Communities of Style: Portable Luxury Arts, Identity, and Collective Memory in the Iron Age Levant 9780226164427

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Communities of Style

Communities of Style Portable Luxury Arts, Identity, and Collective Memory in the Iron Age Levant

Marian H. Feldman

The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London

Marian H. Feldman is professor of Near Eastern studies and art history at Johns Hopkins University. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2014 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2014. Printed in the United States of America 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14

1 2 3 4 5

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-10561-1

(cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-16442-7

(e-book)

DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226164427.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Feldman, Marian H., author. Communities of style : portable luxury arts, identity, and collective memory in the Iron Age Levant / Marian H. Feldman. pages

cm

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-226-10561-1 (hardcover : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978-0-226-16442-7 (e-book)

1. Decorative arts, Ancient—Middle East—History.

Antiquities.

3. Iron age—Middle East.

NK685.M628F45

2. Middle East—

I. Title.

2014

745.09394—dc23 2014000140 o This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

For Lisa and Tara

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ix Author’s Note xiii Acknowledgments xv

Introduction 1 Ivories and Metalworks in a Levantine Context 3 Networks and Communities in the Early Iron Age 6

1

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s) First-Millennium Levantine Ivories 13 Connoisseurship and the Study of the Ancient Near East 18 Attributing Levantine Ivories 21 The Mobility of Style 31 Slippery Identities 36 Conclusions 38

2

Levantine Stylistic Practices in Collective Memory 43 The Problem of Artistic Intentionality 47 Rendering Animals and the Logic of Stylistic Practice 51 Habitus in Levantine Style 58

vii

11

Stylistic Practices in Collective Memory 64 Late Bronze Age Memories in the Early Iron Age 67 Continuity, Rediscovery, or Invention? 70 Remembering a Golden Age 73 Conclusions 77

3

Creating Assyria in Its Own Image 79 An Assyrian Court Style 81 Assyrian Representations of Foreign Items 86 The Dangerous Other: Booty, Tribute, Gods, and Deportees 91 Foreign Goods in Assyria 94 Stylistic Assyrianization 95 Ashurbanipal’s Garden Scene 100 Assyria and Babylonia 104 Conclusions 108

4

Speaking Bowls and the Inscription of Identity and Memory 111 Levantine (“Phoenician”) Metal Bowls 113 The Inscription of Identity and Memory 116 Drinking and Death 119 Temporality and Presence 126 The Enchantment of Imagery 128 Conclusions 134

5

The Reuse, Recycling, and Displacement of Levantine Luxury Arts 139 After the Fall: Mobility post Assyrian Empire 141 Ivory in and around the Assyrian Empire 146 Secondhand Elites 153 The Booty of Haza’el of Damascus 161 Conclusions: Displacements, Values, and Meanings 170

Conclusion 175 Theoretical Considerations 175 Glancing Back, Casting Ahead 177 Notes 183 References 215 Index 241

viii

Contents

ILLUST R AT IONS

Maps 1

Near East and eastern Mediterranean, showing sites mentioned in text 14

2

Greater Levantine region, showing sites mentioned in text 15

3

Findspots of “Flame and Frond” artifacts 55

Color plates (following page 78) 1

Ivory plaque from Arslan Tash

2

Ivory from Well NN, Northwest Palace, Nimrud

3

Engraved tridacna shell from Rhodes, Greece

4

Stone cosmetic palette from the Amman Citadel, Jordan, seventh–sixth centuries BCE

5

Ivory plaque of lioness mauling an African, Well NN, Northwest Palace, Nimrud

6

Ivory griffin, SW 37, Fort Shalmaneser, Nimrud

7

Detail of Ashurbanipal (668–627 BCE) reclining on a couch in a garden, Room S′, North Palace, Nineveh

8

Bronze bowl naming Abipat. , Northwest Palace, Nimrud

9

Gold bowl inscribed for Yaba, Queens’ Tomb II, Nimrud

10

Silver bowl naming Epiorwos, son of Dies, from the Treasure of Kourion

11

Gilt silver bowl naming Akestor and Timokretes, from the Treasure of Kourion

ix

12

Silver bowl from the Treasure of Kourion

13

Silver bowl naming Eshmun-ya’ad, son of Ashto, Bernardini Tomb, Praeneste, Italy

14

Silver bowl from Pontecagnano, Italy

15

Gold vessel inscribed for Yaba, Queens’ Tomb II, Nimrud

16

Reconstruction of ivory-inlaid chair gamma, Tomb 79, Salamis, Cyprus

17a, b Ivory à jour plaques, Tomb 79, Salamis, Cyprus 18

Reconstruction of ivory-inlaid bed, Tomb 79, Salamis, Cyprus

19

Detail of corner pieces of headboard of bed, Tomb 79, Salamis, Cyprus

20

Bronze cauldron with griffin and siren attachments, Tomb 79, Salamis, Cyprus

Black and white figures 1.1

“Group 1” horse-bridle frontlet from Well AJ, Northwest Palace, Nimrud 12

1.2

Ivory plaque from SW 7, Fort Shalmaneser, Nimrud 23

1.3

Stele from Zincirli, ca. 735–720 BCE 23

1.4

Detail of ivory from SW 7, Fort Shalmaneser, Nimrud 24

1.5

Three relief orthostats from Sakçe Gözü, mid-eighth century BCE 24

1.6

Ivory from Well AJ, Northwest Palace, Nimrud 30

1.7

Ivory from Well AJ, Northwest Palace, Nimrud 30

1.8

Ivory from the Burnt Palace (South-East Palace), Nimrud 33

1.9

Basalt relief orthostat from later context at Karak, Jordan 39

2.1a, b Two views of an ivory pyxis, Burnt Palace (South-East Palace), Nimrud 45 2.2

Ivory game box, Enkomi, Cyprus, ca. 1200 BCE 46

2.3

Diagram of how parts of an elephant tusk were carved for ancient uses 49

2.4

Drawing of “Flame and Frond” ivories from Nimrud 53

2.5

Carved basalt orthostat relief from Tell Halaf, Syria 54

2.6

Ivory sphinx, SW 37, Fort Shalmaneser, Nimrud 56

2.7

Detail of ivory flask, Well AJ, Northwest Palace, Nimrud 57

2.8

Ivory from Northwest Palace, Nimrud 58

2.9

Ivories from Nimrud, Fort Shalmaneser 62

3.1

Relief of King Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BCE), Northwest Palace (Room B, Panel 19), Nimrud 82

3.2

Linear-style Assyrian seal impression of steatite seal, unknown provenance, ninth century BCE 85

3.3

Assyrian-style ivory plaque, Central Palace, Nimrud 87

3.4

Relief from palace of Sargon II (721–705 BCE), Khorsabad 88

3.5a–c Drawing of reliefs showing the Siege of Lachish, reign of Sennacherib (704– 681 BCE), Southwest Palace, Nineveh 90, 91 3.6

Relief of Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BCE), showing the capture of foreign gods in lower register, Nimrud 97

3.7 3.8

Drawing of detail from relief of Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BCE), Nimrud 98 Stele of Weather God, Til Barsip (Tell Ahmar, Syria), ninth–eighth centuries BCE 99

3.9

Relief of Ashurbanipal (668–627 BCE) reclining in a garden, Room S′, North Palace, Nineveh 101

x

Illustrations

3.10

Reconstructed series of reliefs from Room S′, North Palace, Nineveh 105

3.11

Stele of Ashurbanipal (668–627 BCE) from Babylon 107

4.1

Bronze bowl naming Muwazi from burial at Tragana, Greece 114

4.2

Katumuwa stele, Zincirli 123

5.1

Bronze relief band from Olympia, Greece 142

5.2

Reconstruction of the three sphyrelaton korai by Borell and Rittig 1998 143

5.3

Ivory carved with bull from Town Wall House 6, Room 43, Nimrud 148

5.4

Ivory carved with bulls from Well AJ, Northwest Palace, Nimrud 149

5.5

Bronze horse-bridle frontlet from the Heraion on Samos, Greece, ninth century BCE 162

5.6

Drawing of inscribed bronze horse-bridle blinker from Eretria, Greece, ninth century BCE 163

5.7

Uninscribed bronze horse-bridle blinker from Eretria, Greece, ninth century BCE 163

xi

Illustrations

AUTHOR’S NOTE

M

any of the places mentioned in this book have a variety of ancient and modern names, which are transliterated from the ancient and modern

languages in different ways. For ease of recognition, I have chosen to use the names by which places are most commonly known in English-language scholarship, despite the inconsistencies that sometimes result. For example, at least three ancient names are recorded for the modern site of Tell Ahmar in Syria: the Luwian Masuwari, the Aramaean Til Barsip (also transliterated Til Barsib), and the Akkadian Kar-Shalmaneser (which can also be more faithfully transliterated as Kar-Šulmānu-ašarēdu). I use the most common of these: Til Barsip.

xiii

ACK NOW LEDGMEN TS

N

umerous people and institutions have contributed to the formation of this project, which had a considerable gestation period well before I ever put

pen to paper. The final product is rather different from what I initially set out to do, or at least what I thought I was setting out to do, and that is largely the result of the many stimulating responses and conversations I have had along the way, for which I am most grateful. An ACLS Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship for Recently Tenured Scholars, held in 2008–9 at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, not only provided me with space and time to work through early conceptual challenges; it also introduced me to a group of scholars, mostly working in the social sciences, whose research and approaches pushed me in new directions. Most important in this respect was the Agency and Objects Group that met every other week to share researchin-progress and discuss relevant theoretical literature: Glenn Adams, Linda Jack, Karin Knorr Cetina, Seth Landefeld, Keh-Ming Lin, Chandra Mukerji, and Ann Taves. Out of this grew yet another forum in which I was able to test my ideas and gain new insights—the Material World in Social Life Working Group, funded by the University of California Humanities Research Institute for 2010–11: Barry Brown, Kelly Gates, Karin Knorr Cetina, Chandra Mukerji, Gina Neff, Mark Peterson, Benjamin Porter, Fred Turner, and Heghnar Watenpaugh.

xv

Likewise, I am indebted to the close readings and thoughtful feedback from my UC Berkeley colleagues who participated in the Townsend Center Associate Professor Fellowship Group in spring 2011: Charles Altieri, Kevis Goodman, Jocelyn Guibault, Charles Hirschkind, and Tom Laqueur. The manuscript was completed and sent to press during the summer term of 2013 under the aegis of a fellowship at the Internationales Kolleg Morphomata at the Universität zu Köln, directed by professors Günter Blamberger and Dietrich Boschung. An early exploration of the ideas presented in chapters 1 and 2 appears as “The Practical Logic of Style and Memory in Early First Millennium Levantine Ivories,” in Materiality and Social Practice: Transformative Capacities of In­ tercultural Encounters, edited by Joseph Maran and Philipp W. Stockhammer, 198–212 (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2012), which was first presented as a talk at the stimulating symposium “Materiality and Practice: Transformative Capacities of Intercultural Encounters,” held at the University of Heidelberg in March 2010. These two chapters further benefited from a fall 2011 graduate seminar at Berkeley on making things in the Iron Age Levant, cotaught with Ben Porter. Part of chapter 3 appeared as “Assyrian Representations of Booty and Tribute as a Self-Portrayal of Empire,” in Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts, edited by Brad E. Kelle, Frank Ritchel Ames, and Jacob L. Wright, 135–50 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), which in turn grew out of a session on warfare and the ancient Near East held at the annual conference for the Society of Biblical Literature in 2009. A conference in April 2011, “Imagined Beginnings: The Poetics and Politics of Cosmogony, Theogony and Anthropogony in the Ancient World,” organized by the Center for the Study of Ancient Religions at the University of Chicago and the Midwest Consortium on Ancient Religions, gave me the opportunity to further flesh out the ideas in chapter 3. Many ideas that appear in chapter 5 had their initial testing ground in a fall 2010 graduate seminar at Berkeley on Greece and the Near East in the Iron Age that I cotaught with Andy Stewart, and I am especially indebted to the views and research done by several of the participants in that class, particularly Chris Bravo, Laure Marest-Caffey, Erin Pitt, and Jessica Stair. Profound thanks and gratitude are also due to students, colleagues, and friends who have shared their own research, read drafts of the book, or fielded random questions along the way. Among them: Aaron Brody, Brian Brown, My Chau, Whitney Davis, Lynn Swartz Dodd, Eduardo Escobar, Ron Hendel, Gary Holland, Chris Gosden, Crawford Greenewalt, Tim Harrison, Samantha Henneberry, Candy Keller, Stephanie Langin-Hooper, Jake Lauinger, Greg Levine, Ted Lewis, Joseph Maran, Kiersten Neumann, James Osborne, Loren Partridge, Lisa Pieraccini, Carol Redmount, Yael Rice, Chessie Rochberg, Caroline Sauvage, Glenn Schwartz, Philipp Stockhammer, Claudia Suter, Allison Thomason, Niek Veldhuis, Martin Weber, Jackie Williamson, and Irene Winter. xvi

Acknowledgments

Susan Bielstein at the University of Chicago Press has proved to be an unfailing advocate, and I am grateful for her initial and ongoing faith in my work. Of course, such an undertaking as this book could never have been accomplished without the support of my family, and my deepest debt goes first and foremost to James, who bore countless hardships and neglect with humor and goodwill as I pursued its completion. The arrival of my twin daughters, Lisa and Tara, at the very beginning of the book’s inception seemed at first to mean doom for the entire venture, but their presence has in fact turned out to be a keystone for its successful completion. As they keep me focused on my priorities and centered in my outlook, it is to them that I dedicate this volume.

xvii

Acknowledgments

IN T RODUCT ION

T

his book presents a story about community formation mediated by art. Or, more accurately, it contains many stories about multiple communities

coming together, overlapping, interacting, and re-forming, through differing relationships between human beings and objects. It explores these processes for the early Iron Age Levant (including present-day Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan from circa 1200–600 BCE) and surrounding areas, and focuses on portable luxury arts, in particular ivories and metalworks. This is an especially ripe period for such explorations, as the different cultural regions of the Near East and Mediterranean reimagined themselves in the wake of the collapse of the Bronze Age around 1200/1100 BCE. This study posits these communities as being in flux both horizontally across space and vertically through time, and argues that their members came together around the material effects of art and style as these were inflected by their special role in collective memory. The artworks at the center of the study include carved ivory plaques and figures that served as furniture attachments; ivory containers; bronze, gold, and silver decorated bowls; and bronze relief bands and horse bridle ornaments. Generally considered to have been produced in the Levant, they are found widely distributed across the Near East and Mediterranean, but infrequently in the Levant itself. For this reason, they have been studied chiefly in terms of stylistic classification for the purpose of attribution to specific geographic 1

locations of production. Here, I first argue that the stylistic evidence destabilizes the one-to-one equation of style-group to workshop to specific Levantine citystate. Alternative avenues of inquiry offer the opportunity to explore the link between art, style, memory, and community identities during the Iron Age. This study thus brings together the material effects of art objects, particularly that of style, with the human beings who made and used them, proposing the power of their entanglement in creating and structuring communities of inclusion and exclusion. I use the term community, and more often its plural, communities, to capture the sense of a degree and kind of social relations that are not necessarily rigidly organized or bounded, yet can stretch across wide networks of people.1 Such communities are understood to be potentially flexible, able to accommodate fluctuations in their membership. As such, they are not taken to be preexisting, static entities awaiting our discovery of them in the remains of ancient artifacts. Rather, by means of a reconsideration of the artworks’ formal and stylistic properties from the perspective of their affectiveness in contextualized social relations, this book explores the ways in which artistic production, consumption, and appreciation generate community networks, and it argues that artworks accomplish this through their unique ability to catalyze collective memories. Recent scholarship in ancient history and archaeology has highlighted the central role of memory (and memories)—shared among individuals/people— in cementing social relations and shaping group identity.2 Variously referred to as collective, social, or cultural memory, it forms bonds between those who claim membership, and conversely erects boundaries excluding those who either do not or cannot claim such membership. Despite a recent call in archaeological discussions of memory theory to abandon the Durkheimian (through Halbwachs) use of “collective” and replace it with “social,” I have chosen to retain Halbwachs’s original terminology. The recent critique of the term collective derives from what is perceived to be a prior, exclusive interest in “social structures” at the expense of agency (particularly individual agency).3 This sentiment, however, represents a reaction to the filtering of Halbwachs and Durkheim through the French structuralists, in particular Levi-Strauss. While Durkheim is not fully logical in his distinction of categories such as the individual and the collective,4 his successor Halbwachs resolved several of these intellectual ambiguities.5 For Halbwachs, the collective is neither simply the sum of individual parts, nor a superstructural phenomenon floating above the level of the individual.6 Indeed, it is the combination of individuals, sharing memories through shared experiences, that forms collectives of communal identity. It is this concrete notion of people coming together through shared experiences—in my case, through the experience of artistic products—to

2

Introduction

generate a sense of community identity that I seek to capture in my use of the term collective memory.

Ivories and Metalworks in a Levantine Context Of central importance to the development of scholarship on Levantine ivories and metalworks is the fact that very few actual pieces have been excavated from archaeological sites located within the Levantine region itself. Indeed, the vast number of examples has been found at non-Levantine sites, in particular Nimrud in northern Iraq but also locations in Iran, Cyprus, Greece, and Italy. Two questions are therefore paramount before embarking on this inquiry: how can we associate these pieces with a Levantine realm of production and consumption, and if we can do so, can we consider them to have served meaningful roles within Levantine society? In answer to the first question, the overall density of coextensive material remains—monumental and small-scale arts of several different media—provides support for a generally Levantine regional context for the ivories and metalworks of the study. This general sense of belonging together that characterizes so many of these different genres of artworks has served to localize the ivories and metalworks in the Levant from at least the beginning of the twentieth century. Two caveats must be noted, however. First, this proposal does not necessarily mean that all ivories and metalworks with similar visual elements had to be produced and/or consumed within the greater Levantine area. One might readily imagine scenarios where this was not the case, especially once the autochthonous nature of style is challenged. Thus, while on a generalizing level the corpus here studied may be said to be Levantine (and thereby might have been made somewhere in the Levant), it cannot be assumed that any one particular item was in actuality made in the Levant. Nonetheless, it can be accepted that these artworks bore the potential to affect human actors in a similar fashion as if they had been physically present in a Levantine social context. Second, placing these items within a Levantine regional context does not necessarily require or enable us to locate production/consumption on a more specific level, such as that of the city-state—a primary argument of chapter 1. One result of my reconsideration of stylistic attribution in chapter 1 is the necessity of accepting a concept of the “greater Levant” as a coherent geocultural entity within which we can contextualize the primary production and consumption spheres for the material under study in this book. Without imposing hard boundaries around this entity, I see the greater Levant as stretching from the south (generally referred to as the southern Levant) in the modern states of Israel and Jordan, running along the Mediterranean littoral and west of the Syrian Desert (including the modern state of Lebanon and

3

Introduction

western Syria) up to the northern plain of Antioch (in present-day Turkey), and extending northwestward into Cilicia and eastward across the Jabul Plain to the middle and upper Euphrates. The site of Tell Halaf, usually included in definitions of “North Syria”7 because of its architectural carved reliefs and the presence of several small-scale luxury goods, exists as a geographic outlier— problematic in its own cultural definition, but also serving to problematize our own geocultural notions. It, along with several other sites on the edges of this conceived “greater Levant,” speaks strongly to the lack of sharp or consistent boundaries. Indeed, because I propose to understand the artistic products of this greater Levant as part of a networked set of communities of practice, these “exceptions” take on greater weight. As such, we might see Tell Halaf participating in one community bound by practices involved in the production and consumption of carved stone reliefs and ivories similar to those farther to the west, while at other times we might see the site participating in communities connected more to social practices linked to areas to the east, or in more locally inward-looking communities of practice. In the end, part of what this book hopes to accomplish is to question our culture-history classification of this part of the world, in which geopolitical entities are conceived as abutting containers, each replete with distinct cultural markers.8 Locating the artworks within a Levantine production/consumption context then raises the second question: that of their meaning within such a sphere. Little has been written about the significance of these works in the social context of the place of their presumed manufacture. This book seeks to remedy this situation in part, proposing that those artworks identified generally as Levantine not only can but must be examined first through a Levantine social lens. With that as a basis, inquiries regarding the reception and affect of these artworks outside the Levant can be pursued on a more nuanced level. It is therefore essential to determine that these objects held meaning within the Levant.9 Although most of the material under study in this book derives from nonLevantine contexts, there are a few finds that allow us to make a good case for their use and meaningfulness within a Levantine social sphere. In considering the Levantine findspots, I have concentrated on those finds that derive from contexts associated with pre- or weak Assyrian control.10 Pieces from Zincirli (ancient Sam’al) located in the modern state of Turkey, Hama (ancient Hamath) and Tell Halaf (ancient Guzana) in the south and east of Syria, Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley, and Kefar Veradim in the Upper Galilee derive from contexts that predate full incorporation into the Assyrian state and provide a general indication of the place of these objects (both literally and in regard to significance) within the early Iron Age greater Levant.11 These sites at a minimum establish an elite usage for these types of artworks and demonstrate that they held high value meaning within Levantine community activities. Both the Zincirli and the Hama contexts suggest that luxurious ivories and 4

Introduction

metal objects manufactured in styles we associate with the greater Levantine region were used in settings belonging to the highest elite Levantine groups. The objects appear in structures functionally understood to relate to reception halls, which likely hosted ceremonial banqueting.12 In addition, some contexts at Zincirli (Building L) and Hama (Building IV) seem to have functioned as storerooms in which the equipment used for such gatherings was kept and possibly even minor repairs to it made. That all this activity occurred on the highest elevation of the ancient cities further underlines elite associations for the pieces. Also perhaps to be associated with a major public building, Building 338, a fragmentary bronze bowl depicting a frieze of figures was excavated at Megiddo.13 At Tell Halaf, ivories and gold ornaments were found in apparently funerary structures: one near the citadel gate and the other directly in front of the socalled Temple-Palace.14 The prominent location of these burials near the entrance to and at the center of the city’s citadel area, along with their rich burial goods, point to the high social standing of the associated individuals, and more critically to the centrality of the burials within the socio-politics of preAssyrian Tell Halaf. Another funerary context—this time containing a worked and inscribed bronze bowl—has been excavated from a cave in the southern part of the Levant at Kefar Veradim.15 We can, therefore, argue for the potential, in principle at least, for an “indigenous” Levantine usage for (most of) the ivories and metalworks comprising the evidence at the core of this book. This usage appears to have included display during ceremonial receptions and deposition in high-status burials, both social contexts that are central for generating collective memory and community identity. That many of the objects in non-Levantine contexts appear to have arrived at these locales through secondary (or even tertiary or greater) means of movement, such as tribute, booty, or opportunistic exchanges, further suggests that some part of their new value derived from their prior privileged status in the Levant. However, that so many of the pieces we classify, on a stylistic basis, as Levantine (whether North Syrian, Phoenician, or some other designation) derive from archaeological contexts outside the greater Levant has had profound implications for the study of these objects. Most critically, it has concentrated scholarly interest on the project of attribution to specific region and city-state. This, I argue over the course of the first two chapters, has revealed challenges to the very attribution project itself, and I suggest reconsidering this project through alternative methodological frameworks, in particular that of practice theory. When viewed through this lens, other questions emerge concerning the role these artworks played in generating social communities—“local” Levantine communities as well as other “non-Levantine” communities—through time and across space. Such concerns include questions relating to collective memory 5

Introduction

and the Late Bronze Age past (chapter 2), communities of practice that formed around the production and appreciation of artistic styles (chapter 3), the engagement and entanglement of human users-viewers with material objects in ritualized settings (chapter 4), and the rich diversity of circulation and reuse (chapter 5).

Networks and Communities in the Early Iron Age More than simply a guide to attribution, style serves to establish and structure communities through the engagement of human participants with material objects. Style is thus not autochthonous and bound to geography but rather, through its activation of collective memories, constitutive of communities along both spatial and temporal axes. Concentrating on this aspect of style in the first three chapters of the book, I highlight the early phases of an art object’s life, revolving around issues of production and the social efficacy of style. The first two of these chapters focus on the role of style within the realm of the greater Levantine area itself. Chapter 3 presents a contrasting situation—that of the Assyrian state—for which I pose similar questions. The Levantine ivories have been divided traditionally between so-called Phoenician and North Syrian styles, with an ongoing interest in determining substyles within these two larger classifications. Connoisseurship, as the principal means of attribution, assumes prominence in this endeavor. In the first chapter, I argue that the ivories’ heterogeneous styles, which exist along a continuum rather than divide into discrete groups, present challenges in applying to this body of material traditional connoisseurial approaches derived from studies of the Italian Renaissance. Comparisons with several other media (carved orthostat reliefs, decorated metal bowls, engraved tridacna shells, and stamped ceramic vessels) map a mobility of style that highlights a pan-Levantine network of skilled practices (and skilled practitioners) instead of a mosaic of bounded independent workshops. In this way, the relationship between human beings, geography, and culture is problematized, and I conclude that we cannot arrange Iron Age Levantine style-groups so that they neatly overlay specific geographic locales at the level of the city-state polity. While geography and place can play a role in community identity, they need not do so in straightforward ways or solely at the level of the political unit. In the early Iron Age Levant, the artistic evidence points to multiple fluid, intersecting, and overlapping networks of skilled artistic practices. In chapter 2, an alternative way of understanding the production and consumption of artistic styles in the early Iron Age Levant proposes that stylistic traits form a critical component of collective memory, being both the product and the source of shared social practices at the level of creation and appreciation. From such a perspective, visual similarities between first-millennium 6

Introduction

Levantine arts and objects from the preceding Late Bronze Age (circa 1600–1200 BCE), which have been noted by scholars for some time, take on heightened meaningfulness in the context of newly emerging communities of identity in the Iron Age. A particular continuity of co-occurring animal markings found among Levantine works, primarily in ivory but also on metal objects and carved stone reliefs, supplies a case study. Weaving the artworks into the historical and archaeological context of tradition-building during the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Ages (circa 1200–800 BCE), we can chart a more complicated relationship to the Late Bronze Age past than simply continuing a tradition. The Iron Age arts visually and materially manifested a connection to a past “golden age” through the selection of stylistic traits that were freighted with Late Bronze Age connotations of heroic kingship. In a strikingly different sociopolitical situation from that of the Levant, the enactment of a consistently coherent set of stylistic practices contributed to a sense of community at the level of the Assyrian imperial court, a situation explored in chapter 3. Concentrating on small details of execution and the rendering of basic forms, the incredible homogeneity of Assyrian style comes into high relief and provides Assyrian art with its clear sense of Assyrianness. One particular case study—images of seized foreign items—highlights the “oppositional” nature of the Assyrian style. This performance of rigid stylistic homogenization was set in opposition to the diversity and flexibility of communities in the Levant. The Assyrian style defined itself chiefly in contrast to others, in sharp distinction from the multitude of intersecting stylistic interconnections found among the contemporary polities of the Levant. The strong, coherent, and consistent official style produced by the Assyrian state contributed to an active strategy for simultaneously maintaining a memory of conquest over the vanquished Other and neutralizing the Other so it could no longer threaten Assyria. If we consider community membership as potentially fluctuating, we can understand this Assyrian style as providing a materialized identity for those who wanted or were able to be part of the Assyrian courtly community. This courtly community, at least at the level of the rhetorical, was in turn precisely ordered and controlled by the king through the interface of his visual-artisticmaterial presence in artworks (such as is examined in the garden scene of King Ashurbanipal reclining on a couch) and analogies with cosmogonic myths like Enuma Elish. In the last two chapters, the book shifts its emphasis to the significant community-building potential of art objects in subsequent phases of humanmaterial engagement, such as ritual use and deposition, secondary inscriptions, reworking, bricolage, or displacement. Studying specific artworks and their diverse archaeological, social, political, and ritual contexts reveals a variety of entanglements through the differing patterns of use following their production. Chapter 4 considers how communities could form around a select group of 7

Introduction

metal bowls that participated in shared memorialization practices of ritualized drinking and libating. The objects of study—engraved metal bowls typically classified as “Phoenician” that also bear inscriptions on them—circulated around the Near East and Mediterranean during the first centuries of the first millennium. These form a group on the basis of the shared content of their inscriptions, which, despite different languages and scripts, declare possession by a named person. The complex situation of this particular group of bowls permits a glimpse into the ways in which such items operated as a central component in the emergence of new communities in the early Iron Age. The unusual addition on these bowls of an inscription that names a person activates memories self-consciously. Both the possessive inscriptions and the figured imagery helped to enact and reenact social, familial, and power relations through time. At the same time, community differences take shape through the inscriptions’ distinct linguistic affiliations. Chapter 5 explores the many different ways in which communities could form around displaced artworks, noting that no single explanation fits all cases, and that we must be sensitive to the multiple possibilities for new community formation as objects move through time and space. It traces several case studies of Levantine artworks that circulated in more complicated ways than those proposed in systemwide models of trade or gift exchange. In addition, different associations of value and meaning can be inferred through a combined analysis of stylistic and technical features, archaeological contexts of deposition, and historical evidence. Through these, stories of access to and (re)use of portable luxury goods speak to their ongoing efficacy in social life. The case studies include bronzes found in Greece at pan-Hellenic sanctuaries (reworked bands at Olympia and horse bridle elements at Samos and Eretria), ivories in the Near East, both outside official palatial contexts (in the Town Wall Houses at Nimrud and at Til Barsip) and in them (at Arslan Tash), and refashioned ivories and bronzes from a “royal” tomb at Salamis on Cyprus. Each story, traced in the Levant, Assyria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, or across these cultural regions, is but one episode in a larger narrative of these objects and the ways in which they generated community identity. The larger narrative derived from the separate stories illustrates the diversity and complexity of interactions and movements in the early Iron Age Near East and Mediterranean. It maps the acquisition of such luxury portable objects through “state-sponsored” collection of booty and tribute, which could be redistributed within the official sphere through state-sanctioned means such as gifts given in exchange for political loyalty. Yet it also charts unofficial activities such as looting, scavenging, and salvaging that allow for the dissemination of prestigious elite materials into alternative channels of circulation. In addition, it reveals the different ways in which these materials were used, and in some cases refashioned, for varying purposes of community formation by multiple cultural groups. In sum, the 8

Introduction

case studies presented here point to the complicated intertwining of the Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds. The early Iron Age offers a particularly rich opportunity for examining community identity and collective memory following the disruptions of the Bronze Age collapse. During these early centuries of the first millennium BCE, the Near East and Mediterranean witnessed transformations across multiple fragmented arenas in which new communities emerged, interacted, and reformed. The skilled practices of artistic production and appreciation, especially in the realm of portable luxury arts, served to materialize the processes of collective memory that enabled these transformations. Artistic practices, in particular, contain within them a peculiar efficacy in social life and enable the temporal process of becoming a community. Style—as a central, physical element that engages with people—participates in these processes of collective becoming. Through the consumption of styles and objects, we can see how art constitutes community identity rather than simply reflects it.

9

Introduction

While the Group 2 bridle harness is obviously Phoenician in style and form, the Group 1 examples are more problematic. The style is heavier and clumsier than the “classic Phoenician” Group 2 pieces and has more of a Syrian feel. However, the spade-shaped blinkers and hinged frontlets belong to a western tradition of bridle harness rather than the very different Syrian tradition, with its smaller sole-shaped blinkers and triangular frontlets. —G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 82

CHAPTER 1 Chapter One

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

H

ow do “in-between” ivories, such as the so-called Group 1 horse bridle frontlets cited above, found in the Northwest Palace at Nimrud, challenge

our attempts at locating places of production for early Iron Age Levantine portable luxury arts (fig. 1.1)? How does the in-betweenness of their stylistic evidence impact the equation of style with workshop/place of production? Not fitting clearly into either the Phoenician or the North Syrian stylistic groups, and not forming any coherent stylistic subgroup within these two main classifications,1 the “Group 1” frontlets problematize our application of the connois-

seurial method to first-millennium Levantine ivories. Scholarship on early first-millennium Levantine arts has focused largely on attributional pursuits, because the vast majority of presumed Levantine works has been found outside the area of the Levant proper. The situation is particularly acute for the ivories; scholars have long recognized that the archaeological context in which the largest number of them were excavated—the Assyrian royal city of Nimrud—was not the place of their cultural source (that is, they 11

were not produced in an Assyrian style).2 In addition, their large numbers—in the thousands—exhibit a diverse array of visual and formal similarities, which seem to hold out the promise that distinct stylistic groupings might be discerned.3 Although elements such as iconography, object genre, and technique have been brought to bear on the question, style (in its many different guises) is considered the most telling with respect to location of manufacture.4 Thus, connoisseurial approaches have long been viewed as a means to assign the ivories to specific locations of production. Yet, as our connoisseurial precision has increased over the years, the number of complications—of “in-betweens”—has only grown; with the delineation of new stylistically based groups, exceptions to these groups have come into focus and require explanation.5 It is these exceptions and in-between examples that motivate me in this initial chapter to rethink early Iron Age Levantine luxury art production along lines that do not depend on a concept of workshop production bound to city-state polity. To do so, it is helpful first to review the scholarship that forms the foundation of studies into early Iron Age Levantine art production, and thus this chapter is largely historiographic. In particular, it reviews the scholarship on Levantine ivories, charting the use of connoisseurship from the mid-nineteenth century onward.6 The application of this methodology has been central to the study of these arts, and it is therefore worth considering some of its implications and assumptions when applied to Levantine ivories. The close stylistic analysis associated with connoisseurship remains a critical tool, and indeed has allowed scholarship to advance to the point at which we can now address the problem of exceptions; without the definition of style groups, those pieces that constitute “in-betweens” would remain intellectually invisible. At the same time, there are assumptions implicit in connois-

Fig. 1.1 ”Group 1” horse-bridle frontlet from Well AJ, Northwest Palace, Nimrud. Baghdad, Iraq Museum, IM 79579. In G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, no. 246. Courtesy of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial). 12

Chapter One

seurship relating to the organization of artistic production that I believe need to be unpacked in order to resolve the issues raised by the exceptions. In particular is the assumption that each Levantine political city-state had its own, stylistically coherent and independent workshop. I propose instead that the stylistic analysis of Levantine ivories points away from a geopolitical spatial mapping of the ivories; rather, a lack of clear stylistic boundaries emerges that is suggestive of networked practices rather than isolated production loci.

First-Millennium Levantine Ivories The first ivories (as well as bronzes) were discovered at Nimrud in the 1840s and 1850s, which remains the site of the highest concentration of ivories to date; thousands have been excavated there over the course of nearly 150 years of digging, with substantial new corpora discovered in the 1950s and 1970s.7 Far smaller quantities of stylistically related ivories have been found in the greater Levantine area, as well as occasional examples in more distant locales, including Hasanlu in northwest Iran, Cyprus, Greece, and Etruria (maps 1 and 2).8 It is in fact the diffuse nature of the ivories, in terms of both their stylistic delineations and their distribution patterns, that motivates and continues to challenge attribution to specific place and time. From the initial perplexity in the mid-nineteenth century, increasingly exacting criteria for sorting and classifying the ivories have allowed us to make sense of the dizzying number and stylistic diversity of the material. The classificatory trajectory has moved from gross cultural distinction to more precise regional groupings. This, in turn, has led to ever more careful delineation of style-groups, which somewhat paradoxically has revealed a lack of hard boundaries between style-groups at the level of higher resolution. Sir Austen Henry Layard, soon after excavating the first examples in the 1840s, identified the ivories as non-Assyrian.9 His comparative data at that time was extremely limited, and he proposed an Egyptian source, though he argued for manufacture at Nimrud (by captured artisans) specifically for the patronage of the Assyrian kings. With the expanding corpus of comparative materials, later nineteenth-century scholars argued for Phoenician production. In 1912, Frederick Poulsen proposed that the non-Assyrian ivories in fact represented the products of more than one cultural origin. In a distinction that continues to be accepted today, he divided the Nimrud ivories into two groups, linking those with more Egyptianizing elements to Phoenicia (understood as the central Levantine coastal region, more or less congruent with the modern nation-state of Lebanon) and another group to the carved reliefs of North Syria (which he called Hittite).10 Poulsen’s early work has been expanded subsequently and more systematically argued by Richard Barnett, Irene Winter, and Georgina Herrmann. Barnett, assigned the task of publishing the ivories from Nimrud owned 13

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

Map 1 Near East and eastern Mediterranean, showing sites mentioned in text. Map created by Martin Weber; © Marian H. Feldman 2013.

by the British Museum, formed two main groups of ivories based first of all on archaeological findspot: those excavated by Layard in the 1840s in the Northwest Palace and those excavated in the 1850s by William Kennet Loftus in the so-called Southeast Palace, later renamed the Burnt Palace.11 These archaeological contexts appeared to Barnett to map over the major stylistic distinctions made by Poulsen, with the Layard ivories being primarily Phoenician and the Loftus group generally Syrian. Within the Loftus group, he further subdivided the ivories into those that lacked Egyptian features, which he attributes “almost certainly to Syrian manufacture,” and those exhibiting some Egyptian features, which he nevertheless sees as “by Syrian artists in the Phoenician manner.”12 The “certain Syrian” ivories are characterized, according to Barnett, by the facial features of the humans (“an oval face with a flat crown but a high forehead; an usually sharp and prominent nose, a small mouth with pursed lips, and large almond eyes with small pupils”) and the rendering of the musculature of the lions and lion-based sphinxes and griffins (“stylized superficially into an orna14

Chapter One

Map 2 Greater Levantine region, showing sites mentioned in text. Map created by Martin Weber; © Marian H. Feldman 2013.

mental linear pattern merely stressing the curves of the muscles”).13 Barnett further proposes that Hama (ancient Hamath) was the principal center of ivory carving in the region, attributing the Loftus ivories to this southern Syrian citystate.14 Though he admits the difficulty in pinpointing a single city as the location for the manufacture of the Layard group of Phoenician-style ivories, he sets forth a rather weak hypothesis to link this collection to Hamath as well, based 15

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

on a rereading of a complicated Egyptian hieroglyphic cartouche found on one of the ivories.15 Following on Barnett’s work, in the 1970s Winter provided more quantifiable evidence for the geographic distinction between Phoenician- and North Syrian–style ivories.16 Working from the basic stylistic classification first proposed by Poulsen and then strengthened by Barnett, Winter plotted the findspot locations of the two ivory groups onto maps of the Near East and eastern Mediterranean. Her resulting distribution maps show a clustering in more northerly sites for the North Syrian–style ivories and in more southerly sites for Phoenician-style ivories, thus indicating to Winter a real geographic basis for these stylistic designations. As a correlate to this, the two styles are rarely found at the same site aside from a few examples (Nimrud, Lindos, and Samos), which Winter explains through their specific historical situations.17 Based on these patterns, Winter argues that Barnett’s attribution of both styles to Hamath cannot be correct, and moreover that “the two areas operated in reasonably separate spheres of contact and influence.”18 Distribution maps are, however, not without their own set of challenges. This is evident, for example, in the way that differences between the two groups get flattened, because each particular ivory must be assigned “either-or” to one stylistic classification or the other without consideration of degrees of variation along a spectrum of difference.19 Yet the individual pieces exhibit a high degree of stylistic variability among themselves. The necessity of assigning an ivory to either the North Syrian or the Phoenician stylistic category is therefore unable to account for the subtle graduations along the spectrum from North Syrian to Phoenician (generally understood as ranging from fewer to more Egyptianizing traits) that mark these ivories—the “in-betweens.” Winter confronted this very problem of variability soon after in her analysis of a series of ivories that exhibits a blending of the two styles within the same piece (plate 1).20 These she assigned to the South Syrian region and specifically to the city-state of Damascus on the basis of ivories found at Arslan Tash, which although located in North Syria include one piece—undecorated—that bears an inscription naming Haza’el, who is taken to be the same Haza’el as the ninth-century Aramaean king of Damascus.21 In this she follows the lead of Barnett, who had previously argued that a group of metal bowls found at Nimrud might be assigned to an Aramaean school of art due to their inscriptions of Aramaic personal names.22 Stylistically, these bowls commingle features that are typically separated between either the North Syrian or the Phoenician styles. Winter, however, sees these bowls as including independent elements of each style rather than truly merging the two styles. The Arslan Tash ivories, on the other hand, display a hybridized integration of Phoenician and North Syrian stylistic traits. Winter argues that this seamless blending of features characterizing North Syrian and Phoenician ivories perfectly aligns with what one might 16

Chapter One

expect to find in the geographic area between North Syria and Phoenicia. The question of individual bowls exhibiting elements of both styles side-by-side is not addressed, yet is an intriguing situation that Francesca Onnis has recently studied and that I discuss below. With the refinement of the ivories’ stylistic classification into broad regional styles, including a Phoenician, North Syrian, and South Syrian/Intermediate tradition23 in addition to an Assyrian one, attention has turned to locating more precise places of production. At this level, the concept of workshops is usually invoked; these are generally taken to be synonymous with specific politically known city-states.24 For attributing ivories to individual workshops, Herrmann’s influence has been particularly prominent in her definition of style­ groups, a term she coins and which has specific parameters as she uses it. Style­ groups are drawn from so-called sets of ivories found among the vast collections at Nimrud. For Herrmann, sets of ivories can be “reassembled” according to “a similarity of size, shape, style, subject, techniques of fixing and methods of carving,” although a set need not share all these criteria.25 The sets then provide the basis for defining style­groups, which “must be built employing a range of diagnostic criteria, both technical and stylistic.”26 These style­groups often serve as the basis for reconstructing singular workshops, which are then associated with specific city-state polities, despite Herrmann’s frequent cautions against equating a stylistically defined group with a geographic locale.27 With the increasing expansion of specific style-groups (that is, the attribution of more ivories to already defined style-groups) in addition to the definition of new stylegroups, the problem of exceptions and uncertain attributions has become more evident. Critically, those ivories that don’t fit easily into defined style-groups, or even the larger regional traditions, signal a potential disconnect between equating artistic style with singular place of production. Thus, as our stylistic criteria have attained more precise articulation, they have revealed the immense stylistic variability of these works of art—a variability that in fact seems to defy a tidy classification. This in turn has begun to destabilize even the long-accepted North Syrian-Phoenician stylistic divide.28 At the heart of the intellectual process that attempts to attribute ivories to specific locales of production is the methodology of connoisseurship. Terms such as workshop have long ties to this methodology and are accompanied by certain connotations. It is, therefore, worth considering more closely the methodology of connoisseurship both in general and with specific reference to these ivories in order to better enunciate some of its attendant assumptions that have colored our expectations, particularly our expectation that individual citystates would foster their own distinct styles of ivory carving. In the following section, I focus first on connoisseurship as it developed as a methodology for the professional discipline of art historical study. I take connoisseurship to be a subset of the larger enterprise of stylistic analysis rather than synonymous with it, 17

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

and I would argue that it is specifically the art historical tradition of connoisseurship, as a narrow form of stylistic analysis interested in attributing date, place, school, and artist, that has most influenced the study of first-millennium ivories. It is important to note up front that I support the pursuit of stylistic analysis. Problematic, however, is the move from noting visual relationships among works of art to determining independent workshops. Although my primary critique rests with the assumption of independently operating workshops tied to individual city-states, this model depends on a modern (postRenaissance) notion of a corporeally defined (and bounded) self within which resides artistic genesis (and genius). My discussion therefore includes both of these components—the workshop and the artist-individual—that are central to the connoisseurial approach.

