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Archaeological Site of Priene

摘要: Justification of Outstanding Universal Value  Priene includes all the qualities that make up a classical Hellenistic “polis” and puts these together with a remarkable order and around a Hippodamos pla

Justification of Outstanding Universal Value

  Priene includes all the qualities that make up a classical Hellenistic “polis” and puts these together with a remarkable order and around a Hippodamos plan. Even though the city itself is quite small and probably never had more than 5,000 inhabitants during its greatest time of flourishing various circumstances and the extent of its territory always placed it in the center both of cultural exchange   and of political/military confrontation between Greece and the Near East.

  There are a lot of monumental buildings in the ancient city center, which were built by famous architects and were placed on a well-planned city plan. For example, the Athena Temple was built by Pytheos, who is one of the famous architects in the ancient world. As another remarkable example for the monumental architecture of the city, the theater of Priene can be mentioned, which is a typical example for the Hellenistic period and has been very well-preserved until now. Besides official monumental buildings like temples, the theatre, the agora etc. in the ancient city’s downtown, it also presents most beautiful examples of domestic architecture for the Hellenistic period.

  Priene has played an important role in terms of socio-political history in the ancient Ionian region. The polis of Priene was the guardian of the Ionian Federation's central cult; this was a federation of twelve Greek cities in western Asia Minor and Samos, which joined together both out of a feeling of common cultural identity and to fight for freedom against foreign occupation (especially by the Persian high kings). The Panionion, the sanctuary of one of the most important religious-political unions in the ancient world and situated in the territorium of Priene, was administered by priests from Priene. The city was also a cultural center – like its neighbor city Miletos. It was the hometown of the philosopher Bias, one of Greece’s Seven Sages and a mentor of the Ionian Federation. Rational philosophical tradition, which Bias founded in Priene, made it, despite its size, a spiritual-intellectual center of the Greek world in the following centuries.

  As small as the city was, highly important people paid special attention to it – along with Bias, others included Alexander the Great, Hellenistic kings and the first Roman emperor Augustus – and made large donations (as witnessed by preserved inscriptions) towards buildings including the temple to Athena, which was famous in Roman times already. Due to Priene's unusual reputation in ancient textual sources field archeology began to search for it in its earliest phases already, since the 17th century. The documentation of building parts of the Athena temple, as transmitted by Vitruvius, was one of the early projects of the English Society of Dilettanti.

  Criterion (ii): Representing the most well-preserved city-planning example from antiquity until now, Priene is quite important in terms of understanding the development of city-planning in Asia Minor and as a model for modern city planning. Priene had a democratic constitution modelled on that of Athens (Asboek 1912); its city plan and public structures reflect this form of government, which was extremely progressive for its time, more strongly than any other city.

  The geographical location at the Maeander delta, where the river used to flow into the Mediterranean, had always made Priene to a cultural hub between Anatolia’s western coast, which was influenced by Greece, and the hinterland under Persian rule up to the sources of the Maeander (von Kienlin 2011). Some modern scientists even go so far as to maintain that Priene with its city grid system – built on a basically hostile stretch of land under Persian rule – was planned as a constructed symbol of Greek superiority over the representatives of Achaemenid culture. It was to be a reminder of and testimony to the greatest conflicts of Greek antiquity between two nations, the so-called Persian Wars, which personally motivated the father of Alexander the Great and later Alexander the Great.

  Already shortly after being excavated and published by the German archeologists Humann, Wiegand and Schrader the city was acknowledged as the Greek “ideal city”; it was understood as the architectural reflection of a democratic, highly cultivated middle-class city, among other things. As such it was even used as a direct model for mid-20th-century urban planning theory for urban planning projects (von Kienlin – Gisbertz 2015). Its city plan can be found in every textbook on the history of urban planning, from Europe through the entire American continent to East Asia. In the same way, Priene is the standard example for ancient urbanistics and the so-called Hippodamian Plan in every basic work on classical archeology worldwide, since the city embodies most clearly and understandably the probably most significant step of development towards regular and systematic formation of streets, squares and housing quarters. In this system, each element has its fixed value and its defined form, which give it clear boundaries to other systems (Mania 2014).

