Red Basilica
Encyclopedia
The "Red Basilica" also called variously the Red Hall and Red Courtyard, is a monumental ruined temple in the ancient city of Pergamon
, now Bergama
, in western Turkey
. The temple was built by the Roman Empire
, probably in the time of Hadrian
and possibly on his orders. It is one of the largest Roman structures still surviving in the ancient Greek world
. The temple is thought to have been used for the worship of the Egyptian gods – specifically Isis
and/or Serapis
, and possibly also Osiris
, Harpocrates
and other lesser gods, who may have been worshipped in a pair of drum-shaped rotundas, both of which are virtually intact, alongside the main temple.
Although the building itself is of an immense size, it was only one part of a much larger sacred complex, surrounded by high walls, that dwarfed even the colossal Temple of Jupiter
in Baalbek
. The entire complex was built directly over the River Selinus in a remarkable feat of engineering that involved the construction of an immense bridge 196 metres (643 ft) wide to channel the river through two channels under the temple. The Pergamon Bridge
still stands today, supporting modern buildings and even vehicle traffic. A series of tunnels and chambers lies under the main temple, connecting it with the side rotundas and giving private access to different areas of the complex. Various drains, water channels and basins are located in, around and under the main temple and may have been used for symbolic reenactments of the flooding of the Nile
.
The temple was converted by the Byzantines
into a Christian
church dedicated to St John
but was subsequently destroyed. Today the ruins of the main temple and one of the side rotundas can be visited, while the other side rotunda is still in use as a small mosque.
stood. It was located at the eastern end of what was originally an immense sacred precinct or temenos
, 270 metres (885.8 ft) long by 100 metres (328.1 ft) wide, which was surrounded by stone walls standing at least 13 metres (42.7 ft) high. Most of the temenos was destroyed and built over long ago, but substantial fragments of the walls remain standing to a height of 13 metres (42.7 ft) today. The main entrance lay on the western side of the temenos through a colossal marble gateway; smaller gateways were located on the same side, north and south of the main gate. From there, visitors walked some 200 metres (656.2 ft) to an immense propylon or monumental gateway in front of the temple, supported by a row of columns standing 14 metres (45.9 ft) high.
The temenos was built on top of the River Selinus, presumably because the person who commissioned the complex wished it to be located in the city centre rather than in an outlying district. As the city was already substantially built up, the river bed offered an otherwise unused location for the temple complex and reduced the number of properties that would have to be demolished to make way for it. The river was channelled into two tunnels passing diagonally for a distance of about 150 metres (492.1 ft), northwest to southeast, under the temenos and temple. This structure, the Pergamon Bridge
, still stands today and continues to drain the river underneath the complex.
There appear to have been windows only in the western half of the main temple, meaning that the eastern half did not receive any natural light (unless there were windows in the eastern wall, which no longer stands). The building was entered from the west through an immense door measuring more than 7 metres (23 ft) wide by at least 14 metres (45.9 ft) high. Its door-sill is still in place and was made from a single piece of marble weighing over 30 tons. It seems, however, that the door was kept open continuously as there are no traces of the rollers that would have been necessary to open and close it. In front of the door stood an iron grating, which presumably had an opening in it to permit access to the interior of the temple.
A total of twelve arched niches are embedded in the walls of the western end of the temple, five each lining the north and south walls and another two flanking the door on the west wall. They stand 2.55 metres (8.4 ft) wide by 6 metres (19.7 ft) high and presumably held statues of deities – perhaps the twelve gods of the zodiac
. In his novel Metamorphoses
, the Roman writer Apuleius
described a visit to the temple in which his protagonist "saw the gods infernal and the gods celestial, before whom I presented myself and worshipped." Near the centre of the hall is a shallow basin, 22 centimetres (8.7 in) deep by 5.2 metres (17.1 ft) long, in which three rectangular tubs stood, placed parallel to each other. It had no inflow pipe or drain. The eastern and western halves of the hall are divided by an alabaster-lined water channel, 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) wide and 1.37 metres (4.5 ft) deep, extending the full width of the temple. This did have a substantial inflow or outlet point, 1 metres (3.3 ft) high by 0.45 metres (1.5 ft) wide, which exited somewhere to the west in the direction of the river. The floor of the temple was constructed from plates of marble and granite imported from as far away as Egypt
.
