German engineer Karl Human visiting Turkey at the invitation of the Sultan to build bridges and roads. The human hired forty of diggers, along with them, went up on the mountain and the first hit a spade in a dry, cracked earth... so, during the construction works was opened ancient Pergamum and the greatest monument of Hellenistic art Altar of Zeus.

Pergamos was the third largest city of the ancient world (after Rome and Alexandria). He became famous for its stunning architecture, library, which competed with Alexandria, sculpture Museum, scientific schools and the largest performing arts center.

This magnificent city was born as a result of a banal treason. After the death of Alexander the great one of his associates, Lysimachus, occupied almost the entire Treasury of the former conqueror of the world, consisting of innumerable treasures looted once in Persepolis, India and Babylon. The Treasury insidious Lysimachus chose dungeons small, impregnable fortress Pergamos on top of a cliff. To this day there have been preserved cut in the solid stone corridors, where were stored jewels of the Macedonian king. Lysimachus was entrusted the protection of the treasures of his servant - the eunuch to him in appearance to one. But the servant, in turn, has assigned the Treasury and to hold, moved to the side of Seleucus I, the enemy of man. All these events occurred in 287 BC

Under king Attali I, the descendant of Seleucus, 240 was, Pergamos dared to declare independence, but for the loyalty entered into Union with Rome, and later showed himself to his loyal ally.

The Zeus altar of Pergamum

The Pergamon Kingdom became the most powerful in Asia Minor, but the greatness of the state and its kings donated by the attalids was short-lived. In 133 BC Attalos died childless, leaving the Kingdom to the Romans. A strange decision of the king caused a storm of emotions, but what you could expect from a misanthrope and cruel tyrant, who in their free time engaged in the cultivation of poisonous plants.

The capital was donated by the attalids 30 km from the Mediterranean coast and was situated on three hundred meters rock, divided two tributary of the mind map Selinunte and City. Over time, the ledges of rocks had been converted into a spacious terrace. In fact, the Greek architects built the three cities, one above the other, connecting them stairs with pinnacles and terraces, bearing two-story portico, well blended with the landscape.

In the upper town, administrative block, was double Agora square with the temple of Dionysus. On its top floor stood a great altar of Zeus and Athena - the building is remarkable for its size and beauty of the sculptural decoration and the sanctuary of Athena polias, limited to the two sides by porticoes. At the same venue yet there was a library, and on the top of the Palace and extensive Arsenal. A little below under the terrace housed the theatre.

On average, the city was excellent gymnasium, educational institution for noble young men, built on different levels, connected by a wide stairs and underground passages, and the temples of Demeter and Hera. The lower city with a vast square, surrounded by two-storey colonnade, was a trade center and the home of the most part tho population.

For wealth, success and glory Pergamos was obliged not only trade, but mainly by the presence of rich lands grew bread, olives, grapes, and also was engaged in selective breeding. In the Pergamos produced perfumes, fine linen and gold brocade, and "paper" of his own invention - the parchment. People lived lavishly, and free citizens daily thanked for that of the gods.

The inhabitants of Pergamos was generous and built the richest in the Greek world the altar dedicated to Zeus. It was a platform of white marble, square in plan. Along three walls went marble tape relief, and on the fourth the staircase led to the colonnaded Playground. At the site there was a marble altar. Relief frieze of the Pergamon altar depicts the battle of the gods and the giants. Sculptors of Pergamum created a magnificent frieze, which was adorned with the altar and reproduced battle of gods and rebels against them giants. The figure of Zeus is superior size and strength. Armed with a lightning, the Supreme God leads fight once with three giants. The thunder breaks their enemies, and they die in terrible agony. The altar already in his time was recognized as an outstanding work of art.

Glory to the town brought also the famous library. In the cool halls of the marble walls were built lined with cedar niches. They kept 200 thousand scrolls with the works of the Greek philosophers and poets, the work of geographers, sacred books of Persian, Egyptian and Jewish priests.

Chapter Pergamon library the scientific Crates Malossi first in the world to put forward a hypothesis location on the spherical surface of the Earth four landmasses, separated by stripes of the oceans. About 168-165 BCE he made large globe, on which he depicted four landmass, symmetrically arranged in relation to each other: in the Northern hemisphere, he placed known to the Greeks Ecumene (the inhabited earth in the form of a detailed cloak and the land of Parakou ("near live") - a prototype of North America; on the other side of the Equatorial ocean, occupying a wide strip of land between the tropics, have been placed land antakov - a type of Australia and next to it the land of the antipodes - a prototype of South America.

To the beginning of XX century the residents of the Turkish city of Bergama and did not suspect that live on the ruins of the great city of the Ancient world, they are simply not interested. Moreover, the pieces of marble with traces of sculptural images that were dug Turkish peasants, was periegetes them to lime.

The Pergamon altar is one of the treasures of the great cities of the Ancient world. In the library, many of the stored manuscripts on medicine, as the Pergamos was considered the center of medical science and medicine. Citizens have erected behind the walls of the city hospital and adorned it meaningful inscription: "In the name of the gods of death allowed". The patients took baths in decorated with bronze basins, drink the healing water and the hands skilled masseurs and fragrant ointment returned force wasted muscles. At the resort you can relax in the shade galleries, sitting on stone benches or leaning against a pillar. Under the vaults there were hidden special horns and through them came the voices of invisible psychotherapists. They urged the sick forget their diseases, not to think about sorrow and distress, to suppress the disease by the power of the spirit.

In 133, Pergamos became the capital of the Roman province of Asia, and Roman rulers did not spare money for the decoration of the city. On the Acropolis grew a giant temple of the Emperor Trajan. Each column was twice the temple of Athena, who was standing near.

In the III century on the terrace theater has arisen a Church in honour of the Emperor Caracalla, which came to be treated by the famous Pergamon doctors. This temple was small, but trimmed with precious colored marble.

The Romans built in Pergamos two theatre on 25 and 35 thousand spectators, so that the city became more theater seats than spectators.

But in 713, wonderful Asia minor city was destroyed by the Arabs. Pergamos, which, according to the historian Pliny the Elder, was a teacher of Rome", are gone forever.