  Criterion (iii): As one of the best-preserved examples of residental construction from the Late Classical and Hellenistic period, the houses of Priene are a unique ensemble of settlement history and present significant information about the lifestyles of the inhabitants. The principle of Isonomia – equality of all citizens – is shown in Priene in the row house-like houses, which were all similar, from the founding phase (Hoepfner - Schwandner 1986). Every citizen received by lottery a plot of land of exactly the same size, on which essentially the same houses were built.

  Priene's extensively excavated residential homes earned Priene the honorary title of "Pompeii of Asia Minor" in the early 20th century already. The high degree of late Classical and Hellenistic houses, but especially the minimal reshaping during the Roman period present us with a clear picture of private life in a Greek city. The individual houses as an impressive testimony to an isonomia (principle of equality) or a democratic society, give deep impressions of social developments of citizenship in a Greek polis.

Criterion (iv): The stringent city grid work, together with architecturally outstanding individual structures that perfectly fit into the plan makes Priene an exceptional architectural ensemble of the Hellenistic Period. In modern perception, the city is always mentioned in the same sentence with Athens, Rome and Pompeii.

  The strict contrast of the geometrically regulated city plan to the actual situation in landscape is especially noticeable. The terrain slopes downwards on three sides and upwards on the fourth side – Priene is one of the steepest ancient sites. But in Priene nature did not determine the plan or the layout of the streets and squares. The builders of Priene successfully experimented with the idea of allowing human, democratic intellect to conquer nature: in this adverse terrain, they constructed something along the lines of Aristotle's perfect beauty. According to Aristotle (Aristotle, mech. 847a.b) the techne that is necessary to artificially reshape the landscape stands against nature and, moreover, it helps people emancipate themselves from nature (Fehr 1980; Filges 2012). 

  The design of the city layout makes brilliant use of the conditions of the difficult topography, but makes no compromises with regard to clarity and usefulness of the built-up areas: Unlike earlier Greek cities, which more or less "grew", the strictly orthogonal street plan does not follow the natural topography but uses every opportunity of developing the slope: Rock-cutting, terracing and landfill. Yet the planning is so detailed that in all – compared, for example, to Roman urban planning – the natural topography was altered only minimally. For example, the Agora makes use of an extended natural plateau; the Athena sanctuary was built on a rocky ridge in the city as a small acropolis; the theater was skillfully embedded in the already existing slope. All structures and areas, even the later lower gymnasion, still blend into the city grid. Rubble from grading measures was immediately re-used for the houses. Thus, Priene is also an outstanding example of intelligent and sustained use of natural resources in (Greek) antiquity.

  Priene is equally of outstanding significance for its city plan and for the individual buildings. The temple to Athena, which has been sought for and studied since the 17th century because of its literary fame among ancient writers (especially Vitruvius), may easily be called one of the major buildings of antiquity. Its architect, Pytheos, was also the builder of the Maussolleion of Halikarnassos, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Athena Temple is his second famous building and he himself wrote a book about it. From then on it was considered to be the classic Ionian temple; in fundamental texts on ancient architecture it is always compared directly with the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens and the urban Roman pantheon. It was this Prienian building whose construction was financially supported by Alexander the Great at the beginning and by the first Roman emperor Augustus at its completion. This shows – probably more than modern investigations of its proportions– the building's significance already while it was being built (Koenigs 2015).

  The Agora of Prieneis epitomized for “democratic” urban architecture of the Classical period, as is the whole city plan itself. All the buildings of a democratic city administration can be found there practically as archetypes, even more clearly than in Athens. But even the square itself, which is framed by columned halls, makes it easy for a visitor to envision everyday life in an ancient city. Hundreds of inscriptions have transmitted to us a fascinatingly in-depth and lively picture of Priene's social structure, of the citizens themselves and of the mechanisms of individual care and responsibility for the city (something like the leiturgia = financial support for the city in the form of filling an office, sacrifices or donating a building). In this case as well no other ancient city has left as much information. 

