page_title: Pergamon Altar
section_title: The Telephus frieze
hierarchical_section_title: Pergamon Altar / Altar construction and design / The Telephus frieze
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Telephos wird in Argos begrüßt - Platte des Telephosfrieses vom Pergamonaltar. Platten 36 und 38: die Argiver begrüßen Telephos. English: The Argives welcome Telephos, panels 36 and 38.
context_page_description: The Pergamon Altar is a monumental construction built during the reign of king Eumenes II in the first half of the 2nd century BC on one of the terraces of the acropolis of the ancient Greek city of Pergamon in Asia Minor.
  The structure is 35.64 metres wide and 33.4 metres deep; the front stairway alone is almost 20 metres wide. The base is decorated with a frieze in high relief showing the battle between the Giants and the Olympian gods known as the Gigantomachy. There is a second, smaller and less well-preserved high relief frieze on the inner court walls which surround the actual fire altar on the upper level of the structure at the top of the stairs. In a set of consecutive scenes, it depicts events from the life of Telephus, legendary founder of the city of Pergamon and son of the hero Heracles and Auge, one of Tegean king Aleus's daughters.
  In 1878, the German engineer Carl Humann started official excavations on the acropolis of Pergamon, an effort that lasted until 1886.
  In Berlin, Italian restorers reassembled the panels comprising the frieze from the thousands of fragments that had been recovered.
context_section_description: The frieze narrates in chronological order the life of Telephus, one of the heroes of Greek mythology; the legend is also known from written records, for example in the tragedies of Aischylos, Sophocles and Euripides from the 5th century BC. 
  Since there was only a limited amount of space available in the upper, internal courtyard where the actual fire altar was located, the Telephus frieze was sculpted on slabs that was shallower than in the case of the Gigantomachy. Its dimensions were also more modest and its arrangement was on a smaller scale. The height was 1.58 meters. The frieze was originally painted, but no significant traces of color remain. There were several technical innovations for the time: the figures are staggered in depth; architectural elements are used to indicate activities taking placed indoors, and the landscapes are lush and scenic. These new ways of depicting spatial arrangements set the tone for Late Hellenistic and Roman times. 
  After restoration in the mid-1990s it was discovered that the formerly assumed chronological sequence was in some cases incorrect. The installation was accordingly rearranged, but the original numbering of the 51 relief panels in the Pergamon Museum was retained. For example, the resorting led to moving what had formerly been regarded as the first panel to a location following panel 31. Not all panels survived, so there are a few gaps in the presentation of the story. (Of the original 74 panels, only about 47 whole or partial panels survived. Panels 37 and 43 are not on display as part of the frieze for lack of space.) The following list reflects the sequence after reassembly in 1995.
  Panels 2,3 - 2: At the court of King Aleus; 3: Heracles catches sight of Aleus’ daughter Auge in the temple
  Panels 4,5,6 – 4: The infant Telephus is abandoned in the wilderness; 5 and 6: carpenters construct a boat in which Auge is to be cast adrift. 
  Panel 10 – King Teuthras finds Auge stranded on the shore
  Panel 11 – Auge establishes an Athena cult
  Panel 12 – Heracles identifies his son Telephus
  Panels 7, 8 – Nymphs bathe the infant Telephus
  Panel 9 – Telephus’ childhood
  Panels 13, 32, 33 and 14 – Telephus voyages by ship to Mysia in Asia Minor
  Panels 16 and 17 – Telephus receives weapons from Auge
  Panel 18 –  Telephus goes to war against Idas
  Panel 20 – Teuthras gives Auge to Telephus in marriage
  Panel 21: Mother and son recognize each other on the wedding night
  Panels 22-24 – Nireus kills the Amazon Hiera, Telephus’ wife
  Panel 51 – The fighting is interrupted for Hiera's solemn funeral
  Panel 25 – Two Scythian warriors fall in battle
  Panel 28 – The battle at the Kaikos springs
  Panels 30, 31 – Achilles wounds Telephus with the help of Dionysus
  Panel 1 – Telephus consults an oracle about the healing of his wound
  Panels 34 and 35 – Telephus lands in Argos
  Panels 36 and 38 – The Argives welcome Telephus
  Panels 39 and 40 – Telephus asks Agamemnon to heal him
  Panel 42 – Telephus threatens to kill Orestes, whom he took hostage to force Agamemnon to heal him
  Panel 43 – Telephus is healed
  Panels 44-46 – The founding of cults in Pergamon
  Panels 49 and 50 – An altar is erected
  Panel 47, 48 – Women hasten to the hero Telephus, who lies on a kline
caption: The Argives welcome Telephus, panels 36 and 38
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