Zur Entstehung der Legende vom spreizbeinigen Koloss von Rhodos über der Hafeneinfahrt
12
Der Blick hinter die Legende: Die historische Überlieferung zum Koloss von Rhodos und die Frage nach dem Standort
19
Argumente für die Identifizierung des großen Heiligtums über der Stadion-Terrasse als Helios-Heiligtum von Rhodos
29
Bronzeguss in Etagen übereinander oder in großen Stücken? Die Rekonstruktion des Verfahrens beim Koloss von Rhodos
40
Reste vom Standort des Koloss von Rhodos? Das Gelände nordöstlich vom Helios-Tempel. Beschreibung der Reste und Versuch einer Deutung
57
8
Anhänge Anhang Rezeption: Einige Dokumente zur Rezeption des Koloss von Rhodos aus dem 14. und 15. Jh. Rezeption 1
Rezeption 2 Rezeption 3
Ein griechisch-byzantinischer Text mit der Feststellung, dass Erinnerung und Reste des Koloss von Rhodos fehlen: Nikephoros Gregoras, Hist. Byz. XXIV 6
69
Die Weltwunderliste des Juan Fernández de Heredia in aragonesischer Sprache, Rams de flores o Libro de las actoridades, fols. 239v-240r
70
Die älteste bekannte Aufzeichnung der Legende vom spreizbeinigen Hafenwächter durch Nicolas de Martoni in spätmittelalterlichem Latein
71 5
Inhalt
Rezeption 4 Rezeption 5
Die Erwähnung des Koloss von Rhodos im lateinischen Kriegsbericht des Guillaume Caoursin, Obsidionis Rhodie urbis descriptio 1480
72
Die Erwähnung der Legende von Felix Fabri im Bericht über seine Pilgerreise in der lateinischen Ausgabe seines Berichts nach 1483
74
Anhang Quellen: Text, Übersetzung und Kommentare zu wichtigen antiken Quellen Quellen 1
Weihepigramm des Koloss von Rhodos, Anthologia Graeca 6, 171
75
Quellen 2
Epigramm mit dem Vergleich des Bronzegusses bei Myron und Chares von Lindos, Poseidippos von Pella, P. Mil. Vogl. AB 68 (XI 6-11)
76
Quellen 3
Künstlervers zum Koloss von Rhodos, Anthologia Graeca 16, 82
78
Quellen 4
Überlieferungen zum Wagen des Helios in Rhodos
78
Quellen 5
Informationen zum Koloss von Rhodos, Plinius, Naturalis historia 34,41
79
Quellen 6
Ausgangstext für die Entstehung der Legende vom spreizbeinigen Koloss von Rhodos? Der Vergleich des Verhaltens von Herrschern mit Kolossalstatuen, Plutarch, Moralia 779F-780A (Ad principem ineruditum)
80
Die Arbeit des Chares von Lindos als literarischer Vergleich, Sextus Empiricus, , 1,107-108
82
Abschnitt zum Koloss von Rhodos im Zusammenhang der Weltwunderliste (IV 1–6), signiert mit „Philon von Byzanz“
82
Quellen 7 Quellen 8
Anhang Kolosse: Daten und Kommentare zu den antiken und nachantiken Vergleichsbeispielen an Kolossalstatuen
6
Kolosse 1
Athena Promachos
85
Kolosse 2
Athena Parthenos
86
Kolosse 3
Zeus von Olympia
87
Kolosse 4
Zeus Olympios von Megara
88
Kolosse 5
Pfeilermonument der Rhodier mit Helios-Viergespann in Delphi
88
Kolosse 6
Zeus von Tarent
90
Kolosse 7
Koloss des Demos der Römer in Rhodos
90
Kolosse 8
Kolossale Statue des Merkur, sog. Koloss der Arverner
91
Kolosse 9
Kolossale Statue des Sol, sog. Nero-Koloss in Rom
92
Kolosse 10
Großer Buddha Vairocana (japanisch Daibutsu) in Nara
95
Kolosse 11
Bavaria vor der Ruhmeshalle in München
96
Inhalt
Kolosse 12
Freiheitsstatue in New York (Statue de la Liberté éclairant le monde / Liberty Enlightening the World)
98
Anhang Befunde: Dokumente und Beobachtungen zur Ruine in der Nordost-Ecke des Helios-Heiligtums von Rhodos Befunde 1
Plan der Heiligtums-Terrasse von 1973
100
Befunde 2
Mauern des Hofs und des Sockelbaus
