Plunder: The Pergamon Altar (1995)

the Pergamon altar was one of the most famous and magnificent monuments in antiquity the entire facade has been recreated in Berlin in order to display over a hundred of the original marble reliefs they were transported more than a thousand miles from Anatolia in Turkey they make up a frieze running 400 feet over twice the length of the facades and poles together with the Elgin marbles the most important Greek sculpture in the world its acquisition by the German government was the most ruthlessly efficient of geological coup of the 19th century the altar on its freeze had been commissioned by the powerful Atta lead Kings in around a hundred and eighty BC it commemorates their military glories using the myth of the victory of the Olympian gods over the Giants a unique propaganda machine for Greek civilization ironically the altar was built just fifty years before the end of the athlead dynasty is far more effective propaganda for the Germans but in 1992 the mayor of an obscure Turkish town from the back of beyond staged a demonstration in front of the Pergamon Museum it was extensively covered by German national television he wanted his altar back Bergama the modern town of Pergamon is a bumpy three-hour bus ride from his Mir when Alex onto the great trove the Persians out of Anatolia in 330 BC the whole of this region fell under greek influence a period known as Hellenistic after Alexander's death his generals carved out great kingdoms for themselves the athletes were looked down on as johnny-come-lately is but they were to dominate the region until the Romans took over in 130 be seen nowadays the only reason we remember Pergamon is the old time certainly a visitor to Bergamo is allowed to forget thanks to the mayor's campaigning tactics this is altar of Zeus who says here haha altar of Zeus belongs to power gamma we want it back this is olive oil is exported olive oil the company made the altar of Zeus here and he says we want the altar back with olive oil I managed to escape the mayor of bergama's sales patter for a while a local archeologist degree to shame me the original site of the altar upon the ancient Acropolis under the athlete's Kings Pergamon became the center of one of the most ambitious building programs in antiquity there's little to show for it now the accolades had been determined to build a city that would rival Athens itself 400 years Pergamon was the Getty Museum of the ancient world money was no object the athletes were among the first to appreciate the power of art as political propaganda so this is the temple of Athena here yes this is the site of what was once a courtyard surrounded by magnificent colonnades there was a small temple dedicated to Athena at one end little remains of the famous library next to the Athena temple which rivaled that of Alexandria later a besotted Mark Antony was to give its two hundred thousand Scrolls to Cleopatra trade it for yet I've come all this way to see the ultra Zeus the jewel in the crown of the Acropolis was the great altar dedicated to Zeus that's extraordinary so there it is at last that's absolutely amazing the altar was in reality a monumental temple which contained a sacrificial area so this is the original site of the great altar of Zeus it has all the charm of a rotting gum those are the five original steps which were the platform of the altar then is the CREP oedema the Germans very kindly left those and they also very thoughtfully left these two trees to indicate exactly where the original site was so no one would ever forget of course the original visitor to antique Pergamon would have probably approached the altar from behind on this axis from the old road over there in order to confront the full glory of the altar the frieze depicts the mythological war between the Giants and the gods of Olympus an epic drama known to the Greeks as the gegen tamaki the trance were depicted in great task forms with wings serpent-like legs and the heads of beasts the altar probably celebrates the at lids to feet of the Gauls who had invaded Anatolia the quality of the sculpture is best appreciated in the almost surreal fragments the contrast of fish-scale muscle and flesh the energy and complexity a typical of the innovations of the Hellenistic school the contorted poses and emotional realism of the figures contrasts dramatically with the classical dignity of the Elgin marbles sculpted 250 years earlier so the altar is 35 meters square 35 about 35 meters either side and as you walked along this side you would have been struck by that brilliantly deeply carved marble frieze which would have been above the five steps that you saw on the other side about two meters of this incredible freeze running right along 35 meters so once you've walked on that side of the great altar of Zeus you're confronted with the most staggering view the heart of which the center of which is the steepest theater in antiquity running right up the hillside and this is the heart the tectonic core of the city if you will and you must remember that Pergamon is one of the most dynamic examples of urban landscape design in antiquity visitors to the great altar would have climbed 20 steps to its colonnaded entrance despite its fame as a tourist attraction in antiquity Pergamon had escaped the attentions of European antique hunters for most of the 19th century in 1871 a recently unified Germany was scanning the horizon for Antiquities in fierce competition from Britain and France they were the first to establish organizations command posts if you will to locate prize opportunities to acquire not only individual sculptures but entire buildings the Ishtar Gate from Babylon the market from my litres at exactly that time a German raid engineer working for the Ottomans car lumen found some fragments of sculpture at Pergamon he sent them to Berlin but it was 8 years before they were identified as probably from the long-lost Pergamon frieze the Crown Prince of Prussia himself authorized the excavations he insisted on maximum discretion Karl Lohmann had stumbled on a fine that was to prove more important than he could have possibly imagined just as