(relaxing piano music)
- [Voiceover] We're in Istanbul
at the Archeological Museum looking at one
of their great treasures,
the Alexander Sarcophagus.
- [Voiceover] Now, a Sarcophagus is a thing
in which you bury a body.
- [Voiceover] So, a really big stone coffin
and this stone happens to be the marble
that the Greeks love to use.
- [Voiceover] Yeah, this is Pentellic marble.
One of the highest quality marbles valued
for its clarity, its strength
and its ability to carve up very well.
- [Voiceover] It's like a soft stone.
You can really get fine details
and one of the most incredible things
about this Sarcophagus is just how crisp it is.
It's in incredible condition.
- [Voiceover] It was found quite late
in Sidon, in a royal nacropolis.
Now, nacropolis is basically a city of the dead
and a royal nacropolis is a city of dead kings
and their families.
- [Voiceover] This city, the city of Sidon,
which is in present day, Lebanon
had been a major Phoenician city.
It was a major trading port.
They've been very wealthy.
Now, Phoenician city states have controlled
much of the eastern and southern Mediterranean.
- [Voiceover] And the Phoenicians,
they may not sound familiar to you
but one of their most famous colonies will
and that's the colony of Carthage
in modern day Tunisia.
- [Voiceover] Which we know because
of their famous war against the Romans.
- [Voiceover] The Punic Wars.
Particularly, the second Punic War with Hannibal
who crossed the Alps with his elephants.
- [Voiceover] Now, archeologists have tried
to figure out whose tomb this was
and there is some consensus
that this tomb belonged to the King of Sidon.
It's just a spectacularly large and expensive
and beautiful tomb.
- [Voiceover] Quality of workmanship is extraordinary
and it's interesting that this Sarcophagus
is actually in the shape of a Greek Temple.
- [Voiceover] Greek Temple or Greek Treasury.
One can think about the massive temple structures
across Asia Minor, Greece or in the classical period,
one can think of the Siphnian Treasury in Delphi.
It has a lot of architectural details.
We can see the egg and dart motif.
We can see meanders and akroteria.
Those are the decorative elements
on the ridge of a temple we normally get.
Someone's taken a lot of care
to make this look very architectural.
It's highly intricate in detail
before you even get to the friezes
- [Voiceover] But let's get to the friezes
because those are the stars.
- [Voiceover] The friezes are remarkable.
Now, they're outstanding leaf carving
and they have two stories.
One is a battle scene.
- [Voiceover] Let's start there.
What we see is this incredibly complicated
interlacing of figures that are carved
with a tremendous naturalism.
- [Voiceover] Incredible emotion and pathos,
One figure that immediately jumps out
is the man on horseback and his head is covered
with a lion's skin, which makes him
almost immediately identifiable to us.
- [Voiceover] This is Alexander the Great.
The man who conquered pretty much
all of the known world.
Alexander the Great starts off
by conquering the Greeks,
consolidating his power and then turning
that combined force against the Persians in the east.
- [Voiceover] The Persians were still this
remarkable empire despite the defeats
that they had suffered at the hands of the Greeks
in the 5th Century.
They were still this empire
that controlled large parts of Asia
and they were a force to be reckoned with
and Alexander against all odds,
took on the empire and attempted to conquer it,
which he did.
- [Voiceover] And art historians have speculated
that the scene that's being represented in this frieze
is the Battle of Issus, which was one
of the most decisive battles
where Alexander routed a much larger army
of the Persians.
- [Voiceover] First of all, you have Alexander
in a very prominent location.
He had been fighting Persians
but it's also the central figure
that's led many art historians
towards this interpretation.
- [Voiceover] And that central figure
would be the King of Sidon
and he was appointed to that position
by Alexander after that battle.
- [Voiceover] Also we clearly have Persians here.
- [Voiceover] Now, how do we know they're Persians?
- [Voiceover] Oh, that's always a good question.
Because yes, we have to plain name that barbarian
or how do you identify the barbarian?
Greeks or Macedonians who are also dressed
like Greeks.
They look very particular.
They generally have a lot of drapery
but they have exposed legs.
Anyone who's wearing trousers is generally,
a good tip-off.
If you've got trousers on, you're a barbarian.
- [Voiceover] The other hint is their headwear.
They're wearing Phrygian hats.
- [Voiceover] Exactly, these Phrygian caps,
which are kind of floppy are very well known.
We'll see them throughout all of ancient art.
Also, you notice their arms are covered.
They're wearing much more clothes
and they also even seem to have identifiable shoes.
- [Voiceover] The other issue is of course,
they're losing but before we go any further,
let's go back to Alexander and figure out
how it is that we can recognize that this is him.
He's wearing a lion's hat.
That's a reference back to claims
that he had descended from Herakles.
- [Voiceover] The other reason why people
often identify this figure as Alexander
is because of the Alexander Mosaic.
- [Voiceover] And art historians believe
that that Mosaic and possible this frieze
had a common source.
That is a famous painting that is now lost to us.
- [Voiceover] And so that has allowed scholars
to feel quite comfortable in identifying this figure
as Alexander.
- [Voiceover] The other issue is simply the nobility
with which Alexander is represented
and with which the victors are represented here.
If you look closely to Alexander,
he is large on his horse.
The horse is rearing back
and he holds his hand back.
Clearly, he had originally held a spear.
That spear was probably made out of bronze.
It like all of the horse's bridles
and other weapons, have been removed
but we can see that that spear
would have been slaying the man
who is desperately trying to get off his horse,
which has fallen.
