A finely detailed homage to a heroic Alexander the Great

The Archaeological Museum in Istanbul is one of the great treasure houses of sculpture and monuments from the Ancient World, though it is often skipped by tourists. They are missing out on some extraordinarily well-preserved treasures, which have been unearthed from the Greek and Roman era. First among them is the Alexander Sarcophagus: a marble coffin embellished with some of the most brilliant decorative sculpture to have survived.

Despite its name, and despite some hopeful excitement when it was first excavated from a site near Sidon in Lebanon (then part of the Ottoman Empire) nearly 150 years ago, this is not the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great himself. He died in Babylon, not Sidon. The carvings do glorify the conquering general – but they are in grateful homage to him, not in commemoration.

This sarcophagus was probably made instead for Abdalonymus, King of Sidon, whose figure is carved into one of the pediments on the stone lid. Alexander had appointed him in 332BC during the Macedonian’s conquest of the Levant.

But it is primarily of interest today for the superbly dynamic carvings which decorate the sides, and which are the most remarkable achievements of Hellenistic art. On one side is an elaborate battle scene with cavalry and foot soldiers attacking each other as the bodies pile up beneath their feet. This is a depiction of Alexander triumphing over the Persians at the Battle of Issus. Alexander himself is shown entering from the left wearing a lion’s head helmet. His horse is rearing, his spear raised ready to strike a cavalryman whose horse is collapsing beneath him.

On the opposite side we see Alexander again riding in from the left – his cape flowing behind him. This time he is on a lion hunt together with Abdalonymus. An angry lion has clamped its teeth onto the chest of the king’s horse but, like Alexander in the battle scene, Abdalonymus’s spear arm is raised, ready for the kill.

The Hellenistic era – from when the carvings date – was the period which followed Alexander’s conquests when

Greek artistic influence was at its height. Though the coffin was found in Lebanon, the marble comes from the Greek mainland and it was probably made by more than one sculptor from Greece, perhaps from Rhodes, possibly from the Ionian islands.

Although the design and the fine detail of the carving survives remarkably intact, the clean white marble finish we see today is distinctly different from when it was first made more than 2,000 years ago. Like many ancient sculptures, it was brightly painted, and it’s possible to make an educated guess at the original colour scheme from the traces of pigment which have survived in the nooks and crannies of the carving. Tiny drill holes positioned in the battle scene/s also suggest that miniature iron fittings and weapons were incorporated into the original design.

Though much smaller and far less famous than the Elgin Marbles, it nevertheless rivals them for subtlety and dramatic force. The Marbles once adorned the Parthenon, but most of them are now in the British Museum. They were made a little over a century earlier. But the power and the energy of the sculptors who created the Alexander Sarcophagus reflects the same great tradition of ancient stone carving.

The Alexander Sarcophagus, which dates from the 4th century BC, shows the general in battle on one side and hunting on the other. It was discovered in Sidon, Lebanon