Connoisseurship and the Study of the Ancient Near East Giovanni Morelli (1816–1891), a nineteenth-century Italian Renaissance scholar, dilettante, and politician, is generally credited with formulating the basic theory of modern art historical connoisseurship, although various forms of connoisseurship developed along multiple lines from at least the time of Vasari in the sixteenth century.29 The method took shape in tandem with studies of Italian Renaissance paintings, and this derivation has profoundly influenced its approaches and assumptions. At its most basic, connoisseurship is the determination of school/workshop and artist for particular works of art through a close study of the works themselves. Morelli’s approach focused attention on particular ways of rendering forms (so-called Grundformen), especially those of the human body, which he argued could reveal an artist’s style.30 Once an artist’s style was enumerated, unattributed works could thereby be assigned. Morelli was motivated by a nationalist desire to define and reify “Italian” art for the newly unified nation-state. Attribution of known “masterpieces” to “Italian” masters was therefore a necessary first step.31 He believed that Italian painting should be organized by regional schools, a useful art historical compromise for unifying a history of all “Italian” art sewn together from the patchwork of distinct and often antagonistic city-states. However, Morelli did not consider art to be affected by social or political events; rather, he attributed artistic styles to geographic environment—style as autochthonous.32 This assumption has been overly influential in subsequent connoisseurial studies, including those of the Levantine ivories, in which style is equated one-to-one with geography in an implicit commingling of soil and bloodlines. It is, in fact, this intellectual move that permits a workshop to stand in simultaneously for both a human and a geographic/political entity. The early twentieth-century art historian Bernard Berenson (1865–1959) ef-

18

Chapter One

fectively codified the actual practice of connoisseurship.33 Berenson drew heavily on Morelli’s writings and generally credited the approach to Morelli, but introduced systematic steps for actualizing what in Morelli’s writings had been left rather vague. The most influential element in Berenson’s methodology is his clear articulation of the ranked weight of the visual elements used in distinguishing, on a first order, the general grouping of a regional and period school, and then on a second order, the characteristics that set specific individual artists (hands) within a school apart from one another. In between schools and artists is the workshop, the locus where a master artist trained and worked with lesser artist-apprentices. The move from school/workshop to hand underlies the seminal (Freudian)34 concept of the revelatory power of unconscious action to signal an individual. Berenson presents the approach thus: As it is impossible to put one’s finger on certain morphological details, the execution of which is invariably different in every painter, we must have the patience to examine all the important details separately, with a view to discovering how likely each is to become a characteristic [of an individual artist], bearing in mind, to start with, that the less necessary the detail in question is for purposes of obvious expression, the less consciously will it be executed, the more by rote, the more likely to become stereotyped, and therefore characteristic. We will begin with the human figure, considering important details from top to toe.35

The practice of connoisseurship for Italian Renaissance painting, as developed from Berenson’s model of Morellian connoisseurship, starts with a corpus of already securely attributed works of art. From this corpus, close examination of the visual aspects of the works (with connoisseurs vacillating between whether this practice of visual analysis is “scientific” or “intuitive”) allows for the discernment of shared elements that can be understood broadly to be part of a regional school of production (stemming from varying adoptions of the Hegelian notion of an artistic spirit unique to every place and period). Then, from among the works of a single school, the characteristic traits of a master (hand) represent differences or divergences from the norm. These are understood to be the outcome of the peculiar artistic genius of the master and only evident in so-called masterpieces. Works produced by students of the master (that is, in his workshop) show related but inferior characteristics. In much ancient Near Eastern art historical scholarship, in the absence of documented or named master artists, a blurring between individual artist identities and workshop identities occurs; a workshop acquires the traits of an individual identity for the purposes of connoisseurial attribution. We remain very much the product of the history of our fields, and we can

19

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

trace a close historical relationship between the emerging field of ancient Near Eastern archaeology and the developing discipline of connoisseurship. The first excavator at Nimrud to find ivories, Sir Austen Henry Layard, later became close friends with—indeed even a disciple of—Giovanni Morelli, the two sharing interests in both politics and art. The two men appear to have met in the 1850s and maintained an extensive correspondence over the next forty years, with Morelli serving as both an intellectual and a collecting advisor to Layard.36 It was Layard who wrote the introduction, in 1892, to the posthumous English translation of Morelli’s Italian Painters, in which Morelli provides his seminal discussion on “principles and method.”37 Layard’s personal connection to Morelli and his active participation in the nineteenth-century study of Italian painting in general provide more than just an interesting anecdote about the intersection of the study of the Nimrud ivories with connoisseurship. They highlight the common parentage of both the study of the ancient Near East and connoisseurship during the nineteenth century. Although today the fields of the ancient Near East (most typically studied through the disciplines of archaeology and philology) and Italian Renaissance painting have diverged almost to the point of being different species, ancient Near Eastern studies, especially that of the arts, is very much a child of the methodological traditions developed by connoisseurs for the attribution of Italian Renaissance paintings. Although Layard’s relationship with Morelli probably began in the 1850s, after his archaeological work had ended and the first publications of the Nimrud ivories had already appeared, his proclivity for aspects of the connoisseurial method is evident even in his early writings on the Assyrian excavations.38 In his 1849 publication, Nineveh and Its Remains, Layard wrote about the ivories from the Northwest Palace at Nimrud. The forms, and style of art, have a purely Egyptian character; although there are certain peculiarities in the execution, and mode of treatment, that would seem to mark the work of a foreign, perhaps an Assyrian, artist. The same peculiarities—the same anomalies,—characterized all the other objects discovered. Several small heads in frames, supported by pillars or pedestals, most elegant in design and elaborate in execution, show not only a considerable acquaintance with art, but an intimate knowledge of the method of working in ivory. . . . In all these specimens the spirit of the design and the delicacy of the worksmanship are equally to be admired.39

Such language is fully in line with that of connoisseurship, including the vague yet significant use of terms such as character(istics), peculiarities, and mode of treatment in deducing attributions (and assessing artistic merit). In his 1902 preface to his revision of the English translation of Franz Theodor Kugler’s Handbuch der Geschichte der Malerei von Constantin dem Grossen bis auf unsere Zeit, 20

Chapter One

originally published in 1837 (first English translation by Charles Eastlake in 1851), Layard summarizes Morelli thus: He has shown that . . . each true school of painting in Italy, like the various dialects of the Italian language, was the spontaneous manifestation—the product, as it were—of the thoughts, feelings, traditions, and manners of the population of that part of the Peninsula in which it rose, and that it retained until it became extinct its general characteristics and types, which are to be traced in the works of all those who belonged to it, however much they may have been affected by influences from without.40

It is precisely this scaffolding of assumptions that underlies connoisseurship in general and is latent in a number of its applications to the first-millennium corpus of Levantine ivories. In particular are the assumptions that first, each period and geographic region will possess its own unique artistic identity (style), and second, that the application of connoisseurial techniques for discerning characteristics and types will reveal this artistic identity.

Attributing Levantine Ivories Having traced the close relationship between connoisseurship and the study of Levantine ivories, I turn now to address several compounded problems with using the connoisseurial method to study this corpus of production. A first relates to the application of a methodology devised for one corpus of art (Italian Renaissance painting) to the arts of the early first millennium BCE. While there is nothing inherently wrong with applying a method developed for one period to another, this must be done within the constraints of how analogous the two historical situations are. In the case of applying to ancient Near Eastern arts connoisseurial methods devised for Renaissance art, there is a fundamental incommensurability in terms of the information available to the analyst of each period. Second, this is exacerbated by a circularity of argument within the very nature of connoisseurial methods. Here the problem lies not in any gaps in our knowledge but in inherent circularity in the temporal sequence of the attribution process itself. My intention here is not to deny the gains that connoisseurial research has provided. Rather, I wish to shine a spotlight on some of the shortcomings of its theoretical foundations as they affect the study of firstmillennium ivories (and by extension bronzes and other small-scale works), and to suggest that we redeploy its powerful analytic tools (namely stylistic analysis) to questions that derive from quite different philosophical understandings of the ways in which humans and the material world interact as a social entity. I contend that assumptions latent in the method of connoisseurship predispose us to look for specific spatial patternings, in particular those of 21

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

bounded groups of ivory production linked to the geopolitical unit of the citystate. When we examine the stylistic evidence of the ivories in the absence of these assumptions, greater interpenetration is apparent, suggestive of more extended networks of social interaction across the entire Levantine-North Syrian region.

Circularity of Argument I begin with the second of these issues. According to the connoisseurial method, it is only by determining a priori a list of characteristic traits that we can distinguish a master, workshop, or school. Because we have no clearly attributable corpus—no ivories can be unequivocally said to be the products of a particular place—there is no “group of works of undoubted authenticity” from which we can determine the “traits that invariably recur.”41 This fundamental lack of knowledge sets the Levantine ivories apart from the corpus of Italian Renaissance paintings. What distinguishes connoisseurship from close formal and stylistic analysis is the interpretive move that allows a connoisseur to identify a specific artistic hand (the master) or cluster of hands (the master’s workshop students) according to the discerned visual traits. Such a move rests on a prior analysis, in which traits (or characteristics) of an artist are visually assembled by the connoisseur using known, verified works of art by that artist. In other words, a connoisseur begins by studying already identified/attributed works in order to then move to unidentified/unattributed pieces. However, for early first-millennium ivories, we have no securely identified artists or workshops (although this is often glossed over by conflating the notion of a stylistically determined corpus with that of a workshop attributed to a known archaeological city). All attributions of the ivories have been derived solely from an examination of the ivories’ material and stylistic properties. While this is in fact the ideal situation put forward by connoisseurs (see, for example, Berenson’s explicit call for the primacy of evidence from the works of art themselves), it is impossible to execute in actual practice.42 As David Ebitz has argued, the connoisseur works in a circular fashion within a paradigm of the cult of artistic personality that conditions his attribution.43 Such a circularity of argument has already been noted in a few critiques of the study of Levantine ivories.44 In an attempt to circumvent this circular reasoning, scholars have turned to architectural carved stone reliefs, which characterize excavated sites in the region generally understood as North Syria.45 The logic behind this strategy would seem warranted—the immobility of carved stone reliefs should point to the geographic location of production for all artworks executed in a similar style. For example, Irene Winter identifies among the Nimrud corpus a stylistic subgroup of North Syrian ivories and, through their stylistic association with

22

Chapter One

Fig. 1.2 Ivory plaque from SW 7, Fort Shalmaneser, Nimrud (ND 7909). Baghdad, Iraq Museum. Courtesy of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial). Fig. 1.3 Stele from Zincirli, circa 735–720 BCE; basalt, height 134 cm. Berlin, Vorderasiatisches Museum, Staatliche Museen, VA 2995. Photograph: bpk, Berlin / Vorderasiatisches Museum, Staatliche Museen / Photograph by Olaf M. Teßmer / Art Resource, NY.

carved stone reliefs from the site of Zincirli, ancient Sam’al in southeastern Turkey, attributes their production to this location (figs. 1.2 and 1.3).46 She also identifies close stylistic parallels between the ivories and reliefs from a nearby site, Sakçe Gözü (figs. 1.4 and 1.5). Because of the spatial proximity of the two sites, and Zincirli’s larger size, Winter explains the close stylistic similarities between the reliefs from Sakçe Gözü and Zincirli as the result of close political ties, with the assumption that the two centers would have shared a common relief-carving workshop. Yet such stylistic associations generally entail exceptions and rough approximations that need to be accounted for. In attributing the ivories to Sam’al, Winter notes that even among the supposed subgroup, stylistic variation exists that might be ascribed to different workshops, leading

23

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

Fig. 1.4 Detail of ivory from SW 7, Fort Shalmaneser, Nimrud (ND 7904). Baghdad, Iraq Museum. Courtesy of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial). Fig. 1.5 Three relief orthostats from Sakçe Gözü, mid-eighth century BCE; relief, 116 × 265 × 12 cm. Berlin, Vorderasiatisches Museum, Staatliche Museen, VA 00971. Photograph: bpk, Berlin / Vorderasiatisches Museum, Staatliche Museen / Art Resource, NY.

her to suggest the possibility of multiple ivory-carving workshops coexisting at the site, in contrast to a single stone-carving workshop shared between Zincirli and Sakçe Gözü.47 Complicating the use of carved reliefs in the attribution process are, first, the general heterogeneity of styles found within reliefs at any given site, and second, the stylistic similarities that appear in reliefs found at different sites. Stylistic heterogeneity among reliefs from a single site is typically explained through chronological distinctions, relying heavily on assumptions of evolutionary stylistic development either from cruder to more refined or vice versa.48 Because there has been little solid external means of dating the reliefs, particu-

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larly from the earlier (pre-eighth-century) period, the reconstruction of a stylistic evolution has served a primary function in constructing a chronological development of the carving tradition. According to this, styles follow on one another in sequential manner, usually viewed as moving to either greater or lesser accomplishment. Yet as Brian Brown points out, “there is no necessary correlation between the style in which an individual piece is executed and its chronological placement.”49 Indeed, in at least one instance, the temporal coexistence of two different artistic styles at the same site has been proposed. Winter, following a suggestion made by Helene Kantor in the 1950s, argues that a series of carved stone reliefs from the site of Tell Halaf (ancient Guzana) is stylistically influenced by small-scale carved ivories.50 According to Winter, reliefs containing motifs that had prototypes among the ivories are carved in a more sophisticated and competent style, while reliefs with motifs that did not find models among the ivories exhibit a cruder style. If one accepts this argument, which seems logical, then how does one relate the sculptors of these reliefs (in both styles) to specific workshops? To assign the reliefs to different workshops would imply that one workshop specialized only in motifs found among carved ivories, and the other specialized only in motifs that were not found among carved ivories—a strange situation to entertain. Yet if one assigns all the reliefs to the same workshop, as seems to make the most sense, it was clearly not a workshop that exerted a singular, homogenous style on its products. In addition to stylistic heterogeneity among reliefs from a single site is the issue of stylistic connections across sites. As mentioned above, the reliefs from Zincirli have close stylistic comparanda with those found at the site of Sakçe Gözü, which Winter proposes derived from a common workshop.51 Though the two cities lie not too far from each other, their political relationship is uncertain, and why and how they might share a sculpting workshop is unclear. Likewise, carved reliefs from the site of Tell Ahmar (ancient Til Barsip/Kar Shalmaneser) are closely comparable to those from nearby Carchemish, which has led scholars to propose a common workshop for both.52 Yet again, how such a workshop might have operated, where it would have been physically located in relation to the two cities, and how its sculptors trained and interacted remain obscure. James Osborne’s recent analysis of territoriality in the early Iron Age northern Levant, which indicates that settlements distant from one another might fall under common sovereignty, while conversely, proximity in space need not necessarily correlate with political interaction, further complicates how we interpret stylistic similarities found at different sites.53 Moreover, recent results of studies on stone-carving technologies for both “common” groundstones and “elite” carved reliefs at the site of Zincirli point to a relatively fluid organization for stone-working production as a whole, suggestive of much less hierarchical or discrete organizational systems than is often implied in the workshop

25

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

model.54 What the evidence from the carved reliefs seems to imply is that stylistic similarities happen at the grosser level of broadly regional style, and these stylistic groups cannot be easily tied to one and only one city. The complications raised by the use of the carved reliefs serve to highlight a fundamental—almost tautological—methodological concern of connoisseurship. According to an ideal version of connoisseurship, in order to make an attribution, one can only trust the evidence of the works of art themselves, because even documents and signatures are not trustworthy.55 Yet one can determine which works are to be used for deriving this evidence only if one knows that they are of “undoubted authenticity,” that is, already securely attributed. It is, therefore, impossible in practice to derive attributions solely based on the works of art themselves. However, rather than approach this operation from a positivist perspective in which an ancient social unit (be it workshop, artist, or otherwise conceived) existed in the past, and which the ivories somehow reflect, we might instead see that the ivories themselves, by means of their similarities (or differences), disclose a world in which human actors came together and interacted (or didn’t) through shared practices of making or engaging with these very objects. In so doing, we first acknowledge that the social relations thus inferred are perhaps as much a product of our analytic apparatus as an immaterially defined entity from the past. Yet at the same time, working backward from the very materiality of the ivories permits us to see an extended network of interaction that does not appear to be circumscribed or bounded by the geopolitical unit of the city-state.

Organization of Ivory Procurement and Crafting I return now to the first problem of using the connoisseurial approach: the direct borrowing from Italian Renaissance studies of the terms school, workshop, and hand. Here, two issues lie outside stylistic considerations of the pieces themselves: first, the social and organizational mechanisms for acquiring the raw materials, and second, the social and organizational mechanisms for producing the finished products. Both of these remain almost entirely unknown for first-millennium Levantine ivories—which, paradoxically, has encouraged a complete reliance on connoisseurial approaches for their study, while making the application of connoisseurial approaches to them inherently flawed. Unexamined assumptions of “workshop” production, organized along the lines of an Italian Renaissance master’s studio, prevail and remain influential in interpretations.56 It is, therefore, necessary to acknowledge our lack of data regarding the procuring and working of ivory in the first-millennium Levant, and to frankly assess what the limitations of our knowledge mean for pursuing connoisseurial attributions. The question of where the ivory came from remains open. First-millennium 26

Chapter One

ivory is almost exclusively elephant, in contrast to the preceding Late Bronze Age period, when hippopotamus ivory was also widespread.57 Because there are no specific textual references to hunting elephants in the Assyrian annals after the time of Shalmaneser III in the ninth century, Annie Caubet and Danielle Gaborit-Chopin have argued that first-millennium ivories must be derived from African elephant populations.58 P. R. S. Moorey cites J. W. and Grace Crowfoot’s publication of the Samaria ivories as identifying some of the pieces as African elephant ivory, as well as Richard Barnett’s assessment that some of the larger pieces from Nimrud must be from African elephants on account of their large diameter.59 Moorey also notes the possible population of elephants in Syria, whose presence in the second millennium is confirmed but is much more controversial for the third and first millennia.60 Nonetheless, he too attributes much of the ivory production to African herds due to the higher quality and larger size of African elephant tusks. Hunting elephants would have been a highly dangerous endeavor, especially since the targeted prey would have been bulls in the prime of their lives, producing the largest and best-quality tusks.61 Ethnographic studies of modern ivory acquisition from sub-Saharan Africa indicate that the physical and organizational skills needed to hunt vast quantities of large elephants would have restricted the activity to a small class of people who had access to resources best managed by large institutions like palaces and temples.62 Whether these people would have been directly dependent on such an institution or indirectly “commissioned” down the line remains unknown. The procurement and trade of African elephant tusks during the medieval period (thirteenth through sixteenth centuries CE) followed a loosely decentralized (down-the-line) system, in which each entity was nevertheless tightly interdependent.63 Ivory was obtained by local hunting peoples in inland southern Africa, sometimes up to one thousand kilometers from the eastern coast. It was then traded to herders who inhabited settlements on the east coast. They in turn traded it to Swahili merchants in exchange for cloth and other goods. The Swahili merchants then carried the ivory up the eastern coast of Africa, through the Red Sea, and over to the Mediterranean. In the first millennium BCE, the elephant populations and resultant trading routes most likely differed from those of the medieval period. Yet we have no indication of whether ivory was procured by the Levantine states through direct hunting expeditions (in the Syrian area), commercial activity, or diplomatic ties. The enormous quantities of ivory produced during a fairly short period of time—maybe two hundred or three hundred years—the generally high quality of its carving, and its archaeological association primarily with palatial structures when found in the Levant suggest that access to and consumption of ivory was closely linked to bodies of ruling elites and served as a prestige marker within a Levantine-wide culture.64 We also know practically nothing about the process and organization of 27

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carving ivory once procured.65 Dirk Wicke, for example, calls attention to the issue of our preconceived notions of Iron Age ivory production that do not closely question whether it was due to royal monopoly, commissioned as an artwork, or produced within a “free market.”66 Nor do we fully understand the role of itinerant or mobile craftsmen. Wicke thus queries whether differences among stylistic groupings indicate regional differences (workshops that operated at the same time but in different places), chronological differences (workshops that operated in the same place but at different times), or both.67 We have no securely identified archaeological evidence for the physical remains or spatial distribution of any actual workshops. Poul Riis and Marie-Louise Buhl interpreted Building IV at Hama as an ivory-carving workshop because of the presence of  ivory chips.68 Stefania Mazzoni has recently argued against this interpretation, noting that the total number of “chips” (between twenty and thirty) is irrelevant when comparing the total number of worked ivories found as a whole.69 She sees these chips as potential residue from broken pieces, which she thinks may have fallen from an upper storey. Instead, she views the presence of these ivories in a major building on the city’s acropolis as indicative of their association with the ruling elites of the early Iron Age polity. The archaeological recovery of ivory-carving workshops, in fact, may be quite difficult. The ivory carver’s tool kit—encompassing awls, chisels, drills, gouges, knives, and saws—is compact and easily portable.70 Working ivory requires no major installations, such as kilns or waterworks. Nor does it produce any pollutants or toxins that would leave a residue or prompt the removal of its production from dense habitation. Ivory carvers probably worked alongside wood and soft-stone (gypsum, steatite, et cetera) workers; they may even have worked all three materials, since their properties—dense, yet softly yielding— are all similar, and we find similar items made in all three materials.71 Moreover, that the finished products would have included wood joining, overlaying of gold leaf, and inlaying of molded glass insets suggests that ivory carvers worked closely across different crafting traditions.72 We might imagine, therefore, an extreme degree of mobility and flexibility among the crafters of ivory works. A central problem in the attribution process is the conflation of two different notions of workshop: one spatial and one social. A recent article by Silvana di Paolo has brought this problem to the fore and opens the door for a critical assessment of the entire attributional endeavor.73 Di Paolo, in a footnote drawing on earlier work by Moorey, observes that the term workshop is itself problematic and carries with it assumptions that may not be valid for first-millennium ivory carving.74 On the one hand, the term implies the co-presence of multiple crafters working alongside one another in a single architectural structure. On the other hand, it also implies an organizational schema in which a chain of masters and apprentices who specialize in a single medium—ivory—work together in a hierarchical social system. Our inability to distinguish the spatial from the 28

Chapter One

social makes working with textual references to workshops problematic. As Moorey notes, what slim evidence that exists for craft production in the textual sources reveals more about “administrative history” than craft organization.75 Moreover, it is unwise to assume that craft production would have been organized in the same ways across different times and places, making any synthetic study of texts from either earlier periods (such as Middle Bronze Age Mari) or geopolitically distinct areas (such as Assyria) hazardous.76 What is particularly important about our lack of knowledge in this area is that without a firm basis for understanding the organization of ivory production on either a spatial or a social level (which encompasses questions of acquiring/distributing the material, commissioning works, economic dependencies, apprenticeships and training mechanics, and artisan mobility), it is practically impossible to link an unanchored style­group to any specific geographic coordinates. The ambiguity of the term workshop is compounded by its inconsistent usage in the scholarship. Winter, followed by di Paolo, has noted a common tendency to slip between a style­group, determined solely by evidence internal to the works of art (in good connoisseurial fashion), and a school (which contains within it inherent social dimensions).77 Furthermore, schools are sometimes elided with workshops, although at other times, multiple workshops are taken as subgroups of a regionally understood school.78 In most studies of the ivories, the general working assumption is that groups of ivories sharing iconography and style were produced in a single workshop, and that several workshops operating with similar elements belong to the same production school which coincides with a geographic region, sometimes equated with a single city/city-state and sometimes more broadly defined.79 A fundamental problem, already noted by several scholars, is how much variability is acceptable?80 More precisely, this question hinges on another: how similar does something need to be in order to attribute it to the same artistic hand, workshop, or school/regional style/tradition? Winter has articulated this dilemma in her review of Georgina Herrmann’s catalogue of the SW 37 ivories from Fort Shalmaneser: “How does one demonstrate, not merely assert, that a certain variant betokens the work of two different hands in the same workshop, as opposed to the work of the same, single individual on different days, or at different stages of a career?”81 We might consider this question in relation to two ivories assigned by Herrmann to the same style-group. Herrmann considers the trait of the so-called pegged wig uniquely characteristic of the “Ornate Group” of the Phoenician tradition, and therefore assigns both IM 79522 and IM 79523 to the same stylegroup (which then gets elided with a workshop) (figs. 1.6 and 1.7).82 Yet the mouths and ears exhibit quite different forms: IM 79522 has the so-called Archaic smile of thin lips and small, highly placed, and delicately shaped ears; IM 79523 has full, fleshy lips pursed together in a straight line and large, heavily 29

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

Fig. 1.6 Ivory from Well AJ, Northwest Palace, Nimrud. Baghdad, Iraq Museum, IM 79522. In G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, no. 259. Courtesy of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial). Fig. 1.7 Ivory from Well AJ, Northwest Palace, Nimrud. Baghdad, Iraq Museum, IM 79523. In G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, no. 260. Courtesy of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial).

shaped ears that stick out from the side of the head. Moreover, the distinctive mouth of IM 79522, which looks so much like the mouth of the famous “Mona Lisa” ivory (plate 2), causes Herrmann to include all three works in the same group, despite the fact that the “Mona Lisa” ivory has an entirely different way of rendering the hair, both technically (it does not have the excised areas for inlay that form the so-called pegged wig) and stylistically (the hair is parted in the center of the forehead and swept to the sides in one large lock).83 This question regarding degree of variability stems directly from the exceptional range of variation that is found among first-millennium Levantine ivories; this must be considered a primary trait of the group as a whole. The combination of the ivories’ graduated stylistic variation, extreme mobility, wide geographic distribution, and lack of historical and archaeological evidence for modes and mechanisms of artistic production problematizes connections between specific works and places of manufacture.84 The extreme heterogeneity of stylistic traits, despite a remarkable homogeneity in subject matter, appears to argue against a model of large workshops operating in only a few locations.85 In the attempt to construct discrete groups of independent style-groups/workshops, the abundance of variation has had to be suppressed. However, I suggest that such variation provides essential evidence for understanding these ivories from the perspective of networked practices rather than as a mosaic of bounded independent workshops.

The Mobility of Style Claudia Suter has proposed that the ivories’ stubborn refusal to divide neatly into style-groups may indicate a deliberate blurring of cultural boundaries across the Levant (from Phoenicia through North Syria).86 She cites a similar cultural heterogeneity in the Kilamuwa Stele from Zincirli, in which Luwian/ Neo-Hittite, Aramaean, Phoenician, and Assyrian elements coexist.87 Suter concludes that the cultural mixing seen on the stele of Kilamuwa betrays the complexity of the historical situation and exposes the inappropriateness of the assumed equation of style-group—workshop—geopolitical entity. She suggests that ivory workshops may have worked in multiple styles, regardless of their geographic location or the ethnic background of their artisans.88 Thus, it may not be possible to link style-groups to specific locations, because stylistic practices (and their practitioners) interacted with one another across the entire Levant and North Syria to such a degree as to erase any distinct borders.89 The mobility of style(s) within and across the greater Levant, perhaps at times also to be linked to temporal shifts, finds support in several other corpora of artworks. One might turn, for example, to the engraved metal bowls often associated with ivory-carving production. These bowls earned the nomenclature of “Phoenician” early on, but have since been argued to separate along stylistic 31

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

groupings paralleling the ivories’.90 Studies of these bowls, many of which were also found mixed together in the Northwest Palace at Nimrud as well as widely distributed across the Near East and Mediterranean, have primarily followed a similar academic pattern of connoisseurial studies in order to locate sites of production in North Syria and Phoenicia. Yet such pursuits have been even less successful for the bowls than for the ivories, compelling scholars such as Glenn Markoe to acknowledge that without better archaeological evidence, there is little basis for associating a style with a particular center of production.91 Recently, Francesca Onnis, in a reassessment of several of the bronze bowls from Nimrud, considered the intersecting patterns of decorative techniques and style.92 Her findings indicate that techniques and forms were shared by craftsmen across stylistic groups. In addition, quite surprisingly, she finds that techniques—that is, ways of doing—also do not divide the corpus into clear-cut groupings.93 Thus, she argues for a general coherence across the corpus of Nimrud vessels despite visual dissimilarities, concluding the existence of a common tradition, “an echo of a common substratum shared and exchanged, and eventually overlaid by local tastes or trends.”94 The metal bowls are thought to roughly parallel the ivories in terms of the chronology of their production. Yet a corpus of works from a potentially very narrow time frame at the later end of the periods under consideration in this book—the mid-seventh into the beginning of the sixth centuries—provides further confirmation of stylistic mobility in the greater Levantine region. Engraved and sculpted tridacna shells (of the variety tridacna squamosa) have been found in many of the same general places as carved ivories and bronze bowls, including examples from Nimrud and Nineveh in Assyria.95 As a group, these shells exhibit a high degree of homogeneity and have been dated to a very short span of production during the seventh century.96 The majority of the over 125 known examples feature a sculpted female head carved out of the umbo, or joint, of one side of the bivalve shell (plate 3). The exterior of the shell was then engraved to depict either a complete anthropomorphic winged form, just the extended wings, or various decorative motifs. The interior of the shell could likewise be smoothed and engraved with decorative elements, with voluted palmettes being particularly popular on both the exterior and the interior. Like the ivories and bowls, the decorated shells were originally given a general attribution to Phoenician production. Rolf Stucky, in 1974, proposed a production locale in inland Syria based largely on close stylistic parallels to the stylistically defined Syrian ivories.97 Especially close are the renderings of the female heads, with their broad faces, elongated incised eyes, and drill-dot pupils, which find almost exact parallels in the series of three-dimensionally sculpted female ivory heads from the Loftus Group assigned by Barnett to the Syrian style (fig. 1.8).98 However, more recently Stucky has argued for production in inland Palestine and the Transjordan region, because of the number of 32

Chapter One

Fig. 1.8 Ivory from the Burnt Palace (South-East Palace), Nimrud. In Barnett 1975, S 173. London, The British Museum, BM 118233. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

unworked tridacna shells from this region and a series of rectangular stone cosmetic palettes from Jordan that exhibit almost identical sculpted female heads on their top edges (plate 4).99 That the bivalve itself must be harvested from the shallow waters of the Red Sea or Persian Gulf lends further support to localizing production in the southern region of the Levant. If these tridacna shells are to be assigned to the mid-seventh to early sixth century and associated with a production area generally situated in the southern inland region of the Levant 33

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

(both aspects being deduced from excavated finds in this region), their uncanny stylistic connections to North Syrian ivories and bronzes raise important warnings about relying solely on style to derive geographic (or chronological) attribution. A further example of stylistic mobility is seen in fragments of two stamped ceramic jars from Busayra in southern Transjordan, considered part of the Edomite political sphere.100 The sherds, from two fine dishes or bowls of a type that is usually referred to as “Edomite,” were impressed with rectilinear stamps around the outer surface, just below the rim. They depict two different scenes, one a grazing stag and the other a cow suckling her calf. Stylistically, they compare closely to ivories from Arslan Tash and Nimrud that are typically classified among the South Syrian ivory style.101 The Busayra sherds come from an Iron II/ Persian domestic context that cannot be dated more precisely than between around 732 and 332 BCE. They are, however, generally placed in the later eighth century based on comparanda from other sites. Related stamped vessels have been found predominantly at southern Levantine sites, at Tell Nimrin, En Gedi, Tall ar-Rameh, Tall Iktanu, and farther afield at Nimrud, with the closest parallels to the Busayra sherds coming from Nimrin and Rameh.102 None of the comparanda is entirely like the Busayra examples, marking the Busayra sherds as unique; nonetheless, the concentration of them in the southern Levant points to a shared community of practice during the later period of the Iron II. Alan Millard, noting possible evidence for decorated furniture at Busayra, suggests the stamps may have been copied from ivory examples and concludes, “the Busayra fragments show the range of such motifs extending far to the south, also.”103 Like the tridacna shells, they present visual forms that are usually taken to be the stylistic markers of a more northerly Levantine region in a far southern Levantine locale.104 Although the direct involvement of the Assyrian state at Busayra may appear to explain the presence of these stamps so far south, this in itself serves to reinforce the mobility of styles in the Levant, whether due to “indigenous” or “imperial” exchanges. The so-called North Syrian steatite corpus also presents complications when the distribution of objects thus attributed is plotted. On the one hand, a good case appears to be made for localizing the production centers of pyxides from this group in the North Syrian region. The circular containers that are divided into compartments on the inside have been found archaeologically almost exclusively in this area.105 However, the distribution of hand-lion bowls/ ladles, which are often closely related stylistically in their rendering of fleshy voluted palmettes or full-maned lions, bespeak broader horizons of consumption. In addition to occurring at sites in the North Syrian region, examples have been found in several Assyrian cities (Assur, Nimrud, and Khorsabad) and at Hasanlu in the east, and at Hazor, Megiddo, and Tell Beit Mirsim in the southern Levant.106 34

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Ann Gunter suggests an extensive trade and exchange within the greater Levantine region itself, as evidenced by the presence of gold and silver listed among the tribute of cities that were not geographically close to sources of these metals.107 In her review of Assyrian texts as a potential source for determining sites of manufacture, she is unable to come to any definitive conclusions, noting in particular the problems related to interpreting the textual references to luxury goods.108 Does the general sharing of motifs across the different Levantine ivory styles, so often remarked on despite the stylistic variety, similarly point to a larger networked area of production encompassing the entirety of the Levantine and North Syrian cities? And did extensive social interaction among fluid communities of ivory-carving production (perhaps best to be associated with large elite institutions such as the palace and temple) result in such heterogeneity as to defy compartmentalization into singular “workshops” located in bounded geographic locales? A notion of fluid communities might be supported by evidence derived from the use of different languages throughout this area. The interpenetration and switching between Luwian and Aramaean in the North Syrian region is well known.109 Also of interest is the interpenetration and switching between Phoenician and Luwian or Aramaean. At Zincirli in the ninth century, the Kilamuwa stele presents a unique occurrence of a Phoenician-language text embedded within a “culturally mixed” set of visual references. One explanation has been that Aramaean did not have a written form at this early date, and thus Kilamuwa was forced to use the Phoenician language instead. This argument, however, has now been refuted and the use of a specific language seen instead as a choice on the part of Kilamuwa.110 In any event, the Kilamuwa stele indicates that the Phoenician language was available and desirable in at least one instance in the North Syria region during the ninth century. One of the longest Phoenician inscriptions found to date comes from the Cilician (North Syrian) site of Karatepe.111 The late eighth- or early seventhcentury inscription occurs on large-scale carved stone reliefs that formed part of two gates.112 These reliefs likewise exhibit extensive Phoenician stylistic elements. This Phoenician materialization in Cilicia has been explained by Winter as due to “important political and cultural ties between Cilicia and the Phoenician coast.”113 The reliefs, however, also contain a Luwian inscription.114 Winter argues that the two languages represent the two main constituent audiences: the local Luwians and the foreign Phoenician merchants. Given the Luwian name of the local ruler, Azatiwatas, this is not unreasonable, although as we know from elsewhere, the linguistic basis of a ruler’s name during this period and in this region is a singularly inaccurate indicator of any ethno-cultural correlate with style. Rather, what is notable again is the mobility and intermixing of styles, and in these instances also languages, that speak to the generally fluid nature of cultural boundaries during the early centuries of the first millen35

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

nium. Recently, another bilingual hieroglyphic Luwian-Phoenician inscription has been discovered on the base of a statue at Çineköy in the region of Cilicia.115 It cites a ruler, Warika, who has been associated with Awariku/Urikki, king of Que, known from Assyrian inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II at the end of the eighth century. Yet another Phoenician inscription naming this king occurs on a damaged stele acquired at the end of the nineteenth century at Hassan-Beyli, about thirteen kilometers west of Zincirli, as well as a further one on a stele found in 1993 in a garden in the village of Incirli, also near Zincirli.116 These four inscriptions, along with several others from this general region, reinforce an impression of linguistic intermixing that defies the establishment of clear cultural boundaries.117

Slippery Identities Connoisseurial attribution is, ultimately, undemonstrable, unprovable, except to be disproved.118 If external means exist to confirm an attribution determined by connoisseurship—means such as scientific material analysis or documentary texts—then it is unnecessary to perform the visual analysis of connoisseurship; if these external confirmations do not exist, then one can never determine whether a given attribution is correct or not. This essential conundrum is evident in the ongoing attributional debates revolving around those works of art that do not present with any external confirmation.119 In defense of the applicability of connoisseurship for ancient art, Richard Neer has asserted recently that the unverifiable nature of attribution misses the point.120 My reading of Neer’s statement is that he does not want to dismiss stylistic analysis entirely on account of the unverifiability of attributions to a specific individual author—in his case, the attribution of Greek vases to individual painters’ hands. However, these are in fact two separate issues: stylistic analysis and the use of stylistic analysis to determine individual or workshop authorship. Because attributions based solely on stylistic analysis are unverifiable, we may be using stylistic analysis to answer the wrong sorts of questions (that is, who made it) when we might instead pose different questions with respect to artistic and communal identities. If one tries to follow literally the proposed ideal of attributional methods of connoisseurship (even given the variations and diversity of such methods), it leads less to an attribution of a specific historically known and dateable person and more to the Bernard Berenson notion of an artistic personality—that is, a kind of psychoanalytic reading of an individual’s personality based on the evidence of that individual’s (unconscious) characteristic style.121 It is in this move to a psychologically defined artistic identity that we entangle ourselves in the hazardous slippage of style, artistic identity (of the artist), and cultural identity/ethos. For instance, let us consider the implications when we use 36

Chapter One

labels such as “a Phoenician artist.” On a most basic level, we use this label to describe the person who we think created something in a style that we call “Phoenician”—that is, when we see something in a Phoenician style, we say it was made by a Phoenician. However, we rarely question what it means to label an ancient individual as “a Phoenician.” Does it mean being born to Phoenician parents, regardless of where geographically? Does it mean someone born in the geographic region of Phoenicia, regardless of parentage? Can we ever imagine an instance when someone who was not born to Phoenician parents and not born or trained in Phoenician lands might produce art in a Phoenician style? Indeed, Phoenician as a cultural/ethnic identification is particularly troubling given that the designation is not indigenous but created by the Greeks, and that its current scholarly usage derives almost exclusively from an association with the language. The relationship between human being, geography, and culture is quite fuzzy and unarticulated when we use such terms as Phoenician. However, the problem can be sidestepped if one does not begin with the assumption that identity, whether individual/artistic or cultural, is inherent and completely prior to material expression (or begin with its correlate, that one’s identity will be manifested/expressed consistently in all “touched” material form).122 While in the next chapter I do in fact propose that geography and culture play an important role in constructing styles and communities, I argue that they do so not through an autochthonous link. Rather, the social engagements and practices of a community (or communities) of other human beings profoundly shape social identity. Such relationships entail interaction in space and time with other beings and with material things, forming networks and webs rather than contiguous bounded entities. Elena Scigliuzzo, applying Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to a stylistic analysis of South Syrian–style ivories, argues that the most telling (habitual) stylistic feature of ivories should be the particular ways of modulating surface transitions through carving, by which she identifies a varied group of carved ivories that exhibit one particular “system of surface modulation.”123 Scigliuzzo’s results indicate one particular “way of doing” that relates to skilled practices, but which does not map neatly onto any distinct iconographic or typological genre. Her conclusions parallel those of Onnis regarding the Nimrud bowls, in which techniques similarly crosscut iconographic and compositional trends, presenting a growing body of evidence for networked practices across previously understood bounded traditions.124 While Scigliuzzo retains a notion of workshops located in specific Levantine cities,125 if we abandon the connoisseurial terminology of hands and workshops, her conclusions point to a network of skilled practitioners who interacted closely with one another in their training and crafting yet did not necessarily work always and only in one particular spatial location or with one group of crafters. Onnis too notes that on the one 37

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hand, techniques and styles rarely form clear groupings of the “Phoenician” metal bowls from Nimrud, while on the other hand, “correspondences in the ornamentation practices form a pattern linking all the items in the corpus.”126 Extrapolating back to the practitioners who created these metal bowls, like those carving the ivories, it appears that they participated in a network that crisscrossed the Levantine landscape rather than being rooted in a single, politically defined city-state. We might, therefore, do better to consider production to have been of a more dispersed and uneven nature than the term workshop implies.127

Conclusions Any stylistic analysis of the Levantine ivories must confront their paradoxically heterogeneous styles and seemingly homogeneous cultural connections. These central characteristics of the ivories are paralleled by similar analyses of metal bowls, carved architectural reliefs, and other arts found in and associated with the Levant. With respect to the distribution maps in her first article and echoing a common refrain in scholarship on early Phoenician arts, Irene Winter qualifies the absence of evidence from the central Levantine area (that is, Phoenicia) thus: Study of the distribution of Phoenician style ivories must be preceded by reiteration of the fact that the major cities of Phoenicia as noted in the contemporary Assyrian annals (Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Arka) remain unexcavated in early first millennium levels, so that it will not be possible to see the identical pattern of concentration in the nuclear area as it was for North Syria.128

What this also means is that any “Syrian-style” ivories that might have existed in this area are also missing from the archaeological record and consequently from our distribution maps, thus de facto limiting their distribution to the northern parts of the Levant.129 That we have no carved architectural reliefs of any style from Phoenicia may likewise be a result of archaeological lacunae. Some evidence for such a carved stone tradition in the southern Levant exists. In the preceding Late Bronze Age, a tradition of carved architectural blocks is known to have flourished at the southern Levantine city of Hazor, just north of the Sea of Galilee.130 One basalt relief of a striding sphinx was discovered in Damascus (reused in a much later context), which Winter points to as an example of South Syrian style and as an argument for locating this style in Damascus/Aram.131 However, this relationship between style and place becomes complicated when we consider a carved basalt orthostat preserving the lower back part of a striding lion or sphinx, in a style similar to those associated with North Syria; this was found at the southern Levantine city of Karak in Jordan (also reused in a later context) (fig. 1.9).132 38

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Fig. 1.9 Basalt relief orthostat (photographed upside down) from later context at Karak, Jordan. Karak Archaeological Museum. Photograph by Martin Weber. Reproduced courtesy of the Department of Antiquities, Jordan.

