associated with the name of the king of Pergamon, Eumenes II (197-159 BC). According to the historian Pliny, the Egyptian kings, wishing to maintain the prestige of the Library of Alexandria, banned in the 2nd century. BC e. papyrus was exported from Egypt, and the Pergamon Library, the second largest library in the ancient world, had to develop an alternative production of writing material and improve the ancient methods of leather processing. Thus parchment became an alternative to papyrus not only in Pergamum but throughout the Mediterranean, the main material for books in the Middle Ages, and continued to be used even after the invention of printing in the mid-fifteenth century.

And Wikipedia states that the altar was destroyed by an earthquake.

Materials used in writing this post.

MUSEUM ISLAND IN BERLIN. PERGAME MUSEUM

Together with other objects of the Museum Island in 1999, it was included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List. This is the main attraction of Berlin.

Pergamon Museum - the most visited in Berlin and the world's first archaeological museum. Erected primarily for the Pergamon Altar, after which the museum is named, and for other outstanding monuments of ancient civilizations. Thanks to the unique finds of German archaeologists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the collection grew rapidly and today the three buildings of the Pergamon Museum house the Antique Collection, the Near Asian Museum and the Museum of Islamic Art.

The Pergamon Museum is the most popular museum in Berlin: 600 thousand people visit it every year. The main exhibit of the Collection of Antiquities is the Great Altar of Zeus. The building of the Pergamon Museum, in fact, was erected in order to expose this unique structure to the public. And it was built at the insistence of the famous German historian and art critic Wilhelm Bode, who was director of Berlin museums in 1906-1920.

The most famous exhibit of the Antique collection is the Great Altar of the Temple of Zeus from Pergamon. Built in the 2nd century BC, it was already ranked among the seven wonders of the world in ancient times.

Pergamum is an ancient ancient city located in Asia Minor on the territory of modern Turkey. Founded in the XII century. BC. immigrants from mainland Greece. In 283-133 BC was the capital of the Pergamon kingdom. It was one of the largest economic and cultural centers of the Hellenistic world. There was a library of 200 thousand books and parchment was invented.

The altar of Zeus was discovered at the end of the 19th century by the German engineer and architect Karl Human. during the excavations of the Pergamon kingdom. Karl Human came to Turkey at the invitation of the Sultan to build bridges and roads. But he, as an architect, was interested in the ancient ruins of Asia Minor civilizations, at that time almost unknown to European scientists and not at all interested in the Turks themselves. Peasants often dug out pieces of marble with fragments of sculptures, and then burned them in kilns and got lime.

In 1878, the German engineer Karl Human began excavations and discovered one of the main monuments of Hellenistic art - the Great Altar of Zeus. Under the layer of earth there were many large fragments of slabs with reliefs, from which a cycle about the battle of gods and giants was subsequently built. The excavations continued for several years, and the finds, by agreement with the Ottoman side, became the property of Germany. On donkey carts, they were transported to the coast, reloaded onto German ships and sent to Berlin.

For many years, painstaking work was carried out in Berlin on the restoration of several thousand fragments, the order of images was determined, etc. In 1930, the reconstruction was completed and the magnificent Pergamon Altar was exhibited in the new museum building, which immediately attracted great public attention.

The grandiose white marble altar of Zeus was intended for worship in the open air, built in 180-160 BC. e. commissioned by King Eumenes II. It was erected in honor of the victory of the Pergamon king Attalus I over the tribe of Galatians, who invaded his kingdom at the end of the 3rd century BC. e.

The Pergamon altar, dedicated to Zeus, was a high plinth on which a slender Ionic portico rose. On one side, the plinth was cut through by a wide open marble staircase leading to the upper platform of the altar, on which the altar was located. Along the perimeter of the plinth, the famous Great Frieze, 2.3 m high and about 120 m long, stretched in a continuous ribbon.

Consider the Great Frieze with high relief, where one after another the dramatic battle scenes unfold. Ancient Greek myths tell that the giants - the sons of the goddess of the earth Gaia - rebelled against the gods of Olympus and in a fierce battle - Gigantomachy suffered a crushing defeat.

The city of Pergamum (its ruins are located on the western coast of Turkey) was the capital of a small Hellenistic state in Asia Minor. The kings of Pergamum maintained ties with Athens and tried in every possible way to emphasize their respect for Athenian traditions. The goddess Athena became the main deity of Pergamum, and local rulers patronized the arts and competed with each other in patronage. By order of the kings of Pergamon, several outstanding works of ancient art were created, including the famous Pergamon Altar.