The eastern end of the hall would have been closed to the public and could only be accessed by the temple priests and their attendants. It housed the cult statue, which stood on a base that stood in turn on a podium raised by 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) above the temple floor. The statue was at least 10 metres (32.8 ft) high, approaching the size of the great Statue of Zeus at Olympia
, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
. An entry-hole in the base indicates that priests could climb inside the body of the statue, perhaps to make it "speak" during ceremonies.
At the far end of the temple were two massive towers, projecting some distance out from the eastern wall of the temenos. The original wall no longer exists but from the foundations it can be seen that it would have been in the shape of an inverted semicircle. During the Christian era it was demolished and replaced with an apsidal wall.
s topped by domes stand on either side of the main temple. Although they have been stripped of their original marble cladding, they are still substantially intact. Each stands 18 metres (59.1 ft) high, with a diameter of 12 metres (39.4 ft), and had doors standing 11.5 metres (37.7 ft) high. They were lit by an opening (an opaion or oculus
) that was originally 3.7 metres (12.1 ft) wide. The two rotundas had different fates in the modern era. The one on the south side, which is part of the Red Basilica archaeological site and is open to visitors, was re-used and modified in the Ottoman period
, and in the 19th century became the machinery room for an olive oil
factory. Its inside walls are still covered with black soot from the smoke produced by the machinery. The north rotunda is currently used as a mosque.
The two rotundas stood within courtyards to the north and south of the main temple. They were surrounded on all sides by stoa
s measuring some 5 metres (16.4 ft) deep, supported on the eastern side by atlantes
and caryatid
s that each consisted of two figures standing back-to-back supporting the stoa roof. The figures were clearly intended to represent Egyptians, as they are depicted wearing Egyptian headgear.
A pair of water basins was located in front of each rotunda, measuring 11.5 metres (37.7 ft) long by 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) wide and 85 centimetres (33.5 in) deep. These basins each had a smaller round basin of 1.75 metres (5.7 ft) diameter at each end.
The tunnels are all about 2 metres (6.6 ft) high by between 0.45 metres (1.5 ft) to 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) wide. They appear to have been generally unadorned, but some pieces of coloured stucco
are reported to be visible in one area – perhaps the remainder of some kind of decoration. The chambers to which they link are substantial structures. Two are rectangular rooms on either side of the main temple, measuring 9 metres (29.5 ft) by 15 metres (49.2 ft), 4 metres (13.1 ft) high, supported by pillars arranged in a 3 x 3 pattern. The other two, situated on the far side of each rotunda, are significantly larger; they measure 13 metres (42.7 ft) by 15 metres (49.2 ft) with a 4 x 4 pattern of columns. The two excavated chambers beside the south rotunda are today used as storage space for the archaeological site.
, Isis
, Harpocrates
, Osiris
, Apis
, Helios
on a horse ... Ares
and the Dioskouroi". Another inscription mentions Serapis, and a small terracotta head of Isis was discovered in the area of the temenos. One of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri
from Egypt refers to Isis as ὲν Περγάμφ δεσπότις ("she who rules in Pergamon"). The temple may well have been dedicated to Isis, though some historians have interpreted it as a Serapeum
(temple of Serapis) instead. The two rotundas may have been used for the worship of Horus
and Anubis
.
The layout of the temple provides more clues about how it was used. Unlike Greek temples, where the entire building was considered to be the house of the divinity, the god worshipped in the "Red Basilica" was confined to the eastern half of the temple. Similar layouts are found in other Isis and Serapis temples elsewhere in Asia Minor and Greece. The temenos is a vastly enlarged equivalent of enclosures found elsewhere in Greek mystery sanctuaries, such as the one as Eleusis in Greece where the Eleusinian Mysteries
were performed annually. The purpose of its high walls was to prevent outsiders from witnessing ceremonies held within the temenos and temple precinct, thus preserving the mystery of the rituals.
