PERGAMON
Listen to Bergama from me..
The Founding Story of the City
The king of Argos, Tegea, a child of the oracle that his daughter will give birth to him.
He learns to kill. To prevent his daughter from giving birth to a child
put it on the raft and release it into the sea. However, his daughter Auge had been with Heracles before that.
met her and bore him a child whom she named Telephos.
She left the child to nature for fear. The boat Auge boarded took him to Teuthrania.
brings it to the shores. The goddess Athena protected him along the way.
Auge is warmly received by Teuthras, king of Teuthrania. Talking to the oracles, Telephos calls his mother and comes to Mysia. Teuthras welcomes him then son acquires and enthrones in his place. Later, he marries her to Auge. A snake sent by the goddess Athena between mother and son on the wedding night. They enter and prevent their union and learn that they are mother and son. Telephos accidentally led the Achaeans who landed on the shores of Mysia instead of Troia. shows. This Telephos founded Pergamon and was the first king of Pergamon. has been. By bringing the cult of Athena to Pergamon in Auge, she became the priestess of this cult.
The life of the legendary founder of the city, Telephos, and the story of the city's penny were processed in the Altar of Zeus.
Royal Buildings
*The kings of Pergamon used to prioritize safety over ostentatiousness.
Because the arsenals in the acropolis are valuable, it can be thought that many buildings have a second floor.
Most of the palaces were peristyle houses. All peristyle houses had at least one cistern.
Right at the bottom of the castle entrance, we see the warehouses for the soldiers of the building we call building group VI. Many war items were found in this building.
*The building group V was a house worthy of a monarch with a size of 2420m2. It is surrounded on four sides by columned galleries. There is a rock cistern under the west gallery. And
It was used until the Byzantine period.
During the excavations in the royal places in Pergamon, the most artifacts were found in Palace V.
Many rooms had marble thresholds and interior walls. A pedestal was found in the smallest room in the northeast corner, which is thought to be the altar room. In addition, the presence of a Dyonysos statue on this pedestal can be considered. Most of the floor mosaic has been preserved in this room.
*Also in floor mosaics; A mosaic depicting the Alexander Parrot was found. Mosaic particles are half and one millimeter in size.
The northwest room of the palace had a larger mosaic. The mosaic stones in this room are 1-3 mm in size. It is decorated with leaf and flower friezes, small animal figures and Cupids. And it is a mosaic with the signature of Hephaston.
*Building group IV was definitely a peristyle house. The floor area was approximately 30*35 m. It is known that the rooms in this structure were plastered and had colorful wall decorations. In the eastern room there is an altar and a slab of andesite. The fact that the plate was burned indicates that sacrifice was made here and that this room was a cult place. Also in this room, floor mosaics of extraordinary fineness were found.
*There was one cistern in the middle of the courtyard and another in the room to the northeast.
The walls of the royal palaces were decorated with colorful stuccos rather than carved marbles, their floors were covered with magnificent mosaics and, if there were no mosaics, carpets. There were also mobile paintings on the walls.
Library
*II. Another work created and built by Eumenes was the library. According to the sources, there were 200,000 scrolls of books here. This was a royal library. This figure is thought to belong to the year 41-40 BC. This is the date Antony gave it to Cleopatra.
* 3 m high statues of Athena and Hera were found in the northeast hall. This great room with the statues could have been an art gallery, a museum. Although it is not certain that the kings also collected the works of art here.
*According to another study, three of these halls were covered with wooden cabinets. There were only built-in book cabinets on the entrance wall.
The southwesternmost room is thought to be a festive room furnished with klines.
*Another claim was that the shelves were hung on these pegs. And a catalog area was formed. Other rooms housed books. Another idea in these pegs was the display of war booty weapons.
*Although it is very difficult, another claim is that the Library is in the Gymnasion, which is a very baseless claim.
It has been determined that even if there are shelves in these rooms, even 4.5 meters high, only 1 out of 10 of the mentioned figure can fit in these rooms.
*4 of these 5 rooms could be accessed from the upper floor of the north gallery. Since the westernmost room was at the courtyard level, this room was entered from a narrow courtyard in the south. To reach this place and the structures between the Athena sanctuary and the Traianeum, it was necessary to walk across a passage at the west end of the north gallery.
*The rooms had andesite walls.
Perhaps books were exhibited in the curtained section on the upper floor of the north gallery. He also thinks that the floor of this place is a mosaic.