Perhaps we have less of a geographic distinction between these two stylistic entities and more of a chronological one, the earlier prominence of the North Syrian style (tenth/ninth and eighth centuries) and the later flourishing of the Phoenician one (eighth and seventh centuries) being generally accepted in the scholarship.133 The evidence of Karatepe, if one follows Winter’s argument that the Phoenician stylistic elements date to a second phase of relief carving in the eighth century, would support this.134 A similar idea is tentatively suggested by Scigliuzzo in a footnote, in which she raises the possibility that “the so-called traditions do not necessarily have to correspond exclusively to a diatopic arrangement (different cultural areas) but to a diachronic one . . . , and so some could be later phases in the history of the same area.”135 Accordingly, I suggest that we cannot arrange Iron Age Levantine style39

Workshops, Connoisseurship, and Levantine Style(s)

groups to map neatly onto specific geographic locales at the level of city-state.136 This is not to say that stylistic groupings in general are not valid (though several accepted style-groups present issues), but rather that the stylistic differentiations are not the result of and thus cannot point back to distinct, bounded, citystate cultural identities. Seeking to locate artistic styles, as the material expression of cultural identity par excellence, in singular geographic entities reveals the enduring assumption of cultural identity being rooted in place, the commingling of blood and soil, recently decried by Stephen Greenblatt.137 I would like to suggest that artistic styles can indeed point to communities but not necessarily those bounded by blood ties or linked to the land. Rather, they can point to communities of shared practices, which might extend or contract across time and space in unpredictable ways.138 Gunter proposes a similar view in her critique of equating style with ethnicity.139 Citing ethnographic work in New Guinea, she notes that differing networks of exchange open communities to multiple social formations that are fluid and potentially overlapping or interpenetrating, and that engender equally fluid stylistic production.140 Such interpenetration at the level of skilled practices might find support in recent reconstructions of geographic configurations of political control in the Levant, which propose a model of spatially noncontiguous domains of authority rather than homogeneous bounded territories. For example, James Osborne argues that the northern Levantine state of ‘Unqi/Patina comprised an “unevenly distributed territoriality” in which there was a “permeable conception of political space.”141 In this model, “contiguity of land and settlements was not a necessary requirement for political control.”142 Such political landscapes were constantly shifting as individual towns and cities were “exchanged” among dynastic households. Noncontiguous political control and the “owning” and “trading” of settlements has also been argued for second-millennium Levantine polities, such as Yamhad and Mukish, and may be indicative of a long-term tradition in the region.143 These models of political authority represent networks of nodes between which relations and exchanges constantly occurred. An analogous constellation of production nodes might be envisioned within such a network. Indeed, at the general level, scholars of Levantine arts such as Winter have already acknowledged the “decentralized system of production, with multiple centers participating in the making of luxury goods, both within and across regional borders.”144 Given an acceptance of decentralized production within and across regional borders, we should be wary of making direct associations between style and singular place (typically taken as an autonomous city-state). Thus, in the case of stylistic practices, which entail training and ability at the level of both crafting and appreciation, I consider the greater Levant to have been crisscrossed by multiple intersecting and overlapping (but not necessarily homogenous or monolithic) networks of skilled practices. How, then, can we access such fluid 40

Chapter One

social networks? Can we perhaps extrapolate from this to a community within the Levant—not necessarily bounded geographically to any one particular citystate or even circumscribed in any clearly demarcated way between North and South Syria or between Syria and Phoenicia but rather one that came together at a variety of places and times?145 The language and concepts of Bourdieu’s practice theory allow me to articulate a different picture of the Iron Age Levant, one in which communities of people may move among different city-state polities but who nevertheless share a habitus. In the next chapter, I turn to a model of such social communities as coextensive with the material products of these very  communities themselves, and consider the material dimension of style as a social and communal practice with significant implications for collective memory.

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If a craftsman takes a (child as) son to rear and then teaches him his craft, he will not be reclaimed. —Codex Hammurabi 1881

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Levantine Stylistic Practices in Collective Memory

T

he “laws” inscribed on the monumental stele of Hammurabi of Babylon (1792–1750 BCE) predate the period of this study by nearly one thousand

years and come from southern Mesopotamia.2 Nonetheless, the law cited above

expresses well a perceived or desired notion among Babylonians of communities that transcend—or perhaps better: transform—kinship bonds. Moreover, the community it specifically refers to is one of art and style. This particular law appears in the section regarding adoption. Once adopted (inculcated) into the society of a craft (its habitus), a person cannot be reclaimed by his biological family (the noncraft society); he belongs to a new community of craft practitioners.3 We might read this as a metanarrative—a commentary on the process of becoming part of a community through practice and knowledge, rather than simply through birth, and on the strength of the communal bonds thus acquired. For Levantine arts of the early first millennium, an interpretive approach derived from the theory of practice, as espoused by Pierre Bourdieu, provides 43

a powerful way of understanding the production and consumption of artistic styles—style understood here as the minutiae of visual forms. Bourdieu’s consideration of bodily involvement in practice situates style within a concept of community relationships, which are, moreover, potentially fluid and always in process of becoming. They include both the production and the consumption of style(s) as separate but intersecting spheres of practices, and thus we can study “style as practice” as a generator of networks of social relations. This chapter explores how stylistic traits form a critical component of collective memory, being the product and source of shared social practices at the levels of both creation and appreciation. Or, to reverse this proposition, a material component of collective memory resides in and is generated from the ongoing practices of style. These statements rest on the notion that the physical and practical aspects of creating and consuming styles involve knowledge and action in a positive dialectical relationship with each other. This reaffirming connection between knowledge and action generates communities of what Bourdieu calls “learned ignorance,” shaped through tangible, though often overlooked, visual appearances. Through such a lens, visual similarities between first-millennium Levantine art and works from the preceding Late Bronze Age (circa 1600–1200/1180 BCE), which have been noted by scholars for some time,4 take on heightened meaningfulness within the context of newly emerging communities of identity in the Iron Age Levant. For example, one of the ivory pyxides from Nimrud renders a scene of hunting from a chariot that closely follows a scene from the side of an ivory game board found in a tomb at Enkomi on Cyprus and usually dated to around 1200 BCE (figs. 2.1 and 2.2).5 Likewise, male figures in short kilts shown thrusting their daggers into rampant griffins and lions that occur on ivory handles from Late Bronze Age Enkomi reappear on first-millennium Levantine metal bowls and ivories.6 Such connections in the realm of the visual motif have raised questions regarding the continuity or rediscovery of Late Bronze Age artistic traditions in the Iron Age Levant. Because of the ineffable nature of “style,” I find such questions resonate most evocatively at the level of stylistic minutiae. By style and stylistic minutiae, I mean here the sorts of traits that are central to connoisseurial pursuits—the small details of how features like ears and eyes are rendered—but that I do not assume to associate with geographically singular workshop locales. In this chapter, I take as a case study a set of distinct animal markings found among Levantine works, primarily in ivory but also metalworks and stone carving, that can be understood as stylistic minutiae. These markings belong to Richard Barnett’s Syrian school of ivory carving and Helene Kantor’s so-called animal style, and form the basis for Georgina Herrmann’s “Flame and Frond stylegroup.” I examine these markings not with an interest in attribution, but rather to consider their continuity with Late Bronze Age artworks, and I propose that 44

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Fig. 2.1a, b Two views of an ivory pyxis, Burnt Palace (South-East Palace), Nimrud. In Barnett 1975, S1. London, The British Museum, BM 118173. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Fig. 2.2 Ivory game box, Enkomi, Cyprus, circa 1200 BCE. London, The British Museum, BM 1897.4-1.996. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

they played a critical role in stylistic practices of the greater Levantine region by enhancing a shared memory of a Bronze Age heritage and a newly emerging collective identity.7

The Problem of Artistic Intentionality Most previous Near Eastern art history has depended on a concept of artistic intentionality in one form or another. Connoisseurship, at its core, assumes that essential (individual) identity (often understood as the hand of artistic genius) finds expression (and hence can be recovered) in the habitual, unconscious, reflexive processes of making (this is the purported Morellian ears and hands, perhaps to be more accurately attributed to Bernard Berenson).8 For connoisseurship, it is the unintentional that reveals true artistic identity. With a move in Near Eastern studies toward more social and contextual art historical approaches, the emphasis has shifted from the unconscious to the conscious— art is intentionally created and deployed for various strategic ends, such as for propaganda legitimizing a king. Art history as a discipline privileges a concept of artistic intentionality and thus necessitates a calculation of it on the part of the scholar. This means that any analyst must make a determination (either explicitly or, more often, implicitly) of those visual features that resulted from convention/habit as opposed to those that were consciously/intentionally deployed. Such a task seems almost impossible for the ancient world (if not also for the contemporary one) without ascribing some kind of universal laws.9 We have little means of inferring from our evidence which aspects of ivory carving, for example, may have been more or less consciously executed. Indeed, it is becoming clearer that establishing demarcations of circumscribed intentionality is illusory. A concept of the “non-atomized individual”— that is, the blurring between and even interpenetration of an “inside mind” and an “outside world” such that “intentionality” is intimately linked to supposedly external stimuli—is gaining ground within the field of experimental cultural psychology and sociology.10 These disciplines consider that social relationships, in which all people participate to some degree or another, generate numerous, intersecting networks. The networks in turn consist of multidirectional avenues of exchange such that all participants in a network both exert a force and are acted on by forces. In other words, as much as a person might act on a material product in a way that is thought to be intentional, that product in turn conditions and directs the actions of the artist and users, although this process may not be symmetrical.11 Style and the practice of producing and consuming styles should be understood to operate within this process of engagement.12 Considering in more detail the physical properties of ivory and the technological possibilities for working it, from both a general perspective and with respect to

47

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the preserved evidence from the Iron Age Levant, allows us to chart some of the interdependencies in operation between people and things. Ivory presents several specific physical properties that any human being— crafter or consumer—must engage with when encountering the material. While these properties may elicit a variety of responses, they nevertheless both offer and constrain the possibilities of these encounters. I have already reviewed in the first chapter what little can be said about the procurement and distribution of raw ivory (that is, unworked tusks) and about the social and economic organization of its production. Here, I focus on what might be gleaned from the material itself. Ivory in the Levant derives primarily from either the incisor and canine teeth of hippopotamuses or the tusks (the upper incisors) of elephants. In the Iron Age, most of the carved ivory appears to have been from elephants.13 While the two main elephant species—the African and the Indian/ Asian—present slightly different physical properties in their tusks, these differences are nearly impossible to discern for ancient ivories and therefore will not be included in this discussion.14 Only about 60 percent of the tusk is suitable for carving. This is the dentine that grows outward over time, increasing in diameter with the age of the elephant.15 The outermost part (husk) is brittle, while the innermost part (pulp) is soft; neither can be carved. The tusk itself forms around an inner cavity that narrows and ends partway, from which a nerve canal continues to the tip. As was shown by Annie Caubet and François Poplin in 1987, these aspects of the tusk’s structure determine the types of items that are made from it (fig. 2.3).16 Due to its rarity, a single tusk would be cut in the least wasteful manner. Circular containers (pyxides) make use of the dentine surrounding the open cavity toward the base of the tusk, with thicker-walled receptacles deriving from the part farthest from the base and thinner-walled ones from closer to the base. Rectilinear plaques are sawed crosswise from the solid section of the tusk immediately above the tip of the cavity, while three-dimensional figures are worked from the tusk’s solid tip. The properties for which ivory seems always to have been most valued— its suppleness and sheen—are due to the densely compacted pores of the dentine that contain an oily substance. This substance provides both a lubricant while carving and a polish to the finished work. Anthony Cutler, in his study of Byzantine ivories, notes how the sheen gets evenly distributed across all surfaces, regardless of their prominence in the composition, providing a diffused, all-encompassing brilliance.17 Though Levantine ivories were embellished with glass inlays, gold leaf, staining (painting), and possibly even intentional carbonization (ebonizing), any uncovered ivory material would automatically gleam because of the presence of the oily substance, which as an organic material does not survive archaeologically and thus is absent in the ivories today.18 Indeed, the gloss of the ivory would match well the shine of the gold leaf or inset glass, 48

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Fig. 2.3 Diagram of how parts of an elephant tusk were carved for ancient uses. After Caubet and Gaborit-Chopin 2004, fig. 2. Courtesy of Dr. Annie Caubet.

producing a shimmering, multicolored entity that would in turn be magnified by the assemblage of multiple ivory plaques on any one whole item.19 In addition to the gloss of ivory, the dense, porous dentine produces predictable patterns due to its organic growth. When cut into cross sections, these appear as concentric rings, something like tree rings, with minute crosshatching that runs through the dentine. When cut longitudinally, these appear as parallel striations that bend inward along the taper of the tusk, often appearing as nested ellipses. While such markings are most evident today on the backs or edges of the Levantine ivories, parts that would not have been visible once af49

Levantine Stylistic Practices in Collective Memory

fixed to the larger element, they also appear across the front of carved ivories, especially the nested ellipses. It is clear that the ivory carvers used the naturally occurring patterns to contribute to the overall effect of the carved figures, such as on a piece from Nimrud—one of a pair—depicting a lioness mauling an African (plate 5).20 The concentric curving lines of these markings highlight the rising swell of the animal’s belly and the falling man’s shoulder. The two pieces exemplify the visual and tactile issues discussed here, preserving gold leaf on the recumbent man’s thigh and hair and on the smaller bases of the papyruses that alternate with larger lotus blossoms, whose forms are inlaid with lapis lazuli and carnelian in the cloisonné technique. Reconstructed to its original appearance, the background and ground line would have presented a tightly woven pattern of shimmering gold, red, and blue. The falling victim would display the contrast of gold and smooth ivory, while the predatory beast itself would have stood out as a large expanse of supple ivory whose grain follows and emphasizes the contours of the powerful body. Ivory is, moreover, a supremely tactile material on a number of levels. Because of its relatively small size, especially once cut down into individual items or plaques, it must be held during the carving process. Cutler argues that Byzantine ivories were handled and manipulated extensively after carving, although this may be less likely in the case of the Levantine ivories that were often affixed to larger items such as furniture or boxes.21 Nonetheless, the small scale and detailed, yet soft renderings invite more than just visual inspection; they call out for physical caressing.22 We have little in the way of ancient Near Eastern responses to ivory aside from oblique textual references, its consistent association with high-value items, and what we can deduce from the carved works themselves.23 Nonetheless, the combination of intricacy of carved design, luminosity and diversity of colors, and tactile desire would have served to capture and ensnare viewers’ attention along the lines of Alfred Gell’s notion of enchantment by technical virtuosity.24 By this, Gell refers to the spell-like effect that skillfully crafted objects exert on viewers who can fathom but not replicate the processes by which they came into being. Chris Gosden has recently explored this idea with respect to prehistoric Britain, arguing that increasing technical and design complexity in the decoration of Celtic metalworking demanded that its viewers see in new ways, thereby reshaping the collective understanding of the world.25 In this way, we might see the Levantine ivories as being critical in the formation of not only a community constructed from a network of makers (craftsmen) but also a community constituted by consumers/viewers. Returning to the question of artistic intentionality, then, regardless of what any individual participant might think s/he is doing, her/his embeddedness in a thick web of relations means that ways of doing and reception are not monocausal but instead the result of complex and multidirectional forces. Social re50

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lationships do not exist outside and before material expression. Rather, objects, and their physical and visual properties, shape social relations in a mutual interdependency; the material and the social are always bound up with each other. The experiences of the producer/artist intersect with those of the consumer/ viewer at the point of the created object, forming webs of social networks. Cutler, citing Gilbert Dagron on the two facets of experiencing Byzantine ivories, that of the craftsman and that of the client, refers to this intersection as a “collective imagination.”26 In all this, stylistic practices (encompassing notions of “a style” itself, stylistic production, and stylistic consumption), which might happen at any level of intentionality (or lack thereof), contain within them a peculiar efficacy in social life.

Rendering Animals and the Logic of Stylistic Practice As seen in chapter 1, close stylistic analysis of the Levantine ivories destabilizes models of bounded styles that equate with singular city-state polities. We are therefore left with the challenge of constructing a framework within which the stylistic specificities of this corpus can be understood. Theories of practice derived from Bourdieu provide such a framework by addressing style from a social perspective that stresses the engagement and entanglement of human entities with the physical world (in anthropological shorthand: materiality studies). In opposition to giving rational thought (and intentionality) place of importance in power relations, Bourdieu proposes that social domination and its replication were primarily focused on bodily practices (what Bourdieu also calls “knowhow”) and competent practices in the social world.27 His definition of habitus stresses the systemic processes of practical action that permit objective social structures to be inculcated into the subjective mental experiences of individuals such that they become naturalized, internalized, and unquestioned. Such a concept removes the need to be concerned with intentionality or consciousness, because the habitus produces a “commonsense” world that is felt as self-evident and natural by the participants while remaining regulated, thereby producing regularized action/practices without individual awareness.28 Practice theory helps explore the role of style (as stylistic minutiae)—in its visual and physical materiality and in its entanglement with human practices—as a social player in the fabric of community formation. Despite Bourdieu’s popularity in the social sciences and the embrace of his ideas within anthropological archaeology,29 art history has been slower to consider the potential of these theories with respect to core principles of the discipline, such as style.30 Nonetheless, Bourdieu’s concept of a practical logic shows how cultural practices intersect with style—outside any consideration of intention or self-awareness—as part of the bodily actions performed by a community of practitioners. These practitioners include not just the artisans manually 51

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producing the works but all who encountered the works, although the differing practices involved in these engagements would generate separate networks of communities that would intersect with one another at different points. To consider one specific case of how style might have functioned as material practice contributing to collective memory(ies) in the Iron Age Levant, I examine a set of markings consistently found on animal bodies, in particular those of a leonine and bovine nature (lions, sphinxes, griffins, bulls, and also other herbivores). These markings include a flame-like motif incised on the rear haunch, starting at the inner leg and curving back and upward; a line along the back of the animal, often highlighted with either straight denticulations, Vs, or dots, and that ends with a series of parallel lines (often three in number) near the base of the tail; parallel lines at the rib cage, sometimes enclosed in a box; and on leonine forms (lions, sphinxes, and griffins), a crosshatched plaited pattern running in a strip along the belly and back of the hind leg (fig. 2.4). In 1935, Richard Barnett included as one of the characteristics of his Syrian style of ivory carving “a curious convention” of indicating the musculature on the hindquarters of lions and griffins in “ornamental linear patterns,” and he pointed out similar markings on the sculpture from Tell Halaf (fig. 2.5).31 In 1957, he refined his definition of North Syrian ivory carvings, noting the “flamepatterned haunches” as characteristic of the so-called Loftus Group of Nimrud ivories (fig. 2.1).32 Reviewing the publication of the Tell Halaf reliefs by Anton Moortgat, Helene Kantor in 1956 more comprehensively described the series of animal markings as “tufted manes, braided hair on belly and hindquarters, hatched dorsal border, cross-lines on the front of legs, and incised ribs,” and referred to this collection of patternings as the North Syrian animal style; she did not develop the discussion further, however.33 Georgina Herrmann’s 1989 article, following on her 1986 publication of the ivories from SW37 of Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud, more systematically assembled examples of works exhibiting these markings.34 She designated these works as the core of what she calls the “Flame and Frond style-group,” which has now entered the literature of firstmillennium ivory studies. Much of the scholarly attention on these works focuses on determining a geographic location for their production, which has become one of the most contentious and ongoing debates in the literature of Levantine ivories. For most scholars, the markings serve as a signature connoisseurial “fingerprint” that ought to characterize a bounded production source analogous to the master artist, generally understood to be a workshop located in a single city-state polity. Barnett locates this “centre of production” in Hama/Hamath, primarily due to the presence at Hama of two ivories displaying these animal markings, as well as the similarity of a standing female figure with Hathor-like hair found on an ivory pyxis from Nimrud that also exhibits the animal markings to another standing female depicted on a stele found near Hama.35 Poul J. Riis, the 52

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Fig. 2.4 Drawing of “Flame and Frond” ivories from Nimrud: a, from Northwest Palace, Well AJ ivory pyxis IM 79514; b and c, from Northwest Palace, Well AJ ivory flask IM 79508; d, from ivory à jour plaque from Fort Shalmaneser, SW 37 ND 10377. After G. Herrmann 1989, fig. 1a–d; drawing by Tessa Rickards. Used by permission.

excavator of Hama, follows Barnett’s proposition, suggesting yet another link between the ivories and large-scale sculpture in the fragmentary remains of the hind legs and front part of a colossal basalt lion statue from Hama.36 Stefania Mazzoni has recently returned to Barnett’s suggestion of Hama, although she rejects his claim regarding archaeological evidence of an ivory workshop at the 53

Levantine Stylistic Practices in Collective Memory

Fig. 2.5 Carved basalt orthostat relief from Tell Halaf, Syria. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Photograph: Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY.

site.37 In fact, she concludes, “their [the “Flame and Frond” ivories] attribution to a workshop of Hamath and Lu’ash is then reasonable and consistent with the political and cultural regional framework. Nevertheless, in the absence of direct evidence, there is no conclusive proof which can eventually substantiate what must remain a hypothesis grounded on general arguments.”38 As an alternative center of production, Herrmann locates the workshop (also referred to as a school) at the site of Tell Halaf in eastern Syria, where carved stone reliefs, incised gold plaques, and ivories with these markings were 54

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found.39 She does this based on the axiom that production ought to be centered at the point of greatest occurrence. Yet her distribution map reveals the wide geographic extent in which objects bearing these markings have been recovered (map 3). These include ivories from Nimrud in Assyria, Hama in Syria, Hasanlu in northwestern Iran, and the Idaean Cave in Crete, in addition to a ceramic mold (for metal objects?) from Zincirli and possibly a bronze horse bridle frontlet from Tell Tayinat.40 Irene Winter argues for a production locale based on historical information rather than archaeological distribution, suggesting Carchemish and Zincirli as the most likely locales because of their sociopolitical importance in the region.41 Giorgio Affanni recently has opened up the debate by arguing for at least three different production locales, two in North Syria at Tell Halaf and Zincirli and one undetermined site in South Syria.42 In a study of sphinxes of the Flame and Frond style-group, he points to the heterogeneity of the group as currently defined. He notes the stylistic divergences among the ivories, with some displaying traits that are usually considered part of the North Syrian tradition, while others display traits typically associated with the South Syrian tradition (or what he calls the Intermediate School). For example, the sphinx ND 8050 and griffin ND 10501 look nothing like the animals found on the pyxides and flask from well AJ: their bodies are more elongated and sinuous, taking S-curve

Map 3 Findspots of “Flame and Frond” artifacts. After G. Herrmann 1989, fig. 3; drawn by Tessa Rickards. Used by permission. 55

Levantine Stylistic Practices in Collective Memory

Fig. 2.6 Ivory sphinx, SW 37, Fort Shalmaneser, Nimrud, ND 8050. In G. Herrmann 1986, no. 562. Iraq Museum (Erbil), IM 62763. Courtesy of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial).

shapes in their nearly upright rampant posture (figs. 2.6 and 2.7, plate 6). Indeed, they appear more closely related stylistically speaking to another ivory sphinx from the Northwest Palace at Nimrud, ND 1083 (fig. 2.8). The problem of the Flame and Frond group as a coherent and meaningful style-group (that is, its lacking explanatory force regarding past social realities) is evoked in Herrmann’s discussion of ND 1083 in the 2009 Nimrud ivories catalogue: “This panel [ND1083] shares some similarities with the human-headed, rampant sphinx, ND8050, I.N. IV, 144, no. 562, pl. 131, which probably forms part of the ‘flame and frond’ school, I.N. IV, 16. There is, however, no reason to place ND1083 56

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Fig. 2.7 Detail of ivory flask, Well AJ, Northwest Palace, Nimrud. Baghdad, Iraq Museum, IM 79508. In G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, no. 236. Courtesy of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial).

in that style-group: note, for instance, the very different treatment of the wing and musculature.”43 This group of ivories presents us with a problem along the lines discussed in chapter 1 concerning questions of stylistic variability and what relationship this variability might have to past social realities. For instance, not all the ivories in the Flame and Frond group exhibit all characteristics of the group, while at the same time they can also include characteristics attributed to other style-groups, indicating that the group as a whole is neither clearly bounded nor stylistically homogeneous. This then complicates any attempt to attribute the production of this group to a single, bounded “workshop,” located in one particular city-state, as Affanni’s research demonstrates. Silvana di Paolo, in her recent critique of workshop studies for Levantine ivories, sees these markings, in their distribution over a wide spectrum of ivory groups and other media, as suggestive of a production model of autonomous but interacting artisans.44 How, then, might we understand these markings, if not as the signature of a style-group linked to a workshop located somewhere in space? I would suggest that we can consider the markings from the perspective of practices of doing— as part of Bourdieu’s habitus—and thus as part of the material practices that engender collective identity. They might be viewed then as the product of certain shared social relations that spanned this entire region; conversely, through their consumption, they contributed to shaping certain panregional community identities. 57

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Fig. 2.8 Ivory from Northwest Palace, Nimrud, ND 1083. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 52.23.01. In G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, no. 19. Courtesy of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial).

Habitus in Levantine Style The notion of habitus has been invoked with increasing frequency in recent archaeological (if not art historical) discussions of the ancient Near East. In most cases, the application of the concept assumes that habitus is something concrete, singular, and stable, able to be recovered as a past reality that has happened. Bourdieu himself orients his discussion from the perspective of the person who already participates as a “native” within a habitus, already embodying the dispositions that constitute the habitus. However, we can reverse the vantage point such that participation in a particular habitus (including producing and consuming style) “nativizes” the person, inculcating various doxa to the 58

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point that they appear entirely normalized, naturalized, and self-evident to that person.45 In this way, we can move from the assemblage of objects produced by the practices of a habitus to a clearer sense of the networks and communities of people embedded within it. In addition, subtle differentiation among finished works might be understood as the outcome of an aggregate of practices by which those who produced and consumed these objects became bound together into a community. Those who share in certain networks of practice come to feel a sense of belonging with one another. And these networks of practice can be multiple, overlapping, intersecting, and fluid. By viewing social practices as building blocks of a continuously forming and shifting habitus, I propose that we can access the temporal process of becoming a community instead of attempting to recover a static bounded entity. I further argue that style—as a central, physical element that, through engagement with people, is part of habitus and contributes to dispositions and doxa— participates in processes of collective becoming. Working backward from the Levantine ivories (and metalworks), the absence/lack of strongly demarcated stylistic boundaries (paralleled by the similar heterogeneity of carving and affixing techniques found across the corpus of ivories as a whole, crosscutting stylistic groupings) suggests that these works of crafting and elite consumption created communities around themselves that crisscrossed the extent of the Levant (including southern, central, northern, coastal, and inland). Such a reconstruction finds support in the complicated situation of several pieces bearing inscriptions of Haza’el, a late ninth-century ruler of Damascus, which are examined in greater detail in chapter 5. Four high-value elite items, two made of ivory and two of bronze, that bear the name of Haza’el have been excavated to date.46 One ivory veneer appeared among the vast quantities of ivories in Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud. Another inscription naming Haza’el, reconstructed from three separate ivory-veneer fragments, was excavated along with a group of carved ivories in the early twentieth century in a provincial Assyrian administrative building at the site of Arslan Tash in Syria. The two bronzes, a horse’s bridle frontlet and blinker, have been found at Greek sanctuaries on the island of Samos and at Eretria in Euboea. Although the inscriptions on the ivory pieces are incomplete, and the ivories themselves lack figural carvings, these pieces have been used to support the attribution of a “South Syrian” style located in the city-state polity of Damascus (ancient Aram). However, the two bronzes found in Greece, both of which are worked in what might be identified as either the North Syrian or the South Syrian regional style, bear complete inscriptions on them. These inscriptions make evident that Haza’el had these pieces marked with his name upon their seizure as booty from the North Syrian city-state of ‘Unqi (also known as Patina, whose capital is probably to be identified with Tell Tayinat in the Hatay province of Turkey). Thus, although naming a South Syrian ruler, the pieces in 59

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question were taken from a North Syrian polity. The inscriptions on the ivories most likely followed the same formula, although the place of their seizure may have differed. Therefore, Haza’el-inscribed ivories and bronzes illustrate, first, the caution with which we should use inscriptions to locate place of production. But more to the point here, they demonstrate the extreme mobility of Levantine objects in general (bronze bridle fittings from Unqi in North Syria, taken as booty by a South Syrian king, Haza’el, in Damascus, end up in a Greek sanctuary; ivories from some unknown Levantine city-state, taken as booty by Haza’el, end up in an imperial storehouse in the Assyrian heartland and a provincial Assyrian administrative building in North Syria). This small set of items, distinctive in their inclusion of inscribed text, may well be just the tip of a much larger iceberg of interconnected networks of mobility that included not just things but people and practices. Such a pan-Levantine web of mobility has the effect of obscuring boundaries within the Levant, while at the same time, the shared practices crisscrossing it contributed overlapping and intersecting community habituses that include skilled practice networks. A fundamental aspect of Bourdieu’s habitus is that it allows us to view style as socially conditioned rather than autochthonous. In other words, it allows us to break from the idea that identity, style, culture, and the like exist solely inside bounded corporeal bodies rooted in a singular time and place, and instead to see these aspects as resulting from processes of relational interactions among beings and things across space and through time. Habitus clearly distinguishes practices from any notion of biologically programmed (and implicitly racial/ nationalistic) predeterminations (that is, it is not because you were born with certain DNA that you act in certain ways or produce certain artistic styles). Yet at the same time, the habitus, as inculcated schemes of perception, appreciation, and action, generates commonalities of practical actions (and styles) that grow out of communal relations. The ongoing physical practices of producing and consuming art in particular styles (what I refer to as stylistic practices) embody a particular logic that shapes a field of social action we can understand today as a community. To live in a particular community, and thus to be socialized into its habitus, predisposes one to act in certain ways (and to create certain styles). Thus, we can accept that styles may correspond closely to social communities (though these do not need to be bounded, contiguous, or homogeneous), and at the same time we can recognize shifting across, through, and in between styles as a result of overlapping or intersecting communities of social relations and actions. In essence, this frees us from having to assume a one-to-one relationship between geographic place and artistic style, while allowing that styles do point to social communities of relatedness and belonging in their very demonstration of having been produced through connected or related practices of doing.47 In other 60

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words, I argue that style does not reflect a group identity that lies outside and beyond the material world that we can use stylistic analysis to uncover. Rather, style itself creates linkages and spaces among those who are entangled with it (or are not), through either their production or their appreciation of the style, thereby constituting a central and critical component of community identity.48 What makes style such an effective contributor to the construction of communal identity is its dual and somewhat paradoxical nature of being, on the one hand, almost unconsidered, overlooked, secondary—simply being/existing—while, on the other hand, containing within itself a deep, almost visceral connection to emotive elements.49 A “logic of stylistic practice” along the model of Pierre Bourdieu allows us to see how style participates as a prime element of habitus, a part of a commonsense world of practical experience. Bourdieu speaks, for example, of ritual as being behavior that is “both ‘sensible’ and devoid of sense intention”50 and of the need to produce a theory of what it is to be “ ‘native,’ that is, to be in that relationship of ‘learned ignorance,’ of immediate but unselfconscious understanding which defines the practical relationship to the world.”51 Central to my conceptualization of style as practice is Bourdieu’s notion that the meaning and function of any particular practice may be solely in its doing or its existence. We can engage in the time-honored art historical activity of comparing and contrasting two different works of art in order to appreciate both style’s efficacy and its ability to appear as if simply existing while inculcating itself as natural. I have chosen as an example one of the most commonly illustrated pairs of images used to distinguish between the North Syrian and Phoenician styles of ivory carving: that of the hero slaying a griffin (fig. 2.9).52 In the pair, we can focus exclusively on style (stylistic minutiae)—that is, the manner of making or executing the image53—because both works depict the exact same subject, in the same basic compositional arrangement, using the same material. Through this comparison, the telltale roster of North Syrian versus Phoenician stylistic elements comes to the fore: the squat proportions of the North Syrian versus the elongated ones of the Phoenician; the balanced sense of empty and filled space in the Phoenician versus the bursting feeling of the North Syrian figures that press against the boundaries; the dynamic vitality of the North Syrian versus the static elegance of the Phoenician. Despite the problem of extending this stylistic comparison to all Levantine ivories, as discussed in chapter 1, this example highlights the way in which stylistic difference is heightened through comparison.54 Beyond the list of specific stylistic traits, the side-by-side contrast spotlights the immediate and visceral difference in viewer reaction that each individual set of stylistic traits as a whole generates. In the absence of this comparative contrast, the stylistic impact, while still active and activating, is less obvious to the viewer. This is precisely why the two-image comparison holds such a central 61

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Fig. 2.9 Ivories from Nimrud, Fort Shalmaneser: “Phoenician” (left; SW 37, IM 65360) and “North Syrian” (right; SW 37, MMA 61.197.11) griffin slayers. Baghdad, Iraq Museum, and New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Courtesy of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial).

place in introductory art history classes—it brings into high relief the stylistic elements that often exist as a kind of background noise to those not sensitized to them. In other words, the naturalized and normalized aspect of style—it is taken as simply existing—allows it to insinuate itself unobtrusively among a host of different properties. This is the kind of “learned ignorance” that Bourdieu argues produces a commonsense world that is felt as natural and creates regularized practices without specific awareness. Here, I would like to consider how style operates at the level of “learned ignorance” with respect to community identity.55 This is an identity that is not rooted in any inherent, internal, essential ethnos. Rather, it is either taken on by individuals in their ongoing production and consumption of the style itself or, conversely, rejected or more precisely countered in the production and consumption of different styles. One might postulate that ancient Levantines who engaged with ivories (and other objects such as metalworks), in analogy to the 62

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modern novice art history student, saw primarily the similarities linking together most of the works whose stylistic differences blur across a spectrum, unless sharp contrasting styles were juxtaposed in direct opposition, whereupon they might have more consciously articulated the visual experience of difference. Without such sharp visual differentiations, the presence of style receded from awareness, but was nonetheless still present and taken in as “natural.” In this respect, it is interesting to recall the stylistic diversity among the carved orthostat reliefs set up in Levantine urban centers. At any given site, scholars usually attribute this diversity to chronological development, which in some cases may be accurate though not necessarily in all. Yet even if the stylistic production is viewed in sequential development, stylistic consumption would have occurred with varying degrees of simultaneity. For example, Alessandra Gilibert has recently reconstructed a series of three or four remodelings of the Water Gate at Carchemish, spanning the eleventh through tenth centuries.56 Each remodel is marked by the reuse or introduction of different carved reliefs that exhibit stylistic variation (from which in part the sequence of remodeling has been reconstructed). After the beginning of the ninth century, no further changes appear to have been made, but the gate remained in use throughout the Iron Age occupation of the city, while newer reliefs were installed elsewhere. Thus, someone entering the Water Gate during the tenth century or later experienced a visually defined space of mixed stylistic nature, at least as we today have defined stylistic difference. But as part of a unified architectural entity, would these stylistic variations have stood out? Or would they have been consumed all together and “naturalized” into a normative experience of what it meant to be part of a Levantine city-state? It is precisely through the consumption of styles (a stylistic practice of appreciation that Bourdieu explores as taste) that we can see how style constitutes community identity rather than simply reflects it.57 Within such a construct, crafting and appreciation act as two sides of the same coin, Anthony Cutler’s “collective imagination” cited above. Yet for both crafting and appreciation, there are degrees and variations of engagement. One might at one time be a crafter of one type of work, and at another time be a consumer of something else. Or in one situation, one might consume one sort of artwork, while consuming a rather different one in another situation. We thus should be thinking not in terms of a singular Levantine community identity but rather of numerous, always shifting communities that emerge and recede as different networks of skilled practices form, change, or break down. Such variations in communal identities may be evident in those ivories (and other media) that do not display the particular animal markings in question. While a large number of ivories do feature these, it is by no means all. In addition, as Affanni demonstrates in his study of sphinxes assigned to the Flame and Frond style-group, these markings do not appear to co-occur with a consistent 63

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set of other stylistic traits. In other words, these animal markings appear to be a coherent bundle of stylistic traits that nonetheless can coexist with a variety of other stylistic traits. They appear, therefore, to interconnect with a range of other stylistic minutiae, yet at the same time do not occur everywhere. As proposed in chapter 1, this seems to indicate an interconnected network of varying stylistic practices that could come together (or not) in multiple fluid combinations across the geographic extent of the Levant and over a long period of time. Yet in addition, the specificity of the common, but not absolute, occurrence of a consistent bundle of stylistic features suggests a prominent role for these markings in larger realms of community identity.58 Given that Bourdieu’s notion of habitus obviates the need to determine between conscious and unconscious action, we do not need to be hindered by our inability to determine the degree of intentionality in the deployment of these animal markings. Instead, we can take their presence across time and space as the material embodiment of shared social practices—at both the crafting and the consumption levels—that would have served to constitute realms of collective engagement.

Stylistic Practices in Collective Memory Communities never exist as singular static entities. Rather, they are constantly forming and re-forming through time (as well as through space). Recognizing the temporal dimension to communities brings to the fore aspects of history and collective memory. Similarly, Bourdieu writes, “the habitus—embodied history, internalized as a second nature and so forgotten as history—is the active presence of the whole past of which it is the product.”59 Collective memory can also be seen to comprise a material dimension, and I argue here specifically a material dimension of style. Style, as a materialized practice that is partly constitutive of a habitus, is thus also a prime component that keeps the past alive as embodied history and collective memory. When we see these highly distinctive animal markings as part of the ongoing practices of producing and consuming styles that both derived from and contributed to shared communal identities, their visual connections with earlier artworks become salient in thinking about collective memory in the early first-millennium Levant. All the scholars60 who address the question of origins see earlier precedents for these animal markings in late second-millennium luxury arts. Helene Kantor summarizes this relationship thus: In fact, as already indicated by Barnett, the North Syrian school of ivory carving is a direct descendant of the hybrid Mycenaeanizing Canaanite ivories of the thirteenth to early twelfth century B.C. . . . When details of the animals on the Delos and Mycenaeanizing Megiddo plaques are compared with those of the North Syrian ivories and the Tell Halaf orthostats the patterning is seen 64

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to be well nigh identical despite the passage of three centuries without any known links. In addition to the many features already mentioned, the peculiar flame-shaped markings of the hindquarters so prominent in the North Syrian style of the first millennium can be explained by this genealogy.61

These animal markings are indeed quite distinctive of numerous luxury arts from the Late Bronze Age, and I have argued previously that the luxury arts most frequently exhibiting them (and variations of them) belong to a group of diplomatically entangled prestige goods circulating in a highly structured and formal network of roughly equal rulers.62 The Late Bronze Age examples that show the strongest visual affinities to the first-millennium pieces include a group of incised ivory inlays from Delos in the Aegean, Kition on Cyprus, and Megiddo in the southern Levant—ivories that are so similar in their execution that Kantor and I, following her, have suggested a possible shared source of production for them.63 Examples showing a more modeled version of the markings appear in ivory (and in monumental sculpture on the famous Lion Gate)64 at Mycenae, in an ivory plaque from Byblos, and in an ivory pyxis from Lachish; from Enkomi, ivory mirror handles depicting a figure slaying a griffin and an ivory game box (both modeled and incised) also exemplify this version.65 Slightly less comparable markings are found on a gold dagger sheath, gold chariot appliqués, and a gold-and-inlaid bow case from the tomb of Tutankhamun, a silver dish and jug from Tell Basta in lower Egypt, an ivory strip from Delos, and ivory tabletop inlays and a gold bowl from Ras Shamra-Ugarit in Syria.66 If style can be seen as a physical embodiment of social practice, how should we account for continuity of style despite what appears to be a fairly radical break in social practice (among many other things) between the Late Bronze and Iron Ages? In other words, we need to query this continuity, rather than simply accept it as the obvious or logical outcome of artistic evolution, since there must have been quite different conditions of production and consumption (that is, of social practice) between these two periods. To do so is, in effect, to return to the question of the efficacy of style in social life. Bourdieu’s notions of practical logic and the habitus as embodied history pair well with notions of collective memory and the centrality of art and artistic styles in generating, maintaining, and transforming these memories. We can move, thus, from a more abstracted concept of style as collective memory to one specific, formal manifestation of style—the animal markings—and ask what a close stylistic analysis of the pieces might tell us about at least one community of practitioners in the early first-millennium-BCE Levant. This one particular stylistic case contributed to emerging Iron Age identities, not just through the production of a shared community of general practical knowledge, but more precisely through the production of a shared community of specific practical knowledge tied to the earlier Late Bronze Age. The stylistic continuity exhibited on a 65

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number of first-millennium Levantine ivories, therefore, can be understood as part of the logic of stylistic practice within collective memory. The idea that such a thing as collective memory exists is largely credited to the early twentieth-century French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, who trained with and developed the ideas of Emile Durkheim.67 Halbwachs argues that memory is never wholly internal and individual, but rather is shaped by interactions with other people and things. His theory rests on the basic premise that “social frameworks” bind groups together. These frameworks (cadres), which can be fluctuating and overlapping, rely on—indeed are generated by— objects that serve as a means and repository by which networks of people find commonalities that allow them to relate to one another. In this way, objects and physical settings both reflect and construct social frameworks. The social historian Paul Connerton, in the 1980s, applied Halbwachs’s theories to historical periods (in particular, the French Revolution), examining commemorative and/or ritual performances as a primary means of conveying and sustaining social memory. He notes that because knowledge of the past is only possible through a knowledge of its traces, the performative aspects are most effective when they involve material objects, which provide images of permanence and stability.68 Moreover, participation in ceremonial activities, which almost always involves human-object interactions, enacts and ensures membership in a group. Connerton makes the distinction between so-called inscribed versus incorporated practices. Inscribed practices entail highly self-conscious acts of identity expression; incorporated practices belong more to the realm of habit and custom. However, as we have seen in the discussion of Bourdieu’s theory of practice, these two types of practices need not be mutually exclusive or even identifiable as distinct from each other. Rather, we might consider memorymaking practices to span a gradual spectrum from inscribed to incorporated, with most acts embodying degrees of both. While Halbwachs’s, Connerton’s, and other sociologically oriented scholarship identify a role for material objects within acts of collective memory making, it rarely devotes detailed study to the objects themselves.69 However, archaeologists have taken up this question recently, considering the ways in which ancient peoples viewed their own pasts as part of their social memory. Looking specifically at the idiosyncrasies of archaeological data, for example, Ruth Van Dyke and Susan Alcock in the introduction to their edited volume Ar­ chaeologies of Memory outline four intersecting venues in which archaeology can access collective memory: ritual behaviors, narratives, places, and objects and representations. Ritual behaviors may be archaeologically accessible through the material dimensions of burials, feasts, or ceremonies. Narratives include stories about the past that may be codified in written form, while commemorative places are spaces inscribed with meaning, often through the erection of 66

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monuments, buildings, and landscapes. In discussing objects and representations, Van Dyke and Alcock remark on their typically commemorative function, which offers a graphic, nonlinguistic access to the past. Collective memory for this category is approached through either a study of images understood as laden with significant referential meaning, often called iconography, or physical entities with life histories, whose trajectories chart constructions of memory through their patterns of use and exchange.