100
Befunde 3
Zisternen in der Nordost-Ecke des Helios-Heiligtums
101
Befunde 4
Rampen im Zusammenhang mit dem Sockel
103
Befunde 5
Rekonstruktionsplan der Anlagen von Heiligtums- und Stadion-Terrasse zur Einrichtung des archäologischen Parks von 1938, gezeichnet von M. Paolini, Archiv der S.A.I.A. Plan Paolini-Nachlass Nr. 183 103
Befunde 6
Detailplan der Grabung von 1938 gezeichnet von M. Paolini, Archiv der S.A.I.A. Plan Paolini-Nachlass Nr. 679, Dokumentenfolge Nordost-Ecke 1
104
Grabungsphotographie 1938, Archiv der S.A.I.A. Paolini-Nachlass Nr. PF 426, Dokumentenfolge Nordost-Ecke 2
104
Grabungsphotographie 1938, Archiv der S.A.I.A. Paolini-Nachlass Nr. PF 416 und PF 417, Dokumentenfolge Nordost-Ecke 3
105
Grabungsphotographie 1938, Archiv der S.A.I.A. Paolini-Nachlass Nr. PF 413, Dokumentenfolge Nordost-Ecke 4
106
Grabungsphotographie 1938, Archiv der S.A.I.A. Paolini-Nachlass Nr. PF 359, Dokumentenfolge Abhang 1
107
Grabungsphotographie 1938, Archiv der S.A.I.A. Paolini-Nachlass Nr. PF 405, Dokumentenfolge Abhang 2
107
Grabungsphotographie 1938, Archiv der S.A.I.A. Paolini-Nachlass Nr. PF 406, Dokumentenfolge Abhang 3
108
Grabungsphotographie 1938, Archiv der S.A.I.A. Paolini-Nachlass Nr. PF 365, Dokumentenfolge Abhang 4
Zusammenfassung Summary Index Abbildungsverzeichnis Abbildungen
114 117 121 124 126
7
The Colossus of Rhodes. Archaeology, technique and reception of an Ancient World Wonder
nem Schacht war dessen zentraler Mast befestigt. An gleicher Stelle wurden später die gegossenen Einzelteile aufeinander montiert, wobei der Schacht die Mauerung zur Stabilisierung aufnahm. Der größere Sockel wurde in einer Zeit nach dem großen Erdbeben von 227 v. Chr. unter Verwendung des älteren Materials gebaut.
Eine Aufstellung des Helios von Rhodos nordöstlich vom Tempel, nicht allzu weit vom Terrassenrand entfernt und mit dem Gesicht nach Osten gerichtet erscheint im Kontext von Heiligtum, Sportstätte und Stadt sinnvoll. Die Figur wäre danach von der unteren Stadionterrasse, aber auch weithin von der Stadt und von der See aus sichtbar gewesen.
The Colossus of Rhodes. Archaeology, technique and reception of an Ancient World Wonder (Translation by Richard A. Freund, University of Hartford)
T
he guardian standing spread-legged over the entrance to the Rhodian harbor is the most popular image of the statue of Helios called Colossus of Rhodes. The height of this statue, the largest of the Greek world, was 70 cubits (30 to 35 m). This image of the „spread–eagle“ Colossus in the port of Rhodes derives from a legend that clearly began at the end of the 14th century in the period of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes (1309 to 1522 ). It probably owes its existence to the erudite, but erroneous interpretation of an ancient text passage in Plutarch (ad principes ineruditum 779F–780A) by a Greek scholar, who was at that time in Rhodes. Thanks to the spread of travel accounts of Christian pilgrims who had made their way to the Holy Land through Rhodes as way station, the story came to the West. The Renaissance artists of the 16th century helped embellish the myth with additional details. Both the bridge-like guardian image of the Colossus and the siting of the Colossus in the port are both elements of this legend. Unfortunately, this is not compatible with the historical and technological reality in antiquity.