Arsenal
*The presence of a building with strong walls, measuring 18*18 m, was detected both on the upper part of the round cistern. Although not certain, this place is thought to be the palace of Gongylos in the 5th century BC. This building can be explained as the end of the pressurized water system for the Hellenistic period.
*Although Building 1 is thought to be a king's house, no definite evidence has been reached. It is thought that the place where this building is located was a barracks built in the 2nd century BC.
It is thought that there were arsenals belonging to earlier periods in the lower part of the palaces. For the construction of the palace, this regiment was demolished and new ones were built at the north end.
*I. and II. It is thought that the arsenals were built from the Philetarios period, and 4-5 buildings were built for palaces instead of demolished buildings. The fact that these buildings have a lower ventilation slot shows us that this place was also used as a grain warehouse.
*Arsenals were captured with 961 cannonballs of 15 different diameters. Numerous catapults and iron hoops were captured.
It is the most prominent structure of the Roman imperial period. The temple was seen from far away as the crown of the fortress mountain.
An inscription found just southeast of the temple is dated to 114-115 AD. The inscription states that the rich Pergamon native Aulus Julius Quadratus, who was a friend of the emperor; It is said that the temple was built in honor of Trajan and contains rules about the festivities. He was honored together with Emperor Zeus Philios.
* Among the cult sculptures of the temple are the sculptures of Emperor Trajan and his successor, Imp Hadrian. These were standing in the cella part of the temple. The statue heads of these statues larger than human size were removed. It is thought to be about 5 meters in size.
*A sitting giant statue of Zeus Philios was found.
Zeus sitting on a coin belonging to the Trajan period and the standing emperor are engraved.
As the reason for the statue of Hadrian to be here. Upon the request of the people of Pergamon to build a temple for him, he wrote to them, giving permission that his statue could be erected next to his father's.
Trajan never came to Pergamum, but Hadrian is thought to have come twice, with one being certain in 124.
It is seen in the writings of Aelius Aritedis as the Hadrianeum of the temple, which was completed during the reign of Hadrian.
The construction of the building started in 114 AD. The opening date is 129 AD, which is thought to be the second visit date of Hadrian.
Traian Temple
**Traces of administrative buildings and workshops belonging to the Young Hellenistic period before the sanctuary were found during the control excavations carried out in this region.
*The courtyard of the Temple was 70*65 in size.
*Although the site was inconvenient, it was a magnificent location for such a monument to power and propaganda of the Roman Empire. In no other location could the temple building stand more effectively. The vaults ended with a 23 m high wall on the façade. These vaults were nothing but a substructure material. They were arranged neither as a warehouse nor as a cistern.
*Metal connections stolen in the Middle Ages have been replaced by holes.
In front of the northern gallery wall of the temple, there are two exedra in the form of a round on the western part and rectangular on the eastern part with various sculptures. These belong to the Hellenistic Kingdom period and were brought here later. According to the semicircular exedra inscription, they belong to II. It is thought to be related to the cult of rulers, as Attalos has a votive offering. It would not be wrong to think that it was put here to show that the cult of the old ruler continued with the cult of the Emperors.
*The temple with a height of 18 m has the dimensions of 33 * 20. The podium, made of andesite blocks, is completely covered with marble. It was a peripteros in the Corinthian architectural order with 6 columns on the narrow sides and 10 columns on the wide sides.
*The entire temple, including the roof covering, was made of marble. There were Medusa heads in the consul volutes. On the roof pediments were magnificent intricate acroteres containing winged Victorians. The statues in the cella were rolled into the basement during the collapse of the temple, and one of these statues is exhibited in the eastern part of the temple area.
There is no trace of the marble altar standing in front of the temple.
During the reign of Hadrian, the existing side walls were demolished and galleries were built in their place. The eastern gallery had an apse-like end in the northern part, where it is thought that the armored statue of Hadrian was located.
While the columns of the north gallery were monoliths, the other columns were not.
Sanctuary of Athena
The construction of the building dates back to 330-325 BC.
Some evidence for the construction of the temple was dedicated by the mother of the city founder Telephos, Auge, while Barsine, the concubine of Alexander, may have built this temple.
The clamps holding the blocks together were in the shape of a Swallowtail, and unlike later periods, they were made of wood.
Andesitten was a temple in the Doric order. 6*10 is a peripteros. He had a divided cella.
The cult here is strongly aligned with that in Athens. Hellenistic kings wanted to make Pergamon a second Athens, the new spiritual and cultural center of the Greek world. The arrangement of the temple reveals this very clearly.