Late Bronze Age Memories in the Early Iron Age The question of collective memory in the Iron Age Levant has witnessed a growth of inquiry in recent years, primarily concentrated on the large-scale and the iconographic—monumental arts, architecture, and landscapes. These studies provide a background and complement to my discussion here on the small-scale and the stylistic. The transition from the Bronze to the Iron Ages, occurring around 1200–1100 BCE, remains debated both in terms of specific causes and in terms of the degree of continuity and disruption between the two periods. Consensus appears to be forming along a middle ground, with some strong elements of cultural continuity, especially in the northern Levantine/ North Syrian region, that nonetheless exist in radically changed sociopolitical and economic structures.70 We might consider the case of the animal markings in this light. Major changes at the political and economic levels, highlighted by the destruction of Hattusa and the collapse of the Hittite state as well as the retreat of Assyrian and Egyptian territorial aspirations, laid the groundwork for new social identities across the greater Levant. However, “cultural” ties to the preceding Late Bronze Age, what might be understood as social practices, operated within the new political and economic landscape to contribute in varying ways to these emerging community identities. We thus see a complex interplay between collective memory (understood as cultural continuity) and new material forms of social identity. What is of particular interest are the specific ways in which these processes unfold, and especially the specific Late Bronze Age allusions that appear when and where they do. What had been considered a “dark age”—the twelfth through the tenth and into the ninth centuries—is now seen as a period in which the greater northern Levantine region benefited from the sudden autonomy and decentralization created by the collapse of the Hittite state, which had previously controlled this area.71 Sporadic finds of Levantine luxury goods at least as early as the mid-tenth century in distant places such as Lefkandi and Athens in Greece indicate occasional, if not sustained, interactions with a wide, multicultural network.72 On a political level, the region is characterized by numerous city-states of varying size and influence, a veritable latticework of “peer polities.”73 Such a network sparked intense competition for territory and resources among the Levantine 67

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states themselves.74 With the collapse of the great Bronze Age states—Hatti in particular, but also the retrenchment of Egypt and Assyria—economic and political structures in the Levant disappeared, creating, on the one hand, greater opportunities for growth but, on the other hand, also conflict and competition.75 Paradoxically, the same material evidence points to both phenomena. The wealth of resources seen in monumental building projects at places like Carchemish, Zincirli, and elsewhere points to the growth in economic opportunities at the level of ruler and elite. Conflict and competition, however, are revealed in evidence of non-Assyrian destructions and iconoclasm at places like Tell Tayinat that have been interpreted as intra-Levantine warfare, and in the historically attested territorial conquests of Haza’el of Damascus in the ninth century.76 Yet what is remarkable is the degree of cultural cohesion across all the citystates despite the competition. Indeed, the very act of erecting large-scale building projects whose outer surfaces acquire a rich veneer of carved relief has become the primary criterion by which modern scholars circumscribe the regional entity of “North Syria.”77 Our scholarly discernment of a shared cultural environment (in architecture and ornament) has mapped a “cultural zone” onto a geography that lacks ethno-linguistic homogeneity. These cultural norms and practices, such as constructing monumental architecture and carved reliefs, provided a framework in which (and a metric against which) the individual city-states could compete with one another. Indeed, it is within this context of autonomy and competition that several scholars have recently implicated the carved reliefs, their architectural settings, and the urban settlements themselves in processes of tradition building in the northern Levantine region in the wake of the Bronze Age collapse.78 The placement of the carved orthostats in the urban landscape contributed to new collective identities as part of a social memory of “place.”79 In contrast to Assyrian reliefs, which decorated interior spaces, northern Levantine reliefs were placed mainly on exterior walls, typically in public places of gathering, performance, and celebration that relate to ritual behavior. For example at Carchemish, complex ceremonies relating to kingship have been reconstructed as taking place in public spaces decorated by the carved reliefs.80 Additionally, the prevalence of using orthostat decorations at city gates—as liminal sites of performance related to social practices such as trade and justice—reinforces their participation in practices of collective memory making. Gates were also associated with the royal ancestor cult, often expressed through the presence of a statue of a royal ancestor to whom offerings could be made, bringing together a performative dimension with clear interest in the past.81 Gilibert notes that the combination of monumental architecture (which remains physically accessible but recedes from view with familiarity) and public ceremonies (which engage collectives

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through their immediacy but tend to fade once finished) “crystallizes in them retrospective as well as prospective collective memories.”82 It is the interdependence of the past with the future that is critical here and that we can see in the production of carved architectural reliefs during the early Iron Age. A tradition of monumental architecture embellished with stone orthostats stretches back to the Middle Bronze Age period. At Ebla, stone orthostats lined the lower part of the walls forming the chamber of an imposing gate to the lower city.83 Slightly later, but also dating to the Middle Bronze Age, the level VII palace at Alalakh (the so-called Yarim-Lim palace) contained several rooms whose walls were clad in uncarved basalt orthostats.84 During the Late Bronze Age, the practice was adopted by the Hittites and expanded to include carved reliefs and gate figures; these appear in Hittite sites, but also are found as far south as Hazor.85 The Temple of the Storm God at Aleppo exemplifies this long tradition; the interior of its cella contains an ongoing assemblage of carved reliefs dating to the middle of the second millennium or even earlier and extending down into the Iron Age.86 At the Hittite sites we see the shift from internal embellishment to external, best illustrated by the reliefs outside the gateway at Alaca Höyük.87 Thus, throughout the greater Levantine region we can clearly chart a tradition that reaches far back into the second millennium. Yet what we see happening in the early Iron Age is more than just a continuity of this tradition. It represents a radical increase in the sheer quantity of carved reliefs and sculpture and an insistence on public ceremony and display over and above that of the Bronze Age. We must see here, therefore, the shaping and redirecting of a tradition into new forms that, on the one hand, acquire a legitimacy from their derivation from tradition, but on the other hand, cast forward and create new traditions (prospective collective memory). The durative aspect of monuments and artworks means that an object made in the present lasts into the future. Those objects that draw on the past in their constitution therefore affect how the past will interact with the future. Textual evidence has now shown that real dynastic ties linked some of the new ruling elite of the Iron Age with the former Hittite Empire. Impressions from the site of Lidar Höyük name a late Hittite Empire king of Carchemish, Kuzi-Teshub, who represents the fifth generation of a line descended from the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I (1350–1322).88 He in turn is named as an ancestor in the inscriptions of two kings of the Iron Age city-state based at Malatya, providing clear evidence of dynastic continuity from the Hittite Empire period into the early Iron Age.89 Yet this textual evidence is important not just in its role as historical documentation, but also in indicating the conscious effort that the early Iron Age rulers of some Levantine city-states undertook to publicly proclaim their kinship with the defunct Hittite Empire and their desire to promote

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this particular ancestry.90 The two inscriptions of kings from Malatya are on large public monuments. One from Ispekçür (early eleventh century BCE) is a stele carved on three sides with depictions of the ruler (Arnuwanti, “the grandson”), his grandfather (Arnuwanti, grandson of the Hero Kuzi-Teshub), and his grandmother; the other is a rock relief from Gürün (late twelfth century BCE).91 The public expression of affiliation with the earlier Hittite state is further evident in the use of the Luwian hieroglyphic writing system for these and other monumental display inscriptions. Like the use of monumental carved reliefs in public spaces, the use of hieroglyphic Luwian constructs a link to the past. However, John Hawkins dates all the attributable hieroglyphic Luwian stone inscriptions from the Hittite Empire to the very end of the period, to the last three generations of rulers in the thirteenth century, indicating that the early Iron Age choice of hieroglyphic Luwian as a monumental display script was not rooted in a particularly deep past.92 While proffering a link to the Late Bronze Age past, in fact these inscriptions, which are significantly more numerous and geographically spread out than their Bronze Age referents, relate more closely to one another than to their predecessors. It is therefore worth asking not just whether continuities occurred but also why and in what way. We have already seen the tapping into of two specific Bronze Age traditions—architectural reliefs and Hittite dynastic kinship—and the ways in which the later iterations alluded to but nevertheless were distinct from the earlier ones. We can consider similar elements in the case of the works bearing the particular set of animal patterning in question here. In both the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age, these animal patterns occur on objects of highvalue material such as ivory and precious metal. Both periods also have unique instances of their appearance on the large scale in carved relief: on the Lion Gate at Mycenae in the Late Bronze Age and the Tell Halaf reliefs from the Iron Age.93 The markings appear in similar compositional contexts in the two periods, with particular frequency in episodic animal combat scenes. In both periods, their archaeological contexts can be associated with the highest echelons of the sociopolitical world, especially those connected to palatial power (as opposed to temple ritual). However, the frequencies of occurrence are quite different from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age. Far greater numbers of objects bearing these markings are found in the Iron Age, as compared with the quite limited number of examples from the Late Bronze Age. This corresponds to a general explosion in the quantity of luxury items during the later period.

Continuity, Rediscovery, or Invention? If we can see a connection between the first-millennium Levantine animalstyle ivories and the earlier Late Bronze Age, are we to understand it to be a continuity of practice, or a rediscovery of one? Must we determine the level of 70

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awareness of the past (that is, how the past was viewed in the past) in order to propose some aspect of meaningfulness in this relationship? Jan Assmann notes that a clear distinction between old and new (that is, past and present) comes clearly into view only when a written text is in a language that is no longer used, so that it is seen as distinctively other.94 This raises an intriguing, but I hope to show ultimately moot, point when we consider the issue of style and collective memory: if the stylistic traits that characterize the so-called animal style belong to a collective memory drawing on the Late Bronze Age, how are we to understand the Iron Age reception of this style—was it “old,” “new,” or simply existing? Related to this is the question of whether the animal style represents a continuity of practice from the Late Bronze Age down through the Iron Age, or was it rediscovered and in a sense reinvented? The answer to this second question, which should reside in an empirical enumeration of either continuity or break, is complicated by the general thinness of our evidence from the so-called Dark Ages marking the transition from Late Bronze to Iron Ages. The murkiness of this transition is beginning to come into better focus with recent archaeological discoveries, such as the stamp seal from Lidar Höyük and the excavations at the Aleppo Citadel that establish direct links to the Late Bronze Age, although this does not appear to negate the radically transformative character of the Late Bronze–Iron Age transition.95 Likewise, we are confronted by the lack of evidence for the social spheres in which these objects participated in the early Iron Age Levant, because the overwhelming majority of pieces was excavated in extra-Levantine contexts, in particular the imperial storerooms of Assyria. Of those collections of ivories that were found in the Levant, several derive from contexts that date to times of Assyrian administrative control and thus are not indicative of their social situation prior to Assyrian annexation. The ivories from Arslan Tash and Til Barsip fall into this category.96 The ivories found at Samaria, although associated with the Omrid period palace, were in fact recovered from a later, mixed context that unfortunately provides little evidence for pre-Assyrian use or reception.97 From the pre-Assyrian period, therefore, come only a handful of ivories—notably at Tell Halaf, Hama, and Zincirli.98 Yet in the few instances in which we can investigate the social situation of ivories in an indigenous Levantine context, the ivories are consistently associated with the ruling dynasty, either through their presence on furnishings found in or near major reception buildings on the citadels (at Zincirli and Hama) or in a special burial setting related to ancestor/ dynasty cult (at Halaf). The occurrence of the distinctive animal markings on  reliefs from the Temple-Palace at Tell Halaf reinforces the association with the ruling dynasty, regardless of whether we see the stylistic practices of the reliefs as deriving from the ivories (as argued by Irene Winter). By their very adoption and physical presence on the exterior of the main building of authority at the site, they acquire a relationship with this power. In contrast, the presence of 71

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these markings on a lion rendered in a terra-cotta mold found at Zincirli tells us little about the social context of the object that might have been produced from the mold.99 However, it does suggest the production of either metal or glass objects bearing such patterning. Overall, then, the specific material of ivory and the cross-media use of the stylistic practice of marking animals in the distinctive manner described above can be closely associated with the highest levels of power and authority in preAssyrian Levant. Such an interpretation is further cemented by the massive quantities of these very materials among the hoarded wealth of the Assyrian Empire and the recurring reference to such items in the lists of tribute and booty recorded as taken from the rulers of these city-states.100 We can, therefore, locate processes of collective memory in this particular instance at the highest level of city-state elite. Yet regardless of whether we see continuity or rediscovery, if we take the Iron Age chronological horizon as an unfolding process of selecting through practice certain traits over and over again through at least several generations during that period, we return to confront the first question regarding an ancient perception of “pastness.” This question of reception verges on territory similar to artistic intentionality, discussed earlier in this chapter. Like artistic intentionality, it requires us to make impossible evaluations about ancient perceptions that must always have been multiple and in flux. However, more critical to my consideration than the irretrievability of such perceptions (for that in and of itself would not justify ignoring them) is the theoretical support provided by Pierre Bourdieu’s practice theory, in which the selection choices evident in the execution of a style, regardless of how made or received in any one specific instance, simultaneously become a part of and constitute the habitus, and it is this habitus that intersects with collective memory (again, regardless of whether this collective memory is openly articulated or internally normalized). What can be understood as central components of identity—what Bourdieu calls “schemes of perception, appreciation, and action”—tend to lie outside the realm of self-reflexivity, but at the same time underlie all thought and practice. Moreover, these schemata are self-perpetuating through the actions and discourses generated by the very schemata themselves.101 In this way, continuity can be seen to be both of critical import (not just an insignificant detail) and potentially to lie outside the realm of intended causality. More important, regardless of whether traditions continued without stop from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age or whether they were rediscovered and reinstituted, the new social, political, and economic situation of the Iron Age would have altered the ways in which these traditions were understood by the different Iron Age populations. For this reason, we can see the Iron Age echoes of Late Bronze Age features as part of the ongoing invention of tradition, with constantly shifting meanings and effects.102 72

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Remembering a Golden Age Indeed, the comparisons and contrasts between the assemblages of the Late Bronze animal markings and those from the Iron Age suggest a rather more complicated relationship to the Late Bronze Age past than simply continuing a tradition. The Iron Age works displaying these animal markings appear to be drawing from a rarefied set of stylistic practices, but perhaps lessening their potency by increasing the numbers. I would argue here that a consideration of these stylistic practices from the perspective of processes of collective memory and community identity production helps to make better sense of this continuity. It is, therefore, within a framework of generating collective memory in a pan-Levantine environment of emerging sociopolitical identities that I propose to situate the specific body markings of Helene Kantor’s “North Syrian animal style” and Georgina Herrmann’s “Flame and Frond style-group.” Just as the hereditary lineages and carved reliefs drew on the Bronze Age in order to bolster the competing claims of the various emerging city-states (and, at the same time, provided a pan-regional means of group identification), so Bronze Age stylistic practices were curated, passed on, and/or taken up as a deep-seated affiliation with the past. Style and stylistic continuity thus need to be viewed not as empty practices of making but rather as the evocative material presence of form, passed on through practice, that in its very being connects back to a Bronze Age past. The stylistic connections are simultaneously eminently tangible yet easily overlooked, generating an effective emotive link with the past. It is, however, the specific Bronze Age tradition of diplomatic courtliness that resides latent in the animal patterning and that provides us with a more nuanced view of the way in which collective memories were mobilized in the early Iron Age Levant. For the Late Bronze Age artworks in which we see this same distinct set of animal patterning, I have suggested elsewhere that the visual motifs, compositions, and idioms of execution (under which rubric I have previously classified these animal markings) all participated in and actively contributed to the formation and maintenance of an exclusive royal network based on a metaphor of brotherhood and reciprocity.103 The bundled elements of the artistic corpus that I have termed an international artistic koiné operated within a highly formulaic diplomatic network, which fashioned itself as a collective of powerful but equal Great Kings occupying the thrones of Egypt, Babylonia, Mitanni, Alashiya (Cyprus), Hatti, and Assyria.104 In terms of the discussion here, we might say that these idiomatic ways of doing engendered the identification of a small number of culturally and politically different kings with one another during the Late Bronze Age. Because aesthetic tastes are central to social position and power relations, participation in the network of production and appreciation of hybridized luxury arts served an important function within the delicate diplomatic games of the time.105 I suggest, therefore, that it is not by chance that this 73

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set of patterning sees such widespread practice in the Iron Age; the collective memory constituted by these artworks contained within it a courtly past tied to great powers. The courtly aspect of the Iron Age artworks (at a “cultural” level), however, ran counter to the “reality” of the situation at the economic and political levels. In the transition from the Bronze to Iron Ages (including the so-called Dark Ages, circa 1200–900 BCE), the Mediterranean and Near East underwent a radical transformation from a tightly controlled, internationally balanced palace system based on prestige to an array of decentralized and entrepreneurial endeavors involving mercantilism, colonization, and ultimately Assyria’s imperial expansion. With the collapse of the centralized and monopolizing powers of the Late Bronze Age international network, the region experienced extensive political and economic (and probably social and cultural) fragmentation that somewhat paradoxically presented rich opportunities for regeneration, particularly for the smaller city-states of the Levant. What emerged were more naked forms of interaction, in which courtly exchanges took a backseat to less veiled activities, namely, mercantilism and imperialism (both of which had existed in the Late Bronze Age but had been rhetorically minimized by the period’s unique balance of power). As the integrated organization of the Late Bronze Age gave way to less centralized economies, a greater degree of separation between the political and commercial realms resulted. Yet while the sociopolitics of the early Iron Age took increasingly “crass” forms, cultural production across the many regions points to strategies for the active creation and deployment of a courtly and heroic past. Such concern with the past appears across the eastern Mediterranean and Near East, for example, in the codification (through writing) of the epic poems of Homer and Hesiod in Greek, Cypriot, and Etruscan traditions that provide “mythologizations” of Homeric origins; the biblical narrative of the rise of kingship in Israel (1 and 2 Samuel); and the archaizing tendencies of the late dynasties in Egypt.106 A particularly powerful example of this concern can be seen in the assemblage of a Mesopotamian “literary canon” in Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh. The collection of tablets found in the nineteenth century at Kuyunjik, the citadel of Nineveh, illustrates the interests of the seventh-century Assyrian ruler in assembling and curating a literary past.107 All these cultural sources speak to an active engagement with the past, which contributed to collective memories built on the concept of a heroic golden age, albeit varying regionally in both form and specific purpose.108 Ashurbanipal’s library stands as a literal and literary creation that was both a continuation of and a monument to the past. For the Assyrians, this collection and collation of knowledge in the form of clay tablets connected them to the great heroic pasts of southern Mesopotamia (Sumer and Akkad and later Babylonia), such as the Old Akkadian Empire (circa 2350–2100

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BCE). Literary works offer an evocative power to construct narratives about the “past” that resonate in the “present” and that normalize “history” and “tradition” through collective memories.109 Visual arts, in contrast, mediate human relations and collective memory through nonverbal cues, which rather than explicitly articulate, instead allude to and embody the “past.” I propose that many Iron Age arts, including those exhibiting the animal markings, played off the Late Bronze Age arts, visually and materially manifesting in the “present” a connection to a “golden past” through the selection of properties connoting aspects of heroic kingship. In addition, these artistic constructs counterbalanced the increasing dominance of commercialism, ethnolinguistic balkanization, and expanding imperialism that characterized the new economic and political realities of the time. Winter, in a discussion of the Homeric construction of a “Phoenician” ethnic type, compares the culture of eighth- and seventh-century BCE Greece (during which the polis was becoming established as the dominant sociopolitical force) with that of twelfth-century CE Europe.110 She draws on a study of medieval chivalric romance literature by Eugene Vance111 (who in turn draws on Hesiod) to argue that Homer “seems to ignore the social developments congruent with the trends of his own times. . . . However . . . he is in fact reinforcing those developments by a complex rhetorical strategy: transforming the aggressions of a former warrior elite into vicarious nostalgia, and in fact disempowering the ‘hero’ while simultaneously elevating him rhetorically.”112 Yet it might not be a disempowering of the heroic that is evinced in these manifestations of earlier mores among the quite new norms of the “present.” It might instead signal a perceived need to preserve and reinforce that which was sensed to be most threatened. It is within these multiple intersecting and overlapping economic, social, political, and cultural frameworks that I understand the perpetuation and proliferation of the animal patterning found among the Iron Age Levantine ivories (and elsewhere). These luxury arts participated in processes of building collective memory and community identity through the construction of a golden age (or ages), and they did so through the ongoing material practices of style, motifs, compositions, object types, materials, and technologies that were freighted with Late Bronze Age connotations of heroic kingship. Here, I have concentrated on stylistic practices, because these have received the least attention in recent scholarship. Late Bronze Age luxury arts circulated within a context of a shared ideal of courtliness, in which proper etiquette was paramount. An extraordinary balance of power among the Late Bronze Age states supported this ideal, founded on a rhetoric of heroic kingship, and the Late Bronze Age luxury arts served as a critical component in this construct. The popularity of Late Bronze Age forms in the Iron Age Levant largely depended on their prior level of prestige, which became associated with a heroic past. Moreover, the ap-

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peal of these associations gained in direct proportion to the perceived absence of such qualities within the Iron Age world, which was coming to be dominated by increasing mercantilism and imperialism. The economic, social, and political frameworks within which the Iron Age luxury arts (and literatures) circulated are both relevant and necessary for understanding the stylistic properties of these works. Assyria’s expanding imperialism in the Levant and the growing mercantile networks and colonies in the Mediterranean contributed to both increased cultural contacts and, at the same time, heightened intercultural tensions. The separation and/or asymmetry between the political and commercial realms expressed in the first millennium, in contrast to their intricate intertwining and reciprocity (at a rhetorical register of discourse if not in actual practice) in the Late Bronze Age, eventually led to a newly emergent concept of community identity (that we perceive as ethnic in nature). This might be seen, for example, in the self-differentiation of the Greek poleis, as well as the various Aramaean, Luwian, and Phoenician city-states in the Levant, over the course of the first few centuries of the new millennium. Several aspects of the Iron Age luxury arts, when compared to their Late Bronze Age counterparts, reveal the new political and economic situation. These include their greater quantity, their wider geographic distribution, and their experimentation outside standardized forms. Even from among the range of motifs used at the elite level during the Late Bronze Age, during the Iron Age there is a strong bias toward Late Bronze Age forms associated with heroic kingship (seen, for example, in contest scenes between men and mythological beasts and between lions, bulls, and griffins) rather than those that might be associated with mercantilism or imperialism. However, in contrast, the Iron Age corpus is considerably larger than its predecessor, suggestive of a less exclusive access to materials and/or knowledge and skills. It also includes more idiosyncratic motifs and compositions, whose lack of standardization suggests less social or political cohesion. A comparison with Late Bronze Age findspots suggests a wider and more diversified set of archaeological contexts during the later period. These include tombs, palaces, and sanctuaries across a diverse cultural spectrum, such as the Assyrian arsenal at Nimrud, pan-Hellenic sanctuaries in Greece, and wealthy tombs in Etruria. All these suggest a larger dissemination of the artworks among a less coherent network of consumers than had been the case during the Late Bronze Age. These items appear to have circulated more broadly, possibly with fewer constraints imposed on the “members” of this network. Likewise, production of these luxury goods appears in general to have been less controlled (less standardized/centralized), which fits well with the entrepreneurial bent of the period. Yet their reliance on, or even active creation of, a courtly and heroic past helped to elide or obfuscate commercial and imperial interests that dominated the Iron Age.

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Conclusions The continuity of Late Bronze Age stylistic traits such as the animal markings under study here can, therefore, be understood to perpetuate a shared collective memory of at least one community of Iron Age practitioners who tied themselves to the Late Bronze Age, despite so many other aspects of what we could consider the habitus that do not. This connection to a Late Bronze Age world of diplomacy and courtly luxury lies latent in the first-millennium animal-style ivories, which participated in a complex set of identity negotiation and competition during the early years of the Iron Age’s new sociopolitical realities. Drawing on a past set of physical, visual, and stylistic features, these artworks evoke a heroic past; in their material instantiation of this heroic past, they extend the past through the present and into the future, thereby creating a durative affectiveness regardless of real or invented continuities. Along this temporal continuum, a chronological aspect can perhaps be more precisely articulated. Winter cites Kantor’s association of North Syrian–style ivories with so-called second-millennium Cypro-Mycenaean ivories (for example, the Late Bronze Age Enkomi game board and a first-millennium North Syrian–style pyxis from Nimrud, or the griffin slayer on ivory mirror handles from Enkomi and North Syrian–style griffin slayers) in order to suggest this pedigree as a stylistic distinction between North Syrian and Phoenician ivories.113 However, given the conclusions of chapter 1, in which I suggest that this stylistic distinction might have less to do with geographic separation and perhaps more with a chronological one, might there be some other interpretation to draw from this visual connection? Winter has argued that the North Syrian style flourished in the ninth and eighth centuries, while the Phoenician predominated in the eighth and seventh centuries.114 If both these styles have more to do with temporality than geographic separateness, then the fact that most of the works bearing this particular set of animal markings are in a style generally classified as North Syrian places these works earlier in the Iron Age (ninth– eighth century or even earlier). Perhaps, then, the earlier date of these works signals a stronger connection to a Late Bronze Age past in the centuries immediately following the Bronze Age collapse than later (a suggestion that intuitively seems not too surprising). But this may also suggest a stronger attachment to the Late Bronze Age in these earlier periods when there is more instability and fracturing of past linkages. Indeed for the Levant, the eleventh through ninth centuries can be seen in analogous fashion to Winter’s proposal for eighth/seventh century Greece and Vance’s for twelfth-century CE Europe. As time goes on, traditions become more rigidly established and ethno-linguistic identities seem to harden, while the attachment to the Late Bronze Age weakens. According to this reconstruction, the appearance and domination of the

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Phoenician style in the eighth century (which now might be disassociated from a strictly bounded ethno-linguistic geographic entity tied to the central Levantine littoral) should signal the embodiment of new social practices within and across the Levantine region. What might have been a catalyst for their emergence during this period? An obvious answer is the increasing consolidation of the Assyrian state as an imperial entity, a process that was never cut and dried or strictly linear, but culminated during the second half of the eighth century with Tiglath-Pileser III’s centralization reforms. We can turn to Assyria in the next chapter to examine how style and stylistic practices generated quite different results in the process of community formation within a context of imperial territorial expansion.

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Plate 1 Ivory plaque from Arslan Tash. Paris, Musée du Louvre, AO11465. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

Plate 2 Ivory from Well NN, Northwest Palace, Nimrud. Baghdad, Iraq Museum, IM 56643; in G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, no. 348. Photograph: Scala / Art Resource, NY.

Plate 3 Engraved tridacna shell from Rhodes, Greece. Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum, inv. 63/38a. Courtesy of the Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe.

Plate 4 Stone cosmetic palette from the Amman Citadel, Jordan, seventh–sixth centuries BCE. Amman Archaeological Museum. After Philip 1991, fig. 107. Reproduced courtesy of the Department of Antiquities, Jordan.

Plate 5 Ivory plaque of lioness mauling an African, Well NN, Northwest Palace, Nimrud (ND 2548). In G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 256b. London, The British Museum, BM 127412. De Agostini Picture Library / G. Dagli Orti / The Bridgeman Art Library; DGA 569559.

Plate 7 Detail of Ashurbanipal (668–627 BCE) reclining on a couch in a garden, Room S′, North Palace, Nineveh. London, The British Museum. Photograph: Werner Forman / Art Resource, NY. Plate 6 Ivory griffin, SW 37, Fort Shalmaneser, Nimrud (ND 10501). In G. Herrmann 1986, no. 561. Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library; FIT 282737.

Plate 8 Bronze bowl naming Abipat , Northwest ˙ Palace, Nimrud, diameter 19.3 cm. London, The British Museum, BM N 19. © The Trustees of the British Museum. Photograph courtesy of Dr. Nigel Tallis.

Plate 10 Silver bowl naming Epiorwos, son of Dies, from the Treasure of Kourion, diameter 15.4 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 74.51.4552. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY.

Plate 9 Gold bowl inscribed for Yaba, Queens’ Tomb II, Nimrud, diameter 17.7 cm. Baghdad, Iraq Museum, IM 105697. Photograph courtesy of Georgina Herrmann.

Plate 11 Gilt silver bowl naming Akestor and Timokretes from the Treasure of Kourion, diameter 16.8 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 74.51.4554. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY.

Plate 12 Silver bowl from the Treasure of Kourion, diameter 17.5 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 74.51.4557. Image copyright © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY.

Plate 13 Silver bowl naming Eshmun-ya’ad, son of Ashto, Bernardini Tomb, Praeneste, Italy, diameter 19 cm. Rome, Museo di Villa Giulia, inv. no. 61574. Photograph courtesy of the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria Meriodonale.

Plate 14 Silver bowl from Pontecagnano, Italy, diameter 19 cm. Paris, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. Collection Dutuit, inv. no. ADUT00170. Copyright: © Patrick Pierrain / Petit Palais / Roger-Viollet.

Plate 15 Gold vessel inscribed for Yaba, Queens’ Tomb II, Nimrud, diameter 17.7 cm. Baghdad, Iraq Museum, IM 105694. Photograph courtesy of Georgina Herrmann.

Plate 16 Reconstruction of ivory-inlaid chair gamma, Tomb 79, Salamis, Cyprus. Nicosia, Cyprus Museum. Photograph courtesy of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus.

Plate 17a, b Ivory à jour plaques, Tomb 79, Salamis, Cyprus. Nicosia, Cyprus Museum. Photograph courtesy of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus.

Plate 18 Reconstruction of ivory-inlaid bed, Tomb 79, Salamis, Cyprus. Nicosia, Cyprus Museum. Photograph courtesy of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus.

Plate 19 Detail of corner pieces of headboard of bed, Tomb 79, Salamis, Cyprus. Nicosia, Cyprus Museum. After Karageorghis 1973, plate d. Reproduced courtesy of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus.

Plate 20 Bronze cauldron with griffin and siren attachments, Tomb 79, Salamis, Cyprus. Nicosia, Cyprus Museum. Photograph: Gianni Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY.

CHAPTER 3Chapter Three

Creating Assyria in Its Own Image

I

f we are to accept that communities extend from, intertwine with, and network around artistic styles, and that we can therefore chart a fluidity and

flexibility of communities in the early first-millennium Levant, what are we to make of supremely homogenized and standardized stylistic traits, such as those considered quintessentially Assyrian? With respect to Pharaonic Egypt, John Baines has suggested that stylistic standardization points to administrative centralization,1 and it seems easy to link the Assyrian style in a related way, to a strongly centralized Assyrian administration. Yet the “Assyrian style” appears almost fully formed by at least the period of Ashurnasirpal II in the mid-ninth century, when Assyria remained a relatively small state at the outset of its imperial ambitions. Indeed, it is not until the mid-eighth century, under the rule of Tiglath-Pileser III, that one can speak of an Assyrian Empire with a strong, centralized administration. Rather, I propose in this chapter that practicing an Assyrian style, set in clear distinction from the stylistic practices of the communities with which Assyria came in contact, helped to bolster efforts at state 79

consolidation as a community of culturally conversant courtiers. In effect, I suggest that the enactment of a consistently coherent set of stylistic practices contributed to a sense of community at the level of the Assyrian court, and that this performance of rigid stylistic homogenization was set in clear distinction from the diversity and flexibility of communities in the Levant, an area with which the Assyrian state had long-standing relations. I begin by articulating the traits that have defined an Assyrian state style for several generations of Near Eastern scholars, considering aspects of homogeneity across media, technique, scale, and context.2 While I could include architecture among this corpus—it too follows highly standardized models3—I leave it to the side and focus on objects containing figurative imagery. The term style, as has already been discussed in previous chapters, is notoriously elastic, stretching to include minutiae of specific details, larger sets of forms, and entire compositions. In my consideration of an Assyrian style, I concentrate at the end of the spectrum relating to small details of execution and the rendering of basic forms, rather than on aspects of composition, which become more closely entangled with narrative and iconography. It is at this level of minutiae that we can see the incredible homogeneity of Assyrian style, unlike composition and narrative, which exhibit chronological changes and idiosyncrasies. This is not to say that the Assyrian style showed no development over the course of its history. Instead, I emphasize here those elements that remained constant and that in many ways visually dominate the aspects that change, such as composition, providing Assyrian art with its clear sense of Assyrianness. One particular case study—images of seized foreign items—highlights what I call the “oppositional” nature of the Assyrian style. That is, it is a style that defines itself chiefly in contrast to others, in sharp distinction from the multitude of intersecting stylistic interconnections found among the contemporary polities of the Levant. I argue that the strong, coherent, and consistent style produced by the Assyrian state was not simply the expression of a growing empire; rather, it was part of a strategy for maintaining a memory of conquest over the vanquished Other, at the same time neutralizing the Other so it could no longer threaten Assyria. I approach style as one mode of engaging with and representing the Other, and argue that the stylistic rendering of the Other in a consistent manner across Assyrian court arts renders the Other powerless while showcasing the memory of its capture. What is particularly intriguing in this case study is the way in which non-Assyrian things, peoples, and even gods, while retaining motival marks of their otherness, become Assyrianized stylistically within Assyrian arts meant to be consumed by the Assyrian court elite. Thus, paradoxically, the rendering of otherness acted to establish norms of “being (royal) Assyrian” through a process of stylistic Assyrianization that emptied the Other of its own stylistic identity. Here, I use the term Assyrianization in a somewhat atypical way.4 Instead of applying the term to an undefined, agent80

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less process that acts on non-Assyrian peoples, I see Assyrianization as a set of social engagements (particularly through artistic style) by which individuals came to identify themselves, at least in some part, with a community identity connected with the centralized state of Assyria. I do not presuppose any “original” identity that may have preceded an Assyrian identity, or any echt-Assyrian identity that served as source. Rather, I see these engagements as critically participative in the formation of a “native” Assyrian identity at the level of the court elite. With this in mind, I would like to explore a further component of the Assyrian style—that of order and control. The controlled and orderly nature of the Assyrian style, seen in the precision of details up close while maintaining a clarity of form from afar, and its deployment in rendering images of conquered peoples and places suggest an underlying allusion to cosmogonic myths of creation, in particular that of Enuma Elish. I conclude, therefore, with the suggestion that for the Assyrian state, the creation of an Assyrian world and the subsuming of the non-Assyrian world through the materialization of a coherent and pervasive style coextend with the divine world and cosmic order.

An Assyrian Court Style What is this purportedly quintessential and characteristic Assyrian style? A construct to some extent of art historical study itself, it is worth reviewing some previous discussions of the topic. In this review, I try to hew close to my narrow conception of style as stylistic minutiae, though this rarely conforms to the understanding of style by the cited authors (none of whom explicitly define style in their writings). In addition, I focus on those stylistic minutiae that occur to greater or lesser degree in all Assyrian art of the ninth through seventh centuries, instead of seeking stylistic development in changing renderings of elements such as chariot wheels and hairstyles or compositional devices such as the use of worms’-view or birds’-eye-view perspectives.5 While I might take issue with some of the evaluative or interpretive expressions of previous stylistic analyses of Assyrian art, what this review demonstrates is the consistency and coherence of an Assyrian style as discerned in modern scholarship. It is also worth noting that many scholars, especially more recent ones, do not even bother to provide a formal description beyond that of content. There is an assumption of the coherence of an Assyrian style that obviates any explicit formal analysis. Perhaps this in itself is an indicator of how successful the style has been as a pervasive visual entity that has insinuated itself into our own normative horizons such that its existence and definition are no longer questioned. Within the field of ancient Near Eastern art history, the Assyrian style has in effect become part of our scholarly habitus. From early on, and in particular during the mid-twentieth century, scholars 81

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of Assyrian court art have remarked on the consistency, coherence, and homogeneity of Assyrian art across motifs, compositions, and forms, and proposed these phenomena as characterizing an Assyrian style. In particular is a common acknowledgment of the emphasis on line, detail, and elaboration/ornamentation within contours of relatively flat planes, which permits the simultaneous effect of clarity at a distance and richness of detail up close. In the principal English-language text for ancient Near Eastern art, written in 1954 and now in its fifth edition (1996), Henri Frankfort describes an Assyrian palace relief as “always low and flat . . . it is conceived as a self-contained world, from which no glance or gesture moves outward towards the spectator. All relations are limited to the plane in which the action unfolds itself ” (fig. 3.1).6 He further notes the finely executed “finish and precision” of the reliefs with “exquisite modeling” and a “profusion of ornament” that exploits the “decorative potentialities to the full.”7 At one point, Frankfort perceptively writes, It is almost impossible to give an adequate impression of these designs [the Assyrian reliefs]. We must necessarily select illustrations and avoid repetitions. But repetition is of the essence of this remarkable art, which conveys the moral that Assyrian power is irresistible by showing, with meticulous care, this power in action.8

He continues elsewhere by emphasizing the “limited set of formulas” used in the reliefs, despite an apparent variety: “In this way each scene gets a particular character, while yet a strict homogeneity unites the series as a whole.”9 At the level of stylistic execution, Frankfort says,

Fig. 3.1 Relief of King Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BCE), Northwest Palace (Room B, Panel 19), Nimrud. London, The British Museum, AN 124534. © The Trustees of the British Museum / Art Resource, NY. 82

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The surface of the relief is here and there modeled—for instance, the spine of the lion and its shoulders are rendered plastically. The chief details are, however, conveyed by engraving rather than modeling. Incisions are more frequent and more abrupt and vigorous than in Egyptian relief, which is also very low . . . the juxtaposition of strongly modeled and of almost flat but engraved relief is very striking. A last peculiarity lies in the fact that the inscriptions are sometimes cut across the figures.10

Three other standard texts from this era—those of Henriette GroenewegenFrankfort (1951), Andre Parrot (1961), and Anton Moortgat (1967/1969)—convey similar sentiments.11 It is this cohort of mid-twentieth-century scholars that has most shaped our thinking about an Assyrian style, with their honed formalist eyes capturing the co-occurrence of particular clusters of formal features. Although detailed formalist descriptions tend to be less common now than in earlier writing, more recent discussions remain very much in line with these earlier stylistic assessments. Dominique Collon, in her 1995 general handbook on Near Eastern art, succinctly captures the stylistic traits of Assyrian palace reliefs. The slabs are carved in low relief with the background cut away around the figures so as to define them sharply. The effect of volume is produced by rounding certain forms, for instance the eyes, noses and chins of the figures, the eyes of the horses and the calf muscles of soldiers and minor gods which are stylized into perfect tear-drop shapes. The foreleg muscles of animals are marked by an inverted U.12

She too comments on the quality of repetition found in the Assyrian reliefs: “Although the figures may be stereotyped, they can, for that reason, be easily recognized when they reappear.”13 Paul Collins, in a study of Assyrian palace reliefs, intersperses some commentary on the stylistic minutiae of the reliefs despite a more general focus on social and political context.14 For example, in arguing for the carefully crafted nature of the Assyrian visual statement of kingship, he writes, The carved figures were formed from basic lines to achieve clarity. Humans are usually shown with a twisted perspective so that the body appears almost frontally but the heads are rendered in profile; no individual in the reliefs ever looks out at the viewer, they exist in a self-contained world in which the action unfolds.15

As with earlier scholars, Collins emphasizes the combination of linearity, outline, and shallowness of the relief carving paired with a density of details, all 83

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carefully designed and composed to achieve clarity alongside elaboration. Indeed, this homogeneity in which differentiation happens at the particularist level of items of dress, ornament, or hairstyle is a consistent leitmotif in descriptions of Assyrian arts.16 In another recent discussion of Assyrian art, Mehmet-Ali Ataç’s less orthodox discussion of Assyrian reliefs touches on aspects of their style without, however, invoking the term style.17 In part deriving his argument from the highly abstracted geometric formalism that underlies and structures Assyrian reliefs—along with their emphasis on the concrete and physical depiction of human and animal anatomy—Ataç proposes an ontology of plants, animals, and humans in relation to one another. This ontology, according to him, can be gleaned through the compositional devices of the reliefs that juxtapose, overlap, echo, and parallel various animal, plant, and human body parts.18 Ataç views these formalisms as setting up equivalences among these categories of living entities. Yet he also notes the central emphasis on the human world—one might consider instead that these formal and stylistic traits serve to render the incorporation of the animal and vegetable realms into the human (courtly Assyrian) world. The preceding review has concentrated primarily on the carved palace reliefs, considered by many to be the outstanding achievement of Neo-Assyrian art. However, one might extend the review to other arts, especially small-scale arts such as glyptic and, of special interest to this study, ivories. Such an expansion of the scope of inquiry serves to highlight the consistency of the Assyrian style across a range of media and scale. Although a scholar such as Dominique Collon might lament a lack of stylistic concordance between Assyrian reliefs and other (typically small-scale) arts of the time,19 in fact her frustration stems less from any problems in delineating a unifying nature of the Assyrian court style across all the art types and more from an inability to precisely calibrate chronological changes among the small-scale arts within the Assyrian period itself. Cylinder seals attributed to Assyria have traditionally been subdivided into groups, each of which comprises a particular constellation of material, technique, and stylistic rendering.20 A “linear style” in which incisions were made using a handheld tool on soft stones such as serpentine has been generally dated to the ninth and eighth centuries. Such seals relate closely to the palace reliefs of these two centuries in their planar emphasis and extensive use of linear details. In addition, they share attributes of dress, hairstyle, and so on, along with common themes of hunting animals and the king and officials seated at banquet tables (fig. 3.2).21 Seals made out of hard stones like chalcedony and carnelian relied on more mechanized carving techniques involving the cutting wheel and drill, whose standardized markings could be more or less masked through the use of filing and modeling with handheld tools.22 While the cutting disk and 84

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Fig. 3.2 Linear-style Assyrian seal impression of steatite seal, unknown provenance, ninth century BCE. London, The British Museum, WA 89618. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

drill struck deeper into the surface of these seals than the handheld tool of the linear serpentine seals, these retain an emphasis on decorative details and patterns and show little high-relief volume, especially before the seventh century.23 Again, the attributes and motifs are those known from the palace reliefs, along with one of the more popular scenes: a central “sacred tree” flanked by human or divine entities. Most of these seals are closely linked to the palaces (and thus the royal state of Assyria) through both their motival and compositional features, which echo those found on the palace reliefs, and, in some of the hard-stone seals, inscriptions citing their owners as Assyrian state officials.24 Irene Winter has noted that higher-status seal holders/officials appear to have possessed seals with the greatest correspondence in motifs between their seals and the palace reliefs.25 Thus, in both content and style, Assyrian seals participate in the same coherence that marks the monumental works. In addition to seals, we can look to ivories as another example of small-scale arts that form part of an Assyrian court style. A corpus of over two hundred ivories from Nimrud was published by Max Mallowan and Leri Glynne Davies under the rubric of “ivories in the Assyrian style.”26 The authors’ classification of the corpus as Assyrian is justified thus: “Because of their dependence on the style of the Palace bas-reliefs, no one familiar with the monuments would hesi85

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tate to call these ivories Assyrian,” and they consider them “an obvious and well defined category.”27 In addition to depicting similar themes (banquets, tribute, military activity) and cultural attributes of dress, hairstyle, and so on, the ivories also follow a similar stylistic logic to the large-scale arts (fig. 3.3). They tend to be rectangular plaques (rather than cut-out/à jour elements) with shallowly incised but finely rendered details.28 Relief carving occurs, but only rarely is it sculptural in its height or roundness. Mallowan and Davies note that the majority of the Assyrian-style ivories found at Nimrud dates on stylistic grounds to the ninth and early eighth centuries, but that they appear to have remained in use as court furnishings until the destruction of the city in 614 and 612 BCE. This late usage was determined based on the discovery of the ivories “in or near apartments in which they had originally been housed,” along with the fact that the different loci of finds represent homogenous groups suggestive of suites of furniture.29 The Assyrianstyle ivories also find a fairly wide distribution across the site, occurring in the Northwest Palace, the palace of Adad-nirari III and probably the Central Palace of Tiglath-Pileser III, the Ezida Temple of Nabu, Fort Shalmaneser, and private houses.30 In many of these buildings, the ivories were discovered in or near public rooms. The consistency, coherence, and homogeneity of Assyrian court art clearly come to the fore from this brief review. The internal cohesion occurs across many levels of analysis—motival, compositional, and formal. At the level of minute traits of rendering that I have been addressing in this book, an Assyrian court style employs an emphasis on line, detail, and elaboration/ornamentation confined within contours of relatively flat planes, whose surfaces are occasionally modulated by slight swellings of bas-relief. It is a style that effectively combines clarity of form with richness of detail, both of which occur in a repetition that is syncopated by diversity of pattern. We might view the consistency and homogeneity of the Assyrian style as a generative act—one that creates an Assyrian world; that is, a world that looks and feels Assyrian. The stylistic concentration on linear detail circumscribed by clear contours might then be seen as the creation of order that both provides the essential definition of this Assyrian world and maintains it. In other words, we might see in this style the ordering of the world according to a unified Assyrian visual poetic.

