Pergamon
Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)
Interest
Acropolis Height
335 m above plain
Library Holdings
~200,000 volumes
UNESCO Status
World Heritage Site (2014)
Famous For
Great Altar, Asclepion
“Pergamon represents one of the high points of Hellenistic civilization — a center where art, architecture, scholarship, and medicine flourished under royal patronage.”
Pergamon was a rich and powerful ancient Greek city in Aeolis. It is located 26 km from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus, northwest of the modern city of Bergama, Turkey.
read_wikipedia →overview
Pergamon, located at modern Bergama in İzmir Province, was the capital of the Attalid Kingdom (281–133 BCE) and one of the most important cultural centers of the Hellenistic world. The city's acropolis, rising 335 meters above the surrounding plain, held monumental buildings including the Great Altar of Zeus (now partially reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin), a theatre carved into the steep hillside with seating for 10,000, a library said to have held 200,000 volumes, and the Temple of Athena. The Asclepion, located in the lower city, was one of the ancient world's most famous healing centers. It functioned as a combination of hospital, spa, and religious sanctuary dedicated to the healing god Asclepius. The physician Galen, one of the most influential medical writers in history, practiced here in the 2nd century CE. Pergamon is also credited with the development of parchment (pergamene), reportedly invented when Egypt cut off papyrus exports.
why_it_matters
evidence
Distinguishing what is well-established from what remains debated.
confirmed
2- The Great Altar of Pergamon featured a monumental sculpted frieze depicting the Gigantomachy.
- Galen of Pergamon practiced medicine at the Asclepion in the 2nd century CE.
inferred
1- The Pergamon library may have contained approximately 200,000 scrolls, based on ancient sources.
debated
1- Whether parchment was actually invented at Pergamon or merely popularized there is debated.
excavation
German excavations begin
Led by Carl Humann
Carl Humann began excavations that uncovered the Great Altar and shipped the frieze to Berlin.
Continuing German work
Led by German Archaeological Institute
Systematic excavation of the acropolis and lower city continued under various German directors.
More Photos
Museum Artifacts
location
Related Sites
sources
- Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods — Helmut Koester (1998)
- UNESCO World Heritage — PergamonLink