Water appears to have been a central theme of the ceremonies held at the temple, judging from the number of water features (basins, troughs and so on) in the complex. The basins outside the temple may have been purely decorative but those inside seem to have been intended for use in ceremonies. These may have included purification rituals – sprinkling the faithful with water – and possibly also a ritual re-enactment of the flooding of the Nile. Robert A. Wild suggests that the deep basin dividing the temple into its eastern and western halves may have been designed to convey flood- or rainwater into the temple during peak rainfall periods in the winter. The basin also served to separate the public western half of the temple from the sacred eastern half. Initiates may have been taken through the underground passages to the cultic area, where they would be presented to the worshippers filling the western end of the temple. Something of this nature is hinted at by Apuleius in Metamorphoses: "There in the middle of this sacred temple before the image of the goddess I was made to stand on a wooden pulpit."
in Tivoli
.
At some point during the Christian era the temple was gutted by fire. It was not restored, but was redeveloped in the 5th century AD as a Christian basilica, built inside the shell of the destroyed temple. Arcades were built dividing the interior into a central nave
and two side aisles. The eastern wall was demolished and replaced with an apse
. The floor level was raised by about 2 metres (6.6 ft), obscuring the original Roman floor, though the former floor level has since been restored by archaeologists. The church was probably destroyed by the forces of the Arab general Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik
, who besieged and looted the city in 716–717 during an unsuccessful bid to conquer Constantinople
. Pergamon fell into Turkish hands in 1336 and the building was converted into a mosque.
The complex has been investigated and excavated in a series of campaigns by the German Archaeological Institute
. In 1906–1909 P. Schazmann prepared detailed drawings of the ruins during a German excavation of the Hellenistic city. The temple and temenos were excavated by Theodor Wiegand
from 1927. New archaeological studies were carried out from 2002 to 2005 under A. Hoffmann. Restoration efforts have also been pursued, first in the 1930s under O. Bayatlı, the Director of the Bergama Museum, and later in the 1950s and 1960s. Further restoration work was conducted on the main temple in 2006 and the south rotunda was restored between 2006 and 2009.
Pergamon
Pergamon , or Pergamum, was an ancient Greek city in modern-day Turkey, in Mysia, today located from the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus , that became the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon during the Hellenistic period, under the Attalid dynasty, 281–133 BC...
, now Bergama
Bergama
Bergama is a populous district, as well as the center city of the same district, in İzmir Province in western Turkey. By excluding İzmir's metropolitan area, it is one of the prominent districts of the province in terms of population and is largely urbanized at the rate of 53,6 per cent...
, in western Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. The temple was built by the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, probably in the time of Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
and possibly on his orders. It is one of the largest Roman structures still surviving in the ancient Greek world
Hellenistic civilization
Hellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE...
. The temple is thought to have been used for the worship of the Egyptian gods – specifically Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
and/or Serapis
Serapis
Serapis or Sarapis is a Graeco-Egyptian name of God. Serapis was devised during the 3rd century BC on the orders of Ptolemy I of Egypt as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his realm. The god was depicted as Greek in appearance, but with Egyptian trappings, and combined iconography...
, and possibly also Osiris
Osiris
Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...
, Harpocrates
Harpocrates
In late Greek mythology as developed in Ptolemaic Alexandria, Harpocrates is the god of silence. Harpocrates was adapted by the Greeks from the Egyptian child god Horus. To the ancient Egyptians, Horus represented the new-born Sun, rising each day at dawn...
and other lesser gods, who may have been worshipped in a pair of drum-shaped rotundas, both of which are virtually intact, alongside the main temple.
Although the building itself is of an immense size, it was only one part of a much larger sacred complex, surrounded by high walls, that dwarfed even the colossal Temple of Jupiter
Jupiter (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....
in Baalbek
Baalbek
Baalbek is a town in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon, altitude , situated east of the Litani River. It is famous for its exquisitely detailed yet monumentally scaled temple ruins of the Roman period, when Baalbek, then known as Heliopolis, was one of the largest sanctuaries in the Empire...