Assyrian Representations of Foreign Items With such a hypothesis in mind, it might not be surprising, then, that many of the actual subjects depicted in narrative Assyrian reliefs relate to this same theme of controlling and ordering the world into something distinctly Assyrian. Certainly such a reading seems warranted for depictions of conquered cities, deported populations, and seized booty. However, I would argue that it is not 86

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Fig. 3.3 Assyrian-style ivory plaque, Central Palace, Nimrud. London, The British Museum, 127065. In G. Hermann and Laidlaw 2009, 230. Photograph: Alfredo Dagli Orti / The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY.

just at the level of subject matter but also at the level of style that we can see this controlling and ordering of the non-Assyrian world, bringing it into the Assyrian world through a stylistic Assyrianization. To this end, I turn to examine in greater detail the stylistic rendering of non-Assyrian things in Assyrian art. It has often been noted that foreign booty and tribute get rendered in an Assyrianized manner, sometimes complicating attempts to identity specific items, such as those from Sargon’s palace at Khorsabad (fig. 3.4). Carried by Assyrian officials, is this furniture foreign booty or tribute being presented to the king? Or is it part of the Assyrian royal furnishing being brought for the king’s use? This feature of depicting foreign items in Assyrian style is usually taken for granted as the natural result of the expression of an Assyrian ethos. Yet as I have already argued, style is far more than the simple expression of an immaterial inner mindset. It must be learned, practiced, promoted, and accepted into one’s social identity. We can therefore seek deeper significance in the consistently Assyrianized style of depicting the non-Assyrian world. The vast majority of these non-Assyrian things are people/items/places en-

Fig. 3.4 Relief from palace of Sargon II (721–705 BCE), Khorsabad; 306 × 352 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre, AO 19 878. Photograph: Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY. 88

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countered by the Assyrians through antagonistic or defiant relations to the Assyrian state.31 The Assyrians are well known for their military exploits that led to the deportation of vast populations and the acquisition of enormous wealth, and their art includes numerous images of items seized through such activities. While these images carry a certain documentary weight, here I concentrate on their stylistic rendering, which I propose played a complex role in the formation of an elite, courtly Assyrian identity. Such identity constructions happened in part by means of the paradoxical depiction of otherness (as indicated by cultural attributes), which is voided and neutralized through a process of stylistic Assyrianization. An especially fruitful point of entry for the discussion is the Assyrian capture of the Judean city of Lachish. The siege, part of Sennacherib’s third campaign of 701 BCE, is known from both Assyrian and biblical sources. 2 Kings (18:13–14) recounts: In the 14th year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them. And Hezekiah, king of Judah, sent to the king of Assyria at Lachish, saying, “I have done wrong, withdraw from me, whatever you impose on me I will bear.” And the king of Assyria required of Hezekiah, king of Judah, 300 talents of silver and 30 talents of gold. And Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the house of the Lord and in the treasuries of the king’s house.

From Sennacherib’s self-styled Palace without Rival (the Southwest Palace in Nineveh), a series of reliefs from a single small room (XXXVI) graphically displays this event, ending with the image of the enthroned Sennacherib (fig. 3.5a, b, and c).32 Before him a caption reads: “Sennacherib, king of the world, king of Assyria, sat in a nēmedu-throne and the booty of the city of Lachish passed in review before him.”33 Both the Assyrian and biblical texts include mention of the wealth obtained by the Assyrians as part of the outcome of this military activity. The Nineveh relief caption emphasizes in particular Sennacherib’s visual inspection (review) of Lachish’s booty (šallatu). In Sennacherib’s reliefs, this booty is itself given visual form, occupying space between the scene of the actual siege and the image of the seated king. What exactly is Sennacherib shown viewing? Beginning closest to the king are men prostrating themselves before the throne; others—first men and then women—follow behind, walking along with Assyrian soldiers, their hands raised up before their faces. Interspersed among them is a scene of an Assyrian soldier felling a Lachishite with his dagger, and beyond them are two further individuals stretched out as they are flayed. Following these, we see groups of men carrying sacks and boxes over their shoulders, or leading oxen that pull carts filled with more sacks, on top of which sit women and small children. Other 89

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Fig. 3.5a–c Drawing of reliefs showing the Siege of Lachish, reign of Sennacherib (704–681 BCE), Southwest Palace, Nineveh. Drawings by Austen Henry Layard: Or.Dr.I59, slabs 7–12. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

women walk, carrying children and more sacks. A camel carries a heavy load on its back, and Assyrian soldiers descend from the besieged city with a chariot, weapons, and furnishings. All this, presumably, falls within the scope of the acquiring gaze of the triumphant king, who sits enthroned reviewing his booty. These reliefs comprise only one of many images of Assyrian imperial acquisition of wealth, which were depicted not only in the format of carved stone palace reliefs but also on bronze door bands, ivory furniture inlays, and other items of differing size and medium.34 It is not possible to review all these images here, and indeed, to circumscribe these scenes as a group is itself not without problem. Sennacherib’s Lachish reliefs, however, provide a useful avenue into several questions regarding the representation of booty and tribute, including the conjunction of the textual reference to booty (Akkadian, šallatu) and the visual rendering of this presumed šallatu.

The Dangerous Other: Booty, Tribute, Gods, and Deportees Assyria appears to have had a general category of Other that includes booty, tribute, gods, and people. These things, peoples, lands, and gods are not only 91

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Other in their foreignness in relation to Assyria but also potentially dangerous and threatening in their capacity to disrupt the order of Assyria. We can therefore examine the visual production of the Assyrian state in order to draw inferences concerning its strategies in encountering the Other. Working from the premise that social groups create their identities in part through opposition to something else, Megan Cifarelli has examined Assyrian depictions of foreigners as evidence of its interaction with and response to cultural difference.35 For the most part, foreigners are depicted in a limited range of contexts—as tributaries, in battle, or as captives/deportees. Ethnic type markers, such as hairstyle and dress, identify these individuals as non-Assyrians, although they are integrated into larger compositions through their rendering in the Assyrian court style, to be discussed below. Yet according to Cifarelli, the depiction of their poses and gestures signals a negative valuation when understood within the cultural context of Assyrian social norms. The specific poses and gestures, such as slouching, crouching, and placing the fists before the nose, would have been read inherently by Assyrians as sinister, abnormal, or subservient in contrast to the upright postures of depicted Assyrians. She further argues that this negative valuation of alterity was a critical component in the developing ideology of the expanding Assyrian state, which took place early in its historical trajectory, as exemplified by the slouching tributaries depicted on the façade of Ashurnasirpal II’s throne room at Nimrud.36 Such research indicates that otherness was rarely if ever coded positively in the case of foreign human beings.37 Although Ataç has argued recently against this negative valuation of tributaries and captives, suggesting a more nuanced calibration alongside that of the animal world, with which depictions of such people are generally formally equated,38 even he notes the frequent analogy of captives with cattle, the beast of burden par excellence—an equation suggesting a valuation of the captured Other as an exploitable resource.39 Yet just because alterity was valued negatively by the Assyrians, why should it also be seen as dangerous or threatening? We can see a bridge between alterity, negative valuation, and potential threat when viewed through the common lens of order and control set forth as the central goals of the Assyrian king and state. Peter Machinist among others has argued for the foundational role of a concept of bringing order to the chaos of the surrounding lands.40 Representations of the Other therefore present the constant possibility of a chaotic rupture penetrating the overlay of Assyrian control and order. One might ask, then, if otherness was considered so threatening to the Assyrians, why represent it at all? Wouldn’t absence best deflect its power? Yet to do so would also erase the memory of Assyria’s mastery over the Other. The Other must be present in order to keep alive the memory of its own conquest. This paradoxical aspect of representing the Other explains why style is such an effective means of co-opting and neutralizing that which is threatening about 92

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alterity. By retaining enough cultural/physical attributes (rendered as motival traits) to identify the Other as foreign, the memory of this victory can be preserved and nurtured. At the same time, the stylistic Assyrianization of the Other—that is, the Other’s incorporation through visual similarity of form into that which is normatively Assyrian—neutralizes its potency. Terminologically, it is important to note the distinction between tribute and booty.41 Tribute can be understood as a compulsory “gift” signaling surrender and ongoing loyalty. Booty, however, denotes goods that have been forcefully seized through military action against a city. The Assyrian texts predominantly use the word šallatu to refer to booty, as opposed to maddattu for tribute. The word šallatu comes from the stem š­l­l, “to take forcibly,” and clearly indicates the involuntary and violent nature of the seizure. The term is also consistently used to refer to captured people, what we would translate as “deportees.”42 Mario Liverani has noted that “the term šallatu is notoriously ambiguous, its meaning encompassing a generic ‘booty’ and a specific human booty, i.e. ‘(civilian) prisoners,’ and the distinction is not always clear.”43 Such range and diversity of items apparently under the rubric of šallatu finds a visual parallel in the Lachish reliefs. There, objects, livestock, and prisoners all appear to be encompassed by Sennacherib’s visual review of booty as described in the accompanying caption. Maddattu, though perhaps less inclusive than šallatu, also covers a range of animate and inanimate items, such as gold, silver, garments, wine, horses, and cattle.44 Differences in usage between the terms booty and tribute fluctuated over the course of the Neo-Assyrian period. In the ninth-century annals of Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III, lists designated as tribute include much more detailed descriptions of worked luxury items and precious materials such as gold, silver, or ivory, whereas records of booty dwell more on quantities of people, cavalry, and livestock, tending to refer only in generic terms to palace treasures or property.45 In the later periods from Sargon II onward, written descriptions of tribute become less frequent, while those of booty become much more elaborate and detailed, such as Sargon’s description of the sack of the Urartian Temple of Haldi at Musasir in his letter to Ashur.46 Yet both terms seem to blur ˙ categories of things that we today would keep separate. On the one hand, the Assyrians used different terms—maddattu and šallatu—to distinguish between the means by which items were acquired (rhetorically speaking, this is a distinction between things given “peaceably” versus things taken by force). On the other hand, both terms grouped together a broad range of things, from gods to humans and nonhumans. For the purposes of this study, I refer generically to wealth in order to include the full range of these items as well as both booty and tribute. The use of a single term, šallatu or maddattu, to refer to a spectrum of things that we today would keep separate—gods, humans, and nonhumans—points 93

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to differences in perception and classificatory schemes between us and the ancient Assyrians. When we consider representations of booty and tribute, we should include among our subjects this same broad spectrum of entities, including gods and humans, whose status in particular as šallatu was based primarily on their forcible extraction. Thus, in any discussion regarding representations of booty such as the Lachish reliefs, we should consider the depiction not only of the weapons and furnishings that the Assyrian soldiers remove from the city but also the men, women, children, and animals. This suggests a different organizational concept of the world—not simply bifurcated between human and nonhuman or between animate and inanimate, but much more situationally determined. On the one hand, this classificatory system establishes the objectification of gods, humans, and goods as booty or tribute. Yet on the other hand, these very things become animated in their relationship with human and divine forces. Quite literally, in Sennacherib’s Lachish caption, the booty, as the subject of the verb etēqu, passes by the enthroned king in review.47 Given the inclusion of captives among items of booty, we might extend Cifarelli’s conclusions about the representations of foreigners, many of whom would be classified as šallatu, to the full range of booty and tribute: namely, captured gods and goods. Moreover, we might, therefore, propose that an aspect of the sinister or the threatening inhered in many foreign items, endowing them with a potentially powerful efficacy that required Assyrian intervention. As foreign items, all these things, including the objects, present themselves to the Assyrians as potentially threatening or powerful forces.

Foreign Goods in Assyria Such threatening power may be evident in an avoidance of integrating foreign items into the everyday life of the Assyrian court. The wealth accumulated by the Assyrians through their military campaigns, carefully recorded in the annals and depicted in narrative imagery, survives archaeologically best in the physical remains of carved ivories from the western areas of the Levant found in the Assyrian heartland, especially at Nimrud.48 While there is much debate about the date of both the production and the deposition of these ivories, it is clear that even after Nimrud’s demotion from the rank of capital under Sargon II around 720 BCE, it continued to function as a major administrative center, housing the spoils of Assyrian power in at least two ninth-century buildings: the Northwest Palace, built by Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 BCE), and Fort Shalmaneser, erected as a military arsenal (ekal mašarti) by his successor Shalmaneser III (858–824 BCE).49 Georgina Herrmann and Stuart Laidlaw suggest in their catalogue of ivories from the Northwest Palace that the Assyrian royal court did not appreciate the aesthetic qualities of the Levantine ivories that they accumulated in such vast 94

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quantities.50 They derive this conclusion from a number of different pieces of evidence, prime among them being the distribution patterns of Assyrian ivories at Nimrud in contrast to Levantine ones.51 Assyrian-style ivories tend to be found in major public or reception areas. For example, near the throne base in Room B of the Northwest Palace, Mallowan found a series of incised ivories in the Assyrian style that closely follow the art of the better-known throne room reliefs.52 These may have decorated either a throne or an associated piece of furniture. Assyrian ivories also tend to show scenes of figurative or narrative content paralleling those found in the large-scale palace reliefs, leading Herrmann to suggest “that Assyrian ceremonial furniture—and only ceremonial furniture—was decorated with narrative scenes. Such scenes may have been a royal prerogative.”53 In contrast, aside from wells and other sites of vandalism, Levantine ivories are found predominantly in the storerooms of Fort Shalmaneser or in small, relatively secure rooms in out-of-the-way parts of buildings, such as rooms A, V, W, and HH in the Northwest Palace. Herrmann and Laidlaw therefore propose that the Assyrian king used only furniture decorated with Assyrian-style ivories, as indicated by the throne room examples.54 While Herrmann takes these patterns as evidence for the Assyrians’ general lack of interest in ivory as a high-value material, it is perhaps of more relevance that despite the vast quantities of Levantine-style ivories in the Assyrian heartland, these foreign goods had virtually no stylistic impact on Assyrian art. Early on during the emergence of Assyria as a territorial state in the ninth century, some motival and artistic concepts enter the Assyrian artistic repertoire from the west (for example, the idea of carving on orthostats and the use of protective doorway figures), but not stylistic features.55 Rather, a distinctly Assyrian style, which can be traced back to the Middle Assyrian period, is already in place during this time.56 To attribute this to some vague sense of Assyrian aesthetic appreciation or lack thereof seems to aim the question in the wrong direction. Instead, the absence of Levantine stylistic impact seems to indicate a clear demarcation on the part of the Assyrians between those spheres in which nonAssyrian things (and styles) might be safely or appropriately located and those kept distinctly separate and entirely “Assyrian.”

Stylistic Assyrianization I have already argued in the previous chapters that style is not something that simply happens or that is autochthonous to a geographically anchored culture. Instead, I have proposed that style and especially the production of stylistic minutiae be viewed within processes of social practice that connect people into communities of shared identity. I have thus far explored the connective aspect of style in the case of the early Iron Age Levant. Here, I consider how this same notion of a practical logic of style can operate in another way: as one mode of 95

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engagement with the Other—a mode, moreover, that effectively deals with the paradox of needing to destroy the Other yet maintain the memory of both the destruction itself and the object of destruction—thereby reinforcing both the boundaries of the Assyrian courtly elite and their exclusivity vis-à-vis their neighbors. In a book about collecting practices in Mesopotamia, Allison Thomason argues that the Assyrians transformed the cultural styles of depicted items of tribute and booty through a process of the “period eye.”57 According to this theory, because the Assyrian artists were trained to execute their works in an Assyrian style, they innately transposed this style onto the representation of even non-Assyrian-style things. This seems to be a quite intuitive explanation, to be expected (and indeed found) in many cultural case studies. However, I submit that this “commonplace” feature of purportedly “strong” artistic styles can be more closely dissected and analyzed with respect to the historical contingency of the situation, and that we can arrive at a more detailed understanding of the affective properties of such a process. If we accept that the incorporated training of a strongly Assyrian artistic style occurred as part of the maintenance and transmission of an Assyrian state identity that associated itself at least in part with opposition to cultural alterity, then we must assign a greater role of agency than the concept of the “period eye” allows. In fact, Thomason’s characterization of this process as “Assyrianization” comes closer to capturing the active and ongoing nature of this traditionbuilding mechanism.58 Indeed, it is this notion of process—the making of something other into something Assyrian—connoted by the term Assyrianization that I see as central to understanding the representations of foreign booty and tribute. Here, I am using this term in a highly specific way to refer to a stylistic Assyrianization, and I leave to the side the thorny problem of a more general Assyrianization that is often used to describe the incorporation of conquered territories into the Assyrian state.59 Such stylistic Assyrianization comes to the fore in a relief from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BCE) showing the capture of foreign gods (figs. 3.6 and 3.7).60 In it, divine attributes (that is, motifs) such as the thunderbolt, axe, and four horns shown extending to either side of the head belong to what appears to be a version of the weather god known from the west (the greater Levant, North Syria, and Anatolia).61 Steles from those regions provide ample visual corroboration, depicting the weather god with thunderbolt, axe, and fourhorned headdress (fig. 3.8).62 These reliefs, executed in various styles, all share a generally rounded and high relief used to raise the figure sculpturally from the background; the divine form is emphasized through broad, generally unornamented expanses of relief. Though exhibiting the critical attributes of a western weather god (thunderbolt, axe, and four horns), the deity’s anthropomorphic form in Tiglath-Pileser’s relief is rendered in an entirely Assyrian style. For 96

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Fig. 3.6 Relief of Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BCE), showing the capture of foreign gods in lower register, Nimrud. London, The British Museum, BM 118934+118931. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

example, the god’s tunic (which in the western versions is a plain belted garment) displays the use of intricate linear checkerboard detailing in a flat plane of raised relief, set off from the empty background by the crisp contour of the relief edge. The legs, uncovered from just above the knees down, are carved with an incised delineation of the kneecaps and calf muscles which bulge in a slight 97

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Fig. 3.7 Drawing of detail from relief of Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BCE), Nimrud. After Barnett and Falkner 1962, plate 42. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

rounding of relief, precisely echoing those of the soldiers who hold the divine image aloft on a platform. In a similar depiction of the capture of foreign gods from the west, the parade of Assyrian soldiers carrying the deities in an upper register is compositionally aligned (perhaps to be read as analogously aligned as well), with a lower register showing Assyrian soldiers leading prisoners/ deportees from the west.63 In the case of Tiglath-Pileser’s relief, just enough critical (that is, culturally specific) attributes are depicted in order to signal the foreignness and otherness of the western weather god, revealing the deliberative nature of this strategy.64 This artistic ploy has also been noted by Alessandra Gilibert, who refers to such elements as “antiquarian details” (antiquarischen Details, Posen und Gebräuchen) executed in an Assyrian style.65 The foreign details are stylistically merged into the larger and all-encompassing field of an imperial Assyrianism. Ann Gunter interprets this stylistic device as an “elaboration of differences . . . [that] drew attention to precisely those features that would be eliminated as the enemy was ‘made Assyrian.’ ”66 As something captured by the Assyrians and brought back to the center, the gods have been emptied of their own cultural essence and Assyrianized in their very stylistic rendering. The tributaries depicted on Ashurnasirpal II’s throne room façade in the Northwest Palace at Nimrud show this strategy occurring already at an early date in the mid-ninth century.67 This process of Assyrianization seen in the depiction of foreign gods and goods can be related to the same negative valuation and potential dangerousness of alterity ascribed by the Assyrians to foreign peoples, gods, and things. The potentially threatening element of otherness needed to be tamed and brought under 98

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Fig. 3.8 Stele of Weather God, Til Barsip (Tell Ahmar, Syria), ninth–eighth centuries BCE; basalt, height 3.07 m. Aleppo National Museum, M 11611. Photograph courtesy of Dr. Guy Bunnens.

Assyria’s control through a process of Assyrianization physically manifested in a strong, coherent style that clearly differentiated itself from Assyria’s neighbors. Moreover, the fact that items of foreign furniture, similar to pieces actually found in the storehouses of Assyria, are represented through this same artistic strategy indicates that this process was not caused by any ignorance on the artists’ part, as such items could have been available for inspection and copying had this been important to the Assyrian court. Thus, we might account for what we perceive art historically to be a consistent and coherent artistic style to be instead the result of a process of stylistic Assyrianization. Though this may seem like a small semantic quibble, the difference is in fact quite important. The identification of an art historical style tends to see such a style as an ineffable manifestation of cultural expression often understood to be geographically rooted or autochthonous. In contrast, a process of stylization considers the coming into being and continuing existence of visually coherent and consistent practices that contribute to and feed back into an interconnected community that defines itself in relation to others. Such a community for Assyrian art might reside in a close circle of what MehmetAli Ataç has identified as scholarly experts,68 and beyond that in a larger, looser circle of Assyrian elites. Megan Cifarelli likewise proposes an elite (male) Assyrian community as the primary audience for the reliefs.69 A similar proposition has been made with respect to both the form and the content of Assyrian royal inscriptions. For example, Peter Machinist, drawing on foundational work of Mario Liverani and his colleagues in Italy, notes the coherent language and form of such inscriptions found distributed throughout the Assyrian state in a variety of media and contexts.70 The rhetoric of these inscriptions emphasizes, on the one hand, the disorder and confusion of the nonAssyrian world, and on the other, the Assyrian king’s central role as the “maker” of the Assyrian world. As in the visual depictions, the non-Assyrian world is indeed a world of the Other, “one that emits hostility, foreignness, strangeness (ahū-, nak(i)ru), and so threatens what Assyria represents.”71 Thus, the Assyr˘ ian king’s mandate is to transform “disorder into order by incorporating nonAssyria into Assyria.” 72 Captured land is “turned into” Assyrian land, and captured foreigners become “like Assyrians.” It is in effect the Assyrianization of land, booty, tribute, and captives, which finds its most dramatic expression in the mass deportations of foreign populations throughout the Assyrian Empire.73

Ashurbanipal’s Garden Scene When speaking of Assyrian artistic and cultural contacts with the west, most scholars at some point turn to Ashurbanipal’s so-called garden scene from the North Palace at Nineveh (fig. 3.9). I too would like to end with a consideration of what might be seen as one of the most evocative representations of foreign 100

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Fig. 3.9 Relief of Ashurbanipal (668–627 BCE) reclining in a garden, Room S′, North Palace, Nineveh. London, The British Museum. Photograph: Werner Forman / Art Resource, NY.

wealth from the Neo-Assyrian period. Pauline Albenda was one of the first scholars to point to this relief as more than a bucolic pastoral scene, arguing that the material luxury surrounding the Assyrian king should be read—along with the decapitated head of his Elamite enemy hanging from a nearby tree—as trophies of successful military conquests.74 Among these items, she identifies an Egyptian menat necklace hanging on Ashurbanipal’s couch, in addition to an Elamite- or Babylonian-type bow and quiver and horse trappings that may point to Iran.75 One might add to these a carved pyxis on the table in front of Ashurbanipal and also the couch on which he reclines, both of which are suggestive of the Levant. The intermixing of plants that would not grow together in the same ecological niche and that derive from several incorporated areas of the empire—grapevines, conifers, and date palms—reinforce this multicultural assemblage.76 Even Ashurbanipal’s queen seated to one side, a rare depiction of female Assyrian royalty, may signal a foreign bride like those with West Semitic names buried in the eighth-century Queens’ Tombs under the Northwest Palace at Nimrud.77 The immediate entourage of women surrounding the couple, similarly unique, may likewise point to the textually attested serving women who came with these foreign brides.78 Yet like the images of captured gods and plundered furnishings, the various items and individuals are all rendered in the distinctly Assyrian court style. Indeed, this visual Assyrianization is so successful that one scholar has recently argued that Ashurbanipal’s couch is an Assyrian-made piece of furniture, because the purportedly Levantine “woman at the window” plaques shown on its legs look like Assyrian images of eunuchs.79 John Curtis among others has noted the difficulty in designating furniture remains found in Assyria as either 101

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Assyrian or foreign, precisely because so much is known to have been brought into Assyria as booty, tribute, or through other channels of exchange.80 Complicating the problem, no archaeological remains from within the Assyrian heartland have been definitively reconstructed as couches.81 Aside from Ashurbanipal’s garden scene, no one is ever shown reclining on the couches aside from the king of Hamath in a scene from the bronze bands on Shalmaneser’s gate at Balawat.82 In culturally Assyrian contexts, couches are depicted only in military camp scenes. Yet as booty, couches appear among western cities, Babylonia, Elam, and possibly the upper Tigris region, suggesting that the basic form of the couch was understood by Assyrians to be associated with multiple cultural areas. Thus, due to the uniqueness of the depiction of the Assyrian king reclining on a couch, the multitude of other non-Assyrian items in the relief, and the culturally specific traits elaborated on the couch that are best related to western elements though rendered in an Assyrianized style, the couch depicted in Ashurbanipal’s garden relief is best understood as something foreign and in particular something western. In its use of culturally specific traits rendered in Assyrianized style, it follows the pattern discussed above for the depiction of foreign gods. This strategy is made yet more forcefully evident when the couch is contrasted with the throne and footstool of the seated queen. On the queen’s furniture, the particular details of the carved crossbars showing opposed volutes are fully within the repertoire of Assyrian furniture, unlike the running and couchant lions that decorate the couch along with the woman-atthe-window plaques.83 Yet I wonder if there is more here than simply a depiction of conquest and control of foreign territory and wealth. Does the stylistic Assyrianization tap into a yet-deeper identification—one that relates to the divine realm and cosmic order? In a short festschrift contribution, Guy Bunnens proposes an analogy between a monumental inscription erected by Ashurnasirpal detailing the building of his new royal city at Kalhu (Nimrud) and the Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish.84 Bunnens singles out an unusual statement at the beginning of Ashurnasirpal’s Banquet Stele that relates to the initial building of the city.85 The text reads, “I cleared away the old ruin hill (and) dug down to water level.” While references to digging deeply in order to set one’s new foundations appear regularly in Mesopotamian building inscriptions, to claim the erection of a foundation on something as unstable as water is rare, with most examples occurring in southern Mesopotamian royal inscriptions of the Late Babylonian period.86 Bunnens suggests that we may find a clue to this statement in the association of underground water with the god Ea/Enki, who resides on the waters of the divine Apsû. Perhaps not coincidentally, in the immediately preceding lines, Ashurnasirpal claims that it was Ea, king of the sweet water Apsû, who gave Kalhu to the Assyrian king and provided him with the “cunning” needed to build it. 102

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Based on this possible allusion to the Apsû, Bunnens suggests a more wideranging association between Ashurnasirpal’s building inscription and Enuma Elish, the great Babylonian epic, which includes an account of Ea’s establishment of his own residence in the Apsû.87 While the main narrative in Enuma Elish relates to Marduk’s rise to prominence as leader of all the gods, the poem includes extensive episodes recounting the creation of the universe, the gods, and humankind. Our most complete version was probably composed in Babylonia toward the end of the second millennium, but both Babylonian and Assyrian versions have been found in Assyria proper in ninth- through seventh-century contexts.88 It must, therefore, have been a widely available text throughout the Neo-Assyrian period, at least for the highest echelons of the Assyrian court. Beyond the establishment of a royal or divine abode on a watery abyss, Bunnens posits the following parallels between the Banquet Stele inscription and Enuma Elish. Ashurnasirpal’s rebuilding of the ruined Kalhu recalls Marduk’s construction of Babylon as his favorite dwelling place on earth. Notably, Enuma Elish specifies that Marduk builds Babylon above the Apsû (Ee V:119).89 The repopulation of Kalhu by conquered people might align with the creation of humankind in Enuma Elish (Ee VI:7), whose principal reason for coming into existence was to serve the gods. In both Ashurnasirpal’s inscription and Enuma Elish, the protagonist provides sustenance to the land through the bringing of waters—rain, springs, and the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, in the case of Marduk (Ee V:55), canals and irrigation systems for the Assyrian king. Both texts attribute to the protagonist a role in establishing the divine pantheon in their appropriate places. In Enuma Elish, Marduk places the main gods in their cosmic spheres and provides residences in Babylon for the gods when on earth, while in the Banquet Stele, Ashurnasirpal establishes the gods’ temples within his new city. Just as Enuma Elish describes the careful ordering of the cosmos, so Ashurnasirpal’s inscription relates the king’s conquests of foreign cities and the renewal of ruined ones as part of the new order of the Assyrian world. And both texts culminate in a feast celebrating the special powers of the protagonist. Bunnens thus concludes that Ashurnasirpal purposely drew on the narrative of Enuma Elish to present himself as “responsible for preserving the world order and taking over the creation work started by the divine powers.”90 What is central in this set of parallels is the role of creation and order in both texts. Regardless of how direct the links might have been between Ashurnasirpal’s inscription and the Babylonian version of Enuma Elish, I would like to suggest that it is this paired aspect of creation and order that finds similarly rhetorical form in the visual materialization of what we call today an Assyrian art style. Ataç has argued recently, according to the iconography of Assyrian reliefs and in particular the representation of genii and Mischwesen, that Ashurnasirpal’s art contains “layers of meaning that go beyond the political and pertain to a metaphysics of kingship and cosmological unity and duality.”91 Style, as an ideal 103

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conveyance of visual rhetoric, not only expresses such a cosmological unity, but through its very form and presence serves to materially produce that unity. The clarity of form and precision of details that characterize the Assyrian style literally and physically order and control the very subjects that it depicts. Might we extend an association from the visual rhetoric of the relief to the verbal rhetoric of Ashurnasirpal’s Banquet Stele two centuries earlier, and from there to Enuma Elish? Ashurbanipal’s garden scene is set in a much larger carved relief composition (fig. 3.10).92 The reclining king, flanked by his queen and spotlighted by the arching vines, occupies the top and center of a threeregister, multi-orthostat program. The other scenes show an unusual mixture of natural environments, Assyrian courtly life, and defeated peoples. The lowest, foundational, register shows a dense thicket of marshy reeds. No human beings are preserved in this admittedly quite fragmentary lower register, though a wild boar and a gazelle make their appearance, perhaps as part of a “natural” world.93 The middle register presents a different natural setting comprising evenly spaced conifer trees, small pomegranate shrubs, and at least one grapevine. Here, people do make an appearance, some carrying furnishings and utensils, others gathering grapes and flowers. In the top register, flanking the scene of the king on his couch surrounded by attendants and musicians, are images relating details of military activities. To the right is a poorly preserved scene of horses with their military trappings piled on a table, interpreted by Albenda as Babylonian or Elamite trophies.94 To the left is a clearer statement of military domination; two men wearing typically royal Elamite clothing and headgear are depicted in a scene of subjugation. The inscription above the scene mentions Ashurbanipal’s capture of the king of Elam, and various princes who are said to have prepared with their own hands “their royal meal, and they brought it in before me.”95 We have thus a structured world, structured around different landscapes: wild (marshes), domesticated (gardens with grapes and flowers), and state controlled. Other relief programs that have been associated with this room include a further elaboration of this theme—lion hunts and battle scenes of sieges and captured booty.96 As a whole, the reliefs appear to render the entirety of the Assyrian world, with the Assyrian king at the apex of its hierarchy.97 Ashurbanipal’s passivity on the couch still eludes a clear meaning for me,98 but he produces the effect of surveying his handiwork upon its completion—his ordering and controlling of the human and natural worlds, making the non-Assyrian Assyrian, all unified in an almost cosmic sense through the omnipresent Assyrian style.

Assyria and Babylonia In his article, Bunnens raises the potential problem of correlating Enuma Elish with Assyria due to its Babylonian cultural context. He notes that the epic was 104

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Fig. 3.10 Reconstructed series of reliefs from Room S′, North Palace, Nineveh. Drawings by W. Boutcher: Or.Dr.V41, Or.Dr.V46, Or.Dr.V42, Or.Dr.V43, Or.Dr.V45. After Barnett 1976, plate 63. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

most likely known in Assyria in the ninth century, as attested by a few fragments, but also suggests that the model for Ashurnasirpal’s inscription might have been a related but different creation story, since the theogony traditions of Assyria and Babylonia had been closely intertwined for millennia. However, the Babylonianness of Enuma Elish may have been a key element of any potential allusions in Ashurnasirpal’s inscription.99 The Assyrian kings engaged in a much more complex relationship with Babylonia than with any of their other neighbors, being antagonistic to the contemporary Babylonian political entity but also seeing themselves as the rightful inheritors and stewards of the Babylonian cultural tradition. For this reason, both their verbal and their visual rhetoric with respect to Babylonia takes a quite different course from those oriented toward other polities, such as those to the west. In the seventh century, we see in the arts a situation paralleling that which might be envisioned for the Banquet Stele inscription in the ninth century— namely, the incorporation of the Babylonian artistic style. In sharp contrast to the Assyrian encounter with most foreign styles, Assyria’s complicated relationship with Babylonia presents a different picture, and helps highlight the selective nature of this artistic strategy. In this case, Babylonian stylistic features (in addition to motival ones) were adopted and incorporated into Assyrian art for exactly the opposite purpose: to self-identify with Babylonia, to which Assyria saw itself as a cultural successor. This was achieved using the same means but with the opposite effect—that is, through the cultural assimilation of the Babylonian artistic style (a stylistic Babylonianization). A stele of Ashurbanipal from Babylon, for example, uses the rounded, volumetric, high-relief style of the Babylonian sculptural tradition rather than the flat, linear style of the Assyrian one (fig. 3.11).100 The erection in Babylon of this stele, which recounts Ashurbanipal’s rebuilding of that city, made this piece especially potent, but one can also see the same Babylonian stylistic allusions in Assyria proper, in the more rounded forms of the figures in Ashurbanipal’s reliefs at Nineveh. At Nineveh, however, the Babylonianized rounder relief carving coexists with, rather than replaces, the Assyrian style, generating a complex relationship between the two cultural traditions. Such a stylistic Babylonianization has been noted for some time in the cylinder-seal repertory, where seals from the late eighth and seventh centuries incorporate motifs, techniques, and styles previously associated with Babylon, including a more rounded modeling of the figures.101 The textual analogies between the Banquet Stele and Enuma Elish proposed by Bunnens can be seen to have operated in a dualistic manner. On the one hand, these parallels align Ashurnasirpal with a chief deity, and the creation of Kalhu with the creation of the world. And this creative force has close ties to southern Mesopotamia—that is, Babylonia. Yet on the other hand, this alignment is clearly signaled through both verbal and artistic style to be a wholly and consistently coherent process of being Assyrian. In other words, the world is created 106

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Fig. 3.11 Stele of Ashurbanipal (668–627 BCE) from Babylon; pinkish marble, height 35.9 cm. London, The British Museum, BM 90864. © The Trustees of the British Museum / Art Resource, NY.

and recreated—controlled and ordered—through the agency of the king acting like a god, and this world is one that is saturated with Assyrianness.

Conclusions The crafting and curation of a distinctive Assyrian style became an effective practice for dealing with the twofold problem of the Other, which needed both to be tamed by the conquerors and to be memorialized. The Assyrians did not annihilate the Other, nor did they completely destroy the material products of the Other; in fact, they hoarded the foreign wealth and celebrated their encounters with the Other through the depiction of elaborate narrative representations such as the explicit imagery of the Lachish siege and the more implicit imagery of Ashurbanipal’s garden scene. Such actions served to preserve the memory of victory through the physical presence, whether real or representational, of captured things. But at the same time, they needed to neutralize the power of the Other so that it could no longer pose a threat to the expanding state. A rhetorical stylization of the Other into something quintessentially Assyrian (in style but not in “content”) offered a particularly effective strategy. A similar effect was accomplished by the Assyrian acquisition of foreign luxury items such as the Levantine ivories, which were not physically destroyed but hidden in storerooms, only to be displayed periodically in military parades that paradoxically emphasized their invisibility—their existence as hoarded treasures—through the brief, controlled, and entirely Assyrian environment of their viewing. For example, an inscription of Esarhaddon (680–669 BCE) from Nineveh describes activities taking place at his Nineveh ekal mašarti (arsenal), similar to that of Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud: “May I—every year without interruption—take stock there during the month of the New Year’s Festival, the first month, of all steeds, mules, donkeys and camels, of the harness and battle gear of all my troops, and of the booty (šallatu) taken from the enemy.”102 An inscription of Sargon II from Room 14 of his palace at Khorsabad lists tribute brought to Khorsabad at the time of a major festival, events that provided real display to match the virtual display of acquired wealth in Sargon’s palace reliefs.103 The images considered here were never innocent snapshots of an objective reality (as no image ever is), but rather representations that selectively presented particular elements. Such narrative depictions were not just public presentations often referred to as propaganda (though they most likely served this function as well), but fully integrated into the lived experiences of the elite imperial classes, as seen in the consistency of the style and subject matter found across scale and media. Just as this world of representation was closely controlled, so was the style of its rendering. Style, taken as a selective and constitutive process, is deeply implicated in the formation, maintenance, and/or

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transformation of collective memories and group identities. The Assyrian style, its coherence and consistency and its use to render foreign items, can therefore be understood as a critical, though often overlooked, component of the Assyrian imperial identity. Chronologically, this strategy appears to find its most extensive use in the reliefs of Tiglath-Pileser III through Ashurbanipal. Based on the royal inscriptions, Peter Machinist proposes that the rhetoric of incorporation/Assyrianization, which reaches its zenith in the reign of Sargon II and later, corresponds to a time when the consolidated Assyrian state faced its greatest challenges from outside in terms of the growing influence of Aramaeans and others. It was a period of fundamental challenges to the order and very identity of the state, and if beneath the inconsistencies there is any structure to the way our sovereignty language responds to these challenges, it would appear to embrace two poles: the recognition, on the one hand, of the new size and diversity the state has to control—more lands, more peoples, more problems—and the effort, on the other, to shape and force these into a whole—to “reorganize (anew),” to “account” or “(re)turn” to “my land/border/the people of Assyria,” to impose duties “like Assyrians,” “to account as booty,” etc.104

Style, particularly from the time of Tiglath-Pileser III onward, takes on a similar rhetorical role; it is not that it had nothing to do with social reality, but that its relationship might be inverse/oppositional rather than reflective/representative. A stylistic Assyrianization was most critical at the point when an Assyrian identity was most threatened by the insinuation of the Other. Yet it was already in place by at least the reign of Ashurnasirpal II in the ninth century, hinting at its own creative powers to produce, order, and control Assyrian identity. Indeed, as has already been argued, objects have the power to create and structure communities of inclusion and exclusion through the social practices surrounding their production and use. Their physical survival today therefore affords us a glimpse at now-past communities that came together around their material effects. These were not preexisting communities located somewhere behind the objects, nor were they communities defined by static, hard boundaries, but rather communities in flux both horizontally across space and vertically through time. This is a sense of communitizing as a process that is enacted and ongoing through relations with objects. Through sustained interactions around particular groups of objects, relations and identities are established among different individuals. Thus, the consistent, coherent Assyrian style sets up and structures communities through the human participants’ engagements with the material objects. Through their daily, bodily experiences with the Assyrian style, individuals come to see themselves as part of a community defined as

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Assyrian (at a royal/imperial state level). Conversely, Assyrian cultural identity and style did not exist before the production of the arts. Rather, it came into being through the processes of stylistic practices. The types of objects that form the corpus of Assyrian art—large-scale palace reliefs, royal administrative glyptic, luxury arts—signal a community formation process geared toward the highest court level. Yet at the same time, the stylistic Assyrianization that I describe in this chapter also set up communities of exclusion. What might the dislocation have been for a foreigner to view items that were simultaneously recognizable yet not recognizable? How might a Babylonian have reacted to the Assyrian king’s usurpation of creationary powers ascribed to Marduk? As in all cases of identity formation, boundaries form through a variety of distinctions that happen at the level of practice and engagement with the material world. Yet these boundaries are never absolute or static, and the very multiplicity of “ingredients” that contribute to identity and generate boundaries allows for complicated reconfigurations across space and through time—which also engender tensions and antagonisms. Such complexities become particularly apparent in the study of the objects forming the center of the next chapter: inscribed and decorated metal bowls.

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C H A P T E R 4 C h a p te r Fo u r

Speaking Bowls and the Inscription of Identity and Memory

B

etween 614 and 612 BCE, the major cities of Assyria suffered from invasions coordinated by the nascent Babylonian and Median states. Nineveh, the

capital city at the time, was attacked with particular violence; its palaces were systematically looted and burned. This destruction remains physically visible in the mutilated carved wall reliefs, such as those in the North Palace built by Ashurbanipal as well as those in Sennacherib’s Southwest Palace (“the Palace without Rival”).1 The image of the Assyrian king was especially targeted for mutilation, with sharp chisel blows to his eyes and mouth. Ashurbanipal’s garden relief, addressed in the previous chapter, shared such a fate: the reclining ruler’s face was carefully pecked away, as was that of his consort and the upper part of the attendant behind her.2 The rest of the garden relief, with one exception, appears to have been left alone, preserving its classic Assyrian style of detailed execution and clarity of form. What is the other item depicted in the relief that was deemed offensive

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enough, potent enough, to require that its visual appearance be erased? It is the small bowl held aloft in Ashurbanipal’s right hand (plate 7). Not only was this image somehow considered in need of elimination, a corresponding one in the hand of his queen was untouched by the perpetrators of this mutilation. We might assume, then, that this small bowl associated with a king possessed a peculiar efficacy. Indeed, Carl Nylander has noted that what he calls an iconogram of king + cup must have had “significance far beyond that of momentary albeit festive imbibing of wine” for it to have received this extremely selective mutilation.3 He goes on to state that this significance should not come as a surprise given the long tradition in the Near East of associating divine drinking with fertility, abundance, judgment, and the decision of destinies, which could be extended to the gods’ representatives on earth.4 On a material level, this so-called iconogram king + cup reveals the deep connection between the object (bowl/cup) and a person (the king); moreover, this connection itself constitutes a locus of power.5 The efficacy of person + bowl can be further explored through a study of a specific group of objects circulating around the Near East and Mediterranean during the first centuries of the first millennium: engraved metal (usually bronze, occasionally silver or gold) bowls, typically classified as “Phoenician,” that bear inscriptions on them. From this unusual subset of inscribed bowls (sixteen in number, depending on how they are grouped), we can extrapolate to the larger corpus of Levantine metal bowls and to drinking/pouring bowls more generally. Nonetheless, the act of inscribing sets this group apart in interesting and important ways. We might postulate a continuum of efficacy and specialness from uninscribed and undecorated bowls of ceramic to those of metal, to uninscribed and decorated metal bowls, to undecorated and inscribed bowls, to decorated and inscribed bowls at the other end of the spectrum. The more ornate—both in terms of decoration and inscription—the more special and set apart from the everyday the bowl becomes, making it more ritualized in its very material constitution. I therefore concentrate on this smaller subset of inscribed and decorated metal bowls as a particularly rich avenue into the corpus as a whole, and delve into the material association of ornamentation and inscription on metal vessels designed for pouring and/or drinking liquids. The bowls that form the crux of this chapter have typically fallen under the general designation of “Phoenician” and thus sit squarely within the assemblage of early first-millennium Levantine ivories and metalworking at the heart of this book.6 Up to this point, the studies at the center of this book have concentrated on the early phases of an art object’s life, revolving around aspects of production and the cumulative effects of style. With this and the following chapter, I shift focus further along the trajectory of the artworks’ lives, considering subsequent phases of added inscriptions, deposition, and secondary circulation. In this chapter, I address the constitution of power at the nexus of person and 112

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bowl, and examine the problematic nature of personhood in relation to time as a central component in the emergence of new communities during the early Iron Age. To do so, I explore questions of identity—both as it is explicitly marked and as it is actually negotiated in space and time—through the lens of ritualized communal feasting and drinking and memorialization. It is in this context that we can begin to access the power that inhered in small bowls meant for drinking and libating, such as the one held by Ashurbanipal. Such issues of power and agency can be examined best in the smaller group of bowls that includes a combination of decorative ornament and inscribed text. Both the imagery and the words mobilize particular social relationships around these objects. Indeed, the bundling of these two elements provides a particularly charged arena in which notions of identity and memory confront and collide with aspects of temporality and timelessness. The unusual addition of an inscription that names a person activated memories self-consciously. It claimed a subjecthood for the bowls—the bowls as extended personhood of the named individual—that signaled notions of timeless belonging. Yet the evidence of secondary inscriptions of ownership and of inscriptions added well after the date of manufacture reveals a temporal reality that belies the timelessness implicit in the inscriptions’ declarations. The bowls, in their presentist stance (both materially present and with inscriptions in the present tense), elicited, even demanded, an ongoing remembrance on behalf of the named individual, who may in fact have been deceased. At the same time, the degree of elaborateness in the representational decoration, which could work to either obscure or highlight the text, drew user-viewers into its figured world, enacting and reenacting social, familial, and power relations through time.

