Who sculpted the Pergamon relief?

[Doc]

I know the Frieze is from Asia Minor.....Turkey and housed in Berlin but was it a Roman sculpture or Greek. It appears it was made around 184 BC when Rome was around. However, was the city where the Frieze was found under Greek or Roman control at the time the Frieze was sculpted.

[Jona Lendering]

The city of Pergamon was still independent. It was only in 133 that Rome seized direct control.

[Doc]

Thanks Jona for the answer. Was this frieze sculpted by Greeks?

[MeinPanzer]

Yes, it is a Greek sculpture, but the arms depicted are those of Greeks, Celts, Thracians, and probably other peoples as well.

[Doc]

Thank you for the reply. The reason I am asking is because Michael Feguere mentions a parazonium with an eagle head on the Pergamon relief. I found the figure with the parazonium.....Argives welcome Telefus ( I may have misspelt the second name) and I see the parazonium but cannot make out the hilt if in fact it is an eagle head.

[john m roberts]

I believe the sculpture was from Aphrodisias in Asia Minor. Sculpture was the local industry, because of the huge white-marble quarry there. They made sculpture to order and shipped it all over the Mediterranean.

[MeinPanzer]

Thank you for the reply. The reason I am asking is because Michael Feguere mentions a parazonium with an eagle head on the Pergamon relief. I found the figure with the parazonium.....Argives welcome Telefus ( I may have misspelt the second name) and I see the parazonium but cannot make out the hilt if in fact it is an eagle head.

I think you must be referring to this sword with an eagle head hilt from the weapons relief.

[attachment=4661]IMG_1572.JPG[/attachment]

This is not a parazonium, however, but simply a Greek kopis with a hilt carved like an eagle's head - a very common decoration for such swords during the Hellenistic period. Interestingly, there is another sword depicted in these reliefs with a hilt decorated with a horse's head.

[Doc]

Hello Ruben,

Thank you for the picture. Although not a xipos or parazonium, it does show that the Greeks did use animal heads on their swords which is a theme that the Romans obviously continued since I found a photo of a Roman copy of Ares that shows a parazonium with a lion head. As mentioned before, I also have a photo of Marcus Aurelius with an eagle headed hilt. Again, this shows the continued use of certain animals by the Romans.

I am interested in making a parazonium and will use a xipos blade with the typical scabbard shape as seen on Roman sculptures but I am trying to use some logical precedent for the hilt. That is why I wanted to know if beside the Aurelian sculpture there were other Roman sxlptures with eagle heads.

On the other hand, if I assume that the Romans would use a xipos for a parazonium both in blade and scabbard shape, then using an eagle headed hilt would also be plausible........ecerything has a precedent in The Greek period which is something the Romans loved.

Of course one could argue that it is a kopis with the egale head and not a xipos which is shown with a normal hilt. However, here I think that the Romans could have used a xipos (at least the way it appears on the parazonium scabbard shapes) and added an eagle head not only to copy the Greeks but to add their own flair.

There is man on the Ahenobarbus relief with some sort of Helenistic panapoly and he too has what appears to be a parazonium but I am not sure what the hilt is shaped like.