. The entire complex was built directly over the River Selinus in a remarkable feat of engineering that involved the construction of an immense bridge 196 metres (643 ft) wide to channel the river through two channels under the temple. The Pergamon Bridge
Pergamon Bridge
The Pergamon Bridge is a Roman substruction bridge over the Selinus river in the ancient city of Pergamon , modern-day Turkey...
still stands today, supporting modern buildings and even vehicle traffic. A series of tunnels and chambers lies under the main temple, connecting it with the side rotundas and giving private access to different areas of the complex. Various drains, water channels and basins are located in, around and under the main temple and may have been used for symbolic reenactments of the flooding of the Nile
Flooding of the Nile
has been an important natal cycle in Egypt since ancient times. It is celebrated by Egyptians as an annual holiday for two weeks starting August 15, known as Wafaa El-Nil. It is also celebrated in the Coptic Church by ceremonially throwing a martyr's relic into the river, hence the name, Esba`...
.
The temple was converted by the Byzantines
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
into a Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
church dedicated to St John
John the Evangelist
Saint John the Evangelist is the conventional name for the author of the Gospel of John...
but was subsequently destroyed. Today the ruins of the main temple and one of the side rotundas can be visited, while the other side rotunda is still in use as a small mosque.
Description
The temple was built in the lower city of Pergamon at the foot of the hill on which the ancient city's acropolisAcropolis
Acropolis means "high city" in Greek, literally city on the extremity and is usually translated into English as Citadel . For purposes of defense, early people naturally chose elevated ground to build a new settlement, frequently a hill with precipitous sides...
stood. It was located at the eastern end of what was originally an immense sacred precinct or temenos
Temenos
Temenos is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct: The Pythian race-course is called a temenos, the sacred valley of the Nile is the ...
, 270 metres (885.8 ft) long by 100 metres (328.1 ft) wide, which was surrounded by stone walls standing at least 13 metres (42.7 ft) high. Most of the temenos was destroyed and built over long ago, but substantial fragments of the walls remain standing to a height of 13 metres (42.7 ft) today. The main entrance lay on the western side of the temenos through a colossal marble gateway; smaller gateways were located on the same side, north and south of the main gate. From there, visitors walked some 200 metres (656.2 ft) to an immense propylon or monumental gateway in front of the temple, supported by a row of columns standing 14 metres (45.9 ft) high.
The temenos was built on top of the River Selinus, presumably because the person who commissioned the complex wished it to be located in the city centre rather than in an outlying district. As the city was already substantially built up, the river bed offered an otherwise unused location for the temple complex and reduced the number of properties that would have to be demolished to make way for it. The river was channelled into two tunnels passing diagonally for a distance of about 150 metres (492.1 ft), northwest to southeast, under the temenos and temple. This structure, the Pergamon Bridge
Pergamon Bridge
The Pergamon Bridge is a Roman substruction bridge over the Selinus river in the ancient city of Pergamon , modern-day Turkey...
, still stands today and continues to drain the river underneath the complex.
The temple
The temple measures 60 metres (196.9 ft) from east to west and 26 metres (85.3 ft) from north to south. Its walls still survive up to a height of 19 metres (62.3 ft), though its roof and eastern wall no longer exist and much of the original interior was destroyed when it was converted into a Christian basilica. The building was originally a vast hall, rather than a basilica, covered by a wooden roof that had no interior support or colonnade. Its walls were built entirely of red bricks that gave the building its modern Turkish name (which means literally "Red Courtyard"). They were covered in marble in various colours, though this has entirely disappeared; some important structural parts were also constructed from marble.There appear to have been windows only in the western half of the main temple, meaning that the eastern half did not receive any natural light (unless there were windows in the eastern wall, which no longer stands). The building was entered from the west through an immense door measuring more than 7 metres (23 ft) wide by at least 14 metres (45.9 ft) high. Its door-sill is still in place and was made from a single piece of marble weighing over 30 tons. It seems, however, that the door was kept open continuously as there are no traces of the rollers that would have been necessary to open and close it. In front of the door stood an iron grating, which presumably had an opening in it to permit access to the interior of the temple.
A total of twelve arched niches are embedded in the walls of the western end of the temple, five each lining the north and south walls and another two flanking the door on the west wall. They stand 2.55 metres (8.4 ft) wide by 6 metres (19.7 ft) high and presumably held statues of deities – perhaps the twelve gods of the zodiac
Zodiac
In astronomy, the zodiac is a circle of twelve 30° divisions of celestial longitude which are centred upon the ecliptic: the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year...
