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Helios on the Pharos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

R. G. Goodchild
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Extract

A half-century of research and discussion has advanced our knowledge of the Pharos of Alexandria without, however, eliminating all the uncertainties that enshroud its architecture, ornament, and technical character. In his monumental study of 1909 Hermann Thiersch worthily prepared the ground, by collecting into a single volume nearly all the evidence then available; but his architectural conclusions must now be read in conjunction with Don Miguel de Asin's essay of 1933 based on an Islamic source which Thiersch had overlooked. More recently, in 1952, Professor Charles Picard has published some important observations which refer particularly to the summit of the Pharos, with its projecting Tritons and crowning statue.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 41 , Issue 3-4 , October 1961 , pp. 218 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1961

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References

page 217 note 1 Thiersch, H., Pharos: Antike Islam und Occident (Leipzig, 1909)Google Scholar.

page 217 note 2 de Asin, Don Miguel, ‘The Pharos of Alexandria: Summary of an Essay in Spanish, with architectural Commentary by Don M. Lopez Otero’, Proceedings of the British Academy, xix (1933)Google Scholar.

page 217 note 3 Picard, Ch., ‘Sur quelques représentations nouvelles du Phare d'Alexandrie et sur l'origine Alexandrine des paysages portuaires’, Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénique, lxxvi (1952), 61–95Google Scholar. Cf. Archaeologia, xcvii (1959), p. 206Google Scholar and pl. LXVIII (c).

page 217 note 4 Illustrated London News, 14 Dec. 1957, pp. 1034–5.

page 217 note 5 Cf. Perkins, J. B. Ward, ‘A New Group of Sixth-century Mosaics from Cyrenaica’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, 1958, pp. 183–95Google Scholar.

page 217 note 6 The line-drawing presented now (fig. 1) was traced directly from the mosaic, soon after its discovery.

page 219 note 1 Ward Perkins (loe. cit.) suggests a Syrian inspiration for these mosaics; but it must be remembered that the Byzantine mosaic-art of Egypt has al-asmost completely perished, whereas abundant material from Syria is available for purposes of comparison.

page 219 note 2 Several Cyrenaican churches have yielded large sixth-century mosaics in which there is no unitary pattern, but simply a heterogeneous asmost sembly of unrelated ‘pictures’.

page 220 note 1 Picard (Op. cit., p. 72) has pointed out that the so-called ‘third story’ of the Pharos may have been nothing more than the circular base that supported the statue.

page 221 note 1 The black centre of this ‘disc’ argues against its being intended to represent the rising or setting sun.

page 221 note 2 For the Arab sources referring to the Pharos see Thiersch, op. cit., p. 40 and passim: and de Villard, Monneret, ‘Il Faro di Alessandria, secondo un testo e disegni arabi inediti da codici Milanesi Ambrosiani’, Bulletin tie la Société ArchÉologique d'Alexandrie, N.S. V (1921), 13–35Google Scholar.

page 221 note 3 Picard (op. cit., p. 76) has suggested that the ornamental Tritons blowing into shells served as a fog-horn or similar sound warning. This perhaps was the origin of the ‘terrible voice’ attributed by the Arab writers to the Pharos statue.

page 222 note 1 Gabriel, A., ‘La Construction, l'attitude et l'emplacement du Colosse de Rhodes’, Bull. Corr. Hell, lvi (1932), 351–9Google Scholar. Maryon's, H. more recent restoration of the statue (‘The Colossus of Rhodes’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, lxxvi (1956), 68–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar) is based on a very fragmentary relief found on the island.

page 222 note 2 O. M. Dalton, Catalogue of the early Christian Antiquities in the British Museum, p. 14, no. 88. The British Museum authorities have kindly allowed me to examine the gem and have also provided the accompanying illustration (pl. xxxixb).

page 222 note 3 Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana, iii, 23 and v, 24. I quote Phillimore's translation (Oxford 1912).

page 223 note 1 The Rome Colossus, some 120 feet high, stood at the entrance to Nero's ‘Golden House’ (Suetonius, Nero, 31); it was modified under Vespasian (Suetonius, Vesfasian, 18), and rededicated to the Sun (Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxxiv, 45). Later still, Commodus removed the head and substituted his own portrait, adding the attributes of Hercules (Dio Cassius, lxxii, 22). Similar liberties, unnius, recorded, might well have been taken with the Pharos statue, the addition of a radiate crown being a fairly simple operation. For these references I am grateful to Miss Joyce Reynolds.