The ancient accounts of the Colossus do not mention the location or any of the details of the appearance of the statue. For this we must look elsewhere. The statue, called by the Rhodians Colossus of Helios (kolossós helíou) was the votive offering to Helios the main deity of their city-state, the polis Rhodes. The statue was made out of casted bronze and financed from the spoils of a victory of the Rhodians over the Seleucid Greek invaders. In the year 305/304 BC, Demetrios Poliorketes sieged the city and left a lot of his materials behind after his defeat. The Colossus was built primarily from this booty and it was a religious sign of thanks to their „Patron Saint“, Helios. As much as it was a symbol of religious thanksgiving, it was also a symbol of the success of Rhodian technical and management skills and the self-confidence and freedom of the polis, which had by 408/407 BC emerged as synoecism of the three ancient Rhodian communities Jalysos, Kameiros and Lindos. In ancient Greece it was common practice to dedicate a large statue after an important event to the main sanctuary of the city, representing the god or the goddess of the place. A prominent precursor of 117
The Colossus of Rhodes. Archaeology, technique and reception of an Ancient World Wonder
the Colossus was the statue of Athena Promachos (mid-5th century BC) in the sanctuary of Athena Polias on the Athenian Acropolis. From this historical precedent comes the certainty that the Helios Colossus of Rhodes must have stood within the borders of the Helios sanctuary of Rhodes. The location of the Helios sanctuary in Rhodes has not been conclusively proven. I am suggesting a new/ old location for the Helios sanctuary: My suggestion is that it is located on the slope of the southern Acropolis of Rhodes in a public archaeological park. In the archaeological park at the Acropolis are the remains of an ancient large sanctuary with the excavated foundations of a temple of which there is but one reconstructed corner. Since the mid-19th century, this sanctuary on the Acropolis of Rhodes has been attributed to Apollon Pythios. The identification is based upon a single, small stone in secondary use found in the door of a Turkish house, inscribed ”The Athenian Glaukon, son of Eteokles, a proxenos (dedicated it) to Apollon Pythios“. It led early archaeologists to attribute the temple and the sanctuary to Apollon Pythios rather than to Helios. A small dedication found in secondary use cannot be the proof for the naming of a major sanctuary situated in such a prominent location without additional corroborating evidence. All of the evidence in situ point to the worship of Helios in this area. The dimensions of the sanctuary and of its temple are significant and point to the worship of an important god. Helios not Apollon Pythios had this meaning for the city of Rhodes. Nearby the temple sits the Stadium and the Odeion at the terrace just below the sanctuary terrace. Both have always been associated with the festival and the competitions consecrated annually to Helios. Festival places all over the ancient Greek world were always located near the sanctuary they were connected with. If indeed this area was redesignated as the Helios sanctuary of Rhodes (instead of „Sanctuary of Apollo Pythios“), the first prerequisite for finding the location of the Colossus of Rhodes would be clarified. Two further points which will conclusively identify this as the place of the Colossus have to do with the manufacturing process of a colossal statue in anti118
quity and the dimensions as well as the form of its base. If there still exist archaeological remains from the Colossus of Rhodes, then most likely we need to establish the location of the craftsmen’s workshop and the base. According to Pliny (Naturalis historia 34, 41) the statue was manufactured in twelve years and stood 56 years before collapsing in the powerful earthquake dated as 227/226 BC. The statue was not rebuilt and we have reliable accounts that point to the broken pieces being visible in the sanctuary at least until the first century AD. Presumably the metal remains were removed and recycled in the Early Byzantine period. The early medieval tradition that Arab conquerors of Rhodes in 653 AD collected the metal and had it shipped from the island to be sold in Syria by a Jewish merchant has little historical value but rather tells us more about Syrian-Byzantine literary polemics against Arabs and Jews in this period. Even if the ruins of the Colossus were visible for a long time, they finally vanished and we cannot hope to find in Rhodes any significant fragments of its bronze metal. The enormous dimensions and the early destruction of the statue are likely to be the reason why the Colossus of Rhodes was never copied or depicted. There is little hope of reconstructing the exact features of the Colossus. We can, however, use general art-history arguments for sketching a picture of a standing nude male with a crown of rays on his head. Much more than this is just modern speculation. Based upon the written tradition in ancient literature, it is clear that the Colossus of Rhodes was made of cast bronze. The archaeological findings, obtained by finds of large casting pits show us that by the beginning of the 3rd century BC, the time of origin of the Colossus, there was a high technological standard in bronze casting in Rhodes. The largest pit excavated in the city of Rhodes (the Mylonas foundry, depth 3,60 m) would allow for the casting of a 15 m high statue but still would require several large sections to be individually cast. If this is the only archaeological evidence of a bronze foundry, the technique for the Colossus of Rhodes, a statue twice as large, would require a foundry of at least twice the size of the Mylonas foundry and has yet to be found.