. In his novel Metamorphoses
The Golden Ass
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as The Golden Ass , is the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety....
, the Roman writer Apuleius
Apuleius
Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...
described a visit to the temple in which his protagonist "saw the gods infernal and the gods celestial, before whom I presented myself and worshipped." Near the centre of the hall is a shallow basin, 22 centimetres (8.7 in) deep by 5.2 metres (17.1 ft) long, in which three rectangular tubs stood, placed parallel to each other. It had no inflow pipe or drain. The eastern and western halves of the hall are divided by an alabaster-lined water channel, 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) wide and 1.37 metres (4.5 ft) deep, extending the full width of the temple. This did have a substantial inflow or outlet point, 1 metres (3.3 ft) high by 0.45 metres (1.5 ft) wide, which exited somewhere to the west in the direction of the river. The floor of the temple was constructed from plates of marble and granite imported from as far away as Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
.
The eastern end of the hall would have been closed to the public and could only be accessed by the temple priests and their attendants. It housed the cult statue, which stood on a base that stood in turn on a podium raised by 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) above the temple floor. The statue was at least 10 metres (32.8 ft) high, approaching the size of the great Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Statue of Zeus at Olympia
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was made by the Greek sculptor Phidias, circa 432 BC on the site where it was erected in the Temple of Zeus, Olympia, Greece. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.-Description:...
, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The Seven Wonders of the World refers to remarkable constructions of classical antiquity listed by various authors in guidebooks popular among the ancient Hellenic tourists, particularly in the 1st and 2nd centuries BC...
. An entry-hole in the base indicates that priests could climb inside the body of the statue, perhaps to make it "speak" during ceremonies.
At the far end of the temple were two massive towers, projecting some distance out from the eastern wall of the temenos. The original wall no longer exists but from the foundations it can be seen that it would have been in the shape of an inverted semicircle. During the Christian era it was demolished and replaced with an apsidal wall.
Side courts and rotundas
Two rotundaRotunda (architecture)
A rotunda is any building with a circular ground plan, sometimes covered by a dome. It can also refer to a round room within a building . The Pantheon in Rome is a famous rotunda. A Band Rotunda is a circular bandstand, usually with a dome...
s topped by domes stand on either side of the main temple. Although they have been stripped of their original marble cladding, they are still substantially intact. Each stands 18 metres (59.1 ft) high, with a diameter of 12 metres (39.4 ft), and had doors standing 11.5 metres (37.7 ft) high. They were lit by an opening (an opaion or oculus
Oculus
An Oculus, circular window, or rain-hole is a feature of Classical architecture since the 16th century. They are often denoted by their French name, oeil de boeuf, or "bull's-eye". Such circular or oval windows express the presence of a mezzanine on a building's façade without competing for...
) that was originally 3.7 metres (12.1 ft) wide. The two rotundas had different fates in the modern era. The one on the south side, which is part of the Red Basilica archaeological site and is open to visitors, was re-used and modified in the Ottoman period
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, and in the 19th century became the machinery room for an olive oil
Olive oil
Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...
factory. Its inside walls are still covered with black soot from the smoke produced by the machinery. The north rotunda is currently used as a mosque.
The two rotundas stood within courtyards to the north and south of the main temple. They were surrounded on all sides by stoa
Stoa
Stoa in Ancient Greek architecture; covered walkways or porticos, commonly for public usage. Early stoae were open at the entrance with columns, usually of the Doric order, lining the side of the building; they created a safe, enveloping, protective atmosphere.Later examples were built as two...
s measuring some 5 metres (16.4 ft) deep, supported on the eastern side by atlantes
Atlas (architecture)
In the classical European architectural tradition an atlas is a support sculpted in the form of a man, which may take the place of a column, a pier or a pilaster...
and caryatid
Caryatid
A caryatid is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term karyatides literally means "maidens of Karyai", an ancient town of Peloponnese...
s that each consisted of two figures standing back-to-back supporting the stoa roof. The figures were clearly intended to represent Egyptians, as they are depicted wearing Egyptian headgear.
