The archaeology of Alexander the Great: 2. Altars

And yet it is astonishing how very little actual trace we have of his passing… his material presence has eluded us. It is as though a disembodied idea had come and gone as a mighty spiritual force with little immediate tangibility.
- Mortimer Wheeler

All those great battles and 70 cities said to have been founded by him, and yet… all we have is some coins whose identification rests on shaky foundations. Just that and a desire to emulate him, so attractive and strong that it became a religious dynamic, a divine force possessing souls across Asia into Egypt and the Mediterranean. Most of the divine men of Antiquity bear his radiant image.

Could it be that we are looking in the wrong places. Maybe Alexander is hidden in plain view, unrecognised by those wearing the glasses of the Alexander Romance.

He then divided the army into brigades, which he ordered to prepare twelve altars to equal in height the highest military towers, and to exceed them in point of breadth, to serve as thank offerings to the gods who had led him so far as a conqueror, and also as a memorial of his own labours. When the altars had been constructed, he offered sacrifice upon them with the customary rites, and celebrated a gymnastic and equestrian contest.
- Anabasis of Alexander by Lucius Flavius Arrianus ‘Xenophon’ (ca. 86 – 160)

Though this account is from nearly 500 years after the event, it may contain some historicity. If so, then there may remain some archaeology of these altars.

The remains of Adur Gushnasp, as seen from across the crater at the Takht-i-Suleiman.

On the southern promontory of the eastern slope of Mount Khwaja, the ruins of a citadel complex – known as the Ghagha-Shahr – with its remains of a fire temple attest to the importance of the island in pre-Islamic Iran.

According to Zoroastrian legend, Lake Hamun is the keeper of Zoroaster’s seed. In Zoroastrian eschatology, when the final renovation of the world is near, maidens will enter the lake and then give birth to the saoshyans, the saviours of humankind.

This is the site with the oldest remains of a fire-temple. Only traces of the foundation and ground-plan survive and have been tentatively dated to the 3rd or 4th century BCE.

The Zoroastrian cult of fire is much younger than Zoroastrianism itself and appears at approximately the same time as the shrine cult, first evident in the 4th century BCE.

This, of course, is the period for Alexander in Persia and the making of the great altars.

There is no allusion to a temple cult of fire in the Avesta proper, nor is there any old Persian language word for one.

By the Hellenic Parthian era (250 BCE–226 CE), Zoroastrianism had two kinds of places of worship and one was the atroshan, the “places of burning fire” which became more and more prevalent as the iconoclastic movement gained support.

Zoroastrian Fire Altars

At Pasargadae there is fire temple and such temples were square towers, built of well-bonded stone with mock loopholes and windows in dark materials; inside, the sacred fire was kept alight by the Magi, who belonged to a Median tribe specially trained in the study and practice of religious ritual.

The tomb of Darius Codamannus at Persepolis was never finished, thanks to Alexander. The tombs are hollowed out of the rock in an imitation of a palace facade with four engaged columns, crowned by ‘kneeling bull’ capitals which support an entablature decorated with a Greek moulding; above this is carved a line of bulls and lions, on which rests a dais held up by Atlantes; the king, turning towards a fire altar, stands on steps beneath the emblem of Ahura Mazda whose face is inside the circle.

Eastern sources support the accounts of Alexander invading the Indian subcontinent (though the details differ). A recent paper (Scholia, vol.15 (2006), p.78-101) identifies an altar of Alexander as one of the Pillars of Asoka, re-inscribed.

Part of Major Pillar Edict VI of Asoka

The Devanampiya speaks thus: this inscription of Dhamma is to be engraved wherever there are stone pillars or stone slabs, that it may last long.
- Seventh Pillar Edict

The fragmentary text (right) is referred to as Major Pillar Edit VI. The portion preserved in the British Museum and illustrated here is part of the last two lines, the full translation of which is as follows:

‘All sects are honoured by me in many ways, but I regard that to be my principal duty (viz. meeting the people personally). This dharma edict was caused to inscribed when I had been anointed twenty-six years’.

Front view of the single lion capital in Vaishali

The most celebrated pillar is the pillar with the lion capital at Sarnath. Here, four lions are seated back to back. The pillar at Sanchi also has a similar lion capital. There are two pillars at Rampurva, one with bull and the other with lion as crowning animal. The pillar at Sankissa has an elephant as crowning animal.

Edicts of Ashoka and the locations of the Pillars

As the Edict makes clear, existing stone pillars were to be used and thus and as recognised by modern scholarship, in some of the Pillars at least we have the original altars of Alexander.

The Edicts of Ashoka appear as 33 inscriptions on the Pillars, as well as boulders and cave walls, made by Ashoka during his reign from 269 BCE to 231 BCE. These inscriptions are dispersed throughout the areas of modern-day Pakistan, Nepal and India, and represent the first tangible evidence of Buddhism.

The inscriptions found in the eastern part of India were written in the Magadhi language, using the Brahmi script. In the western part of India, the language used is closer to Sanskrit, using the Kharoshthi script, one extract of Edict 13 is in the Greek language, and one bilingual edict is written in Greek and Aramaic.

Moreover, he erected altars for the gods, which down to the present time are revered by the kings of the Praesii when they cross the river, and on them they offer sacrifices in the Hellenic manner.
- Plutarch: Life of Alexander

For more on this, I suggest: An Altar of Alexander now standing at Delhi by Ranajit Pal.

Dr Pal identifies Asoka with a Seleucid satrap of Bactria, Diodotus I.

Gold coin of Diodotus c. 250 BCE

He rebelled against Seleucid rule soon after the death of Antiochus II in c. 255 or 246 BCE, and wrested independence for his territory. His death in 239 BCE is recorded by Trogus, Prol. 41; Justin xli. 4, 5, where he is called Theodotus; Strabo xi. 515). The name apparently is related to the title Soter – Saviour.

Diodotus Soter appears also on coins struck in his memory by the later Graeco-Bactrian kings Agathocles and Antimachus. Cf. AV Sallet, Die Nachfolger Alexanders d. Gr. in Baktrien und Indien; Percy Gardner, Catalogue of the Coins of the Greek and Scythian Kings of Bactria and India (Brit. Mus.).

The altars of Alexander are not buried by time, but standing proud, in plain view, and largely unrecognised.