The Colossus of Rhodes. Archaeology, technique and reception of an Ancient World Wonder
However the text of the early Byzantine paradoxographer Philo of Byzantium was handed down with the description of a different casting method (The Seven World Wonders IV). Philo claims that the Colossus of Rhodes was cast in situ in horizontal courses buried gradually by an earthen embankment. What he describes is not pure fantasy. The question for me is whether this technique was really applied in ancient Rhodes? The question can be answered only by reconstructing the ancient bronze casting procedure of this exceptional large and lost statue independent from the Philon text. At first the general parameters for the casting method must be understood. An ancient comparison can be made between the so-called: „indirect lost wax process” a well-known technique in bronze casting in antiquity and the methods applied for two other existent colossal statues, the Great Buddha in Nara (Japan, 8th century AD, cast in courses) and the Bavaria in Munich (Germany, 1837-1850, cast in large sections). We can extrapolate from the steps used for creating these colossal statues the possible method used in the case of the Colossus. When we compare these statues we see three different casting methods. When we compare these three methods for bronze casting we can see that Philo must have had a written source containing a lot more information concerning the technical possibilities of bronze casting for his text. The misbegotten notion that it was impossible to lift large casting sections into place and the lack of important details and literary additions to his work complicate his text. A possible explanation for what I see as discrepancies in Philo’s text is that he may have used a written reconstruction of a working process that was available in his own time. What this means is that we may be able to trust the archaeological evidence about casting in large sections despite what the reconstructed text of Philo says. The workshop of a statue like the Colossus is expected to have been built very close to the location of the statue. Searching possible remains of it means we are looking for an archaeological site with a spacious area, a large base and large casting pits. They were normally oval as the foundry on the Mylonas property (L 7 m, B 3,25 m, T 3,6 m), but also rectangular as the foundry on the Papachristodoulou-
Tzortzis-Pastrikos property (2,88 x 1,92 m, T 1,35 m). These foundries and the workshop need to be situated in an area with prevailing winds to take the noxious odors and smoke from the area and would most likely not be in the city proper. Two antique parallels transmit an idea of how the base of the Colossus of Rhodes could have looked like. The more ancient and smaller one supported once the already mentioned Athena Promachos with a height of ca. 7–16 m. The later example is the base of the first century AD Nero Colossus which belonged to a statue as large as the Colossus of Rhodes. The floor plan of both of them is more or less described as a square. The base of the Promachos measured 5,58 x 5,465 m and in the center survived a slot of 0,48 x 0,48 m and at an unknown depth. In the slot the central timber of the wooden armature used for modelling the statue in order to prepare the casting was assembled. Beside the Coliseum in Rome was uncovered the base of the colossal statue of Sol. The statue once was manufactured on behalf of the Emperor Nero (reigned: 54 to 68 AD) and originally stood at his domus aurea. The Emperor Hadrian (reigned: 117 to 138 AD) ordered the statue to be moved to a place just northwest of the Colosseum. The new base measured 17,60 x 14,75 m, and was made of opus caementitium and embedded with stone masonry which was brought up for the stabilization of the statue. The idea of a sanctuary of Helios above the stadium on the southern Acropolis of Rhodes with enough space for a large workshop to be used for a long time is eminently possible. Beside the northeastern corner of the temple there is a large impressive ruin which excavated is called the Artemision. It could have been a product of the workshop and would have been around the base of the Colossus. At the large sanctuary area we see in its current form a wide sunken yard measuring ca. 33,4 x ca. 27,7 m, ca. 3,8 to ca. 4 m deep. From the eastern side there is a rectangular cut rock (length ca. 13,7 m, width ca. 11,6 to 8,4 m) which expands into the yard. On three sides walls emerge from the depths surrounding the rock. From this a clear socle can be reconstructed 119
The Colossus of Rhodes. Archaeology, technique and reception of an Ancient World Wonder
(ca. 23,4 x ca. 17,7 m). The greater part of it consisted of the natural rock and the massive walls (ca. 17,7 x ca. 15,8 m). In addition it was extended to the west by four wall compartments filled in by earth. The construction of yard, socle, northern and southern corridors are all part of a grid system situated parallel to the temple. Two peculiarities of the socle indicate that there was a previous building in the location. One can see numerous ashlars and worked stones were in secondary use. In addition, only the western edge of the rock core and not the northern and southern forms a straight line and corresponds to the grid system. This means that at some point a differently oriented smaller building may have been in the same spot. As a result it was decided to reconstruct an older, smaller base, which consisted of a regular shaped rock core in the center of a massive stone setting measuring ca. 17,7 x 15,8 m. Remarkably a socle with these external dimensions of the foundations is similar in the dimensions to the base of the Nero colossus with 17,60 x 14,75 m. One detail of the Rhodian socle
120
seems to hearken back to the Promachos base: In its center is preserved a slot at least ca. 2 m deep (ca. 3,7 x ca. 3,3 m). From this we can deduce the following hypothetical model of original location: The yard originally emerged from the workshop of the Colossus of Rhodes, located directly at its location. The base on the socle served first to build the model in the same measure as the bronze statue and in its slot the central timber of the wooden armature was fixed. At the same place later the cast pieces were installed and mounted. After the earthquake of 227 BC the socle was extended using the older material. The supposed position of the Colossus of Rhodes northeast of the temple, not far from the edge of the terrace with its face directed to the east makes sense in the context of the present sanctuary, the stadium and the city. The statue would then have been visible as well from the lower stadium terrace, but also very clearly present for the inhabitants of the city and even for the approaching ships in the sea.
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