As in Athens, Athena's nickname was Polias in Pergamon. After the victory of Attalos I against the Galatians, Athena received the nickname Nikephoros, that is, the victor.
A Niikephorion was built for him outside the city in 220 BC. However, since it is outside the city, it has been very damaged and preserved. And its exact location has yet to be determined.
II. A new Propylon was built during the reign of Eumenes. The second floor of the north gallery was accessed through the narrow room in the south part of the door.
The propylon had a Doric order with four columns. In the Pergamon museum, where this building was reconstructed, other columns taken from the gallery were used instead of these columns. While the bodies of these pillars were divided into 20 grooves, only three of the Propylon's pillars were threaded. In the door part, there was a double column pier.
The pediment of the Propylon was adorned with the owl of Athena and the eagle of Zeus. Many vows in the sanctuary were dedicated to Athena and Zeus together.
The northern gallery was 72.95 m long and 12 m deep. Each gallery had two floors. The first floor was Doric and the second floor was Ionic. The new galleries were made of marble.
The east gallery was 42.17 m long.
The second floor walls of the galleries were filled with reliefs showing the weapons of Galatians.
The first floor walls were plastered with murals, cut by regularly spaced niches in the Doric and Ionic order.
One theater was not enough for a city like Pergamon. Both the city's growth towards the plain and the difficulty of going up to the city mountain, as well as the increasing population, new theaters were built.
The Roman period needed an amphitheater and a staydum for gladiator fights and chariot races. Both were built on the road to Asklepieion and a Roman theater was added next to them.
At the time of the empire, plays were not performed in the old theater. There were only some conversations.
At the same time, meetings were held in the theaters, where Demos, that is, citizens, gathered and made decisions.
The large gymnasion of an ancient Odeion is also traced back to its traces. In addition, an Odeion was found in the south of the Kizillavlu, between the settlements.
Upper Theatre; this is a theater built according to the means at hand. There are irregularities in the upper two sections. The lower part, unlike the Greek theaters, was not a complete semicircle.
This building group II. It belongs to the Eumenes period. However, there is also the existence of an earlier thearon.
The theater terrace was 15 meters wide and 250 meters long. The temple, the theater and the terrace were all interconnected.
First of all, a flat is needed to supply the necessary materials for the theater and temple. This makes us think that the terrace was built before.
Excavations show us that the scene went through three different periods.
The theater cavea is divided into three parts with two series at that time. The benches are not made of marble but of andesite.
It had a capacity of 10,000 spectators.
It is thought that the halls of honor belong to the Roman period.
In the lower lodge, probably II. There was a bronze statue of Eumenes.
In front of the lower box, there was a theater altar on the edge of the orchestra.
The absence of a fixed theatrical stage is a surprising feature. However, both the lack of space and the presence of the terrace were not suitable for a fixed stage.
The wooden stage was set on stones with round holes. Supporting each of these slots was a wall support aligned with the andesia lining of the terrace. A stone plate is placed as a cover on this four-cornered slot. After the stage was removed, this place became completely flat.
His first scene was a 26*3.60 scene not too high from the ground.
A stone podium was built in the 1st century BC. The stage now had marble doors.
In the galleries there was a shop between the two support posts. Each shop had a low second floor.
The terrace underwent a major change with the arrangement of a church and a cemetery during the Byzantine Period.
The portable stage facilitated the annual Dionysus festival.
Only 36 shops were accessible from the middle terrace.
Theater
Dionysus Temple; The difference between the terraced podium was closed with 25 steps 4.5 m high.
Dionysus was the god of the Pergamon royal family. Along with Heracles, he was revered as an ancestor.
There was a Dionysos union here, which was previously located in Teos. After Teos joined the kingdom's lands, these people were under the command of the king, who were the ones who performed the games and organized the festivals.
The temple has Prostyle style and Ionic style columns.
There was an altar on the theater terrace in front of the temple.
Its length is 21.60 m and its height is 13.17 m. They reach a total height of 15 m with their three acroteria with female figures.
Its foundation is andesite, and the other parts are completely made of marble.
There was a bronze votive inscription in gold plated from its architrave.
It has two different building phases. Hellenistic and Roman period
As the construction date of the temple II. The Eumenes period is the most favorable period.
A fire inside the cella caused great damage to the temple. The inner walls are covered with untouched boards. The entrance wall and the monumental gate were rebuilt and higher than the roof of the cella.
However, although there is no exact date of fire and renewal, the estimates show the Hadrian period. This conclusion was reached by detecting the similarities in the Traijan temple.
The temple was severely damaged by the earthquake in 262 AD.
