Macedonia's Golden Artistry
• ANCIENT TREASURES
No photograph could do justice to the glorious crown in the first gallery of "In the Kingdom of Alexander the Great," the Louvre's spectacular new show devoted to ancient Macedonia. A multilayered wreath with scores of exquisite gold oak leaves and tiny gold acorns that flutter on delicate gold stems, the crown was made in the late 4th century B.C., and discovered in 2008, at Vergina—the ancient Macedonian capital Aigai—in northern Greece, not far from Thessaloniki. It was found in the tomb of an adolescent boy, possibly Heracles, Alexander's illegitimate son.
Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism / Archaeological Receipts Fund
A pair of pendant earrings (end of the 4th-beginning of the 3rd century B.C.).
Eclipsed by the ruins in the southern half of the country, northern Greece was long ignored by archaeologists;
the first major discoveries were made only in 1977, by Manolis Andronicos of the University of Thessaloniki: several royal tombs, including one—intact—thought to be that of Alexander the Great's father, Phillip II, the one-eyed warrior king who had brought most of mainland Greece under his rule before he was assassinated in 336 B.C. Many important discoveries have followed, made by Andronicos, who died in 1992, and his successors.
The vast array of sculptures, mosaics, ceramics, glass, armor, weapons, bronze household objects and jewelry in the show—some 500 items—belies the relatively short span of the modern excavations that revealed them. There is gold everywhere, testimony to the extraordinary workmanship of Macedonia's artisans: regal wreaths, intricate bracelets and earrings, bronze helmets framing gold funerary face masks, including one with an astonishing crooked smile (circa 520 B.C.). Even more surprising is a panoply of mostly gold ornaments (circa 500 B.C.) from the tomb of "the Lady of Aigai" in the royal necropolis near Vergina, including long, flat gold strips that outlined the shape of her body, gold polka dots for her skirt and silver soles for her shoes.
Statuary ranges from small terracotta figurines with traces of polychrome paint—a feminine head with demurely downcast black eyes, a tiny Cupid curled up asleep—to a colossal marble head of the Roman emperor Caracalla (circa 211-217 A.D.) and massive marble figures from a monumental colonnade in Thessaloniki. A small bronze medallion meant to decorate a chariot is adorned with a beautiful bust of Athena in high relief, wearing the mask of Medusa in place of her usual helmet. The most dramatic is one of the few Macedonian artifacts found in the 19th century, a magnificent marble sarcophagus carved with tumultuous battle scenes and topped by life-sized reclining figures of the married couple buried within.
Until Jan. 16
Site officiel du musée du Louvre
Of Alexander himself, there is very little—a few small statues and fragments, his face on a silver coin, a late 4th-century B.C. marble head with its nose missing. But the show's circuit begins and ends with a superb copy of a 325 B.C. mosaic, made with river pebbles and ancient techniques, depicting two warriors hunting a lion, found in a villa near the royal palace in Pella and now in that city's museum, possibly inspired by Alexander's lion hunt reported by Plutarch.
Review: Macedonia's Golden Artistry | 'In the Kingdom of Alexander the Great' at the Louvre - WSJ.com