the Macedonians colonized the hilltops of Anatolia so Oman occupied the Acropolis of the Adelaide Kings just before he began his first excavation he brandished his pickaxe in the air in front of 14 bemused workmen and made an extraordinary proclamation in the name of the protector of the royal museum best loved man the Unconquered warrior heir to the most marvelous throne in the world in the name of our crown prince friedrich may this work be blessed and Fleury more the speech of a colonial explorer than an archaeologist before his discovery no one had had any idea what had happened to the frieze the slabs had been dismantled some thousand years before and used as building material when the Byzantines occupied Pergamon they were frequently Hara stand threatened by the Arabs and Turks so they threw up additional walls ramparts rarely along the perimeter of the old Acropolis and because they were rather bigoted Christians there were no great respecters of what they thought were pagan sculptures and they completely raided the altar of zeus taking away over a hundred slabs of marble a sculpted marble which they brought over here reversed and incorporated into the wall Uman excavated two slabs from the wall occasionally resorting to dynamite in spite of these unorthodox techniques he boasted of having rescued the frieze from local peasants who would otherwise have burnt the marble in their lime kilns a common excuse among nineteenth-century blunderers quite how the peasants would have known about the frieze when it was interred in the walls he never explained despite the triumphal installation of his fries in Berlin Uman insisted on being buried here placed to its original site Vermont excavations have proved a little interest among the Ottomans they were happy to part with a few pagan stones in order to strengthen their ties with Germany the mayor of Bergamo doesn't see why Turks today should continue to be deprived of the altar because of a previous generations indifference think in London big bad Big Ben is a part of London a part of the City of London think that an ottoman Pasha came to England take big ban to Parham and you came from England now to burger man you see Big Ben in bottom it's silly it's in he believes in capturing supporters young nickel schoolchildren have been lent a hand by bergamot TV to make their own video about the ultimate illusion and book editors still Angela Thursday this OMA touristy business so Langella boys armada Tabler let's let's teach our children the true history the assaulter the shortest made in Bergama to stay in october a super gamma it's not made for barely but you but you understand that it was bought totally legally by the german government at the end of the 19th century I don't think so only the clear word Germans say that a auto service is not taken from Belgium illegally have you got evidence for that sure I have evidence the the most important evidence is the notebook of car woman the notebook of car woman now is in the library's whoever wants to know to truth please look at and create the papers of car woman the mayor claims that the Germans exported the freeze before they got permission from the Ottoman government the Germans claimed that their acquisition of the freeze was one of the cleaner art deals of the 19th century under Ottoman law archaeological finds were divided one third to the excavator one third to the landowner waved in this case and one third to the government the Germans ended up buying out the Ottomans third for just 80 thousand pounds in today's money a miniscule fraction of the 250 million pounds it might now fetch in an auction between the Getty Museum and Japan I suppose you could ask whether the German government really went to very much trouble explaining to the Ottomans just how important their find was but given their for artistic trophies generally it would have been surprising if they had room unexcavated the majority of the slabs within an amazing seven months they were dispatched to Berlin by oxcart battleship train and barge and arrived in under two months soon after the ottomans introduced strict new export regulations for antiquities the Germans had only just got away with it the final destination of the freeze was museum Island a grandia's collection of galleries and museums built on a former swamp in the middle of the river spray and Berlin the plan was the brainchild of King Friedrich vilem the fourth of prussia there is a drawing by himself by the king himself who was quite a good architect showing this a couple is on the lavash way Athens on this plain and this was so impressing this design and his idea they from that time on no longer any discussion we had to build the museum but on the island so when the Pergamon altar arrived in berlin there was no question it had to be in museum island yeah no question before any decision was taken on how to exhibit the frieze Berliners threw a fancy dress party to celebrate its arrival huge model the plaster model of the altar was built and it was a huge outdoor festival thousands of people participating I think 7,000 onlookers and more than a thousand artists participating in ancient costumes it must have been a really great occasion that's the biggest festival ever held in Berlin there was good reason to celebrate this was the period after Germany had regained its national unity in the franco-prussian war and Germans of course ins especially Berliners were immensely proud of their new role Berlin national capital for the first time in its history and of course they felt they sense that the having such a treasure in its walls would add enormous lead to the prestige of Berlin as a new national capital they were so proud of their new acquisition that a museum was built on the island especially to house the altar this was later knocked down and an even grander one erected on the same site construction continued even during the DA economic crisis of the Weimar Republic it opened in 1930 and immediately became the main attraction of museum Island behind this imposing row of pillars lies another huge museum full of invaluable vendors of craft and culture of all peoples and times