A pair of water basins was located in front of each rotunda, measuring 11.5 metres (37.7 ft) long by 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) wide and 85 centimetres (33.5 in) deep. These basins each had a smaller round basin of 1.75 metres (5.7 ft) diameter at each end.
Underground
An underground complex lies below the temple and rotundas. Spiral ramps lead down from the rotundas to connect with a north-south passageway that links all three buildings. Branching passageways lead to secondary entrances in the temenos and to several pillared underground chambers – two on the south side have been excavated and it is presumed that a corresponding pair of chambers exist under the mosque/rotunda on the north side. The passageways gave access to the hidden entrance to the cult statue and also to the side walls of the temple, linking to shafts that connected with the temple roof.The tunnels are all about 2 metres (6.6 ft) high by between 0.45 metres (1.5 ft) to 1.4 metres (4.6 ft) wide. They appear to have been generally unadorned, but some pieces of coloured stucco
Stucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
are reported to be visible in one area – perhaps the remainder of some kind of decoration. The chambers to which they link are substantial structures. Two are rectangular rooms on either side of the main temple, measuring 9 metres (29.5 ft) by 15 metres (49.2 ft), 4 metres (13.1 ft) high, supported by pillars arranged in a 3 x 3 pattern. The other two, situated on the far side of each rotunda, are significantly larger; they measure 13 metres (42.7 ft) by 15 metres (49.2 ft) with a 4 x 4 pattern of columns. The two excavated chambers beside the south rotunda are today used as storage space for the archaeological site.
Use and purpose
The temple was certainly used to worship Egyptian gods, as the presence of Egyptianised atlantids indicates. Which specific gods were worshipped there is, however, unclear. An inscription referring to the temple mentions "SerapisSerapis
Serapis or Sarapis is a Graeco-Egyptian name of God. Serapis was devised during the 3rd century BC on the orders of Ptolemy I of Egypt as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his realm. The god was depicted as Greek in appearance, but with Egyptian trappings, and combined iconography...
, Isis
Isis
Isis or in original more likely Aset is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic...
, Harpocrates
Harpocrates
In late Greek mythology as developed in Ptolemaic Alexandria, Harpocrates is the god of silence. Harpocrates was adapted by the Greeks from the Egyptian child god Horus. To the ancient Egyptians, Horus represented the new-born Sun, rising each day at dawn...
, Osiris
Osiris
Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...
, Apis
APIS
APIS may refer to:*Advance Passenger Information System*Armour Piercing Incendiary Shells...
, Helios
Helios
Helios was the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion, while Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia or Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn...
on a horse ... Ares
Ares
Ares is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and...
and the Dioskouroi". Another inscription mentions Serapis, and a small terracotta head of Isis was discovered in the area of the temenos. One of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri
Oxyrhynchus Papyri
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a very numerous group of manuscripts discovered by archaeologists including Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt . The manuscripts date from the 1st to the 6th century AD. They include thousands of Greek and...
from Egypt refers to Isis as ὲν Περγάμφ δεσπότις ("she who rules in Pergamon"). The temple may well have been dedicated to Isis, though some historians have interpreted it as a Serapeum
Serapeum
A serapeum is a temple or other religious institution dedicated to the syncretic Hellenistic-Egyptian god Serapis, who combined aspects of Osiris and Apis in a humanized form that was accepted by the Ptolemaic Greeks of Alexandria...
(temple of Serapis) instead. The two rotundas may have been used for the worship of Horus
Horus
Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...
and Anubis
Anubis
Anubis is the Greek name for a jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian religion. In the ancient Egyptian language, Anubis is known as Inpu . According to the Akkadian transcription in the Amarna letters, Anubis' name was vocalized as Anapa...
.
The layout of the temple provides more clues about how it was used. Unlike Greek temples, where the entire building was considered to be the house of the divinity, the god worshipped in the "Red Basilica" was confined to the eastern half of the temple. Similar layouts are found in other Isis and Serapis temples elsewhere in Asia Minor and Greece. The temenos is a vastly enlarged equivalent of enclosures found elsewhere in Greek mystery sanctuaries, such as the one as Eleusis in Greece where the Eleusinian Mysteries
Eleusinian Mysteries
The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiation ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. Of all the mysteries celebrated in ancient times, these were held to be the ones of greatest importance...
were performed annually. The purpose of its high walls was to prevent outsiders from witnessing ceremonies held within the temenos and temple precinct, thus preserving the mystery of the rituals.
