So they have a high-profile exhibition at the Ashmolean – it opened only last week and will last to the end of August – and we visited it this Sunday. The exhibition is called ‘Heracles to Alexander the Great’ – two well-known names that are highly popular among a wide audience outside the academic parts of our field – indeed, both names have featured prominently in blockbuster advertisements in recent history. Yet, before embarking on a visit, please do not forget to read the exhibition’s subtitle – even though it features on the advertisements in a remarkably small font: this is not an exhibition about Heracles, nor has it much to do with Alexander the Great. This exhibition shows, as the subtitle says, treasures from the Royal Capital of Macedon, ‘a Hellenic Kingdom in the Age of Democracy’, and it is co-organized by the Ashmolean and the Greek state, that is, the ministry of culture and tourism.
The exhibition is not particularly big, with only three rooms that are not overcrowded with objects, but it the material that made it to Oxford is interesting, and sometimes of exceptional quality, as one could expect given its provenance. There are the materials from two funerary pyres – basically consisting of a great quantity of nails. There are two marvellous gold wreaths. There are the terracotta heads of what are thought to have been funerary puppets that are remarkably personalized and resemble both the greek statues of the early fifth century and Italic funerary portraits. There are the remains of female costumes. There is silverwork of astonishing quality – my favourit is a large oinochoe with a Satyr’s head. Weapons, of course – one decorated with a beautiful golden scorpion. Pottery – from all periods. Clay figurines. Ionic semicolumns and Terracotta antefixes from the Royal palace. The material is extraordinary and deserves the visit. The catalogue is perhaps one of the better exhibition catalogues in my collection, and is more than worth the twenty pounds (though I haven’t read it… yet).
Still, visiting the exhibition is kind of a puzzling experience: what are the organizers, actually, trying to say? The objects are beautiful, but the story is really weak. The thematic subdivision in ‘men’, ‘women’ and ‘banqueting’ may have had its reasons but fails to make sense. One does not get a very clear idea of the site where all this material comes from. Remarkably, the site is consequently referred to as ‘Aegae’ while it is both popularly and professionally much better known under its modern name Vergina – or else as Aigai. To give an indication: a Google search on Vergina Royal Tombs gives 120.000 hits, with Aigai it is about 17.000 hits, and with Aegae no more than 5840 hits. So: why Aegae? It took me about half an hour to realize that I was actually looking at material from Vergina, a name I know all too well – and I am unlikely to be the only one that will be confused. The best-known monument of the site – the so-called grave of Philippos is more-or-less present but not really prominent – which really feels like a missed chance: if you want to connect to what people may already know (or may have looked up on Wikipedia before visiting), the tomb of Philippos, and its spectacular discovery only three decades ago is the place where one should start.
It must also be said that not all accompanying texts are equally convincing. There is a strong tendency to relate the individual tombs to real historical people, but the visitor does not get any indication about the factual basis of these identifications – whereas this, typically, is a question specialists and non-specialists are likely to ask. Many of these identifications, perhaps all, are actually rather uncertain: none of these tombs contained epigraphy mentioning the name of the person buried. Why hide the uncertainty? Yet, the key thing is: whoever it is, is irrelevant. It might be interesting (if we knew for sure) to tell the public that a certain grave belonged to a certain person, but it is much more relevant to show how these graves were different from or similar to what was normal, and why they were designed and filled in the way they were designed. There is a great story about burial practices in the exhibition that deserves more emphasis than it gets.
Nevertheless, one might have some quibbles about the story told, and about the relation between the title of the exhibition and the objects shown (there is none), this should not take away the basic fact that this is an exhibition that is worth seeing at least once and perhaps more than that. If only to realize that even though Macedon may have been situated in the relative periphery of the ancient world, and even though its historical importance was not long-lived, this was a place where something very special happened in the fourth century before our era, and this has left clear marks in the material record. So if you happen to be in Oxford in the next five months, don’t miss it.
Miko Flohr, 14/04/2011