  The bouleuterion is located on the northeastern edge of the Agora and it housed the central democratic organ of the polis. The building is the best preserved of its kind and since it’s especially since its reconstruction in perspective by Krischen (1921) it is also the best known. In modern perception it stands for the Greek city hall just as the temple to Athena stands for the Ionian temple.

  Until today the building inspires even working architects to their own designs, like the anatomy lecture hall of the University of Mannheim (architect J. Misiakiewicz) shows. The special urban planning concept – be it the founding period or later in the 2nd century BC – was the creation of a building ensemble in which all political structures and institutions of a democratically constituted city were concentrated in the heart of the city 200 years after its founding (von Kienlin 2004; Filges 2012, 2013).

  Since its excavation the theater of Priene is considered to be the standard example of a Hellenistic theater. Most Greek theaters were reshaped fundamentally in the Roman period, but in Priene the changes were comparatively small. Thus the building today still reflects early Greek theater or its typically building structure like no other. 

  The lower gymnasion of Priene, like the Theater, stands out from the large group of similar "multifunctional complexes" in other cities since the Hellenistic shape has been preserved for the most part without changes. The complex, an extensive Peristyle structure with a central Ephebeum, well- preserved washroom, many side rooms and an attached stadium with a well-preserved starting structure for the runners and seats hewn out of the rocky slope to the north shows all the elements of a Greek gymnasion in archetypal form. Its rich collection of topos inscriptions – student "signatures" chiseled into the walls of the Ephebeum (with teachers' tolerance) – form a unique collection of students' names across many generations. Many later dignitaries of the city may have left their mark there.

  The well-preserved city wallof Priene and the municipal water system, which has been researched well for some years, are mentioned in all scientific and popular general texts on these topics. Both are high-level witnesses of the history of technology in antiquity (building, fortification and water system technology) (Fahlbusch 2003, 2006; Ruppe 2007, 2010, 2015). The so-called Archelaos relief (today in British Museum) is an example of the high status of the musical arts in Priene: its delicate figural Relief shows the Apotheosis of Homer (the only ancient depiction of this kind at all) and testifies to the great respect that Literature and Philosophy enjoyed in Priene.

  Criterion (vi): The high spiritual-cultural level of Prienian citizenship, which was founded in the archaic period already by the philosophical Sage Bias, appears at that time and again during the following centuries in various spiritual as well as literary-artistic levels. Priene's structurally well-preserved gymnasiums were so well-known that students were sent there from far away to be trained. The Cappadocian prince Orophernes was the city's most prominent student. The building school at the temple to Athena, which was founded by the most famous architect of his time, functioned for centuries; Ionia's second “star architect,” Hermogenes, who is of central importance to Hellenism and also for all of Roman architecture later, possibly also studied there. The medication skammonion, which was known in antiquity in the entire Mediterranean region, bears witness to the sophistication of pharmacy in Priene.

  The Archelaos relief testifies to the great respect that literature and philosophy enjoyed in Hellenistic Priene. This led to a pragmatic and interested openness to "foreign" ideas, which in turn led to a multi- layered, tolerant and lively cultic business in the city. Unquestionably the "state" cults for the city goddess Athena and the guardian of the Ionian Federation, Poseidon, whose sanctuary stood within   the jurisdiction of Priene, are central. Numerous other public as well as private cultic sites are distributed over the entire city and give an impressive testimony to the religious aspects of an enlightened Greek society. The tolerance also promoted the early appearance of Christian, but especially of Jewish cultic sites: one of the earliest known diaspora synagogues was located in Priene (Burkhardt - Wilson 2012).

  During the excavations in 1895-99 the excavators discovered Christian chapels and houses of worship from the 5th century AD onwards whose distribution could be interpreted clearly from the spatial distinctions. Next to the old pagan cultic site there was always a small Christian chapel, which did not destroy the heathen site, but rather disempowered it. This juxtaposition of old and new was found at the temple to Athena, the theater, the sanctuary of the Egyptian deities, on the east side of the Agora and in the eastern necropolis.


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