Water appears to have been a central theme of the ceremonies held at the temple, judging from the number of water features (basins, troughs and so on) in the complex. The basins outside the temple may have been purely decorative but those inside seem to have been intended for use in ceremonies. These may have included purification rituals – sprinkling the faithful with water – and possibly also a ritual re-enactment of the flooding of the Nile. Robert A. Wild suggests that the deep basin dividing the temple into its eastern and western halves may have been designed to convey flood- or rainwater into the temple during peak rainfall periods in the winter. The basin also served to separate the public western half of the temple from the sacred eastern half. Initiates may have been taken through the underground passages to the cultic area, where they would be presented to the worshippers filling the western end of the temple. Something of this nature is hinted at by Apuleius in Metamorphoses: "There in the middle of this sacred temple before the image of the goddess I was made to stand on a wooden pulpit."
Construction, destruction and restoration
The temple's date of construction is not recorded, but from the style of the sculptures and the building techniques a date in the first half of the second century AD has been proposed. Its use of red brick on a massive scale, unique in Asia Minor but relatively common in Italy at the time, indicates that the architect was not local. The immense size and lavish construction of the complex points to an extremely wealthy patron who sent a Roman architect and brick masons to Pergamon to build the temple. The most likely candidate is the emperor Hadrian himself. He is known to have been an enthusiastic sponsor of the Egyptian gods; he built temples of Isis and Serapis at various places in the Roman world, including at his own villaHadrian's Villa
The Hadrian's Villa is a large Roman archaeological complex at Tivoli, Italy.- History :The villa was constructed at Tibur as a retreat from Rome for Roman Emperor Hadrian during the second and third decades of the 2nd century AD...
in Tivoli
Tivoli
The name Tivoli originally indicates the town of Tivoli in the Lazio region of central Italy, founded a few centuries before Rome. Because of the fame of the gardens of the Villa d'Este there , the name has also been applied to other entities:-Gardens, theatres and venues:* Jardin de Tivoli,...
.
At some point during the Christian era the temple was gutted by fire. It was not restored, but was redeveloped in the 5th century AD as a Christian basilica, built inside the shell of the destroyed temple. Arcades were built dividing the interior into a central nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
and two side aisles. The eastern wall was demolished and replaced with an apse
Apse
In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...
. The floor level was raised by about 2 metres (6.6 ft), obscuring the original Roman floor, though the former floor level has since been restored by archaeologists. The church was probably destroyed by the forces of the Arab general Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik
Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik
Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik was an Umayyad prince and one of the most prominent Arab generals of the early decades of the 8th century, leading several campaigns against the Byzantine Empire and the Khazar Khaganate...
, who besieged and looted the city in 716–717 during an unsuccessful bid to conquer Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
. Pergamon fell into Turkish hands in 1336 and the building was converted into a mosque.
The complex has been investigated and excavated in a series of campaigns by the German Archaeological Institute
German Archaeological Institute
The German Archaeological Institute is an institution of research within the field of archaeology , and a "scientific corporation", with parentage of the federal Foreign Office of Germany-Origin:...
. In 1906–1909 P. Schazmann prepared detailed drawings of the ruins during a German excavation of the Hellenistic city. The temple and temenos were excavated by Theodor Wiegand
Theodor Wiegand
Theodor Wiegand was one of the most famous German archaeologists.Wiegand was born in Bendorf, Rhenish Prussia. He studied at Munich, Berlin, and Freiburg. In 1894 he worked under Wilhelm Dörpfeld at the excavation of the Athenian Acropolis...
from 1927. New archaeological studies were carried out from 2002 to 2005 under A. Hoffmann. Restoration efforts have also been pursued, first in the 1930s under O. Bayatlı, the Director of the Bergama Museum, and later in the 1950s and 1960s. Further restoration work was conducted on the main temple in 2006 and the south rotunda was restored between 2006 and 2009.