April 6, 2011
As you walk down the corridor towards the Ashmolean’s first major archaeological exhibition since its refurbishment, banners adorn the walls, evoking the world of Alexander the Great and giving a rather cinematic effect, with short dramatic evocations like in film trailers. In retrospect, I think this was actually an appropriate effect to have, for surely a film about an ancient world and an exhibition about one share a common aim – namely, to bring that ancient world back to life.
Perhaps this is a view shared by Oxford Ancient History Professor Robin Lane Fox, who led the battle charge in the recent Hollywood film Alexander, and whom we were privileged to hear introduce the exhibition, alongside one of its chief organisers and archaeological experts Dr Angeliki Kottaridi. I truly wish that this pair were going to be as permanent a fixture in the exhibition as the less mobile exhibits – their infectious enthusiasm, combined with explanations of the artefacts’ archaeological importance, transformed the experience from an appreciation of separate objects to a glimpse of a coherent world. Luckily there is an exhibition booklet available, which I would thoroughly recommend you take with you in the absence of Lane Fox and Kottaridi – it gives a good commentary, is pretty, and joins up the themes of the display.
The world glimpsed through the exhibition spans several hundred years of Macedonian nobility – the slightly overlooked space between the Homeric world of the early 2nd millennium BC and Alexander’s conquests of the later 4th century. As suggested by the title, Alexander’s life is the climax. Many of the artefacts have close connections to him, his family, his ancestors, and all who helped create the world into which he was born. The significance of Heracles is less obvious, but relates to the myth that all Macedonians were descended from Zeus’ son Heracles, and so he has associations with early times and Macedonian ethnic identity.
The exhibits and theories behind them are fascinating – not least because they are hot off the press, coming from very recent excavations of Aigai, modern Vergina, the principal city of ancient Macedon. The golden funeral wreath which could have belonged to Alexander’s son was unearthed only in 2008, and the realisation that the palace excavated at Aigai dated not from the 270s BC as previously thought but from the earlier reign of Philip II, and whose halls would therefore have been those in which the young Alexander walked, took place only in 2007.
Some exhibits are impressive because of the way they alter previous archaeological theories and some are just impressive in themselves, like the amazingly intricate (disastrous if your hair got tangled in it!) golden wreath of myrtle which belonged to Queen Meda, wife of Philip II. It really has to be seen to get what the fuss is about, but I completely understand Professor Lane Fox’s emotion at seeing in Oxford what he described as the most beautiful artefact of its kind. Other highlights include the frieze from Philip II’s tomb, depicting the young Alexander on horseback – one of the very few surviving pictures of the conqueror which he himself would have seen, and the ornaments of the ‘Lady of Aegae’ – an early queen of Macedon who was buried with beautiful golden jewelry, which is arranged on an upright silhouette of a woman to show how it would have worn, as if the woman were coming back to life.
This exhibition is beautiful and very much worth a visit, best digested I think at a slow pace and with the guidebook, giving yourself time to grasp the significance of the artefacts on display and imagine the people whose lives they once adorned. It’s with us for five months – do go and take a look!
Perhaps this is a view shared by Oxford Ancient History Professor Robin Lane Fox, who led the battle charge in the recent Hollywood film Alexander, and whom we were privileged to hear introduce the exhibition, alongside one of its chief organisers and archaeological experts Dr Angeliki Kottaridi. I truly wish that this pair were going to be as permanent a fixture in the exhibition as the less mobile exhibits – their infectious enthusiasm, combined with explanations of the artefacts’ archaeological importance, transformed the experience from an appreciation of separate objects to a glimpse of a coherent world. Luckily there is an exhibition booklet available, which I would thoroughly recommend you take with you in the absence of Lane Fox and Kottaridi – it gives a good commentary, is pretty, and joins up the themes of the display.
The world glimpsed through the exhibition spans several hundred years of Macedonian nobility – the slightly overlooked space between the Homeric world of the early 2nd millennium BC and Alexander’s conquests of the later 4th century. As suggested by the title, Alexander’s life is the climax. Many of the artefacts have close connections to him, his family, his ancestors, and all who helped create the world into which he was born. The significance of Heracles is less obvious, but relates to the myth that all Macedonians were descended from Zeus’ son Heracles, and so he has associations with early times and Macedonian ethnic identity.
The exhibits and theories behind them are fascinating – not least because they are hot off the press, coming from very recent excavations of Aigai, modern Vergina, the principal city of ancient Macedon. The golden funeral wreath which could have belonged to Alexander’s son was unearthed only in 2008, and the realisation that the palace excavated at Aigai dated not from the 270s BC as previously thought but from the earlier reign of Philip II, and whose halls would therefore have been those in which the young Alexander walked, took place only in 2007.
Some exhibits are impressive because of the way they alter previous archaeological theories and some are just impressive in themselves, like the amazingly intricate (disastrous if your hair got tangled in it!) golden wreath of myrtle which belonged to Queen Meda, wife of Philip II. It really has to be seen to get what the fuss is about, but I completely understand Professor Lane Fox’s emotion at seeing in Oxford what he described as the most beautiful artefact of its kind. Other highlights include the frieze from Philip II’s tomb, depicting the young Alexander on horseback – one of the very few surviving pictures of the conqueror which he himself would have seen, and the ornaments of the ‘Lady of Aegae’ – an early queen of Macedon who was buried with beautiful golden jewelry, which is arranged on an upright silhouette of a woman to show how it would have worn, as if the woman were coming back to life.
This exhibition is beautiful and very much worth a visit, best digested I think at a slow pace and with the guidebook, giving yourself time to grasp the significance of the artefacts on display and imagine the people whose lives they once adorned. It’s with us for five months – do go and take a look!