the world-famous Pergamon also it's not surprising that a monument to the ambitions of a Hellenistic dynasty began to serve a similar purpose for Germany the mixture of myth melodrama and allegory is vogue Neriah the frieze portrays primordial chaos being mastered by the gods originally that probably referred to the victory of the athletes over the Gauls but at the end of the 19th century it could have been interpreted as Prussia mastering the other German states later Germany mastering the world the power of the altar was ideally suited to Nazi tastes Albert Speer Hitler's favorite architect acknowledged its influence in the facade of the Nuremberg Stadium one of the most famous buildings of the new Germany after Hitler's accession to power it was certainly used as an instrument to demonstrate that the German culture was at the head of in the top group of national cultures like a modern Caesar he stands on the balcony to receive the salutes of the athletes of fifty nation they used it for instance to influence the Olympic International Olympic Committee before the Olympic Games of 1936 dinner was held here in front of the altar work was in a way deceived about the paradox the Nazi regime in Germany because a peaceful very peaceful and cooperative facade was put up and the altar was used as part of this facade for 14 days the eyes of the world will be on Berlin and Germany wants to send away every one of her millions of visitors as a friend he Hitler human by the era by from this column this forum to talk among others he looked around the war the Hitler Youth sandbagged the Pegman altar and later the frieze was stored under an anti-aircraft are just as well as the museum skylight was to sustain a direct hit at the end of the war the Russians seized the friezes war reparations and only returned it in 1956 as a goodwill gesture to East Germany after triumphantly exhibiting it in Moscow and Leningrad after the panels have been painstakingly reassembled VIPs from the Eastern Bloc celebrated with characteristic style was a very important event culturally interested people from the eastern countries especially from Poland France inform Czechoslovakia came in buses and an George not only the Parana museum but the entire era of the museum in Zurich and from that moment on from the opened reopening of the parallel museum the museum Islands regained its importance as a cultural center the mayor of bergama's demonstration in Berlin opened another chapter in the political exploitation of the altar which started the momentum and began his excavations just over a hundred years ago well these protests are part of the wave of protests against the Western museums and one can have a certain understanding that the local mayor or the local governor or the national government of the country is concerned try to regain what they have lost in the last century but I think in the case of the Pergamon finds their demands are on a very weak bases legally certainly but also morally because you can't neglect the argument that the parts were about to be destroyed by the local Turks and CARLMAN and the German save them for Humanity sure at that time most of the people in Anatolia don't know about the history don't know about the author of service it's not a gift it's normal but now the people in Anatolia the people in power gamma know the history know the author of zeros and we thank very much two German people two German officials that they keep our author of zeroes for 120 years I thank them they keep it it's very nice thing but now we know the importance of author of zeroes we can keep it I don't see much point in returning them to the hill of Bergama now after so many years the point is that however valuable the altar has been for bolstering Germany's morale it might be more appropriate on its original site it could hardly look worse than it doesn't it's dingy setting in Berlin the frieze cries out for the bright sky of the Aegean not a battery of television lights the recreation of the altar may have appealed to German taste but distracts attention from the frieze it looks like the set of a sessile B DeMille epoch many find that the present display is not ideal the frieze for instance should be turned to the other side it does not correspond to the original placement on the hill of Bergama the challenge of installing the frieze in a new Museum on the Acropolis at Pergamon would make any contemporary architects mouth water some Turkish archaeologists think that a reproduction of the frieze here would be just as good ironically the Germans have financed the restoration of the nearby Rehman temple of Trajan but aren't prepared to focus on a more even on a reproduction of the frieze I think it would be a fair solution to the problem of course it's a major financial problem technically it could be done I think the techniques that we disposed of today would allow a very good replica you mean a copy of a copy of it no why not why not because because I say something zio Salta belongs to Bergama the real outer not copy of faster I want a real altar it's it's a historical bond I don't want a copy I don't want outer as a show or as a American movie historical movie I want a part of my town back not a copy only all the mayor's claims about the illegal removal of the fries are being investigated by a new Turkish government Commission no bill of sale exists but subject to the Commission's report the Germans appear to have acquired the fries legally by 19th century standards at least German moral claims to have rescued the fries need to be taken with a large pinch of salt it's in aesthetic historical and emotional terms that the removal of the fries from Pergamon should be considered as plunder however civilized its disguise in next week's plunder at the same time Nicholas Ward Jackson considers the Venus de Milo you

Channel: Terry McScann

Views: 38,375

Rating: 4.6246333 out of 5

Keywords: Pergamon Altar (Location), Pergamon Museum (Museum), Nicholas Ward-Jackson, plunder, art theft, art treasure, monument, Greece, Turkey, Germany

Id: XFf8-d80aBM

Length: 24min 47sec (1487 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 07 2015