The church built in this area was built near the building with a niche. Covering an area of 52 square meters, this church had three naves and its façade faced west. It had a cross domed plan. 12-13. There was a saint or martyr's grave here before the church, which points to the centuries. In addition, it is thought that the upper terrace was used as a cemetery in the middle and late Byzantine period.
Temple of Dionysus
Altar of Zeus
The altar is a masterpiece of Pergamon art.
In the only extant fragment of the altar inscription. It says 'of good deeds done by the gods'.
The old houses here were destroyed, the Philetairos wall was demolished and the area was expanded.
There was an abscissa structure here. It was probably a heroon dedicated to the founder Telephos.
Structure; It was 35.64*33.40 m in size. The stairs to the west were almost 20 m. The stairs were 6 m. The whole building, including the acroteres, was 10 m.
The famous frieze depicting the war between gods and giants was 2.30 m high and 113 m long.
On the inner walls were friezes depicting the life of Telephos, the legendary founder of Pergamon.
Only certain people can enter the main altar at feasts.
Sacrifices were made on the stair step and only parts of it were burned on the main altar in the name of the gods. The remaining pieces were dispersed by the crowd.
There are unnoticeable harmonies between the Temple of Athena and the Altar of Zeus.
The frieze of the chief gods was on the east, that is, on the sunrise side. At the corner connecting the East with the North were Ares and Aphrodite. They were both apart and back to back. On the south side, the Sun god Helios was fighting and next to him was Eos and Selene. On the north side, the Night Goddess Nyx was fighting. Around him were gods related to him.
The inner frieze from the northwest corner told the story of Telephos. In the other part, it was told that the Achaeans came to Pergamon by mistake and fought and Telephos was injured by Achilles and then recovered and founded the city.
The Pergamon Altar is a product of palace art.
During the construction period, the knowledge of not only the masters but also the clergy was used.
It is certain that the eastern friezes were made by the chief master. The simultaneous work of all blocks shows that it is the joint work of various masters.
The altar is mentioned in the narrative of the wonders of the world in the ancient writer L. Ampelius' Liber Memoralis.
In addition, the depiction on the coin found by the French archaeologist and numismatist Antoine Heron de Villefosse is the only data we have today about the appearance of the altar in antiquity.
The Pergamon altar differs from the Classical Ionic altars.
The columned galleries on the podium are independent of the galleries of the inner courtyard. That's why they're Peristyles.
The altar has the appearance of a palace in terms of structure. This palace has been compared to the palace of Zeus.
On the friezes on the stairs, it is seen that the gigants were entering the house of Zeus and Zeus' eagles stopped them at the last moment.
On the opposite side, it is written that Oceanos and his wife Tethys neutralized and threw them towards the entrance of the colonnaded courtyard and Zeus prevented them in the form of an eagle.
The hero Heracles, who is always beside Zeus, is blessed on the frieze inside. For this war could not be won without the help of a mortal, and that mortal was Heracles.
There is also the idea that this structure has no connection with the victories. II. We can also consider it as part of the project where Eumenes reshaped the royal capital.
In the message of the Prophet Jesus to the Christians in Anatolia, he referred to Pergamon as "the place where Satan's throne is located".
Among the foundations, pottery fragments from earlier periods and traces of a two-nave building were found. This building was most likely an agora.
The altar terrace is 69 m in north-south direction and 77 m in the south. In the north, it was 92.5 m.
The wall, which is the row of the market place in the north, has been preserved until today. In front of this wall was a podium for placing votive gifts and statues.
The altar foundation has a grid structure consisting of thick walls extending in the east-west direction and thin walls that cut them. These walls are surrounded by andesite blocks.
A second Ionic column capital, with a fish-scale-looking arch in the middle, is a prominent contemporary example for its period.
In another version, the use of a stylized lightning bolt may be a clue that Zeus was the god of the altar.
The Telephos frieze is 56.6 m long, 1.58 m high and consists of 7 plates. The back view of each of the friezes that tells the life story of the Telephos friezes is different.
The beam holes on the altar point to another phase, which was a canopy addition.
The marble roof of the outer galleries was filled with small acroter figures. These figures were found near the altar foundation. The four chariots are fragments of eleven identified horses, two Tritons, three griffins, two centaurs, and five god figures. Gods; Athena, Poseidon, Apollo, Dionysus and the other are not understood.
To the north are Poseidon and the Tritons.
The great frieze is 28.78 m from 31 plates in the north and south. In the east, it is 31.12 m from 32 plates.