Levantine (“Phoenician”) Metal Bowls During the first centuries of the first millennium BCE and parallel to the production of the carved ivories, numerous metal bowls that more or less conform to a shared set of conventions in both their form and decoration appear in archaeological contexts from southwestern Iran to central Italy (plates 8–14 and fig. 4.1).7 Though they are not identical, a large number of them can be linked by their basic shape, size, and decorative schema. They are relatively small—15 to 20 centimeters in diameter—and range from shallow to hemispherical to flatbottomed in profile, with or without an omphalos. The shape and size argue for their use in drinking or libation activities, most probably associated with wine. They are constructed out of hammered sheet metal, with decoration applied through the techniques of repoussé (hammering the image from the back side to create a raised relief) and chasing (incisions on the front side) on the interior surface. In general, the figurative decoration is arranged in concentric bands that encircle a central medallion, which could include a rosette or additional 113

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Fig. 4.1 Bronze bowl naming Muwazi from burial at Tragana, Greece; diameter 21.3 cm. Lamia Archaeological Museum, inv. no. M3510. After Kourou 2008, fig. 22, no. 1a–e. Used by permission.

figural scene. Geometric patterns are also used to varying extent and in various compositional roles. As with the ivories discussed in the first two chapters, scholarship on the metal bowls has concentrated primarily on questions of attribution to a geographic location and period of production.8 Very much the same arguments that I have presented above apply to the bowls; while they are often referred to as Phoenician, and attempts at determining North Syrian and Aramaean/South Syrian styles have also been made, the bowls resist straightforward geographic 114

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placement.9 Like the ivories, I prefer to refer to them generally as Levantine, the outcome of an extended region of complex networks of interrelated communities of producers and consumers.10 While certainly not the majority, several of the metal bowls bear inscriptions on them. To my knowledge, there are currently sixteen decorated bowls carrying inscriptions.11 This is a relatively high proportion (out of approximately 150 decorated bowls) in comparison with other precious/luxury arts of the period, such as the ivories.12 The one exception to the general lack of inscriptions on objects is seals, which in fact offer a productive point of comparison, explored further below.13 Because of the rarity of inscribed luxury objects, this conjunction of inscribed and decorated bowl merits special attention. In addition, the decorated metal vessels can be associated with undecorated but inscribed versions also made of high-value metals. These tend to receive less attention due to their lack of figural ornament; however, several of them bear inscriptions that relate to the inscriptions on the decorated examples. Here, I concentrate on those inscribed vessels that also carry ornamental decoration, but will draw on the body of undecorated inscribed metal bowls, as well as the decorated but uninscribed bowls, as relevant. It should be noted that the identification of “decoration” on a bowl is not in fact straightforward; are the elaborately ribbed and modeled (gadrooned) bowls to be considered decorated or not?14 I make here the distinction that “decoration” entails some form of noninscriptional patterned engraving. This is indeed an arbitrary distinction; while I find the distinction useful for an initial analytic springboard, I do not adhere to it rigidly in order to situate the bowls in a broader realm of drinking and libating. The group of sixteen bowls examined in this chapter includes, moving geographically from east to west, six bronze vessels from a storeroom hoard in the Northwest Palace at Nimrud (plate 8);15 one gold example from Tomb II of the Queens’ Tombs below the Northwest Palace (plate 9);16 five vessels from Cyprus, one of bronze supposedly found by looters in a tomb outside Armou in the Paphos district and four of silver from Cesnola’s so-called Treasure of Kourion (plates 10–12);17 a bronze bowl from an eighth-century pithos burial (end of Middle Geometric II/beginning of Late Geometric) at Tragana in eastern Locris near the Euboean gulf (fig. 4.1);18 a bronze bowl from the vicinity of the panHellenic sanctuary at Olympia;19 and two silver vessels from Etruria, one from the Bernardini Tomb at Praeneste and the other purportedly found at Pontecagnano in 1865 (plates 13 and 14).20 The smallest bowl has a diameter of 15 centimeters, while the largest is approximately 21 centimeters. They have been dated between the ninth and seventh centuries BCE, although the date of inscribing the bowl may be later than that of the production of the bowl itself, as we will see. These particular bowls—that is, decorated and inscribed—are restricted in number, and I argue below that they constitute a special subgroup within the larger corpus of metal bowls. Nonetheless, their diverse connections to the 115

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other metal bowls, whether through similar inscriptions or similar decorations, clearly link them to the larger corpus, and thus we are able to make certain generalizations according to an analysis of them as part of this larger grouping. Their geographic spread, from Nimrud in Assyria to Cyprus, and different parts of Greece and Italy, permit these generalizations to relate to pan-Near Eastern/ eastern Mediterranean concerns. Decorated bowls as a general “artistic corpus” have received a fair amount of study (though perhaps less so than the ivories),21 and inscriptions from specific groups of bowls such as those from Nimrud or from Kourion have been studied from a philological perspective.22 In this chapter, I would like to delve more deeply into the material association of these two features—ornamentation and inscription—on a metal vessel designed for pouring and/or drinking liquids, and to consider them as a meaningful group. While this may at first appear to be an artificial grouping, I take the presence of both inscriptions and decoration as a significant aspect of the bowls’ materiality, broadly construed, that contributed to their engagement with the social world. This new analytic grouping of the bowls raises different sorts of questions, and prompts alternative conclusions from those of previous scholarship. Both the imagery and the words (not to mention the materials and shapes) served to catalyze complex social relationships that activated the bowls in quite specific ways with respect to identity and collective memory.

The Inscription of Identity and Memory Not being a linguist, I will not engage in a philological study of the inscriptions found on Levantine decorated metal bowls; nonetheless, it is important to note that they appear in a number of different languages, yet consistently express the same semantic content. Several of the bowls include West Semitic inscriptions, which include Phoenician (from Nimrud and Etruria), Aramaic (Nimrud and Olympia), and possibly Hebrew (Nimrud). These languages, which all use closely related forms of alphabetic scripts, can be difficult to distinguish from one another in short inscriptions such as these, so I take them as a single group. The next-largest body of inscriptions is in Cypriot Greek, using the distinctive Cypriot syllabary script. All the inscribed bowls from Cyprus are in Greek written in Cypro-Syllabic, while conversely this language/script has not been found to date on any bowls outside Cyprus. A sole example from the Queens’ Tombs at Nimrud, idiosyncratic in many ways, is in Akkadian, although the inscription includes a West Semitic name, Yaba.23 The bowl from Tragana in central Greece stands out for bearing a hieroglyphic Luwian inscription.24 The inscriptions display a corresponding diversity in their scripts. Already mentioned is the idiosyncratic Cypro-Syllabic, used first on the island in the Late Bronze Age to write some unidentified and undeciphered language and 116

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then in modified form to write Greek in the early first millennium.25 The West Semitic languages use alphabetic scripts, while the Akkadian inscription is written in the cuneiform script consisting of logograms and syllabograms, and the Luwian in syllabic hieroglyphs.26 With respect to semantic content, the inscriptions follow a generally consistent formula. Almost all record personal names, often including an indication of possession.27 One variable of the different languages is the degree to which the subject is explicitly marked in these statements of possession. In Semitic languages, the verb “to be” is implied rather than provided with a stand-alone verb form, while in the Greek language, a separate stand-alone verb explicitly denotes existence. In at least three of the Cypriot Greek inscriptions, e­mi (“I am”) occurs in conjunction with the genitive form of the person’s name: “I am the one of PN.”28 In one instance the inscription is even more explicit, including the designation of “bowl” (phiale) in the text itself: “I am the phiale of Epiorwos, son of Dies”29 (plate 10). The Luwian inscription on the bronze bowl from Greece names a certain Muwazi in the genitive singular, grammatically implying the possession of the bowl itself by this individual (fig. 4.1).30 The Semitic inscriptions imply this same indication of possession, often supplying the preposition lamed, or in the Akkadian example the determinative pronoun ša, before a personal name, which is generally rendered in English as “of or belonging to PN.” It is possible to read the Cypriot Greek in relation to the Luwian and the Semitic phrasing; therefore, although subjecthood may not always be explicitly marked in the Luwian and Semitic inscriptions, the Greek inscriptions clearly indicate that the subject is the bowl itself. These objects thus speak of themselves—in either the first or the third person—with the physical structure of the bowl itself serving as the explicit or implicit subject of possession. The act of inscribing a statement of ownership should not be taken by us as an obvious or natural thing to do. Inscribing a precious, luxury object with a personal, as opposed to dedicatory, inscription is rare during the early centuries of the first millennium.31 The ivories, for example, exhibit very few inscriptions, most of them better understood as fitter’s marks with a few exceptions, such as the inscribed name of Haza’el of Damascus on an ivory from Nimrud and one from Arslan Tash,32 and the mention of the localities of Hamath and Lu’ash on two different pieces from Nimrud.33 Those mentioning Haza’el represent a quite different genre of text: the marking of military booty rather than the more generic declaration of possession found in the bowl inscriptions.34 That so few small, precious objects are inscribed in the early centuries of the first millennium, and most of those that are bear dedicatory, not possessive texts, brings out the unusualness of these bowls.35 It also foregrounds a degree of selfconsciousness rarely expressed in early textual evidence. The nature of the inscriptions’ self-referentiality breaks down boundaries that we often assume exist between an individual’s corporeal body and personhood. 117

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Where one does see a comparable, indeed greater, frequency of personal possessive inscriptions is on seals, which provide us with a related though not entirely analogous example of extended personhood that is helpful for understanding that of the bowls.36 Not all seals functioned in the same way, and there is good evidence that they could have had a range of different relationships with their users, including being dedicatory or amuletic in nature, which might be invoked through specific kinds of inscriptions (such as prayers to a deity). Sometimes these functions overlapped in a single seal (for example, an official administrative seal could also possess talismanic properties for its bearer). There are, however, contemporary seals from the Iron Age Levant and the NeoAssyrian state that include inscriptions in almost the same formulation as those on the metal bowls. The Levantine stamp seals date primarily from the eighth century onward, and include inscriptions in Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, and other West Semitic languages.37 The inscriptions consistently begin with lamed and a personal name, and may include further patronymics or titles. The Neo-Assyrian examples from the ninth through seventh centuries take the traditional Mesopotamian form of a cylinder seal.38 The inscriptions, in either Akkadian or Aramaic, begin either explicitly stating “seal of ” (Akkadian: kunuk PN;39 Aramaic: htm PN), or simply implying the noun “seal” through the very presence of the seal itself. They then continue with the name and titles of a specific individual, who is understood to be the owner of the seal. Seals are particularly provocative when considered in relation to an owner, since there is a very real sense of a corporeal body (hand) impressing the seal into a malleable surface such as clay. The impression, or more accurately impressions, made from the seal distribute this individual’s identity and personhood with their material presence. It is therefore quite easy to regard seals within a framework of extended personhood, such as has been proposed by anthropologists like Alfred Gell or Marilyn Strathern.40 In an introductory essay on seals in Mesopotamia, Irene Winter, citing earlier scholarship of Elena Cassin, suggests “a homologous relationship between the person and the seal . . . that the seal stood as/for the entirety of the individual, biological and social—a virtual ‘double’ of the man.”41 Cassin herself stresses the naming quality of seals: “Il apparaît que dans le rêve [referring to a text cited earlier by Cassin] le rapport entre l’homme adulte et le sceau se present sur deux plans différents: sur le plan biologique, le sceau est en relation avec la descendance; sur le plan social, avec le ‘nom,’ la renommée, la réussite.”42 Indeed, seals and their impressions work/do things in the social world through this embodied personhood, by which the authority of the seal owner (named on the seal and presumably the person who impressed the seal, although this is not demonstrable) inhabits the physical presence of the seal impression well beyond the corporeal body of the “owner” (regardless of who actually impressed the seal). 118

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The metal bowls do not follow this situation precisely, as there is no dissemination of their form through impressions; nor do the bowls play a role in administrative documenting processes. But based on the unusual use of possessive inscriptions on the bowls, one might nevertheless compare their physical presence, self-consciously marked with the name of an “owner,” to that of the extended personhood of seals. Corinna Riva has recently referred to inscribed Etruscan wine-related vessels as “talking objects.”43 In a fashion similar to the bowls under study here, the inscriptions name either the possessor of the object, the gift-giver, or the gift-recipient. She considers these vessels to be “talking” because of the use of the first-person singular to refer to the vessel itself in many of the inscriptions—something also seen among some of these metal bowls. Riva interprets this use of the first person as “the total identification between object and subject,” concluding, “Wine-drinking vessels were therefore endowed with personhood and, more importantly, with a specific person’s biography that in turn coalesced with the biography of the object itself.”44 We might consider the situation of the bowls (and seals) in a related manner, as declarations tying these objects (and the practices with which they were intimately connected) to a corporeal body (or bodies) that could be separated in time and space from the object.45 These declarative inscriptions of possession articulate how the biography of a person can coalesce with the biography of an object, through which there can be an extension of personhood over space and through time that has critical implications for memory and memorialization. From farther afield, Rosemary Joyce proposes a connection between “name-tag” texts found on Classic Maya earspools of Central America and social memory.46 These texts name the item as the property of a specific historical person, creating histories that transcend individual memories. In the case of the Classic Maya earspools, the archaeological evidence suggests that the persons named in the texts were not those with whom the object was buried. Rather, Joyce suggests viewing these items as objects “whose circulation histories” make them “a focus for the creation of a social memory.”

Drinking and Death That bowls, rather than other types of personal possessions, are singled out for such declarations of belonging suggests that it was not simply their connection with an owner that mattered, but that the very practices in which such bowls were used were marked as particularly special. An association with wine seems likely for these bowls. In the “Room of the Bronzes” in the Northwest Palace at Nimrud, the co-occurrence of over 170 such vessels (in varying shapes, but generally similar dimensions of between 15 and 20 centimeters in diameter) with at least 12 bronze cauldrons and 14 tripods led Richard Barnett to propose that the 119

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bowls belonged to wine service sets.47 When found in burial contexts in Etruria, they often are accompanied by larger drinking services, including cauldrons and ladles.48 The shape and profile of the Levantine metal bowls point to an overlapping functionality as a drinking and/or pouring vessel.49 The shape, whether hemispherical, shallowly convex, or flat-bottomed with straight or flaring sides, perfectly operates between these two activities, thereby closely linking them to each other. The size (15 to 20 centimeters in diameter) fits nicely in the palm of a hand, likewise easily allowing both actions. This functional overlap is also indicated in the representational contexts in which we find such vessels depicted, where they are shown held up toward the mouth, presumably indicating some form of imbibing, and in the act of being poured over or into some other object. In the Neo-Assyrian reliefs, such as Ashurbanipal’s garden scene with which this chapter began, as well as numerous examples from the ninth-century palace of Ashurnasirpal, we see the king, accompanied by high officials, holding shallow bowls on the tips of their fingers, in front of and at the level of the face (plate 7).50 Similar scenes of seated individuals holding bowls occur on steles from the northern Levantine region.51 With respect to libating, a relief of Ashurbanipal shows the king pouring a liquid from a shallow bowl over dead lions that lie before an altar.52 In this scene, the liquid is rendered in an explicitly material manner as interlocking flowing lines streaming from the tipped bowl, while in an earlier, ninth-century relief of Ashurnasirpal II, the king is shown holding a shallow bowl above a dead lion. Although the actions of drinking versus libating might at first appear to be different, conceptually they are closely related—the one an imbibement for the living, the other imbibing for the dead or divine. Both activities formed part of the same social sphere, and indeed, one critical function of the bowls is to bridge the realms of the living and the dead, the human and the divine, the past and the present.53 That these inscribed bowls seem to be so closely associated with drinking practices raises the further question of the contexts in which this drinking and/or pouring took place, and we might ask how depositional location inflects the bowls’ relationships with their human users. Although these inscribed and decorated bowls have been found in a variety of social spaces, the most common findspots are tombs, and it seems likely that this was a primary place of deposition. A spectacular gold example bearing an Akkadian inscription of TiglathPileser III’s queen, Yaba, was deposited in Tomb II of the so-called Queens’ Tombs underneath the Northwest Palace (plate 9).54 The tomb contained a stone tablet cursing those who desecrated Yaba’s resting place, making clear that this tomb was intended for the person named on the bowl.55 Most of the inscribed bowls from Cyprus are part of Luigi Palma di Cesnola’s Treasure of Kourion discovered in the nineteenth century (plates 10–12). Although Cesnola claimed that he found them in a temple, scholars tend to agree that they probably came from 120

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several different wealthy tombs.56 The fifth inscribed bowl from Cyprus also lacks clear archaeological provenance, but was reportedly found by looters in a tomb outside the village of Armou in the Paphos region of the island.57 Of the two inscribed bowls found in Italy, one comes from the lavish Etruscan burial known as the Bernardini Tomb at Praeneste, dated to the end of the eighth or beginning of the seventh century BCE (plate 13).58 The other bowl is from an uncertain context, purportedly among a group of objects found at Pontecagnano in 1865 that also has been associated with a burial (plate 14).59 The bronze bowl with a Luwian inscription naming Muwazi was excavated as part of the grave assemblage of a pithos burial containing a young woman (fig. 4.1).60 While the bowls might have been used before their deposition in a tomb— and it is unclear whether they were actually used in any drinking activities taking place within the tomb itself—their presence inside a space marked as other than the everyday world endows them with special significance. Thus, in addition to any use prior to deposition in a burial, the bowls’ consistent presence within tomb settings provides them with a certain ritual quality, if we accept the notion of ritual as being those actions that are set apart from the mundane, the everyday, and the normative.61 We might extrapolate from the conjunction of drinking/pouring functionality and burial context a general sense of their ritualized use in funerary activities. Indeed, this final funerary deposition may even have inflected an ancient understanding of such bowls when used prior to burial, thereby effacing to some degree oppositional boundaries between drinking practices associated with living and those associated with death.62 Moreover, because the locus of power resides in the combination of the person + the bowl, power can transfer to subsequent users. In the context of burial and postfunerary rites, this transfer makes a familial connection: the power and the relationship of both deceased + bowl and descendent + bowl get reenacted and reconstituted periodically through time. Evidence for drinking and libating in the context of mortuary rituals exists in Near Eastern texts dating as early as the Bronze Age, best attested in the funerary ritual known in Akkadian as kispu(m), and perhaps also in the West Semitic practice of marzēah. Kispu, which may be loosely translated as “funerary ˙ offerings,” are known from texts from second- and first-millennium Mesopotamia.63 These offering rituals include three major components—the invocation of the deceased’s name, offering of food, and offering of drink—and would be performed at the time of the burial and at regular intervals afterward. The location of many family tombs in Mesopotamia and the Levant under the floor of the residence both reinforced this close connection between ancestors and the living and made access to the tomb for performing rituals straightforward. Tomb II under the Northwest Palace at Nimrud, Queen Yaba’s burial site and the findspot of her inscribed gold bowl, contained at the chamber’s north wall a pipe leading directly from the residential room above to the marble sarcophagus.64 121

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Gerdien Jonker sees the kispu as a form of collective memory that celebrated the family and kinship ties.65 Commenting on the title of those who kept alive the memory of the dead ancestors (zākir šumi, “the invoker of the name”), he proposes an understanding of the phrase šuma zakāru (“the invocation of the name”) as an expression of collective remembrance.66 Stressing the importance of the name for identity, Jonker argues for an intimate connection between genealogies and commemorative rituals.67 Riva makes a similar argument for early Etruscan society, in which the inscribed “talking” bucchero kyathoi served as “a memno-technical textual medium for the constitution of the elite group’s genealogy through the personal memory of deceased individuals and/or giftgivers who were embodied in the vessels themselves. The memno-technical capacity of bucchero drinking vessels was thus twofold, textual or inscriptive on the one hand, and performative on the other, as the vessels were used in drinking rituals.”68 References to a generally West Semitic (sometimes designated as Canaanite) tradition of communal feasting and drinking, at times associated with mortuary activities, can be found in texts from the third millennium into the Common Era, which are usually referred to by the standard Hebrew transliteration marzēah.69 In the Hebrew Bible, the term appears only twice: once in Amos 6:7 ˙ and once in Jeremiah 16:5. In Amos, it is associated with an aristocratic banquet in which the “revelers” lie on beds of ivory, lounge on couches, eat young lambs and calves, drink wine, and anoint themselves to the accompaniment of music. Amos’s denouncement has been interpreted not only as a social critique of out-of-touch elites but also, because of the reference to marzēah, as a theo˙ logical critique of general “Levantine”/Canaanite ritual practices.70 The reference in Jeremiah 16:5 associates the word with mourning rites of food and drink, which has caused some scholars to connect marzēah with kispu.71 The Bronze ˙ Age evidence, fragmentary as it is, points to the existence of an elite group with religious ties whose members consumed large quantities of wine during gatherings.72 The ambiguity of the texts does not permit a total association between the marzēah and funerary rituals, but neither does it rule it out: “The evidence does ˙ not demonstrate that the mrzh can ever be dissociated from funerary ritual. Yet ˙ the case for the mrzh as always involving a funerary banquet is quite weak.”73 ˙ Jonathan Greer has recently identified the type of Levantine bowls under discussion here with the mizraq, a ritual vessel described in the Hebrew Bible that appears to be related to the marzēah.74 This raises the possibility that even if ˙ not directly related to the better-known ancestor cult of kispu, ritualized drinking and libating formed an important, pan-Levantine communal practice. A recently excavated stele from Zincirli (ancient Sam’al) naming a man, Katumuwa, provides tantalizing new evidence for drinking-related funerary practices in the combination of its archaeological context, inscriptional testimony, and figural depiction (fig. 4.2).75 It is a nonroyal but nonetheless 122

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Fig. 4.2 Katumuwa stele, Zincirli. Gaziantep Archaeological Museum, Turkey. Courtesy of the Neubauer Expedition to Zincirli; photograph by E. Struble.

elite monument, one of a group of funerary steles known from the northern Levantine region in the early Iron Age.76 They represent a rare example in the ancient Near East of apparently private memorials. The Katumuwa stele was set up in a mortuary chapel in the lower town of Sam’al. The basalt stele itself pictures in carved relief a seated individual, presumably to be identified with Katumuwa, who is named in the text as the servant of the Sam’alian king Panamuwa II (reigned circa 745–733/732 BCE). Katumuwa has been classified as a 123

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Luwian name, while both West Semitic and Luwian deities are mentioned in the inscription (Hadad and Kubaba). He holds a drinking/libating bowl77 in his right hand and some kind of vegetal item in his left, identified by Eudora Struble and Virginia Herrmann as a pinecone.78 Before him is a table laden with foodstuffs. The inscription prescribes that offerings from vines be given regularly within the mortuary chamber, providing a strong connection between the metal bowl held by Katumuwa, wine, and funerary rituals.79 The inscription, in a local Northwest Semitic dialect, fills the space above the table and to the right of the seated figure. It begins: “I am Katumuwa, servant of Panamuwa . . . who commissioned for myself (this) stele while still living.”80 The stele has received much attention because of the reference in the inscription to Katumuwa’s “soul (nbš) that (will be) in this stele.”81 However, the stele’s text is of interest to me for its clear association of the monument (and thus presumably the depiction shown on it, including drinking/libating), wine offerings, and death. The inscription provides detailed information regarding the items to be used in the funerary feast, although the explicit nature of the inscription suggests that there was some need for this information to be recorded and conveyed; thus, it may not in fact have been commonly known. That the three surviving monumental inscriptions in which such details are explicitly recorded occur at or near the site of Zincirli may indicate that this practice required special explanation or justification for its inhabitants.82 Interestingly, there were no actual human remains found in association with the stele, suggesting either that Katumuwa was cremated83 or that his place of burial was elsewhere.84 That these types of funerary monuments were not limited to men is apparent in the number of mortuary steles depicting women as the recipient of a feast, including another stele found at Zincirli in earlier excavations in the east wall of Hilani I, perhaps in association with a stone cist grave.85 Likewise, Riva argues that funerary banqueting in seventh-century Orientalizing Etruscan tombs included both men and women, based on the presence of drinking and feasting equipment in both female and male burials.86 This evidence might be combined with that of the gold bowl inscribed for Yaba and the female burial at Tragana, suggestive of a pan-Near Eastern/Mediterranean gendering of funerary practices. It should not come as any surprise that ritualized practices involving feasting and drinking, food offerings, and libations would find cross-cultural expression that is possibly connected with funerary or ancestral needs. The connection between feasting and mortuary practices has an established history in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean world in the Bronze and early Iron Ages.87 In addition to the textually attested practices of kispu and marzēah (along with ˙ likely other Near Eastern practices that are less well attested textually), we find

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such practices in Greek culture in the sociopolitical realm of the symposium and in the sacrifices and libations made to the deceased.88 Yet beyond simple feasting, the specific association of consuming and/or offering alcoholic beverages (wine or beer) may come into play as well. Ethnographic evidence has demonstrated the critical social role that consuming alcoholic beverages plays in binding groups of people together through shared practices and experiences.89 The combination of physical ingestion into the corporeal body and psychotropic properties often led to the central inclusion of alcoholic beverages in ritualized practices.90 The experiential transformations wrought by alcoholic intoxication would be particularly well suited to funerary rituals where boundaries between the living and the dead are blurred. The association between liquid (and food) offerings and the invocation of a deceased individual’s name, whether that noted in the kispu ritual or as evident in the inscription of Katumuwa’s name on the Zincirli stele, may provide some explanation for why, of the many types of luxurious burial goods, these particular types of bowls tended to receive inscriptions of personhood. The bowls’ relationship to positions of power also has a long history in Mesopotamia, with the title of “cupbearer” referring to a high-ranking official (even second in command).91 The legendary third-millennium usurper Sargon of Agade was supposedly the cupbearer of the King of Kish, from whom he seized power and established the Akkadian Empire.92 Sargon and the Akkadian Empire lived on in the Assyro-Babylonian imaginary well into the first millennium, as attested by ongoing cults to him and the perpetuation of his reputation in literary legends.93 That the title continued to maintain a close association with high royal elite is evident from an inscription on the sarcophagus of Ashurnasirpal II’s wife from Tomb III at Nimrud, which claims her to be the “daughter of Ashur-nirkada’inni, chief cupbearer of Ashurnasirpal, king of Assyria.”94 Thus, we can see a close conjunction, not only between drinking/libating and familial funerary practices, but also between the preciousness of these particular bowls and individuals in positions of power. Within this framework, the bowls tap into deep sociocultural practices involving community identity and memory that, while culturally inflected from region to region, nevertheless point to a cross-cultural realm of shared values and norms. The permanent marking of the metal bowls with an owner’s name provides a memory of ownership and personhood even when the bowl was not used by the named individual. In the case of an association with a deceased individual, the bowl served to link that person to the realm of the living (and the realm of the physical “user”) even after death. The bowls might be understood as an extension on the one hand of an “owner” named in the inscription, and on the other hand of a user who is not the named individual, effectively triangulating a social relation between the two through the material presence of the bowl.

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In any future use, the bowl could become an extension of familial or social relationships that are embodied in the conjunction of new person (and that person’s relationship to the named individual) + bowl. In other words, these bowls could become memorials.

Temporality and Presence The very materiality of the bowls, however, generates intriguing nuances with respect to social identity and collective memory. When the inscriptions are considered in relation to their material supports (that is, the bowls themselves), complications and tensions between the temporal nature of the bowls’ social lives and the presence of a timeless declaration of ownership emerge. The bowls as physical objects can live as an eternal presence, while the inscription ties them to a specific point in time associated with a specific individual. Thus, we need to problematize the notion of ownership, which is presented in a generally self-evident manner in these inscriptions (“of or belonging to so-and-so”) and which likewise has been taken as self-evident and straightforward by most scholars. The individual named in the inscription is generally considered to be the “original” owner of the vessel, and the ethno-linguistic attribution of the name (whether Phoenician, Aramaean, Hebrew, and so on) has been used in attempts to locate production origins. A close analysis of several bowls with less straightforward situations serves as a caution in making such assumptions. For example, one bowl bears two different Cypriot Greek inscriptions naming two different individuals—Akestor and Timokretes (plate 11).95 Akestor’s inscription (“I am of Akestor, king of Paphos”) was partly erased, and Timokretes’ (“I am of Timokretes”) was added.96 We might assign “original” ownership to the individual named in the erased inscription, Akestor, king of Paphos, but this would deny the equal validity of Timokretes’ ownership. We cannot, therefore, use the inscriptions uncritically to explain the identity of the owner or the deceased, nor can we necessarily use the material remains of a burial to explain a point of origin or manufacture for either a bowl or its inscription.97 The gold bowl from the Queens’ Tomb II further illustrates the challenges of reconstructing any straightforward relationship between “owner,” bowl, and place of manufacture (plate 9). The Akkadian inscription reads: “Of (belonging to) Yaba of the palace (i.e. queen) of Tiglath-Pileser III, king of the land of Assur.”98 The “Phoenician style” of the bowl has been associated with the queen’s West Semitic name, Yaba, who might be interpreted as a “Phoenician” (or other Levantine) princess married into the Assyrian royal court. However, the tomb contained several other inscriptions naming Yaba, including another gold bowl with exactly the same inscription, but which is not of the “Levantine” decorated

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bowl type (plate 15).99 In fact, it is a form that has been viewed as typically Assyrian, a “carinated bowl” with a “sharply defined shoulder, a waisted neck and a flared rim.”100 In addition, a recent study of the style and iconography of the Levantine bowl has proposed that the bowl predates the inscription by approximately two hundred years.101 Thus, there is no straightforward relationship between Yaba (a West Semitic name)102, the inscription (in Akkadian), and the bowl itself. A similar chronological time lag between production and deposition, though with slightly different implications for identification, has been discussed by Gail Hoffman with regard to an undecorated inscribed bronze bowl found in Tekke Tomb J near Knossos (Knossos North Cemetery) on Crete.103 The plain hemispherical bowl bears an inscription below the rim in Phoenician: “the bowl of Shema, son of L...”104 Based on paleographic evidence, the inscription has been dated to around 1000 BCE, while its immediate tomb context was dated according to associated pottery to the early ninth century, at least one hundred years later. Neither date has garnered a consensus, so it is best not to make too much of the possible time lag. However, the possibility of such a chronological gap becomes more interesting when one considers the implications resulting from a bronze bowl with a Phoenician inscription being buried in a typically Cretan tomb. As Hoffman has rightly noted, while it has been tempting for scholars to suggest that the inscription naming an individual points to the identity of the interred person and therefore indicates the presence of Phoenicians on the island of Crete in the ninth century, this interpretation is tenuous given that all other aspects of the tomb align with known Cretan traditions, and the tomb itself was part of a larger Cretan cemetery.105 One might also note the presence of the Phoenician inscribed bowls in the seventh-century Etruscan tombs at Praeneste and Pontecagnano, which no one has suggested indicates the presence of Phoenicians among the tombs’ deceased. These cases of inscribed bowls that complicate any straightforward equivalencies between person named in the inscription, individual buried in the tomb, and “original” location of production reveal a significant fissure in how the bowls frame temporality. The inscriptions posit, either explicitly (in the firstperson present tense of the verb to be) or implicitly (in the use of a possessive preposition), a never-ending present: this bowl (that is physically before you) is (and always will be) the bowl of person X. It is, as was argued above, an extension of that individual’s identity and selfhood, and in its insistent presentness demands a memorialization—that is, a keeping alive (the memory of) the named individual—on the part of later users/viewers. Yet “this” bowl may have had multiple “owners”; it may only have come into “this owner’s” possession quite late in its social life; it may be buried with someone entirely different from the one named in the inscription. What the inscription so effectively does is to

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collapse and attempt to erase these temporal wanderings of the bowl in order to affix identity, through memory, as unchanging and ahistorical. The recurrent engagement with a burial site likewise collapses time into an ongoing present. Jonker notes how the temporal break between “dead” and “living”/“then” and “now” was erased through the recurring spatial movement between tomb “below” and residence “above,” such that all social encounters take place in the ever-present “now.”106 Drawing on Paul Connerton, Jonker points out that commemorative rituals allow the past to exist in the present: “The kispu, through its continual repetition and through the symbolic actions which called up emotions as well as the dead, represented an outstanding mnemonic.”107 With respect to the cyclical returning to the tomb for successive interments in seventh-century Etruria, Corinna Riva argues that “the recurrent visits to the tomb and ceremonial performances in front of it transformed the funeral event into a recursive social practice.”108 Along similar lines, Yannis Hamilakas has proposed that feasts, as opposed to other food-consumption practices, derive their power in part from the manner in which their occurrences punctuate and disrupt normative time (established through regular eating habits).109 Involving the entire body and its senses in a collective act, such ritualized consumption heightens properties of collective memory and strengthens a sense of belonging. With their declarative statements of possession, we might propose these bowls as participating in and partly structuring social practices through an idealized, ongoing present that nonetheless forged critical social relations through time.

The Enchantment of Imagery Recalling that the inscribed and decorated bowls exist as a group at one end of a long continuum of bowls with and without inscriptions, with and without decorations, we are forced to ask: what marks out a bowl as “worthy” of being inscribed? This may not be an answerable question. However, one feature of these bowls appears not to have been central to their selection for inscription—the subject matter of their decoration. Indeed, in contrast to the relative conformity of the content (if not the languages) of the inscriptions, the content (generally understood as subject matter or iconography) of the metal bowls’ decoration is strikingly disparate. While the content of the inscriptions clearly connects these vessels to one another cross-culturally, as do their general form and presumed funerary function, the imagery reveals no obvious pattern of visual relationships. On the one hand, the inscribed bowls show no visual connections among themselves—those of Yaba and the Bernardini Tomb being the most closely related in their Egyptian riverine imagery, but still exhibiting significant deviations from one another (plates 9 and 13).110 On the other hand, most of the inscribed and decorated bowls find visual parallels with uninscribed 128

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bowls that associate them, iconographically, with the larger corpus of Levantine bowls, which is the group within which they have typically been studied. One unique example appears almost self-referential in its depiction of a banquet. The fragmentary silver bowl from the Treasure of Kourion includes an outer register in which a female and a male figure recline on couches to either side of a heavily laden table (plate 12).111 The woman may hold a small hemispherical bowl in her left hand (or an oval item, perhaps an egg, as appears in Etruscan tomb painting?),112 while the man holds something larger and rounder. Encircling the rest of the register (only two-thirds of which is preserved) are various musicians and attendants bringing items to the banquet. A woman to the left of the reclining female holds two or three bowls in her left hand and a small jug in her right as she moves toward the couch. Immediately behind her is a large two-handled amphora, behind which smaller jugs stand on a table with two ladles. Cypriot-Greek inscriptions run above the two reclining individuals, the translations of which have been debated but may refer to “she who reigns over Cyprus” and to a king.113 We seem, therefore, to have a depiction of an event—a royal banquet—in which this very bowl may have played a part. The bowl has been dated relatively late in the series (circa 710–675 by Vassos Karageorghis),114 perhaps reflecting a growing self-consciousness of identifying with a group through institutionalized banqueting, such as we see in Greece with the rise of the symposium or the commensal clubs of Sparta.115 Its inscriptions also deviate from the norm in not providing the genitive form of the name (at least for the woman—the inscription over the man is too poorly preserved to say anything certain); rather, they act more like captions to the imagery, further hinting at its role in more consciously constructed group identification. Both the imagery and the inscription present the event in a third-person outsider narrative, rather than from a first-person participant perspective. This type of “documentary/third-person” imagery is the exception; it does not occur on any of the other inscribed bowls. One of the bronze bowls from Nimrud (N 19, inscribed for Abipat )—dated archaeologically to the ninth or ˙ eighth century and stylistically to the ninth—presents startlingly different imagery that would seem to stand in complete opposition to that of self-referential banqueters (plate 8).116 The major register of imagery on this bowl consists of a circular composition without clear beginning, end, or focal point, in which large vultures attack herbivores.117 The vultures, arranged in three pairs, tear at the animals’ recumbent bodies from either side. A further outer register depicts more vultures moving in a file to the right. Smaller interior registers of linked palmettes (what Richard Barnett called a “marsh” pattern, because it resembles the symbol for marshes on British survey maps!) and guilloche bands encircle a central rosette. Such imagery seems not only not to refer to the activity in which the bowl would have been in use, but also not especially appropriate for a purely convivial banqueting setting. Unlike the Kourion bowl just examined, 129

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Nimrud bowl N 19, along with the other fourteen inscribed decorated bowls, presents imagery that seems to have little representational connection with its presumed context of use. It may simply have been a question of what was at hand that led some decorated bowls to receive inscriptions and others not. However, once a bowl was chosen to receive an inscription, its imagery could exert an effect on participantviewers as they engaged with the bowl through its use. Thus, rather than trying to read the images on these bowls in a literal fashion, we might instead consider their decorative elements in terms of a visual effect on viewers or users within a context of ritual imbibing/libating. Indeed, we might postulate that in the experiential practices of drinking and feasting, the imagery is consumed along with the (potentially intoxicating) liquid, which had the ability to affect and change the social dynamics of its very users. Almost always, the imagery appears on the interior of the vessel so that it would be covered and revealed during the process of pouring or drinking, providing an unstable, even mystical experience of the imagery. Shifting our inquiry away from an originally intended representational message to consider instead the effect that the visually present imagery may have exerted on its human users allows us to think actively about the conjunction of inscription, form, material, and imagery within social practices of community, identity, and memory. This move away from iconography also permits a new analysis of the many nonfigurative bowls that focus solely on repeated patterns of vegetal motifs and geometric designs. Nimrud bowl N 19 shares an absence of human figures with the other five inscribed and decorated bowls from the Northwest Palace storeroom hoard. The others, however, do not include even animals among their imagery, focusing instead on repeated patterns of vegetal motifs and geometric designs. One of them includes pseudo-Egyptian cartouches and longer pseudohieroglyphic inscriptions that combine proper and fantastic Egyptian signs (N 619, inscribed for Ba‘al-’ezer the scribe). These bowls feature either a central rosette, like N 19 (also N 75, “Belonging to Ahiyo”), or an elaborate star pattern ˙ (N 619). Another example from Nimrud (N 50, naming Yibhar-’el) creates a star˙ like pattern in the central circle by means of interlocking lotus(?) and palm tree motifs that form the points of two squares with incurving sides. The bronze bowl from Tragana in central Greece with a hieroglyphic Luwian inscription on its outer rim is similarly simple in its ornamentation, consisting of an omphalos encircled by a petaled rosette and roughly incised herringbone band (fig. 4.1). This nonfigural feature brings these bowls, visually speaking, closer to the undecorated, inscribed metal bowls, reinforcing the impression that all these bowls form part of a continuum in which the critical shared feature is that of a pouring/drinking purpose. Nonetheless, we might view the varying degrees of visual elaboration in relation to inscription through the lens of Alfred Gell’s no-

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tion of a technology of enchantment, in which those bowls that contained more ornate decoration—whether figural or not—ensnared the viewer in different ways from those that presented only an inscription on a smooth (and presumably shiny) metal support.118 Each would produce different effects on the userviewer: the decorative ones perhaps drawing the user-viewer into a complex figured world that might generate conversation among a larger group of people and provide rich fodder for later memories; the solely inscribed ones calling attention to the very fact of the inscription itself and all that it entailed. Those would be the extremes, but the range of decorative elaboration as well as placement and rendering of the inscriptions suggests that both these effects could be drawn on to different degrees in different instances. In following this line of thought, the placement and clarity of the inscriptions in relation to the decoration might provide some measure of where along the spectrum—from enchantment to declaration—any particular bowl would have resided, and thus provide a foundation for capturing its specific affective qualities. Toward the end of the spectrum favoring enchantment might be the two bowls from Italy. The Bernardini Tomb vessel depicts four Nile reed boats divided into quadrants by papyrus thickets (plate 13). The boats bear complex scenes on them, including various divine or ritualistic elements.119 A scene of a mother suckling a young boy, related to Hathor iconography, forms the center of four papyrus clumps that separate the boats. This outer figural register surrounds a central medallion depicting a complex Pharaonic scene of smiting enemies, including a bird of prey flying above. The bowl incorporates many small pseudo-Egyptian hieroglyphs as decorative borders between the figural registers as well as cartouches within the central medallion, which in conjunction with the circular central medallion and outer fourfold boat and papyrus clump imagery present a kaleidoscopic sense of busy, centrifugal motion. The alphabetic Phoenician inscription, however, hardly calls attention to itself at all, running in small script along the outstretched wing of the central falcon. Less well preserved, but following a similar format, is the Pontecagnano bowl, whose outer register and rim are partly missing (plate 14). It too has a circular central medallion with an equally complex Pharaonic smiting scene, including a bird of prey above and cartouches in the empty space around the figures. The medallion is encircled by a zigzag pattern representative of water in traditional Egyptian art, which in turn serves as the ground line for the outer register of papyrus thickets, in which horses walk and young Harpokrates figures sit on lotus blossoms. While the imagery is less busy than the Bernardini Tomb example, the alphabetic Phoenician inscription is even less evident, being squeezed into a line of pseudohieroglyphs supporting the central smiting scene. That both these highly elaborate bowls with low-visibility inscriptions appear in Etruria may indicate the greater role that enchantment played for the Etrus-

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can user-viewers, while Etruscan drinking vessels prominently inscribed in the Etruscan language place a greater emphasis on the declarative quality of calling attention to themselves. One of the silver bowls from the Treasure of Kourion provides an extreme example of visual imagery whose enchanting powers threaten to overwhelm the presence of the inscriptions (plate 11).120 The central medallion contains a vertically oriented scene of a four-winged genie in combat with a rampant lion. An Egyptian-type bird of prey hovers over the scene while a second one is squeezed between the genie’s outspread wings. The entire scene appears to burst out of its encircling cable pattern, with the genie’s wings and one hind foot of the lion breaking through it. The rest of the bowl is equally crammed with visual detail in two registers that encircle the central medallion and that are separated by elaborate cable and vegetal borders. The middle and narrower register depicts various scenes involving animals. The outer register comprises several distinct groups of human, animal, and supernatural figures, organized around large voluted palmettes. Throughout, small vegetal and decorative motifs fill the space, while the relatively high repoussé relief and wealth of chased details contribute to the bowl’s visual complexity. The bowl has two inscriptions on its inside, which appear to have been added at different times. One naming Akestor is located above the group of a winged genie killing a griffin on the outer register and is partly erased. A better-preserved inscription naming Timokretes is squeezed into the space immediately below the rim and the outermost border of a palmette chain, above the scene of the human in a lion skin fighting a lion. Neither call attention to themselves, and both are almost lost amid the busyness of the imagery. Of course, these two aspects of the bowls’ interactive potential need not be at each other’s expense. One could have a richly enchanting visual bowl that also emphasized its inscriptional component. Yaba’s gold bowl is an excellent example of this (plate 9). Its imagery hews very closely to that of the Egyptian tradition and is almost identical to that of another (uninscribed) bowl, this time in silver, said to come from Golgoi/Athienou on Cyprus (now in Berlin). Based on its iconography and style, Dirk Wicke has dated the gold bowl to the Third Intermediate Period around 1000 BCE.121 It depicts four Nile boats in a papyrus thicket that extends as a continuous background. Like the Pontecagnano bowl, a series of zigzag lines form the base of this scene and divide it from the central medallion, which depicts a pool filled with lotus flowers, fish, a crocodile, a horse, a cow, and a naked swimming girl. Each boat contains different scenes of activity that include men and women involved in catching waterfowl and calves and preparing drink. Three of the boats are the traditional Nile vessel of bound reeds. The fourth boat takes the shape of a waterfowl, and contains a covered pavilion in which a woman ministers to a seated man who holds a lotus blossom and a cup. Horses, cattle, and waterfowl fill the spaces between the boats. 132

