Devotions and Dynasty: Votive Reliefs and the Pergamon Altar's Telephos Frieze

Devotions and Dynasty: Votive Reliefs and the Pergamon Altar's Telephos Frieze Public Deposited

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Creator

Ericson, Klint
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Art and Art History

Abstract

This thesis compares the Telephos Frieze from the Great Altar at Pergamon to Classical and Hellenistic votive reliefs. Previous authors have alluded to connections between votive reliefs and the Telephos Frieze, but this paper demonstrates the similarities and important differences between the frieze and specific votive reliefs. It argues that the Telephos Frieze evokes compositions and pictorial techniques that also occur in processional, banquet, Pan and Nymph, and hero reliefs. The final chapter addresses the function of the Altar and the Telephos Frieze, which were essential elements of Eumenes II's urban consolidation in the second century B.C.E. This paper concludes that the votive elements of the Telephos Frieze efficaciously associated Attalid dynastic ideology with the personal emotions and beliefs of worshipers, reinforcing dynastic authority within the Pergamene kingdom.

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