The Crisler Library at
Ephesos

Anton Bammer

Anton Bammer was born in Upper Austria 1934. He spent his youth close to Linz on the Danube.
He studied Architecture at the Technical University in Vienna between 1953 und 1958. He worked three years as an architect until he got a job at the Austrian Archaeological Institute. He was a permanent member at  the Ephesus excavation team  since that time. Besides that he studied Geophysics and promoted in this field with an archaeomagnetic dissertation on the bricks of Ephesus to a Dr. phil. so his many different interests can be noticed  on culture studies, sciences and also artistic activities, which he does not see without problems as he
studied also drawing with Herbert Boeckl at the Academy of Arts in Vienna.
His wish to work in the field of Greek archaeology was fulfilled after several years of activities in the Roman town of Ephesus, where he was engaged with the Monument of Memmius and where he also did a theoretical and practical reconstruction.

He consecrated his work to a monument which stood at the beginning of archaeological research at Ephesus: the temple of Artemis, the so called Artemision.
Bammers first success at this place was the discovery of the long lost altar of the Temple which he discovered 1965. An enterprise began which lead after few years to the complete clearing of the foundations of the altar.
With that it was evident that the research in the Artemision would be the concern and lifework of Anton Bammer. The altar existing since archaic times and monumentally reconstructed in the 4th century B.C. was the forerunner for many other monumental altars.

The political atmosphere changed also in Vienna after 1968. The humanities were asked for its social connections, Bammer has been occupied during this years with the background of so called classical archaeology and architecture. Results are two books which have been published in the 1970ties: Architektur und Gesellschaft in der Antike ( Wien 1974) and Architektur als Erinnerung (Wien 1978). It was Bammers special concern to explain phenomenons of ancient and modern art with psychoanalytic and structuralist approaches .

Anton Bammer continued his excavations in the Artemision every year and 1973 he began the research in the area between the temple and the altar with the discovery of the Hekatompedos. He was temporary deputy director or together with other colleagues director of the excavations of Ephesus.
There were made sensational discoveries in the so called central base of the Artemision and also testimonies of the early history of the sanctuary going back to the second millennium have been excavated. The discovery of an early peripteros in this area which counts for the oldest in the Ionian world was a great success.
The excavations was executed with a rectangular grid system, the layers were evaluated carefully. The soil was washed to get also the finest objects. Great importance was put on saving the animal bones which have recognized by Bammer as the most valuable testimonies for the sacrificial cult and the rituals in the Artemision, not obvious at this time.
The objects made of gold, ivory, bronze, amber and terracotta have been shown together with the finds from the British excavations in an exhibition in the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul in 2008 which has been curated by Ulrike Muss.
The results of the excavations are published in several miscellaneous volumes with international participation (edited by Ulrike Muss: Der Kosmos der Artemis von Ephesos, Vienna 2001 and Die Archäologie der ephesischen Artemis, Wien 2008).

Anton Bammer published three books on the Artemision: Die Architektur des Jüngeren Artemision von Ephesos (Wiesbaden 1972); das Heiligtum der Artemis von Ephesos (Graz 1984) and Das Artemision von Ephesos (Mainz 1996 together with Ulrike Muss).
‘Der Altar des Artemisions von Ephesos’ with Ulrike Muss and Mustafa Büyükkolanci appeared in the ‘Forschungen in Ephesos’ Wien 2001.
The book: Ephesos - Stadt and Fluß und Meer was published 1988 (Graz). With this book Bammer tried to interpret Ephesus and its environments with methods of ‘New Archaeology’. This approach was offered by the special geography of Ephesus, a town which underlies special changes caused by its situation at a river and the sea. 

Anton Bammer is an active academic teacher since 1980.
His emphasis  is focused in the mediation of new theories.

The 1990ties have been characterized by the excavations in Greece: in Aigeira on the Peloponnese, an excavation which was directed by Bammer from 1990 until 1997. He discovered two Doric temples which can be traced back until archaic times.
The modern settlement in the area of the ancient town has been studied which an ethnoarchaeological project (published in Thetis 2006: Paläokastro-Aigeira- Rosinen und Archäologie- with Ulrike Muss).

Anton Bammer not only works on Ephesus and subjects concerning ’Classical Archaeology’. Old wooden houses were studied by him during his travels in Turkey and Greece and he tried to discover the philosophy which is hidden behind these buildings (Wohnen im Vergänglichen, Graz 1982)
The critics on ‘classical’ and ‘immortal’ architecture made of stone stands behind chapters with titles like: ‘Architektur und Dialektik’ (architecture and dialectic) and ‘Die Zähmung des Raumes (‘Taming of the space’). Another book which takes over this subject in a dialectic way is: ‘Die Rückkehr des Klassischen in die Levante’ (The return of the classics to the Levante) Mainz, Zabern 2001.
Here the subject is recent architecture and the identities of minorities in an multicultural space of the Levante. The book deals with the return of the ancient autochthonous architecture in Asia Minor and in Greece since the renaissance and classicism.

Anton Bammer worked also in the field of reception of Antiquity. Several articles have been published by him as for example ‘Jugendstil in Istanbul’ (Studia Herzynia 2004), ‘Das Lyzäum von Pergamon (Istanbuler Mitteilungen, Festschrift for Wolfgang Radt) and churches and synagogues in Greece and Turkey (‘Die Rückkehr des Klassischen in die Levante, Mainz 2001).

Not at least is to mention his activity in the field of  restaurations and reconstructions in Ephesus and their theoretical interpretation. Bammer has carried out ‘reconstructions’ at the monuments of  Memmius, the fountain of Domitian at the façade of the temple of  Domitian which have been designed to a conscious alienation of the original. It is his opinion that ‘reconstructions’ do not revise the history of decline of monuments but are expressions of the taste and the aesthetics of their time. So the  term ‘modern art at ancient objects’ is more significant than the often used terminus ‘anastilosis’.
The reconstruction of a column of the Artemis Temple which is about 20 m high together with its foundation was a dangerous enterprise. Today this single re- erected column is a symbol for the cult of Artemis of Ephesus.
Bammer analysed this interventions for example in ‘La Reintegrazione nel restauro dell’Antico (Rom 1997) and in Archaeologia urbana e progetto di architettura (Rom 2001 – edited by  M. M. Segarra Lagunes).

Since the 1990ties Anton Bammer has occupied himself more with the painting of aquarells. His water colours show the essential of a landscape or architecture in the clear air of Egypt, the sun of Greece and the mild climate of Ionia.
Bammer has made exhibitions in the Austrian Cultural Institute in Istanbul (November 2003), in Greece and at other places and has had an exhibition for the ‘Goethe Institut’ at Izmir in September 2009.

Bammer selected not only a  place for his excavations, but the whole environment of the Aegean as his subject. He has devoted a great part of his professional life to scientific work in Turkey and as an effect he contributed to the status of Turkey being one of the international centers of Archaeology today.

Since 1970 he is honorary citizen of Selcuk, since 1970 corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute and since 1999 real member of Austrian Archaeological Institute. He is a member of the scientific board  of the Journal ‘Arkeoloji ve Sanat’ in Istanbul. Since 2008 he is a member of the Artemis Kültür, Sanat ve Egitim Vakfi in Selcuk/Zürich which has as its aim to rebuild the Wonder of the World at another close by site to the Artemision..

Anton Bammer lives in Vienna and in Selcuk.