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Even more so than the Bernardini Tomb bowl or the Pontecagnano bowl, this bowl presents a plethora of details that are exuberant in their rich centrifugal movement outward from the central star pattern of radiating lotus flowers and leaves. The inscription does not appear within this imagery, as it did on the two bowls from Etruria, but rather was carefully engraved in cuneiform signs outside the bowl, immediately under the rim. The inscription itself has not been published in photographic form, only hand copy, and the vessel—as part of the Iraq Museum’s collections—is currently not accessible for study. However, photographs of other gold vessels from the tomb bearing inscriptions of Yaba and two other queens show clear, crisp, evenly spaced signs (plate 15). Presumably, the inscription not only would have been clearly visible against the polished gold, but its deep engraving into the metal also would have been felt by one’s lips when drinking or by one’s fingers when held. Another case in which enchantment and declaration coexist in an elegant balance is a second silver bowl from the Treasure of Kourion (plate 10).122 It includes in its outer register a series of supernatural beings—four-winged females, winged griffin genii, sphinxes, griffins, and uraei—flanking both naturalistic and fantastical vegetation. An inner register repeats a pattern of lotus flowers and buds, with a rosette at the center bottom of the bowl. Unlike many of the other figural bowls, this one inserts wide, unadorned bands between the engraved scenes, providing a sense of lightness, almost airiness to the vessel. The various figures in the outer register each occupy their own space, with no sense of the cramming seen on some of the other bowls. Within this more open composition, the inscription of Epiorwos (“I am the bowl (phiale) of Epiorwos, son of Dies”) appears clearly engraved between the motif of a drooping flower and the outstretched wing of a bird of prey. This bowl also stands apart from the others in not using repoussé but being only engraved, which, as the inscription is also engraved, has the effect of materially emphasizing both equally. The inscribed and decorated bowls, as a subset of the entire corpus of both inscribed, undecorated and uninscribed, decorated Levantine bowls, can be seen to have a peculiar efficacy unto themselves as both inscribed and decorated. While we might understand all such bowls to have acted in many of the same ways as these sixteen (in particular with regard to their use as drinking/ libating vessels), the emphatic nature of inscribing and decorating situates this smaller subgroup at the extreme end of the spectrum and ultimately sets them apart. By means of inscription, these bowls call attention to their relationship with an owner/possessor whose identity and memory are intimately bound up in the invocation of a name in conjunction with the act of drinking and/or libating. The imagery works in less conscious ways to enchant the beholder, whether s/he is the owner or not. This enchantment by means of visual complexity ensnares the user-viewers, creating social bonds of community identity and collective memory through the visual (and tactile) experience with the bowl. 133

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Conclusions Near Eastern and Mediterranean practices involving drinking and libating in ritual settings stretch well back into the preceding Bronze Age. Textual references to kispu from Bronze Age Mari and elsewhere and the Bronze Age references to marzēah from Ugarit and Ebla would suggest continuity in practice. ˙ Instances of ancestor statues receiving actual offerings also have archaeological documentation for the second millennium, for example in the royal tombs at Qatna.123 Such continuity might also be seen in Late Bronze Age metal bowls that have often been cited as precedents for the first-millennium Levantine corpus, most notably two gold bowls from Ras Shamra-Ugarit—one a shallow rounded bowl, the other a flat-bottomed dish—and two silver bowls from Tell Basta in Egypt.124 The Ras Shamra bowls, neither of which is inscribed, were excavated in a secondary context on the tell’s acropolis.125 They have been dated variously between the fifteenth and thirteenth centuries, based on stylistic features. One of the Tell Basta examples, punctuated with a cone-shaped omphalos and two concentric bands of figural relief, bears on its outside, directly under the lip, a dedicatory hieroglyphic inscription in the name of Amy, the chantress of Neith.126 Its date is debated, but generally placed at the end of the Nineteenth Dynasty, from the end of the twelfth or beginning of the eleventh century—the transitional period from the Bronze to Iron Ages. If the bowl from Yaba’s tomb and the one from Golgoi date to around 1000 BCE, they provide strong evidence of continuity at the most elite levels even through the so-called Dark Ages. Thus, we should see the practice of funerary drinking and libating as belonging to a long cultural memory in the Near East. Nonetheless, something seems to change dramatically with the transition to the Iron Age, when inscriptions asserting ownership and belonging first appear consistently on metal bowls. Indeed, the earliest attestations of this phenomenon occur at the very point of the transition from the Bronze to Iron Ages. I have already mentioned the bronze bowl with a Phoenician inscription declaring it to be the bowl of Shema from the Knossos North Cemetery Tekke Tomb J, which might be dated as early as 1050 or 1000 BCE.127 Another very early bowl, of silver, was found on Cyprus at the site of Hala Sultan Tekké.128 It was found in a rubble wall, which was dated on the basis of associated pottery to the Late Cypriot IIIA:1 period, around 1190–1175 BCE. The alphabetic cuneiform inscription in a West Semitic language related to Ugaritic is inscribed just below the outside rim. It reads: ks (?)/’aky/bn ypthd (“bowl (?) of Aky, son of Yaptihaddu”).129 Yet another early bowl was excavated in an Iron Age IIA–B (tenth-century) burial cave at Kefar Veradim in the Upper Galilee, where it was found placed near an adult (probably female) skeleton.130 The bronze gadrooned bowl exhibits an inscription incised around its inside base that follows the same formula as the other two early examples: ks.psh.bnšm’ (“the cup of Psh, son of Shema”). 134

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A few other kinds of objects receive similar types of possessive inscriptions during this early transitional period. A bronze roasting spit with the Greek name of Opheltas in the genitive (written in Cypro-Syllabic) was discovered in Tomb 49 at Palaeopaphos-Skales on Cyprus along with two other inscribed spits that are not decipherable.131 This has been dated to the late eleventh or early tenth century. Riva comments on the close association between drinking kits and roasting accessories in later, seventh-century Etruscan burials, proposing banquets involving both drink and roasted meat, and one wonders if this too is an earlier practice.132 This association may also relate to two tripods with inscriptions bearing names found along with the bronze bowls at Nimrud.133 A group of around forty arrowheads said to come from the central Levant carry short West Semitic inscriptions dating to the eleventh and tenth centuries.134 Like the bowls, the inscriptions typically state the word for “arrowhead” (hs) ˙˙ along with the name of an individual and his patronym. Though it is less clear how arrowheads might be connected to feasting and drinking (perhaps in the hunt for the consumed meat?), these few types of metal objects are singled out very early in the Iron Age as items with special relationships to the named owner. As Susan Sherratt has argued, the “adoption” of writing (or of new written forms) is not a self-evidently desirable course of action for a society at large; rather, “the conditions have to be right. In other words, an appropriate cultural context is needed in which writing can be put to some perceptibly useful purpose.”135 Similarly, Corinna Riva has linked the increase of large-scale communal funerary drinking and feasting rituals to major changes in the social and political structures of early Etruscan state formation, arguing for a close connection between these new funerary activities (and their artifactual instantiations) and the appearance of urbanization.136 Funerary steles similar to that of Katumuwa from Zincirli have been implicated by Dominik Bonatz in the emergence during the ninth and eighth centuries of small-scale state hierarchies established by the new Levantine polities.137 Eudora Struble and Virginia Herrmann, while agreeing with the basic association between the funerary steles and the emergence of new states, see the central concern of such mortuary practices to be “the integrity and continuity of the immediate family, including its female members.”138 Taking such a concern not simply as normative but rather as assertive in its textual and physical presence, we might see a negotiation of social identity that is being played out in an emerging ethnogenesis that expresses its commonalities in the (perhaps metaphorical) realm of kinship, instead of palace dependency and loyalty. Does the presence of inscribed personhood on metal bowls that participated in funerary drinking and libating rituals signal a need to assert identity on a new level in the wake of general social upheaval? Does it go hand in hand with the sudden flourishing of monumental inscriptions in a diversity of languages, 135

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seemingly with strong ethnic overtones? It might be possible to see rites of funerary drinking and libating as a shared cultural arena in which the various communities nonetheless competed with one another in the negotiation of emerging identities.139 For example, although J. David Schloen and Amir Fink, among others, have advanced a notion of multicultural harmony for the northern Levantine region,140 perhaps the opposite is also the case—that the appearance of these diverse languages suddenly being used for monumental and memorial expression points to the emergence of contested identities. On the one hand, there seems to be a shared practice of drinking that associates related vessels with specific individuals as part of an elite society. Yet on the other hand, the diversity of languages (and scripts) serves to distinguish groups from one another along linguistic divides that ultimately result in ethnic differentiation. Perhaps we can interpret, as a counterpoint to the northern Levantine situation, the odd fact that of the five inscribed decorated bowls from Cyprus, all of them bear Cypriot-Greek texts, despite strong Phoenician presence on the island and the occurrence of Phoenician inscriptions on bowls from Italy, Nimrud, Greece, and Crete.141 Might it be that, from this jostling of ethno-linguistic display of social identity bound with kin, Aramaic eventually wins out as dominant in the Levant (and even Assyria), while Greek prevails on Cyprus? With respect to Cyprus, Sherratt notes the rigid division between languages and scripts on the island, with Cypro-Syllabic used only for Greek and the Eteo-Cypriot language that it was first devised for, while alphabetic script is used only for Phoenician.142 She suggests that it is the community of Greek-speaking Cypriots who most felt the need to articulate an identity along ethno-linguistic lines in response to Kition’s rise in prominence after becoming a colony of Tyre in the ninth century. According to her, one part of their response was a “hardening up of explicitly non-Phoenician language expressed in this case through some deliberate increase in the visibility of an indigenous syllabic script which had hitherto been largely taken for granted and used in a matter-of-fact, essentially non-symbolic manner.”143 The inscribing of personal names and the declaration of ownership that appear on metal bowls around the Near East and Mediterranean from the transitional period into the Iron Age suggest a new role for funerary practices, in which emerging communal identities were increasingly being expressed through ethno-linguistic affiliation and a metaphor of ancestral kinship. The bowls themselves, as particularly potent extensions of personhood and power, offered an especially efficacious surface for the inscription of these new identities. The inscription of individual names, several of which stress their royal or elite status, coexists in an uneasy relationship with the presumed use of the vessels themselves in communal rituals of drinking and libating. The addition of an inscription lends this particular group of bowls a more self-reflexive perspective that to some extent distances them from the social activity in which 136

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they participated. That is to say, the prominent and unusual addition of an inscription that names a person activates memories in a fairly self-conscious manner. These memories oscillate between the personal (a single, individual name) and the collective (in both the social use of the bowls and the quasi-public display of the inscriptions). The inscriptions, along with the decoration and the materials of the bowls, situated within funerary practices, provide a ritualization that established relations among those in their orbit and solidified collective memories of community identity. But what happens when such objects are dislocated from their original contexts of use? What effects might they have had on new communities with which they came in contact? And what new memories might they have generated? These questions occupy the final chapter.

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CHAPTER 5 Chapter Five

The Reuse, Recycling, and Displacement of Levantine Luxury Arts

T

he reinscription of some of the Levantine metal bowls, along with their appearance in what must clearly be secondary contexts, such as the Etruscan

and Greek burials, point to multiple circulatory patterns for these and other Levantine artworks.1 Likewise, the discovery near the pan-Hellenic sanctuary of Olympia of a Levantine bowl inscribed for an owner bearing a West Semitic name2—whether a bowl like this was left as a votive, as most scholars as-

sume, or acquired by temple officials for ritual activities, as proposed by Ingrid Strøm3—suggests a secondary usage in a context associated with the sanctuary. Such circulation has been acknowledged in the scholarship for many years, prompting the examination of so-called Orientalizing trends in eighth-century Greece and Italy. Yet only more recently has attention been turned to the variations and precise articulation of this circulation, complicating what had been previously understood in rather simplistic terms as the natural by-product of commercial Phoenician activity.4 This chapter explores some of these complex social histories through a series of case studies, each of which presents slightly 139

different circulatory trajectories. Keeping in mind the blurring of distinctions between purportedly “Phoenician,” “North Syrian,” “Aramaean,” and “Luwian/ Neo-Hittite” material culture during the ninth through seventh centuries, these variable circulation patterns provide further caution regarding singular models of homogeneously defined ethnic groups spreading knowledge (and art styles) by means of a mercantilism constructed through the lens of modern European capitalism. My purpose is not to redefine the history of Phoenician/Levantine movement in the Mediterranean but rather to bring to the fore the complicated nature of the situation, and to encourage case-by-case analysis of mobile arts rather than one-size-fits-all models. In this respect, I seek to build a bottom-up set of narratives derived from individual artifacts rather than a top-down model seeking to explain the presence of all circulating artifacts. In so doing, I propose differing accretions of value and meaning within the artifacts’ changing contexts of use, which in turn generate new possibilities of community formation and identity. Each of the cases examined in this chapter presupposes some displacement of the artworks from the place of their original manufacture to that of their deposition. The element of disjuncture or rupture manifests in varying means of reuse and recycling in the new context.5 While the “biographies” of Levantine artworks prior to their deposition can be hard to trace, careful analysis of the stylistic and technical features of both individual objects and assemblages of like objects can reveal strong circumstantial evidence for aspects of the earlier trajectories of their social lives. It is not my aim to pinpoint the locations of initial manufacture, an endeavor undertaken by most studies of these works with varying degrees of satisfactory results. Nonetheless, each object or group of objects bespeaks displacement in some way or another. Sometimes these displacements involve crossing geocultural areas, sometimes they involve moving across sociopolitical strata, and sometimes they involve both. By employing the term displacement, I intend no devaluing of the subsequent uses of these pieces. Rather, I hope to evoke the disjointed quality of the objects’ movements, a quality that gets glossed over in terms like circulation, with its connotation of smooth, seamless transitions. The disjointed quality, I contend, is vital to our ability to capture the varying inflections of meaning and value ascribed to the pieces along their journeys. The case studies of secondary mobility that this chapter presents start with a series of bronze relief bands from three statues found disassembled along with masses of other materials in a well at the cult sanctuary at Olympia. These bands point to opportunistic acquisition as a result of collapsing political order, in this instance that of the Assyrian Empire. Rather than appearing to be an article of commercial trade or even structured gift exchange, their presence at Olympia appears to have been possible only because of Assyria’s fall from power. With this situation in mind, the next case study presents related instances of 140

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post-empire dissemination of Levantine luxury arts, this time in the form of ivories found at Nimrud in the Town Wall Houses and possibly also at Til Barsip. These two examples both illustrate the longevity of mobility for Levantine arts, even those created years earlier, and suggest unofficial circulation mechanisms within the Assyrian state itself. Such movement is contrasted with that which occurred within official channels of the Assyrian Empire, as exemplified by ivories found in the Bâtiment aux Ivoires at Arslan Tash. Including one piece naming Haza’el, taken to be the ninth-century king of Damascus, and found in an eighth-century administrative building in an Assyrian provincial city, they suggest the gifting of complete sets of furnishings to loyal officials by the central Assyrian court. The disassembled state of the ivories from the Nimrud Town Wall Houses and Til Barsip Building C1 and the dismantled state of the Olympia bronzes raise yet another aspect regarding the circulation of Levantine arts, namely the secondary reassembling of individual pieces to create new forms. This is clearly evident in the case of the reworking and reuse of the Olympia bronze bands, but may also be proposed for several canonic pieces from Cyprus—an ivory chair and bed and a bronze cauldron from Tomb 79 of the Royal Necropolis at Salamis. In the case of Tomb 79, given a terminus ante quem no later than the end of the eighth century according to its pottery, we cannot attribute the appearance of this material on Cyprus to the breakdown of the Assyrian Empire. However, the reassembling from potentially recycled parts of these three pieces speaks to some kind of opportunistic or lower-level acquisition, which was nonetheless turned to the advantage of an emerging group of elites at the site of Salamis. I conclude with a consideration of the oft-discussed harness ornaments inscribed for Haza’el of Damascus, a bridle frontlet of which was found at the Heraion on Samos and a blinker at the Temple of Apollo in Eretria. While we cannot reconstruct the precise pathway(s) by which these items of royal booty made their way into two different Greek sanctuaries, we can discern differing dimensions of value that presumably contributed to different networks of meaning. Within a Levantine and Assyrian cultural milieu, these items were physically marked (through inscriptions) as material witnesses to territorial conquest and control. Within a Greek ritual context, however much of this earlier history might have “come along for the ride” with the pieces’ displacement from the Near East, primary meaning appears to have derived from imagery and material divorced from the original use as horse harness fixtures.

After the Fall: Mobility post Assyrian Empire In 2004, Eleanor Guralnick published a detailed article reexamining a series of bronze relief bands found in a well at Olympia (fig. 5.1).6 The bronzes, excavated in 1960, have been conserved, scientifically analyzed, and reconstructed 141

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Fig. 5.1 Bronze relief band from Olympia, Greece. Olympia Archaeological Museum. Photograph: Gösta Hellner, DAI Neg. no. D-DAI-ATH-1979/559. © Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. All rights reserved.

as forming parts of three different sphyrelaton korai by Brigitte Borell and Dessa Rittig in their 1998 publication (fig. 5.2).7 The specific details of the bronze reliefs’ archaeometry, archaeological context, and imagery combine to present a particularly clear case of what might be understood as the opportunistic distribution of Levantine artworks. Guralnick convincingly argues that the bronze 142

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Fig. 5.2 Reconstruction of the three sphyrelaton korai by Borell and Rittig 1998, plate 57. Drawing by J. Denkinger. Courtesy of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Zentrale-Bibliothek, Berlin.

bands came to Greece after the defeat of the Assyrian Empire in 612/609 BCE. This scenario raises important implications for our understanding of the mechanisms by which Levantine art circulated, and thus warrants closer consideration here. The bronzes were discovered along with numerous other votives deposited in Well 17, near the north wall of the stadium. The well is one of around two hundred found in the eastern part of the sanctuary that appear to have been constructed for use by participants and visitors to the games.8 Because the wells were predominantly simple shafts dug into the ground, they were not in use for long periods of time and so found a secondary use as receptacles for votive and cultic paraphernalia that for whatever reason no longer had a purpose at the sanctuary.9 The closure of Well 17 has been dated by pottery to circa 475 BCE and corresponds to the construction of a spectators’ seating embankment in this area, representing a quite late terminus ante quem for the bronzes’ arrival at the site.10 The other material included in Well 17 ranges in date and type considerably, including a Mycenaean LH IIIB (thirteenth century) kylix, a Geometricperiod (eighth-century) bronze warrior figurine, and a late Archaic-period (late sixth-century) bronze greave with a dedication by Thebans for a victory over Hyettos.11 This is therefore an eclectic mixture, a seemingly arbitrary gathering of materials that may have been situated in close proximity to one another, perhaps as displayed or stored votives. The contents are very much in keeping with those of the other wells, one of which (SO 6) contained a Levantine bronze bowl of the type discussed in chapter 4.12 This intermixing of materials from different periods and regions can be seen even at the level of the three sphyrelaton korai themselves. The statues were formed of joined sheets of bronze; two smaller examples reached approximately 120 centimeters in height, with the third one significantly taller at between 160 and 200 centimeters. None have been able to be fully reconstructed, with the largest one being the least well preserved. Several bands running both vertically and horizontally along the statues’ skirts exhibit rows of elaborate imagery, many of which are of Near Eastern stylistic and iconographic origin, while others show Greek styles and iconography. Stylistic and iconographic analysis of the Near Eastern bronzes, in pursuit of a specific place and date of manufacture, has produced inconclusive results. Ursula Seidl proposed that the Olympia bronze bands came from three separate northern Levantine workshops—Zincirli, Carchemish, and an unidentified one—all dating to the eighth century.13 Guralnick offers a more circumspect interpretation, saying only that they derive from a “Neo-Hittite” locale. Moreover, noting a number of strongly Assyrianizing features, such as men wearing fish skins and a male deity in a floating disk, she suggests production at a “site governed by Assyrians after the empire overthrew the local government.”14 She places their date of manufacture loosely between the end of the eighth and some 144

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time in the seventh century BCE.15 Guralnick further provides the compelling suggestion that the bands originally ornamented wooden doorposts as are seen in Assyrian architecture, such as the Balawat gates of Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III or the temple gates of Sargon II at Khorsabad.16 For the incised Greek bands, which ornamented the fronts of the two smaller statues, Guralnick argues for lowering their date to between 610 and 570 BCE from the higher date in the seventh century proposed by Borell and Rittig.17 She comes to this conclusion based on both the stylistic and the iconographic elements of the incised imagery and the overall appearance and form of the sphyre­ laton statues. That the statues were, at the very least, assembled at Olympia might be argued from the evidence of their large size and the archaeologically attested presence of workshops, including for bronze working, at the site.18 Thus, in these three statues we have an unusual bricolage of Near Eastern bronze door bands reused along with Greek bands to construct the clothing of a typical Greek sculptural form—sphyrelata—which appear to have been assembled at Olympia between 610 and 570 BCE. What makes this scenario yet even more intriguing are the results of the scientific analysis of the bronzes— in both Near Eastern and Greek styles—which indicate that the metal all came from the same source (although that source itself is not locatable).19 This finding has widespread implications for understanding the circulation of “styles” and “objects.” First, Borell and Rittig rightly conclude that those bronzes in Greek “style” must have been produced from melted-down and reworked bronzes that originally belonged to the same set as the surviving Near Eastern bronzes. (Why some Near Eastern bronzes would be saved and reused while others were melted down and recreated in a different/Greek manner is an intriguing question that nonetheless lies beyond the scope of this study.) Second, presumably all the Near Eastern bronzes came from a single production location and time, since they are all from the same “batch” of smelted bronze. This, as Guralnick notes, means that any stylistic variation within the bronzes cannot be attributed to different workshops (understood as spatially and temporally separate),20 but must instead point to the interaction and cross-contact of several Levantine craftsmen who might have come together to produce a single major project—exactly the kind of pan-Levantine interactions that I suggested in the first chapter.21 Guralnick proposes that the bronze relief bands, located in some Assyriancontrolled Levantine city, might have been scrapped or stolen when the Assyrian Empire fell.22 This may have been as late as 609 BCE, because while Nineveh was sacked and looted in 612 BCE, it wasn’t until the Assyrian court, which had relocated to Haran in northern Syria, was finally defeated by Nabopolassar in 609 BCE that Assyria entirely lost its grip on the northern Levantine region. One might imagine that at this point, material forms of Assyrian power in the provinces, such as administrative or official religious structures, would have 145

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been targeted in much the same way as the carved reliefs from the Assyrian kings’ palaces were back in the heartland. Indeed, it is hard to see how such items would have circulated before the fall of Assyria.

Ivory in and around the Assyrian Empire Once we consider such a scenario of opportunistic looting of Assyrian imperial property as is presented by the Olympia bronze relief bands, we might ask ourselves whether this occurred more frequently than hitherto acknowledged. In fact, there might be at least two other instances in which we can see the circulation of what ought to have been “royal property” beyond the walls (both literally and metaphorically) of the Assyrian palace—ivories found in post–Assyrian Empire levels at Nimrud, and ivories from a nonroyal and possibly post-empire context at Til Barsip in Syria. On the northeast side of the citadel at Nimrud, built directly up against the citadel wall, a series of nonpalatial houses spanning about 70 meters was excavated in 1953.23 The full extent of the houses was not uncovered, and it is unclear exactly how many separate houses the excavated rooms originally comprised— whether six, as proposed by Mallowan, or three, as suggested by David and Joan Oates.24 Of the four levels found in the houses, two (levels 4 and 3) belong to the Assyrian Empire period (late eighth century through the fall of Assyria) and two postdate the fall of the empire (levels 2 and 1), being assigned respectively to “squatters” and later Hellenistic houses. Only a few fragmentary ivories were recovered from the second Assyrian Empire level 3 in Mallowan’s House II, including some from a small cache of valuables found buried under the courtyard 12 (none were found in the earlier Assyrian level 4).25 Their incomplete state and small size has led Georgina Herrmann and Stuart Laidlaw to conclude that “they were surely salvaged,” presumably by someone with access to the palace.26 During this level, the family of a court official, Shamash-sharru-usur, occupied the ˙ main house, as attested by his archive of forty-seven tablets found in room 19.27 He appears to have been a wealthy merchant, landowner, and moneylender. Level 3 was destroyed by a fire, which has been dated by tablets found among the Town Wall Houses to the reign of the last known Assyrian king, Sin-sharishkun.28 Most of the ivories found in the area of the Town Wall Houses were discovered in the post-empire level 2, in a single large room (43) of Mallowan’s House VI.29 Regarding their archaeological context, Mallowan wrote that they “were lying in confusion on a beaten mud floor of level 2 against the eastern wall and were clearly out of place.”30 The date of level 2 has been proposed to follow immediately the earlier destruction marking the end of the empire because of the extensive reuse of walls from level 3.31 While this group of ivories consists of many high-quality pieces, including sculpted bulls that ornamented a circular 146

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furniture fitting in Levantine style and several incised plaques with Assyriantype narrative scenes, Herrmann and Laidlaw note that they are “varied in type, style and function, and, unusually, mix Assyrian and Levantine fragments” (fig. 5.3).32 The other remains of this level indicated general impoverishment.33 For this reason, Herrmann and Laidlaw suggest that the ivories were scavenged from the Northwest Palace. Mallowan himself came to such a conclusion, remarking that the ivories must have been acquired from “dismantled, damaged, or even looted furniture.”34 That looting from the rich storerooms of the nearby Northwest Palace occurred is amply demonstrated by the massive quantities of ivories found thrown down the palace wells.35 Indeed, the bulls encircling a furniture fitting from the Town Wall Houses are similar to a set of five bulls found in Well AJ of the Northwest Palace (figs. 5.3 and 5.4).36 Additional evidence for the dispersal of material looted from the Northwest Palace is found in the appearance of the upper part of a veined alabaster vase with pseudohieroglyphic inscription in the Town Wall Houses, while the lower part was found along with three other stone vases in a reception suite in Area ZT (room 25), in the northeastern corner of the Northwest Palace’s outer courtyard.37 There appear to be a variety of psychologies among the looters, whose differing aims can be reconstructed by the forensic evidence that they left behind.38 Those who purposely mutilated specific images, such as the face and bowl of Ashurbanipal in the garden relief discussed in chapter 4, engaged in a complex dialogue of overthrowing the oppressor— hence their actions needed to be visible (and thereby memorable) documents of the disempowering of the ancien régime. Those objects wantonly tossed into wells along with dead Assyrians signal the release of pure rage and action in the heat of the moment.39 Those who squirreled away broken specimens of precious objects, hoarded in the hope of future recovery and use, appear to have looked to bettering their own lot in life. In all cases, the ivories clearly manifested some value or power, though again varying from person to person, as is evident in the differing responses to them. A group of ivories found in a building at Til Barsip (present-day Tell Ahmar, Syria) presents a slightly more equivocal situation than the Town Wall Houses. However, given what is known from the Town Wall Houses, we might have a second instance here of the dispersal of ivories in the period immediately following (or immediately preceding) the fall of the Assyrian Empire. Twelve carved ivories were excavated at the site in 1993 and 1994.40 All but three of them were found in a residential/industrial building (C1) in the lower town, located close to what is projected to be the Iron Age city wall.41 The area in which the building was located showed evidence of three occupational phases: A, B, and C, from top to bottom. As in Town Wall House VI, most of the ivories were discovered in a single room, XV, of Building C1 in the destruction layer of phase C. This destruction layer can be dated to the second half of the seventh century by 147

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Fig. 5.3 Ivory carved with bull from Town Wall House 6, Room 43, Nimrud. TW20 ND 3587. Baghdad, Iraq Museum, IM 56968. In G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 238. Courtesy of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial).

cuneiform tablets found in adjacent rooms that name an individual, Hanni, and include Assyrian eponyms dating between 683 and 649 BCE, and possibly as late as 635.42 Guy Bunnens notes that as the texts from phase C (the earliest phase) were found in a destruction layer, not the archive’s original storage location, the following two phases—B and A—should date to the “transition from the Assyrian to the post-Assyrian, or Neo-Babylonian, period that followed the collapse of the Assyrian empire.”43 Bunnens places the terminus ante quem for the ivories around 600 BCE. The deposition of two of the ivories may date to this later period, having been found in a pit that may have been dug into the floor of phase B.44 The archaeological context of the pit is unfortunately uncertain, because the pit was not detected until the excavators reached the floor of phase C. However, the presence of two fragments of ivory “at a much higher level and in a location corresponding to the edge of the pit opens the possibility that the pit actually belongs to phase B.”45 If this is the case, it indicates that ivories were in circulation at a formerly Assyrian-controlled city during the years immediately following the fall of Assyria. The composition of the group of ivories further supports an understanding of them as an opportunistically gathered, secondhand assemblage rather than a “commissioned,” elite collection. Although small in number, they exhibit a di148

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Fig. 5.4 Ivory carved with bulls from Well AJ, Northwest Palace, Nimrud. Baghdad, Iraq Museum, IM 79518. In G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, no. 275. Courtesy of The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (Gertrude Bell Memorial).

versity of styles, all of which find counterparts in the stored Levantine ivories from Nimrud (none are in the Assyrian style).46 Bunnens comments that such variety, when encountered in the Assyrian storerooms, is “usually explained by the diversity of provenance of the ivories that were collected either as booty or as tribute from different parts of the empire. Such an explanation is difficult to accept for the Til Barsip collection, which was found in what appears to be a domestic context.”47 If we ascribe the ivories to Hanni and his household, they appear to have belonged to an individual who did not hold any official position in the Assyrian court, although he had close dealings with the Assyrian administration and lived in an Assyrianized manner. In addition, all the ivories are parts of furniture inlays, but none of them could have been used together to form a larger entity.48 This suggests that they did not form parts of actual usable objects by the time they came to be deposited at the end of the seventh or beginning of the sixth century. Indeed, all these facts point to the acquisition of the ivories piecemeal, as was possible when opportunity arose. Whether this occurred after the fall of the Assyrian Empire or in its 149

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waning years is unclear given the archaeology of Building C1, but the evidence seems to point to the former. One possible explanation is that these ivories represent “hand-me-downs” from plunder that was subsequently distributed to loyal officials and troops as rewards for their services.49 Herrmann and Alan Millard have argued based on the evidence from the Nimrud Town Wall Houses and Til Barsip that ivories may have had extremely limited circulation within the Assyrian Empire, with a royal monopoly effectively keeping all ivories— whether made in Assyrian style or acquired from the Levant—tightly within the controlled sphere of the Assyrian royal storehouses at Fort Shalmaneser and the Northwest Palace.50 The ivories found at Arslan Tash, considered below, appear to broaden this purview to provincial Assyrian administrative structures, but nevertheless speak to an official housing or use rather than that of a private individual or a nonpalatial context. A few other facts suggest that distribution of the Til Barsip ivories to private individuals through official Assyrian channels is less likely. First, considering the probable date of manufacture of these ivories to be around one hundred years prior to their deposition, it is unlikely that they would be available to be looted from Levantine sites by the Assyrian army at the end of the seventh century. Second, by 650 BCE the entire Levant had been incorporated into the Assyrian Empire to varying degrees, and thus there would be less looting going on in the Levant as a whole. From Assyrian annals of the seventh century, we hear instead of booty and tribute from places like Egypt and Elam, which then constituted the border zones of Assyrian control. In sum, despite the presence of these ivories in what might be an Assyrian Empire phase (albeit a very late one), it appears most likely that such ivories would only be available for circulation at the private individual level when the Assyrian administration no longer held strong control over the royal resources. The tablets themselves, which Bunnens notes were found not in their primary archival context but rather in secondary destruction deposits,51 might indicate that they too, like the ivories, were discarded during a period of disintegrating control of the Assyrian provincial city as the central state lost its grip. By the time of the destruction period in which both the tablets and the ivories were found, Building C1 had been modified from its original function as a residential structure into something more industrial, exhibiting evidence of weaving and dyeing activities.52 The unexpected presence of elite items such as administrative texts and carved ivories suggests that these were collected from elsewhere and dumped in Building C1 at the time of the destruction. As at Nimrud and elsewhere in the Assyrian heartland, Til Barsip revealed signs of intentional destruction and mutilation that can be ascribed to the actions of individuals during or immediately after the collapse of the empire. At Til Barsip such evidence appears in the form of a mutilated basalt statue of an Assyrian official.53 The statue was discovered in three pieces in a pit near 150

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the northern extent of Area C, where the ivories were found. Its face had been hacked off and a deep gouge made in the chest. That this statue was found near the house with the ivories provides additional support for the ivories’ disposal in Building C1 during the post–Assyrian Empire period. In contrast to the ivories from the Nimrud Town Wall Houses and Til Barsip, ivories found at the Assyrian provincial center of Arslan Tash (ancient Hadatu) present a homogeneous group that suggests not opportunistic gathering but rather the acquisition of complete pieces of furniture.54 Most of the more than one hundred pieces were discovered in room 14 of the so-called Bâtiment aux Ivoires, a small building to the east of the provincial palace. The building was only partially recovered, but exhibits basic similarities to the conventional Assyrian palatial residence, with two courts linked by a reception suite. Differing from this convention in the Bâtiment aux Ivoires, however, is the presence of two adjacent reception suites. One of the suites follows standard Assyrian layout, while the other draws on a local building tradition, its broad rooms opening onto the court through a columned doorway.55 Geoffrey Turner dates the structure only approximately, to the end of the ninth through the eighth centuries, whereas he dates the main palace building to the mid-eighth century in the reigns of either Tiglath-Pileser III or Shalmaneser V.56 Room 14 was initially identified by François Thureau-Dangin as a storeroom, but Turner rightly proposes that it was yet another reception suite leading to the west of the building. The carved ivories, with a few exceptions, form a generally homogeneous group and might plausibly be suggested to have belonged together on a single piece or suite of furniture.57 All were discovered in the same general area.58 Thureau-Dangin recounts that in the northern part of room 14, a series of polished but undecorated pieces of ivory veneer were found “disposées de façon à dessiner les deux côtés longs et un des petits côtés d’un rectangle de 1 m. 95 sur 0 m. 96.”59 These pieces measured 8 centimeters in length and 3 to 4 millimeters in thickness and lay on two pieces of veneer placed vertically, as if to form “le revêtement d’un cadre, probablement de bois, qui a disparu,” and which Thureau-Dangin reconstructs as a bed.60 Next to this rectangle, he found traces of a similar rectangle that he interpreted as a second bed of the same proportions. He associates a number of disengaged carved ivories with these two bed frames due to their excavated proximity.61 Another set of plaques was found “en majorité dans le voisinage du mur Nord de la chambre 14,” while a fourth group was found “presque exclusivement de trois à quatre mètres plus au Sud.”62 A few ivories were found scattered in the nearby courtyard, but their diminishing density as one moves away from the doorway of room 14 indicates that their presence in the courtyard was the result of their dispersal from room 14 at the point of the building’s destruction. These ivories were in such a poor state of preservation, perhaps due to their exposure to the elements in the courtyard, that none of them survived excavation. 151

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As mentioned, the majority of the Arslan Tash ivories exhibit shared stylistic and technical features. Among these are 13 preserved plaques of winged men flanking the baby Horus seated on a lotus, 5 plaques of winged females flanking a tree, 7 plaques of human-headed and ram-headed leonine figures in profile, 4 plaques with frontally facing, human-headed leonine creatures, 15 plaques depicting a woman in a window, 18 plaques showing a cow suckling her calf, and 2 plaques of grazing stags (plate 1). Three stylistic “outliers” (AT 28, 43, and 44) serve to highlight the close associations of the remaining ivories, which have been taken to indicate a common point of production. Among these ivories were three undecorated veneer fragments bearing part of an inscription in Aramaic naming Haza’el, generally identified as the king of Damascus who reigned from approximately 843 to 803 BCE.63 Irene Winter, associating the shared stylistic traits with the geographic locale of Damascus by way of the Haza’el inscription, proposed a style-group that she calls South Syrian.64 According to her, the traits exhibit a merging of Phoenician and North Syrian stylistic features, which she attributes to the location of Damascus in southern Syria, geographically in between Phoenicia and North Syria. I have already discussed the various problems with these geographic-cum-stylistic attributions in chapter 1, but it is worth pointing out here that the inscription on the Arslan Tash ivory naming Haza’el may not in fact point to a place of production in Damascus. Similar inscriptions found on a bronze horse-bridle frontlet at Samos and a bronze horsebridle blinker at Eretria indicate that the objects on which Haza’el placed his inscriptions were in fact booty from other Levantine city-states—in the case of the bronzes, Unqi in the northern Levantine region.65 Nonetheless, regardless of where one situates the geographic origin of the Arslan Tash pieces, their stylistic and technical homogeneity points to their general belongingness with one another.66 This in turn suggests that they had formed part of a suite of furniture at the time they were deposited in room 14 of the Bâtiment aux Ivoires. Based on the presence of Haza’el’s inscription, these pieces may have been taken by Tiglath-Pileser III upon his conquest of Damascus in 733/732 BCE, although earlier possibilities also exist.67 Shalmaneser III (858–824) records battles against Haza’el in his eighteenth and twenty-first regnal years, from which he claims to have seized military equipment as booty, though he does not record tribute.68 Adad-nirari III (810–783) claims to have received tribute, including ivory furnishings from Damascus.69 Another possibility is that the ivories may have been obtained by the powerful Assyrian turtan Shamshi-ilu, who exerted kingly control of this area and claims to have exacted tribute—including furniture—from Damascus on behalf of Shalmaneser IV (782–773) in the first part of the eighth century.70 Given that another ivory inscribed with the name of Haza’el was discovered in room T10 of Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud, it appears most likely that whenever the ivories were obtained by the Assyrians, they were part of a larger col152

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lection of Levantine goods that continued on to the Assyrian heartland.71 Even if the Arslan Tash ivories did not physically go through the center of Assyria (because of the great expenditure required to move items long distances), conceptually they would have passed through a central review before being dispersed to a loyal official. The movement of tribute and booty through the empire was itself a statement of control and domination whatever the routes involved. Arslan Tash lies well north of Damascus, on the modern border between Syria and Turkey in the Saruj plain between the Euphrates and Balikh Rivers. The transport of large quantities of tribute and booty back to the Assyrian cities might well have passed through Arslan Tash, and it might have been at this point that the furniture was gifted to a provincial official there. In sum, the Arslan Tash ivories suggest the redistribution of prestigious tribute or booty to provincial officials during the period of Assyrian control, in contrast to the royal monopoly proposed by Herrmann and Millard regarding the ivories from the Nimrud Town Wall Houses and Til Barsip.72 The coherent stylistic and technical features of the Arslan Tash ivories indicate that this redistribution happened in the form of entire pieces of furniture. In contrast, the ivories from the Nimrud Town Wall Houses and Til Barsip Building C1 lack stylistic and technical homogeneity; no full pieces of furniture could be reconstructed for either group, and in the case of the Town Wall Houses, both Assyrian- and non-Assyrian-style ivory pieces occurred together, a highly unusual situation. The late contexts for the Nimrud Town Wall Houses and Til Barsip ivories—at the very end of and even postdating the Assyrian Empire—suggest an unofficial means of their dissemination in which random pieces were grabbed and stashed as best they could be.

