This volume, the latest in the Altertümer von Pergamon series that publishes the results of the German excavations of the ancient city of Pergamon, stems from research on the Great Altar's architecture conducted by K. of the Technische Universität Karlsruhe and V. Kästner of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. It comprises a systematic recording of the Great Altar's foundation, inventory, drawings and documentation of the architectural fragments (except for the entablature, the numerous ceiling coffers and the Great frieze slabs awaiting publication at a later date by Kästner), a discussion of the building's proportions, an afterword on its destruction, a summary in Turkish, thirteen illustrations (including ten colour photos taken by K.) and seven folio-sized drawings of the altar's foundation and elevations.
As W. Radt, the former director of the Pergamon excavations, states in the introduction (pp. ix–x), in 2016 the decision was made to divide the originally planned single volume publication into two, starting with K.'s already completed work, mainly due to Kästner's delay of his contribution on the marble architecture, dating of the monument and a new schematic reconstruction.
Excavations conducted under the auspices of the Berlin Museums during 1878–1886 uncovered significant portions of the ancient city, including the foundation of the Great Altar. Marble sculpture and architectural fragments of the monument were taken to Berlin, where the altar was partially restored – a reconstruction heavily influenced by the first publication of the altar's architecture in 1906 by J. Schrammen in the same series (J. Schrammen, Der Grosse Altar, AvP 3.1).
In antiquity the altar building was not completed, and its date of construction and original appearance are issues of scholarly debate. In the late eighties W. Hoepfner's (‘Die Grossen Altäre von Magnesia und Pergamon’, AA [1989], 619–34) reconstruction of the monument as a grid building in the size of a Hekatompedos (100 Ionic feet square) caused a sensation, prompting a re-examination of the remains on site and in Berlin. The project involved cleaning, re-measuring, redrawing and a partial new excavation of the altar's foundation (1994–1996) as well as drawing to scale and measuring all surviving marble architectural members.
K.'s new description relies on a stone-by-stone mapping of the andesite substructure that follows Schrammen's established 143 square layout. Four profile drawings and two cross-section drawings (East–West and North–East) are thoroughly discussed. New digital recordings enable an accurate delineation of the altar's footprint: the nearly square foundation is 35.904 metres wide by 33.792 metres deep (p. 23, fig. 13).
K.'s team examined all architectural fragments on site, in the excavation storerooms, and in the Bergama and Berlin Museums, clarifying the size and scale of the building from the krepis to the horizontal geison. The 364 fragments inventoried (pp. 77–9 and drawings in a 1:5 and a 1:2 scale on pp. 95–231) include pieces from the architrave; the column capitals, shafts and bases; the stylobate; the projecting cornice and base of the Gigantomachy frieze; the orthostats and base of the podium; the blocks of the krepis steps; the double columns lining the interior court; and the crown moulding of the sacrificial altar.
In the section on metrology K. analyses the altar's dimensions in relation to its canon of proportions. This task is made difficult by the unevenness in size and poor preservation of some architectural members, the absence of the stylobate blocks and the blocks of the projecting cornice of the Gigantomachy frieze not being in situ, which could help determine the spacing of the colonnade above it. He points out that the amount and type of architectural members still extant vary considerably, with their numbers decreasing dramatically in the building's lower section: nothing survives from the base moulding of the Gigantomachy frieze and the podium, the krepis survives in many small fragments, and only four blocks from the steps remain intact. These can, nevertheless, provide reliable hints for the articulation of the facades.
As K. makes abundantly clear (pp. 24–5), the study aims at responding to Hoepfner's architectural theories, checking and verifying Schrammen's reconstruction and refining the understanding of the monument's architectural form.
Hoepfner used as a module (the basic unit, from the addition or subdivision of which all dimensions of a building result) the height of the step of the krepis, almost 22 cm, 5 AF (eighths of a foot) or 10 D (daktyloi). He assumed four steps for the krepis counting the plinth of the podium, since it is of equal height. Thus, he calculated the altar's total height as forty steps, i.e. 200 AF, 25 feet or 8.80 m. K. calculates 16.5 steps for the altar's upper section (stylobate, columns and entablature) instead of Hoepfner's 16 steps, arriving at a total height of 8.91 m. The difference comes down to 5 D or 11 cm (p. 66, plate 6b).
Moreover, the varying lengths of the intact architrave blocks (140–64 cm) demonstrate according to K. that they cannot be part of a grid system, while his analysis of the foundation corroborates Schrammen's use of a column's lower diameter of 35.20 cm (the old Ionian foot) as the building's module.
In his discussion of the altar's architect, whose identity remains unknown, K.'s focus is on his influences and accomplishments. In its proportions and style, the altar's colonnade is placed firmly within the Attic Ionian rather than Asiatic Ionian tradition, thus providing one more connection of the Attalids to Athens: its column ratio of 1:7.625 is closer to the Nike temple on the Athenian Acropolis (1:7.8), but at Pergamon the column bases are taller and the capitals squatter. Despite its location's limitations, a narrow long terrace beneath the sanctuary of Athena, the architect masterfully managed to make the altar stand out, avoiding obstruction by or subordination to the sanctuary of Athena, while at the same time making it appear as part of the same architectural complex.
The Pergamon altar's unique form resembles a squared temple or an elevated pi-shaped stoa rather than a typical Ionian stepped altar. Unfortunately, K. discusses the building's type only briefly, highlighting the central role of the colonnade, and relegates the many theories about the altar's intended function to a footnote (p. 67 n. 181). It would be interesting to know K.'s thoughts on how his architectural analysis can shed light on this contested subject.
Another important contribution is the identification of three distinct phases of the altar's destruction. The building was taken down meticulously layer by layer to select the largest possible ashlars to shield the faces of the early Byzantine fortification wall. This is why a large number of the relief slabs of the Great Frieze survived for posterity. K. convincingly suggests that this labour-intensive operation could not have taken place in haste during the Arab conquest of Pergamon in ad 715/16, as previously thought, but decades earlier (probably in the years ad 672–678).
The altar's substructure presumably remained undisturbed until the reign of Emmanuel I Komnenos (ad 1143–1180), when the fortification was strengthened to defend against the Seljuk Turks. The third phase occurred after ad 1204, during the reign of the Laskarid dynasty, when the remaining steps of the krepis were stripped to satisfy the demand for mortar caused by raising the height of the wall and constructing towers along its perimeter. Only by chance did two ashlars from the lowest step remain in situ under the rubble until their discovery during the excavation campaign of 1879.
Despite K.'s acknowledgement that there cannot be an accurate new reconstruction drawing of the entire altar without a full publication of the ceiling coffers, even a preliminary sketch would have been helpful as well as an up-to-date city plan in his discussion of the altar's destruction phases in conjunction with the Byzantine fortifications.
This significant, long overdue publication constitutes a valuable research resource on the architecture of the Pergamon altar, and it is essential for any future study of the monument. Due to its specialised, technical nature, it will appeal mostly to scholars and students of Hellenistic architecture, architectural historians and archaeologists.
