The Iskender Tomb is thought to be the most important monument in the Archaeology Museum in Istanbul. It was found in the year 1887 at the Kings’ cemetery in the city of Sidon, which is today the third largest city in Lebanon. Although it is remembered as ‘Iskender Tomb,’ it does not belong to the emperor Iskender himself. It is thought to be the tomb of the Sidon king Abdalonymous.
At the front of the tomb on the left-hand side, we can see the emperor Iskender on his horse. As it was thought that Iskender came from the lineage of Herakles, he has been described with the coat of the lion of Nemea. In addition to this, next to his ear, we can see the horn of a ram, which is the symbol of the Egyptian god’s Ammon. Because of this description of the tomb, the tomb has come to be known as ‘The Iskender Tomb.’ Iskender had died in Babil, and his funeral was taken to Iskenderiye. It is known that the tomb has an anthropoid side, which means it is shaped like a human.
At one of the long side of the tomb’s main body, the war between the Persians and the Greek is described. The Greek and the Persian soldiers can be identified very easily by their clothes. While the Greeks wore a short tunic or a cloak, according to the Persian traditions of the soldiers, it was forbidden to show any part of their bodies except for their face and fingertips; which is why it can be observed that they wore pants, shirts with long sleeves and tiaras that covered their heads. It is thought that the battle is the one Iskender won in the year 333 B.C. and this victory represents the battle of Issus in which the doors of Phoenicia and Syria were opened to him. Another of the consequences of this battle was that the fate of Abdalonymous, who is thought to be the owner of the tomb, has changed and he became the king of Sidon afterward.
On the second side of the tomb, a hunting scene is described. It is known that hunting with horses and carriages was a trait belonging to the near-eastern civilizations and that Iskender had taken part in these kinds of hunting activities in Phoenicia. It is accepted that the Emperor Iskender had aimed to establish a Greek-Persian Empire by bringing together the Orient and Helen cultures after taking over Iran. He married a Persian princess towards the end of his life, started to wear Persian dresses and adapted to the ways of the Persian palace.
In this sense, at one side of the tomb, the Persians and the Greeks are shown as friends hunting together. It is known that after Iskender won Darius III at Issus, he passed across the mountains of Amanas, through the coastline of the Mediterranean and entered Syria. The Sidon community, who were unhappy with the Persian rule, opened the doors of their rich city to the army of Macedonia and requested Iskender to choose a king for them. Because Iskender did not have the time to choose a king for Sidon, he left the duty to Hephaestion. The person Hephaestion found was Abdalonymous, who was only distantly related to the Sidon royal family and led a quiet life outside the city until he was chosen as the king of Sidon. This is the reason why the descriptions of Iskender and Hephaestion are put along with the decorations of the tomb of Abdalonymous, whose name in Persian means ‘the servant of the gods.’
When the adornment on the tomb is analyzed, we can see that the people who made them are very well educated about the eastern decorating art. The top row of the acroterium consists of women heads, which are placed interchangeably with eagles that have only some parts of their wings left. In the old Syria, it was believed that eagles carried the spirit of dead people to heaven. Nine women heads that are much smaller were lined up at the side of the very bottom also bring to mind the main goddess, which was worshiped in the Anatolian and Mesopotamian cultures of the prehistoric era. The actorium of both of the pediments are decorated with Persian gryphons and botanic decorations. At the corners of the pediments, two lions are placed as the protectors of the tomb. These lions, which resemble thin-necked dogs with weak bodies, are specific motifs to the art of Ion.
The lid of the tomb was also made from the same type of marble as the tomb itself. The handiwork of this tomb suggests that, because this monument would have been very hard to carry from Greek to Lebanon, it had to be made in Sidon, but there is no evidence about its sculptor. It is thought that the artists who painted the tomb are as much a master of their work as the sculptor. It is understood that; after the tomb was finished; the eyes, eyebrows, the lips, and the clothes were painted in purple, yellow, blue, red and violet colors; and varnish was softly put on the skin of the figures.
The tomb, in my opinion, is a magnificent piece of work revealing to us the traditions of the Persians and the battle of Issus. Just by merely looking at the carvings, we can understand that it was a bloody battle but an important one. The lions, in my opinion, stand out the most, because they are fearfully defending the tomb. This shows the fierceness and power of the King and his kingdom. The hunting scene engraved on the side of the tomb makes one wonder what the sculptor felt as he was engraving a mighty Emperor who united the Greeks and Persians under one rule. The different engravings of the Persian and Greek soldiers and the details of their clothing show us the culture of different civilizations of the period and thus make us wonder how two very different cultures were brought together to live under one rule with peace and harmony. Finally, the tomb itself as a whole makes one wonder how it was made so well that it survived until today.