But Alexander's horses are not always
in the dominant position.
Look at the nude figure that is coming up
against an enemy on horseback.
- [Voiceover] He's got his right arm
thrown back over his forehead
and his left arm is reaching up.
You can see his enemy, the Persian
on the horse, his right arm back,
ready to strike him.
You almost feel it's inevitably that this Greek
is not going to survive this battle
- [Voiceover] But his bravery is extraordinary.
I can just make out a shadow in between his fingers.
I think he must've originally been holding
a sword of some sort.
- [Voiceover] And so, the Greeks who've fallen
are also remembered in a heroic manner.
- [Voiceover] Now look at the figure
that's just below him.
That's an archer.
You can see him drawing back a bow,
pointing with his left hand.
He's taking aim but what's really remarkable
is if you look at his leggings,
there are clear traces of the original paint.
This is such a great reminder
that the pristine white marble
that we take for granted as being Greek
is absolutely inaccurate in a lot of cases.
These sculptures were painted.
- [Voiceover] We know that there was yellow,
red, purples and blues and a bit of violet
and variations within those major colors
but what you can see here
is this pattern almost of a harlequin design
on his trousers but his shoe also has
a red tint to it.
You can start to visualize colors back in
and that would have made the composition
even more dynamic, the strife,
the struggle in the battle even more real
to the viewer.
- [Voiceover] If you look at the dead body
just to right of the archer, you can actually see
the wound in his side and red paint
that has been used to express the blood.
- [Voiceover] And that's something we also see
on the other side in the hunt scene
where the lion is being pierced
and we can see red, also his blood pouring down.
- [Voiceover] Let's go look.
On the reverse side, we see instead of a battle,
a hunt.
- [Voiceover] Hunting scenes are very well known
in the ancient Near East.
You can think of major Assyrian reliefs,
some Ninevah, things that are in the British museum.
- [Voiceover] And at the center of the hunt,
is this massive lion that is attacking a horse.
- [Voiceover] Lion hunts were very significant parts
of kingship, including a hunting scene
would be very typical of a monument
that was created for a king
but there's something else that's very striking.
We have Greeks and Persians
but they don't seem to be fighting each other.
- [Voiceover] No, they're working together.
- [Voiceover] That's rather odd, isn't it?
Considering what we've just seen?
- [Voiceover] It is so central to the political aim
of Alexander's enormous empire.
- [Voiceover] Alexander does aim for something
that's very different for many of kingdoms
in the past in this part of the world.
He wanted to create an empire
where the Greeks soldiers and his army,
the Macedonian soldiers would intermarry
with local women along the way
to solidify the base of the empire.
- [Voiceover] And this must've been important
to the Phoenicians who wanted to be
on an equal status with the Greeks.
- [Voiceover] It also shows that people
who are not specifically Greek
use Greek iconography, Greek motifs,
clearly, the sculptural traditions of the Greeks,
what we often see to be clear ethnic boundaries
or political or cultural boundaries
are actually a bit more fuzzy.
- [Voiceover] But this sculpture is not fuzzy at all.
There is a clarity that reminds us
that this is not long after the high point
of Greek classicism in the 5th century.
There is a kind of drama.
There is a kind of energy that is new
and we know with hindsight
that this is moving towards what we will call
the Hellenistic style.
- [Voiceover] You really see the movement particularly,
by looking at the cloaks and the capes.
We have a Greek figure here on a horse
and you can see yellow paint would have been there
but the cape is waving back
and so it really adds this phenomenal movement.
- [Voiceover] Or look at the way that the Persian
sleeves are rising up.
I can really get a sense of the movement
of his body and the way in which the cloth
is responding just a moment later.
- [Voiceover] Exactly, and he also has his arms
pull back, so you can reimagine the bow and arrow,
which would have been made of metal.
You can see that tension that's being created
in his arms to almost send the arrow out
towards the lion to help in this great hunt
to kill this amazing beast.
- [Voiceover] One of the details I find most compelling
in terms of energizing the scene
and giving a sense of time and movement
is the rider of that central horse.
The horse is moving up and down quickly
and you can see that his shirt is wafting up
because his body has moved down very quickly.
- [Voiceover] And that continues all the way across
the relief even to this final figure at the end.
We have this isolated group of a Greek
and a Persian fighting a stag.
Greek is pulling back on the stag's massive horns
and you feel the movement coming
actually less from the Greek figure.
Almost looks a little bit static
with his arm and his upper body
but in fact, through the Persian figure,
he has an axe and he is about
to swing it down and hit the stag
right in the chest and that kind of movement
helps your eye come all the way back in
but it also conveys the dynamic nature
that permeates this entire side.
We can see how these two sides are related
in terms of their organization
but also the two stories that they're telling.
We see the Persians going from the enemy
to being allies, to being incorporated
into a larger world.
- [Voiceover] This larger narrative is important
because it may give us insight into Alexander's
larger political aims but this sarcophagus itself
is also just a treasure.
It is so rare that we have early 4th century
Greek carving at this level
that is in this kind of pristine condition.
- [Voiceover] Often art historians have held up
5th century Athens as the pinnacle of artistic creation
in the Greek world but I think at looking
at something like this,
you can see that there is no element
of what art historians might have traditional
in term, decline.
What you have here is a changing ethos,
a changing aesthetic, which will come
to be fully developed and defined
during the Hellenistic Period.
(relaxing piano music)