Historical Reference

How the Throne of Satan the Alter of Pergamon was Acquired

How the Throne of Satan the Alter of Pergamon was Acquired

During this time the Government had been preparing, and finally in the year 1875 it promulgated, a law in thirty-six articles on antiquities found within the borders of the Turkish Empire. The general effect of this law was that antiquities discovered by excavation should be divided into three parts, one going to the excavator, one to the proprietor of the land on which the excavation had been made, and the third to the Imperial Museum. Meanwhile the famous Humann, who had obtained a firman authorizing him to excavate at Pergamos, had completed his second campaign and had had the good luck (and the talent) to discover the celebrated Gigantomachy, which was still lying in fragments on the ground, awaiting the arrival of the officials of the Ministry to proceed to the partition. Since the Acropolis of Pergamos belonged entirely to the State, the Imperial Museum had the right, according to the terms of the new law, to two-thirds of the discovery. Clearly M. Dethier was the proper person to be entrusted with the mission of claiming this fine share of the spoils. Great was the surprise of some people when that eminent Director returned from Pergamos with empty hands. The language which he held to the Imperial Ministry was in effect what follows, and no doubt it elicited the admiring approval of those whom he addressed:

Hundreds of pounds would be necessary to transport to Constantinople the share of the Imperial Museum, which unhappily is the larger. Those fools of madmen, the Germans, propose to us to buy our share for one thousand napoleons! Can you conceive giving so much money for dirty, broken, misshapen pieces of marble? There are, God be thanked, in the Ottoman Empire numberless marble quarries from which we can, if we want them, extract clean blocks of marble at a much cheaper price. Let us, then, accept the German money and congratulate ourselves on a good riddance.

The Ministerial officials judged the words of the Director to be pearls of wisdom dropping from the mouth of a sage ; and the Gigantomachy, to the present inconsolable regret of the eminent man who is now Director of the Museum, took the road of Berlin instead of that of Tchinili Kiosk. In 1880 the Director responsible for this irreparable loss died, much for the good of the Ottoman Museum.
The Anglo-Saxon Review, A Quarterly Miscellany. Edited By Lady Randolph Spencer Churchill (Mrs. George Cornwallis-West) VOL. VII. December 1900
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons London: Mrs. George Cornwallis-West 49 Rupert Street, W.

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