The grandiose white marble altar dedicated to Zeus and intended for worship in the open air was built in 180-160 BC. e. commissioned by King Eumenes II. The altar was erected in memory of the victory of the Pergamum king Attalos I over the invader at the end of the 3rd century BC. e. within the borders of his state by the tribe of the Galatians.

pergamon altar

The Pergamon altar was a high plinth on which rose a slender Ionic portico. On one side, the plinth was cut through by a wide open marble staircase leading to the upper platform of the altar, on which the altar was located. Along the perimeter of the plinth, the famous Great Frieze, 2.3 m high and about 120 m long, stretched in a continuous ribbon. Nowadays, the reliefs of the Great Frieze are stored in the Berlin Museum. Here you can also see a model-reconstruction of the altar.

The large frieze was made by a group of sculptors according to a single compositional plan. The names of some authors are known - Dionysiades, Orestes, Menekrates. It is difficult to say which of them made which part of the altar. The artists belonged to different areas of ancient Greek art and came from different schools. Some were representatives of the Pergamon style, others came from Athens, followers of the classical school of Phidias. But at the same time, the whole composition makes a holistic impression and not a single detail violates the unity of the artistic conception. The exceptional richness of the images and the enormous size of the frieze make it an outstanding work, which has no equal in ancient art.

The theme of the Great Frieze is Gigantomachy, the battle of gods and giants. This is an allegorical image of the struggle of the kings of Pergamon with the Galatians, in memory of which the Pergamon Altar was created. In the battle on the side of the gods, in addition to the deities of Olympus, a number of gods are very ancient or even invented by the authors. On the western side of the altar, the deities of the water element were depicted, on the southern side - the gods of heaven and heavenly bodies, on the eastern, main side - the Olympic gods, and on the northern side - the deities of the night and constellations.

Ancient Greek myths tell that the giants, the sons of the goddess of the earth Gaia, rebelled against the gods of Olympus and in a fierce battle - Gigantomachia - suffered a crushing defeat. Scenes of Gigantomachy unfold one after another on the frieze of the Pergamon altar. To emphasize that it is not just a battle, but a battle of two worlds - the upper and the lower, the masters depicted the gods over the figures of the giants. In total, the frieze depicts about fifty figures of gods, and the same number of giants. The figures are made in very high relief, they are separated from the background and are practically sculptures. The background between them is densely filled with fluttering clothes, wings of eagles and giants, writhing snakes. The details of the frieze are made and processed with such care that you literally feel their materiality.

Initially, all the figures were painted, many details were gilded. High relief gave deep shadows, as a result of which all the details could be clearly distinguished from a distance. The battle is depicted in full swing, the masters skillfully emphasized the furious pace of the unfolding events. The impetuous onslaught of the gods is opposed by the desperate resistance of the giants. Opponents are depicted in full growth, many giants have snakes instead of legs. The names of each of the gods and giants, explaining the images, are neatly carved below the figures on the cornice.

Fragments of the frieze of the Pergamon Altar

The central image of the frieze is the fighting Olympian Zeus. He simultaneously fights with three opponents. In his half-naked figure, boundless, inhuman power is felt. Having struck one of the opponents, Zeus the Thunderer prepares to throw his sizzling lightning at the leader of the enemies - the snake-legged giant Porfirion. The giant's muscles bulged in tension, his face contorted with bitterness as he prepares to parry the blow.

The scene of the battle between the goddess Athena and the winged giant Alcyoneus is filled with special drama and expressiveness. The goddess with a shield in her hands plunged the enemy to the ground, her movements show through the decisiveness and triumph of the winner. The winged goddess of victory Nike rushes towards her to crown Athena's head with a laurel wreath. The defeated giant tries in vain to free himself from the merciless hand of the goddess. His muscles are tense in the last effort, his face expresses deep suffering. The sacred snake of Athena, wrapped around the giant, digs into his chest ... Next to Athena, the figure of the goddess of the earth Gaia, the mother of giants, rises mournfully. Her arms are up, her long hair flowing over her shoulders. The sculptors succeeded with unusual drama in conveying the grief of a mother mourning her sons.

On the upper platform of the Pergamon altar there was a second frieze - a small one. It is dedicated to the myth of Telephos, an Arcadian hero who was revered in Pergamon. This frieze was performed in a completely different style than the Bolshoi. The unhurried movement of the actors, the calm landscape against which the events unfold, serve as a contrast to the tense, dynamic images of the Great Frieze.

In terms of its artistic and historical significance, the Pergamon altar is on a par with the Parthenon. This is one of the most majestic buildings in Hellas, at the same time being one of the unsurpassed pinnacles of world art.