Secondhand Elites The reworking and reassembling of the Levantine bronze bands into Greek statues at Olympia and the stashing of ivories in the Town Wall Houses at Nimrud and Building C1 at Til Barsip raise yet another question: what did the “recyclers” get out of the deal? To explore this question further, we can turn to an interesting case where not just one but probably three items were reworked and/or reassembled before deposition in the closed context of an elite burial. The three items—a chair/throne, a couch/bed, and a cauldron—from Tomb 79 at Salamis incorporate parts made of the same materials that we have been studying throughout this book, namely, ivories and bronzes, whose crafting is generally considered to be Levantine. The proposed refashioning with additions seen in these items further complicates the attribution process. Unlike the situations above in which the artworks appear to have traveled in the wake of the Assyrian Empire’s collapse, those from Tomb 79 at Salamis, the first use of which is dated to the mid- to late eighth century, point to second153

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ary circulation occurring during the time of the Assyrian Empire and perhaps even when some or all of Cyprus was in a vassal or client-state relationship with Assyria. Analogous to the Arslan Tash situation, we might consider the redistribution of prestige pieces by the Assyrian court to client states as a reward (or bribe!) for their continuing loyalty. A. T. Reyes and others have proposed that the Cypriot kings of the eighth century cooperated with Assyrian demands in order to prosper under that state’s protection.73 According to Reyes, the similarities seen among the sumptuous burial goods at Salamis and items found in the Assyrian palaces represent a shared taste for the same kinds of prestigious luxury goods.74 Rather than looking solely from the perspective of Assyrian control and/or domination, Sarah Janes has recently argued that the wealth and eclectic cosmopolitanism seen in the Salamis royal tombs indicate “more concern over the control of internal affairs than that of external connections,” and the “ability of the Salaminian rulers to equal the disposable wealth of their powerful neighbours as the new ‘state-controlled market’ emerged in the Near East.”75 Nonetheless, as will be evident when we examine the three pieces closely, the rulers of Salamis do not appear to have acquired “complete” pieces, nor do they appear to have appreciated or used them in the same way as the Assyrian kings. Nine elaborate tombs dating between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE were excavated in a necropolis east of the ancient city of Salamis in the 1950s and 1960s.76 Their expertly constructed architecture, rich burial assemblages, and evidence for elaborate funerary rituals earned them the moniker of “royal,” an adjective most scholars accept as accurately designating the elite status of those buried within them. The earliest burial, in Tomb 50a, has been dated by David Rupp to 800/750, and the latest, the second burial in Tomb 50, to circa 600/575 BCE.77 Though all had been looted in antiquity, they preserved elaborate assemblages outside the main burial chambers, providing evidence for two sequential burial activities in all the tombs except two (Tombs 3 and 50a). Most of the tombs, including Tomb 79, revealed evidence of elaborate funerary practices that took place in a stagelike area in front of the actual tomb chamber.78 These included processions of horse-drawn vehicles, whose animals were slaughtered and left behind. Furnishings and eating and drinking wares point to either real or allusive banqueting rites. The deceased were either inhumed or cremated on a funerary pyre. Excavated in 1966 by Vassos Karageorghis, Tomb 79 is the richest of the Royal Tombs.79 The tomb chamber itself had been completely looted by means of entry from above, but the area in front of the tomb escaped plundering, aside from some Roman-period disturbances.80 Facing east—toward the city and the sea— the tomb chamber was approached via a narrow passageway that opened out onto a stagelike, slightly raised paved platform referred to as a propylaeum. The propylaeum itself then opened further in a wide slope that ascended to ground level for nearly 17 meters, the so-called dromos. The entirety was presumably 154

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covered by a tumulus in antiquity, though only one tomb (Tomb 3) preserved such a tumulus archaeologically.81 Although later (Roman-period) intrusions in front of the passageway and down the center of the dromos destroyed some of this area, materials to the sides of both the dromos and the propylaeum were well preserved in situ. The tomb chamber and sides of the propylaeum and dromos were constructed from well-cut ashlar limestone masonry. Karageorghis claims that stratification of soil layers clearly indicates two separate burials. That from an initial burial was preserved along the two sides of the dromos and in the corners of the propylaeum, while the second burial cut into the middle of the original one but covered a narrower extent. All three of the pieces discussed here were assigned to the first burial. Aspects of the sequential process of the two burials remain somewhat unclear. For example, the dromos presumably would have been protected along its top, at least for some length away from the propylaeum; otherwise, accessing this area for the second burial (during which Karageorghis proposes that items from the first burial were rearranged) could not have been accomplished so neatly. However, the presence of two distinct strata of soil that caused Karageorghis to postulate two separate burials indicates that soil must have covered the items left behind following the first burial and preceding the second one, suggesting that the dromos was not roofed and was filled in with dirt. If this is the case, it disproves Karageorghis’s claims that the bronze horse fittings and ivory plaques from the bed, which he dates to the first burial, were disassembled and stacked to make space for the second burial.82 Rather, they must have been in this state at the conclusion of the first burial. The first of the pieces is a chair (gamma) overlaid and inlaid with ivory (plate 16). It was found “almost complete and in situ” against the far western wall at the bottom of the dromos, to the north side of the propylaeum.83 Karageorghis suggests that the furnishing had been placed originally in the tomb chamber, then moved outside to accommodate the second burial, but he rightly notes that as an assemblage there are far too many grave goods to fit inside the modestly sized chamber.84 It seems more likely that the furnishings found outside the chamber were from activities of a spectacular and public nature. These occurred at the time of burial in the space of the propylaeum and dromos, which in fact resemble a theatrical space.85 Although the wooden framework of chair gamma had disintegrated, the ivory veneer remained in its original place and was carefully excavated so as to preserve most of the chair’s form, with the exception of the feet and the uppermost corners of the back.86 The four-legged chair had arms and a slightly curving back and was entirely overlaid with thin plaques of ivory, mostly unornamented. The top of the back retained traces of a thin sheet of gold bearing an engraved scale pattern. The frame of the back contained more elaborate decoration, including nine vertical strips of evenly spaced ivory. These strips bear 155

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applied guilloche bands in two parallel rows, attached by means of an adhesive. Below the vertical strips are two horizontal bands executed in the same technique of applying individually cut-out pieces to a plain strip of ivory. In this case, the design created is a linked chain of alternating large (three-petaled) and small (five-petaled) palmette or lotus flowers. Karageorghis then proposes that two à jour plaques also belonged to the chair. The two large plaques (approximately 16 centimeters tall) clearly form a pair, sharing both stylistic, compositional, and technical characteristics (plate 17a, b). One depicts a voluted palmette tree, the other a striding sphinx. Both plaques exhibit identical forms of small voluted palmettes along their ground lines. In addition, if the plaques were positioned next to each other, these ground lines would create a rhythmic pattern, and the sphinx’s face would rest precisely between the upper and central volutes.87 Both are carved on both sides, with the presumed obverse including elaborate cloisonné work of exceptionally fine crafting. However, whether they in fact belong to chair gamma is questionable. Karageorghis comments that the placement of the two à jour plaques on chair gamma is “tentative,” based primarily on their height, which corresponds to that of the distance between the chair’s armrests and its seat.88 In fact, neither plaque was found in situ with the chair, in contrast to the rest of the chair’s ivory parts. One plaque (the sphinx plaque, no. 258) was found approximately 70 centimeters to the north, while the other plaque (no. 143) lay on top of materials found piled in the corner of the propylaeum several meters to the west of the chair. Their placement across from each other under the armrests also has been called into question by Annette Welkamp and Cornelius de Geus, who note that this arrangement violates the expected compositional symmetry in which two sphinxes would flank the voluted palmette.89 They propose that the two plaques would have been placed next to each other, with a third one completing the composition. It is possible that additional à jour plaques that would have completed the composition (minimally four more) were destroyed in the later reuse of the tomb during the Roman period.90 However, the Roman intrusion cannot account for the distance of the two plaques well away from chair gamma, which was otherwise preserved in a complete state. Nor can it explain the striking stylistic and technical differences seen between the plaques and the rest of the ivories ornamenting the throne. The two “isolated” plaques are of a much higher quality than the rest of the ivories from chair gamma. The technique seen on the chair back, in which small pieces of ivories are glued to a thin strip of ivory veneer, allows for the use of lower-grade ivory. In contrast, the two à jour plaques would have required large pieces of the material, coming from a bigger and thus more highly prized elephant tusk. It therefore seems probable that for whatever reason, only the two plaques were available at the time of deposition, and that if they were affixed to the chair at that time, which in fact appears unlikely, 156

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they were a later, opportunistic addition to what was essentially a lower grade of ivory furniture. Near chair gamma, a number of disassembled ivory plaques were discovered lying on the floor, which Karageorghis has reconstructed as a bed (plate 18).91 According to the published report, the ivory plaques were found “thrown on a pile with bronzes, etc., in the north-west corner of the dromos.”92 Karageorghis himself notes that the reconstruction is conjectural, based on the size of the various pieces, “together with imagination and analysis on the part of the Cyprus Museum technicians and the writer.”93 As reconstructed, the bed is 188.5 centimeters long and 111.2 centimeters wide; like chair gamma, it appears to have been entirely veneered with plain pieces of ivory. From a series of carved and inlaid ivory pieces, Karageorghis reconstructed a headboard of 110.2 centimeters in width and a total height, including the legs, of 88.6 centimeters.94 The headboard consists of a narrower set of three carved, horizontal bands framed by four undecorated strips, all of which is set into a wider frame that includes a row of seventeen stylized lotus flowers overlaid with gold at the top. Above and below the row of lotus flowers run two short bars with blue-glass hieroglyphs that were probably inlaid into wood, while the vertical supports at the sides feature irregularly shaped plaques with blue-glass inlaid floral motifs. The three carved bands that Karageorghis places in the center of the headboard are composed of separate rectangular plaques carved in three different Egyptianizing designs. The band placed on top is made up of four individual plaques that together show six kneeling Heh figures holding in each hand a stylized ribbed branch from which an ankh sign is suspended at the top. Gold leaf embellishes the skirts, hair, and arms of the figures as well as the voluted palmettes that separate the figures. The lower strip comprises six individual plaques that depict striding sphinxes flanking voluted palmettes. These two groups of plaques exhibit similar carving styles and techniques, suggesting they originally ornamented the same item. The middle strip of four plaques with interlaced palmettes and lotus flowers, however, displays a carving style and technique that are closer to those of the two irregularly shaped side plaques inlaid with paste and blue glass. In comparing only the carved figural ivory plaques (not the three-dimensional sculptures), there appear to be two separate groups of related pieces. The first group includes the Heh-figure plaques and the striding-sphinxes plaques. The second group includes the vegetal design motifs inlaid with paste and blue glass found on the plaques from the central strip and on the irregularly shaped side plaques. Not only do these two groups of ivories differ stylistically and technically, the size of their various plaques may further contribute to the possibility that they originally belonged to different pieces of furniture. Most noticeable are the two irregularly shaped plaques that Karageorghis places at the top corners of the headboard (plate 19). They share a somewhat similar shape, but 157

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one is taller and narrower (no. 277) than the other (no. 251). While they clearly show an original edge on one vertical side that preserves a raised frame, the other sides do not preserve any frame and look as though the design were cut into at a later date, severing many of the individual motifs. More telling are the differing curvatures of the interior vertical sides, being more gently inclined on the taller plaque and more sharply curved on the shorter plaque. These two plaques present the appearance of having been cut down from larger plaques. In addition, when the three carved relief bands and their frame are set into the headboard, the two curving side plaques extend down from the corners only a short distance, leaving the remainder of the side posts in simple, undecorated ivory veneer. If indeed the bed can be reconstructed in this manner, then the bed as deposited in Tomb 79 was a composite creation of recycled and reused ivory parts. A much clearer instance of recycled and refashioned parts is seen in the bronze cauldron with siren and griffin protomes (plate 20). The large vessel (no. 202; approximate maximum diameter is 86 centimeters) was found sitting atop a mostly iron tripod along the north wall of the propylaeum.95 It preserved in situ around its rim an arrangement of eight griffin protomes and four Janus-headed male “siren” attachments. The cauldron itself is of two large hammered sheets of bronze, laid one inside the other and riveted together under the rim by groups of five rivets—a feat of extraordinary metallurgical crafting.96 Over this the four siren figures were attached. Their outstretched wings nearly touch one another, almost completely circumnavigating the cauldron’s upper edge. The eight griffin protomes have been attached over the wings, one on either side, so that two griffin heads appear next to each other between siren attachments. This arrangement is unique among cauldrons with attachments, as are a number of other aspects of these attachments. Most striking are the different techniques used to create the two types of attachments. The griffin protomes are cast, while the siren attachments are constructed from hammered sheet. This immediately suggests that the two attachment types originally may have belonged to two different entities. That the griffin protomes overlap the siren wings indicates their addition to the cauldron at a later date than the sirens.97 The apparently later addition of griffin and/or lion protomes occurs on a few preserved cauldrons from Greece and Italy: one at Praeneste from the Bernardini tomb (where one of the bowls discussed in chapter 4 was found), two from the Circolo dei Lebeti (Circle of the Cauldrons) tomb at Vetulonia, and one from a late context at Olympia.98 These examples, though suggestive of a shared practice of recycling and refashioning a preexisting cauldron already fitted with siren attachments, are stylistically quite distinct from the Salamis cauldron (while being relatively similar stylistically to one another). The sirens on the Salamis cauldron, in particular, are stylistically unique from both those found on the cauldrons with added protomes 158

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in Greece and Italy and those found on cauldrons in the Near East. Their large size relative to the cauldron also sets them apart from other cauldron attachments, perhaps pointing to local Salaminian experimentation. In contrast to the griffin protomes, which appear to have been added later, the sirens extend perfectly around the circumference of the cauldron, suggesting that they were designed originally for this particular cauldron.99 That both the cauldron and the sirens are of a highly proficient hammered technique further supports this notion. Both the technique of manufacturing the cauldron from two sheets of bronze and the style of the Janus-headed sirens with full bodies are without known comparisons in the Near Eastern or Mediterranean world.100 The griffin protomes also lack direct comparisons, but they fit generally into a group of protomes that are well known from sites in the West. The Salamis ones represent the easternmost examples; all other excavated griffin protomes have been found at sites in western Anatolia, Greece, and Italy.101 We seem, therefore, to have in this first burial in Tomb 79 three assemblages of high-value materials and crafting that, nonetheless, exhibit mixed styles, divergent techniques, and evidence for refashioning. Moreover, the chair gamma and the bronze cauldron both point to local (stylistically and technically distinct) production of the main component, which was then outfitted with more “standard” pieces (possibly the à jour plaques on the chair and the griffin protomes on the bronze cauldron). How should we account for this unusual density of recycled and reused luxury goods? What purpose might these reworked pieces have served for those involved in a clearly elite burial on Cyprus in the eighth century? Rupp views the unusual form, with its obvious performative element, and the extravagant burial assemblages of the Royal Tombs as indicative of an emerging royal power base at Salamis in the eighth through seventh centuries.102 Such extreme displays, according to him, point to the high degree of insecurity that the rulers felt. Nicholas Blackwell likewise understands the opulence of the early (eighth-century) tombs to signal attempts at status negotiation during a period of general political instability and fluid regional boundaries.103 The tombs cover the period when the Assyrian Empire was becoming a growing presence along the Levantine coast, and inscriptions from the reigns of Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal refer to Cyprus.104 Despite claims by the Assyrian kings to control Cyprus, close reading of the inscriptions combined with a lack of Assyrian official presence on the island (aside from a large stele of Sargon II erected near Kition) indicate that the relationship was not absolutely hegemonic.105 The Assyrian texts claim that the kingdoms of Cyprus paid tribute to Assyria. Sargon’s stele is unusual within the corpus of Assyrian royal periphery monuments in that it does not include the typical justification for its erection as a result of military conquests; instead, it describes how the seven kings of Ya’a, a district of Cyprus, brought tribute to Sargon in Babylon.106 A reference 159

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to setting up a stele (Akkadian narû) “for posterity” on the island occurs in an Assyrian prism of Sargon’s from Nimrud, suggesting that the stele at Kition arrived there through peaceful rather than coercive means.107 Maria Iacovou has suggested that Cyprus established a beneficial relationship with Assyria during this time.108 Nonetheless, the encroaching presence of the Assyrian Empire, which clearly engaged with polities on the island, may be seen as providing a critical stimulus in the consolidation of those various polities themselves.109 The ivory chair, bed, and griffin-siren cauldron all belong to the first burial in Tomb 79, which Rupp and others date to 760/740 BCE, several decades earlier than Karageorghis, who dates the burial to 710/690 BCE.110 It is perhaps not a coincidence that this burial at Salamis takes place in the years or decades immediately before Sargon’s stele, dated by its inscription to 707 BCE, is erected to the south of Salamis at Kition. One might envision a variety of different scenarios by which a newly emergent ruling dynasty would acquire the disparate parts used to create these sumptuous burial items. Perhaps they were the result of diplomatic relations with Assyria in which the Assyrian king provided slightly worn “counter gifts” to the Salaminian ruler. Plaques almost identical in type to the Tomb 79 bed Heh figures have been found at Nimrud along with close comparisons for the bed’s sphinx plaques.111 Likewise, there are close comparisons between the à jour sphinx and voluted palmette plaques assigned to chair gamma with Nimrud ivories of the so-called Ornate group.112 Yet there are also strong ties between the Salamis ivories and ivories found at Samaria,113 which could suggest acquisition though direct ties with Levantine city-states, with whom the polities of eastern Cyprus had always had close relations. The recycling and refurbishing of the three Tomb 79 items, as lavish as they are, suggest that the Salaminian rulers did not have entirely open access to the acquisition or production of such works of craftsmanship. The first burial of Tomb 79 is not only the wealthiest and most elaborate of the Royal Tombs in its grave goods and associated funerary rituals, it is the only one to contain ivoryinlaid furniture or a bronze cauldron with protomes.114 It may be that as high a status as this burial commanded and as rich as it was in comparison to the other royal burials, these rulers nonetheless lacked access to the highest tier of luxury goods, such as those that the Assyrian king was able to acquire through tribute and booty. In a similar vein, Rupp suggests that tin-encrusted amphorae, also found among the first burial assemblage of Tomb 79, were intended to imitate more valuable solid-silver vessels.115 What we may have at Salamis in the eighth century are rulers who resided on the margins of the Assyrian Empire, possibly able to benefit from a client-state relationship, but not incorporated to the extent that they would receive loyalty rewards, as provincial officials at places like Arslan Tash did. Instead, as elites in a second-tier kingdom, they had to make do with reusing and recycling secondhand luxury goods acquired through whatever means were available. 160

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The Booty of Haza’el of Damascus One of the luxury items most frequently invoked in discussions of the dissemination of Levantine goods, especially with respect to the Orientalizing period in Greece, is a bronze horse-bridle frontlet found in 1984 at the Heraion on Samos. It bears an Aramaic inscription naming Haza’el, presumed to be the same Haza’el who ruled the kingdom of Damascus in the second half of the ninth century BCE (circa 843–803 BCE) (fig. 5.5).116 Being an inscribed Levantine product in a Greek context, the frontlet has become a “poster child” for East-West exchanges, and as Ann Gunter notes, “with its rich ‘cultural biography,’ the North Syrian bronze frontlet from the Heraion at Samos serves as a point of departure for exploring various issues surrounding objects that crossed political, cultural, or religious boundaries.”117 The inscription, found also on a bronze horse-bridle blinker from another Greek sanctuary—the Temple of Apollo at Eretria on Euboea—has likewise garnered a fair amount of attention with respect to its historical implications for late ninth- and early eighth-century Levantine history (fig. 5.6).118 The reader should be forewarned that I do not claim to have determined the means by which these pieces arrived at the two Greek sanctuaries. As enticing as these pieces are for such a goal, we must restrict ourselves to working within the parameters supported by the data. Nonetheless, a close formal analysis of the bridle elements as material and art historical objects and a consideration of the historical contexts in which they were produced and circulated do reveal hitherto unacknowledged aspects of their collection in the Near East and later in Greece. Three different horse-bridle elements—the inscribed Samos frontlet and two bronze blinkers from Eretria—have been linked through a web of philological, stylistic, and archaeological associations (figs. 5.5–5.7). While these associations do not prove absolute relatedness, circumstantial evidence suggests that we can use the three different pieces together to help flesh out a more complete archaeological and historical picture. The frontlet was discovered in a late seventh- or early sixth-century debris context southeast of the great altar at Samos.119 Its archaeological context is thus of limited usefulness. It is, rather, the excellent preservation of its complete inscription that contributes to the questions at hand. This inscription finds an exact duplicate on a bronze blinker from Eretria. It was discovered in the early years of the twentieth century in the general area of the Temple of Apollo, and thus like the Samos frontlet its archaeological context is not particularly informative.120 However, the style and subject matter of the blinker have an especially close association with another (uninscribed) bronze blinker from Eretria, found in the 1970s in a securely dated late eighth-century context—a destruction level of the later Geometric-period temple (a hekatompedon) that was destroyed around 700 BCE. It had apparently been affixed to a wooden column, near the base of which it was found in situ.121 161

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Fig. 5.5 Bronze horse-bridle frontlet from the Heraion on Samos, Greece, ninth century BCE. Samos Archaeological Museum. Photograph: Gösta Hellner, DAI Neg. no. D-DAI-ATH-1984/371. © Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. All rights reserved.

The two blinkers, however, did not originally form a pair, since both would have been from the right side of a horse’s bridle.122 Visually, all three pieces have been attributed generally to the North Syrian (as opposed to Phoenician) regional style. The trapezoidal frontlet features two rows of nude (aside from their anklets and necklaces), frontally facing standing females. One on the bottom stands on a feline head and holds another feline 162

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Fig. 5.6 Drawing of inscribed bronze horse-bridle blinker from Eretria, Greece, ninth century BCE (inscription is shown upside down). Athens, National Museum, inv. no. 15070. After Amadasi Guzzo 1996, fig. 1; courtesy of Dr. Amadasi Guzzo. Fig. 5.7 Uninscribed bronze horse-bridle blinker from Eretria, Greece, ninth century BCE. Eretria Museum, B 273. After Chantal Martin Pruvot, Karl Reber, and Thierry Theurillat, Cité sous terre: Des archéologues suisses explorent la cité grecque d’Erétrie (Gollion: Infolio, 2010), p. 67. By courtesy of the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece.

head in each of her outstretched hands. Balancing on the two held feline heads and on the lower female’s head are three identical nude females, who cup their breasts in each hand. Above the central female is an elaborately winged disk. Around all the edges except the top runs a frieze of interlocking animal combat scenes. The Aramaic inscription starts at the top left corner, just on the inner side of the animal frieze, and continues about two-thirds of the way down the left edge. The plaque is punctured by regular holes all along the top edge and in the bottom corners. The two blinkers display a “master of animals” scene in the broadest part of their plaque. Both show a frontally facing male in a short kilt who holds lions in his outstretched arms. Also in both examples, the male figure stands on a thick, unanchored ground line. To the viewer’s left appears a striding quadruped with a frontally facing head, probably bovine, although the identification is not certain due to poor preservation. On the inscribed blinker, two star/rosette disks occupy the space to the right of the male figure. A bird of prey sitting on a voluted column/stem faces the master of animals scene on the right side of the uninscribed blinker. Both blinkers bear two punch holes on each side at the point of the piece’s greatest width (where the arching form of the blinker turns sharply toward the narrower end), and four holes along the narrow straight edge on the left (though the inscribed one retains only the top two), indicating identical means of fixture to a bridle. The duplicate inscriptions found on the Samos frontlet and Eretria blinker, which are discussed in more detail below, are often taken to indicate that these two elements originally belonged together on the same bridle, although this is not necessarily the case. While the two pieces are stylistically similar, there are enough differences, such as in the rendering of the feline heads, to indicate possible separate production. The comparison is, however, difficult due to the corroded state of the Eretria blinker in contrast to the well-preserved state of the Samos frontlet. The blinker is thought to have been produced through the repoussé technique, while Helmut Kyrieleis presents evidence that the frontlet was cast.123 Yet Kyrieleis suggests that many other pieces made from trimmed bronze sheet whose workmanship has been ascribed to the repoussé technique might in fact be cast in a similar fashion to the Samos frontlet.124 Another frontlet found at Samos presents a similar composition to the Haza’el one, but is in an advanced state of corrosion like the blinkers; it too appears somewhat different in style, which might be due to either its preservation or to actual stylistic differences.125 However, the intricate small frieze of animal combats running along three of the sides of the Haza’el frontlet distinguishes it from all the other examples, including the other Samos frontlet—perhaps indicating that it belonged to a more ornate harness set.126 André Charbonnet notes that the type of blinker represented by the two Eretria examples—as well as by several other examples from Greek sanctuaries, 164

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including five from Samos—and known from sites across the Near East, Egypt, and Cyprus was never used as a horse-bridle element in Greece.127 All the extant pieces in Greece come from sanctuaries; moreover, they are never found as pairs, suggesting that they were already separate from any complete harness when they were acquired/deposited at the sanctuaries. Thus, while there are many links that connect the frontlets and blinkers found at Samos and Eretria, there are also differences that separate them, making it uncertain whether we should understand them arriving at these two sanctuaries as roughly contemporaneously or even as a single “batch.” The uninscribed blinker from Eretria is in fact the only example to have a secure archaeological provenance earlier than the end of the seventh century. Yet given how close in style and motif the two blinkers from Eretria are, it seems logical to propose that they came to the site at the same time. Charbonnet, in publishing the second bronze blinker excavated at Eretria, reconstructs the earlier find as from the same general area as the later discovery, providing additional support for the idea that the two blinkers arrived at Eretria together. In sum, it is not entirely certain whether all three bridle elements came to Greece in the late eighth century, but this appears likely. Can we suggest, then, that sometime toward the end of the eighth century, two detached bronze blinkers were chosen (their closeness in subject matter suggests intentional selection) by someone (either internal or external to the Temple of Apollo) as items worthy of display in a ritual setting? What, then, to make of the two Samos frontlets? Here likewise we have two of the same kind of object—trapezoidal bronze plaques—bearing almost (but not exactly) identical subject matter—four naked frontal females with animals. Since these are close but not precisely the same motifs, we might speculate that they were not produced to form a pair, and indeed, we would not expect a “pair” of frontlets to be manufactured, since a bridle requires only one frontlet.128 This secondary “pairing,” that was not part of the original, intended usage of the piece, may explain why both of the Eretria blinkers are from the right side of the bridle; this gives them the identical shape and orientation when viewed side by side. When we view these as pairs of similar images rather than as elements of a bridle, another such pair from Samos comes into view: two right-side blinkers with the same master of animals motif as the two blinkers from Eretria.129 From this perspective, therefore, the association of these pieces with horses through their use as bridle elements was seemingly not of central importance in their selection and display in the Greek sanctuaries, contrary to what some scholars have proposed.130 Such a view likewise supports Ingrid Strøm’s thesis that officials in the Greek sanctuaries played a relatively active role in the acquisition of both votive dedications and cult paraphernalia.131 I leave it to those specializing in eighth- and seventh-century Greece to determine what exactly might have been the appeal of these doubled images of nude females and master of animals. 165

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As suggested above, these bronze bridle elements appear to have arrived in Greece already separated from their individual harnesses. Their iconographic pairings further suggest that whenever they were chosen, there were plenty of available pieces from which to select. When, where, and by whom this selection might have occurred is rather more problematic, leading us to a consideration of the historical situation in relation to the two inscriptions naming Haza’el. The inscription on the Eretria blinker was not noted until Charbonnet’s publication of the second blinker in 1986. His translation, however, is now viewed as inaccurate in light of the better-preserved text on the Samos frontlet, translated and discussed by Wolfgang Röllig in the 1988 publication of that piece. Nonetheless, details of the translation and interpretation of the text remain debated. Röllig’s translation (“(Das ist es,) was HDR gab unserem Herrn Haza’el von der Ebene von Basan. ‘Stirnbedeckung’ unseres erhabenen Herrn”) was refined in two publications that came out the following year, both of which independently arrived at the same translation, albeit with slightly different interpretations. François Bron and André Lemaire render it thus: “Ce qu’a donné Hadad à notre seigneur Hazaël, depuis ‘Umq, dans l’année où notre seigneur a traversé le fleuve.”132 Israel Eph’al and Joseph Naveh translate it: “That which Hadad gave our lord Haza’el from ‘Umqi in the year that our lord crossed the river.”133 Bron and Lemaire differ from Eph’al and Naveh in considering Hadad the shortened form of the name of a king of ‘Unqi/Patina, thus suggesting that this item was inscribed by the ‘Unqi king as tribute to Haza’el. Eph’al and Naveh instead see Hadad as referring to the West Semitic god, who is given literary credit for Haza’el’s successful military campaign against ‘Unqi. This latter interpretation is the one most generally accepted by philologists today.134 These varying interpretations hold considerable implications in understanding the social biographies of the blinker and the frontlet. Following the generally accepted interpretation first proposed by Eph’al and Naveh, the two pieces originally belonged to the kingdom (and thus presumably but not necessarily to the king) of ‘Unqi (which might indicate manufacture there, although not necessarily, since that king might have in turn gotten these items from elsewhere). The inscription, however, would belong to the reign of Haza’el of Damascus.135 It is clear that the inscription on the Eretria blinker was added later, as it is squeezed around the figures of the blinker and, moreover, inscribed so that when read, the image on the blinker is actually upside down. The same traits can be seen to a lesser degree on the Samos frontlet, where the inscription is inserted along the left side of the central imagery. The secondary nature of both these inscriptions supports an interpretation of them as texts celebrating the capture of booty. Since Haza’el was engaged early in his reign in struggles against Shalmaneser III of Assyria (858–824 BCE), it is assumed that he would not have had the political or military capabilities to conduct a campaign against

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‘Unqi/Patina, a major kingdom in the north with its capital at the present-day site of Tell Tayinat (ancient Kinalua), until the later part of the ninth century, when Assyria’s grip on the west loosened considerably.136 The last campaign of Shalmaneser III in the west is against ‘Unqi in 831 (or 829).137 The inscription probably dates to some time after this and before renewed Assyrian military action under Adad-nirari III in 805 BCE. This, of course, raises the question of what the blinker and frontlet were doing between the end of the ninth century when Haza’el of Damascus presumably had them inscribed to glorify his military accomplishment (see below) and the end of the eighth century when the blinker may (or may not) have been affixed to a column alongside its visual doppelgänger in a temple dedicated to Apollo on the island of Euboea. All sorts of scenarios have been devised to explain the radical displacement of these objects, generally involving rather vague ideas of trade or diplomatic gift giving.138 Although there remain too many unknown variables to propose a precise itinerary, two aspects can be brought to bear on the problem: that Haza’el has a disproportionate number of surviving inscribed luxury objects, and that the other two surviving inscriptions are on Levantine luxury items found in Assyrian imperial contexts. While the second of these aspects has been acknowledged for its historical contributions, the former has received less attention. Nonetheless, it bears asking: why should Haza’el have considered it so important to leave textual evidence of his presence on luxury goods, while his contemporary rulers (outside Assyria) apparently did not?139 First, what might the Haza’el inscriptions as a group tell us about possible spheres in which Levantine luxury items circulated? We have already considered this to some extent above in the section on the Arslan Tash ivories. There, I argued that it was more likely that the ivories found in a provincial Assyrian administrative building had first been taken to the Assyrian capital as booty or tribute from a Levantine king and then redistributed back to an Assyrian official based in the Levant. I based this argument on the similarity between two inscriptions naming Haza’el found on ivory veneer pieces: one at Arslan Tash, the other in Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud. These two inscriptions, both fragmentary, appear to follow very much the same formula as the two inscriptions from Greece. The one from Nimrud is the most fragmentary, preserving only part of the title “ . . . our [lor]d Haza’el.”140 The inscription from Arslan Tash, found on three separate pieces of ivory, retains more: “[ ]?? ‘m’ to our lord Haza’el in the year he captured ‘h[ . . . ].”141 Although there is no consensus as to the presumed proper name preceding “our lord Haza’el” or the identification of the captured city (Hazor, Hamath, Hazrak, Halep, and Hazazu have all been proposed), the inscription clearly follows the same formula as the complete inscriptions celebrating the acquisition of seized goods from ‘Unqi. Since the Arslan Tash and Nimrud inscriptions are also on pieces of luxury items, it seems logical to inter-

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pret these inscriptions in a similar vein, although they do not need to have come from the same place, since we know that Haza’el engaged in numerous battles for territorial conquest.142 That two such inscriptions ended up among the Assyrian imperial collection of booty and tribute may suggest that the Haza’el blinker and frontlet likewise would have passed through the hands of the Assyrians.143 If the Haza’el inscribed blinker and frontlet arrived in Damascus at the end of the ninth century and then perhaps wound up in Greece sometime between 750 and 700 BCE (although this is circumstantial, based on the notion of the paired iconography of the two Eretria blinkers), there are two main dates between 800 and 700 in which Haza’el’s booty might have been taken as booty by the Assyrians: Adadnirari III (810–783 BCE) claims to have subdued Damascus and taken booty including ivory furniture,144 and Tiglath-Pileser III, who conquered Damascus in 733/732 BCE.145 Maria Amadasi Guzzo proposes that the Samos frontlet and Eretria blinker inscriptions should be thought of not as dedications or gifting but as labels “qui identifient les objets en faisant allusion à leur histoire; et cette histoire leur confère en meme temps une valeur toute particulière.”146 She notes that the Haza’el inscriptions differ from the short references to the cities of Hamath, Lu’ash, and Bit-Gushi (Arpad) found incised on other ivories at Nimrud. They also appear different from inscriptions on other luxury objects, such as dedications to a deity or the assertions of possession discussed in chapter 4. Rather, they are similar to Assyrian imperial inscriptions on booty, such as a small cylindrical black stone (bored through the center like a cylinder seal) from Assur that bears an inscription of Shalmaneser III: “Booty from the temple of the deity Sheru of the city Malaha, a royal city of Haza’el of Damascus, which Shalmaneser, son of Ashurnasirpal, king of Assyria, brought back inside the wall of Inner City (Ashur).”147 Such inscriptions, Amadasi Guzzo suggests, relate to or even are excerpted from royal annals—inscriptions that recount the great deeds of the king. Is Haza’el trying to emulate the Assyrian kings that he is encountering early in his reign, and whom he survives, during a period of their weakness in which he in turn thrives?148 Furthermore, would his emulatory booty labels have held greater appeal for the later conquering Assyrians because of both their expression of respect for Assyrian imperial practices and their recorded history of royal ownership? Yet it remains hard to see how the bronze frontlet and blinker would have found their way from an Assyrian imperial storeroom to two different Greek sanctuaries. One would expect instead a scenario akin to that detailed above for the bronze strips from Olympia, which most likely entered into secondary circulation only after the collapse of the Assyrian Empire. Moreover, the impression gained from the paired images of frontlets and blinkers found at Samos and Eretria suggests that they were chosen from an available stock that was large 168

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enough to provide similar visual pieces, but were nonetheless not originally intended to be paired together on a single bridle. In other words, the pieces from Samos and Eretria do not appear to be just any bridle elements that happened to be available. Given that horses were attached to chariots in sets of either two or four, similar but not paired sets of bridle attachments might have existed and been housed together in storerooms. But again, who would have both access to the Assyrian storerooms and an interest in distributing some of the items into pathways that could lead to dedication at a Greek sanctuary? Or, if the bronzes did not come from an Assyrian imperial storeroom, they presumably would have been held in a comparable Damascene royal storeroom, and again, the question arises as to who would have both motivation and access to distribute such items to a foreign ritual setting. It seems unlikely that individual independent “Levantine traders” would be in possession of such highly guarded royal booty, at least not during times of strong state control. One suggestion has been that such items might have been given to Greek mercenaries who served in the Assyrian army and then dedicated them as votives on their return home.149 Another possibility that has been hinted at by some scholars but not fully pursued in detail is that at least some of this material was opportunistically obtained plunder gotten from the general chaos that ensued in the wake of military campaigns, be they Assyria in the west in the eighth century or the fall of Assyria itself at the end of the seventh.150 Both these scenarios seem unlikely given the discussion above. Gunter suggests, following Strøm’s argument that sanctuary officials across Greece formed a network that actively acquired specific Near Eastern pieces, that “special ties” existed between the Greek sanctuary officials and “political or religious elites elsewhere in the Near East.”151 Yet who these political or religious elites might have been remains elusive. It is possible that the undocumented link runs through Anatolia, especially Phrygia, which certainly in later centuries (sixth and later) acted as an important nexus mediating between Mesopotamia/ the Levant and the Greek-speaking city-states of western Anatolia and the Aegean.152 The presence of Levantine–style bronzes and ivories at Gordion in the eighth century has suggested diplomatic relations between these two areas, while Herodotus later tells of a dedication of a throne by the eighth-century Phrygian king Midas at the Greek sanctuary at Delphi.153 Yet the case of Phrygia leads to at least two possibilities, neither of which can be ruled out: an analogous votive dedication directly to a Greek sanctuary from an eighth-century Damascene or Assyrian ruler, or diplomatic gifting from Damascus/Assyria to Phrygia subsequently re-gifted as a votive dedication by a Phrygian ruler in Greece.154 The bronze bridle elements are indeed extraordinary objects in their complex material and historical associations, and as Gunter notes, they provide an excellent point of departure for considering questions of material displace169

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ments. However, in our current state of knowledge, they do not allow us to arrive at any satisfactory end place with respect to the identification of precisely who, when, or how they left the Near East and came to Greece; the degree of displacement is so great that speculation regarding an exact itinerary remains tenuous beyond reasonable bounds. This conclusion, while negative, should stand as an important caution in our attempts to reconstruct relations between Greece and the Near East during the eighth century BCE.155 But this is not a zero-sum game; as a recent volume exploring the social dimensions of trade asserts, “when goods are in motion, they are moving through social spaces and . . . there is meaning in the event itself, not merely in the accomplished fact of an exchange.”156 We can with caution tease out meaning from select events along the bronzes’ complex itinerary, noting for example the absence of horse-related value attached to the paired plaques within the Greek ritual world and the Damascene emulation of Assyrian practices of hoarding booty. We might with some cause speculate that Haza’el gathered relatively large quantities of luxury items (in both bronze and ivory) from conquered states, which he “registered” by means of inscribed texts in the manner of the Assyrian kings. The Assyrian kings, in turn, seized this stored booty during their own military campaigns and likewise stored it in their royal arsenals. In either the Damascene or the Assyrian kings’ storehouses, there were presumably large numbers of such pieces, which could have been either dismantled or kept as an ensemble.157 It appears to have been from a group of disassembled horse trappings that the coupled bronze frontlets and blinkers found in Greece derived, rather than from complete harness sets.158 Their value in a Greek ritual context seems to stem more from their doubled imagery and likely also their material (no ivory harness elements have been recovered from Greek sanctuaries), not from their original function as horse trappings. Some additional value may have accrued from their biographies themselves,159 though it is not possible to say what precise “biographical facts” (if not simply the fact of their having “biographies” in and of itself) might have mattered within a Greek ritual context, or whether the Aramaic inscriptions would have been either readable or sensible in the new locale. That two out of less than thirty160 bronze harness elements deposited in Greek sanctuaries carry inscriptions (an exceptionally high proportion) suggests that at the very least, the mere presence of the inscriptions contributed to their perceived value within the context of a Greek sanctuary during a period when writing was itself just coming into being as a social practice.

Conclusions: Displacements, Values, and Meanings The cases presented in this chapter witness the mobility of Levantine artworks in ways that challenge systemwide models of imperialism, trade, or gift exchange, and that stitch together piece by piece a narrative of complex inter170

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actions. The close analysis of stylistic and technical features, archaeological context of deposition, and historical evidence points to displacements of both geocultural and sociopolitical extent, moving across cultural regions and up and down social strata. I have eschewed what I see to be a generally fruitless attempt to pinpoint precise locations of initial manufacture. Nonetheless, displacements became evident and can be reconstructed to varying extents for each case. The bronzes from Olympia clearly juxtapose Near Eastern to Greek crafting, even if neither production locale can be more precisely demonstrated. Likewise, the bronze bridle pieces from Samos and Eretria clearly point to manufacturing origins that are geographically and culturally distant from the place of their final deposition. Objects such as the Olympia bronze bands and the Samos and Eretria bridle pieces receive the greatest share of attention in scholarly discourse because of their “East-West” displacement, a direct result of the privileged position the question of the emergence of Greek art holds within the Western intellectual tradition. The eighth and seventh centuries are seen as a major point of transference from the “Orient” to the “West.” But the Haza’el and Olympia bronzes point to the complicated intertwining of the Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds. How goods circulated in the Near East affected what might be available to others, such as Greeks or Etruscans, and what pathways might have been open for their movement. The Olympia bronze bands suggest that high-prestige items associated with the Assyrian Empire may not have been easily available until the loss of imperial control (although the Samos and Eretria bronzes hint at ways in which such items might have been diverted into alternate pathways at places such as Gordion). Ivories from the Town Wall Houses, Til Barsip, and Arslan Tash reinforce this impression, suggesting that complete pieces/ensembles may only have been available through official Assyrian channels, at least while Assyria was at its strongest, from the middle of the eighth century to the third quarter of the seventh century. The late eighth-century contexts in Salamis Tomb 79 might therefore be understood as “lesser” pieces of luxury accessories, perhaps some part of them bestowed by the Assyrian kings on the newly emerging Cypriot rulers and then gussied up with otherwise acquired or manufactured components. The ivories from the Nimrud Town Wall Houses present a different perspective on displacement. Many of them are Levantine and thus assumed to be displaced from somewhere in the Levant, while others are Assyrian in style. The Assyrian ivories, then, are displaced not from one geocultural area to another but rather from one sociopolitical arena to another, namely from the palace to post-empire squatters. The Til Barsip ivories suggest a similar sociopolitical displacement that is further complicated by an apparently round-trip geocultural displacement from the Levant to Assyria and then back to the Levant, now as an Assyrian province. Such a round-trip displacement is supported by the Arslan 171

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Tash ivories, which appear to have been taken as tribute or booty from Damascus to Assyria and then back out to the provincial city of Hadatu. What is kept and what is disposed of reveal how meaning and value accrue through different acts of reuse and recycling.161 During the looting of the great Assyrian palaces, some ivories were thrown down wells, while others were scavenged. Similarities between finds of ivories from the wells and those from the Town Wall Houses, such as the bull-figure furniture attachments, indicate that aesthetic, iconographic, or functional aspects of these ivories were not paramount among the motivations underlying their displacement. Rather, their disposal in the wells and their hoarding in squatter quarters signal a value and meaningfulness through their association with the Assyrian Empire as the prized booty or tribute of conquests. This is quite different from the bronzes found at Greek sanctuaries, whether the Haza’el bridle elements or the relief bands from Olympia. In those instances, motivations based on iconography, material, and form seem of primary relevance. In the case of the bridle elements, the new pairing of pieces severs them from their original functional meaningfulness as charioteer accessories and inscribes them with new value and meaning. Although we don’t know what imagery of the Olympia bronze relief bands was chosen to be melted down, we can nonetheless assume that the retained Near Eastern imagery possessed some iconographic merit for the Greek dedicator. Otherwise, why not melt all the bands and start from scratch? The Salamis refashionings suggest complex ties between the emerging kingdom and points both east and west. Levantine ivories with connections to Assyrian storehouses, reworked and “stretched” to go further, hint at a secondtier client status that nevertheless takes pride in continuing independence. A presumably Greek practice of affixing griffin protomes to cauldrons with Near Eastern siren attachments finds expression, but in the absence of the typical siren cauldron (whether Levantine or Urartian), a strangely unique version is created. It is perhaps too simplistic to see these refashionings as metaphoric of the refashioning taking place on the island of Cyprus as a whole during the eighth and seventh centuries. Yet the negotiations of ethno-linguistic identity traced in the development of languages and scripts, raised at the end of chapter 4, may have been worked out materially as well. From the different case studies presented in this chapter, it becomes apparent that we need to analyze closely each situation on its own before we begin to construct large-scale narratives of cultural interaction, either within the Near Eastern world or between it and points west. Once having done so, the individual cases can gain interpretive value in their juxtaposition to one another, providing a starting point for such “bigger-picture” stories, as the various strands of the Haza’el corpus show; a better understanding of the inscribed Haza’el ivory found at Arslan Tash, linked to the one from Nimrud, enriches

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the historical underpinnings for the Samos bronze frontlet and Eretria bronze blinkers. At the same time, the case studies demonstrate that we must take into consideration not just questions of cultural encounters but also those related to social status and hierarchy. How might Levantine ivories have signified differently for Assyrian kings, who acquired them as tribute or booty, than for squatters opportunistically looting them from the storerooms of these now-defeated rulers?

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CONCLUSION

T

his book has examined an ambiguously defined and contested corpus of artistic artifacts—mainly carved ivories and metalworks—from the early

first-millennium Near East, roughly 1200 to 600 BCE. Throughout, I have argued that these objects played a central role in generating and maintaining community identities, and that they did so because they were active participants in ancient social relations. Through their entanglement with human practices, they forged collective memories that acted as the glue connecting individuals to one another. In particular, the artworks’ visual and formal effects, which can be understood as style, reside at the heart of these entanglements, catalyzing individual and collective experiences through their affective properties.

Theoretical Considerations This study is, in many ways, the result of an extremely personal endeavor. My own enchantment and fascination by the objects of inquiry have in many ways propelled my particular research agenda. It is not just that these objects have resisted any straightforward or singular definition of meaning; it is also my sense that this very enchantment itself exists (and existed in the past) as an integral part of their material presence. Thus, the very process of looking at these objects has become part of this project, as I have explored different “tools” that 175

allow us to get closer to them, rather than trying to classify them in any absolute sense.1 As such, the approaches taken and interpretive strategies deployed have been somewhat open ended and idiosyncratic; yet I hope that they are transferable to other material corpora and other times and places. At this point of closure, it is worth examining the basis for my larger argument and the theoretical approaches that have both directly and indirectly molded my critical thinking throughout this project. If, as Alfred Gell has provocatively proposed, the formal complexity of material production engenders at least some portion of an object’s power,2 then a self-consciously materialitybased set of approaches is particularly appropriate for studying these bafflingly enchanting (or enchantingly baffling) Levantine artworks. My own incorporation of such theories brought me face to face with what I perceive as a turn in scholarship to semiotics and contextualism at the expense of the physical artwork itself.3 These approaches often view the material object as signifying something else, with meaning somehow existing either behind/around the object (in the case of contextualism) or nowhere and everywhere except the object (in the case of semiotics). For both, the “merely apparent” comes to stand as a mask of that which lies elsewhere.4 As should be evident in my critique of connoisseurship in chapter 1, I do not propose that we return to the formalism of early art history, in which meaning was wholly and immutably contained within and inherent to an object. Nor do I advocate the dismissal of the premises of dynamic signification espoused by semiotics and contextualism. Rather, through a diverse set of case studies, I have sought to pursue approaches that confront and accept the material presence of the artworks as well as their efficacy in the ongoing processes of generating social relationships. It is these relationships—understood for the early Iron Age Levant as networked over space and time—that substantiate a prime bond in community identity. Thus, this study has approached the Levantine artworks according to the principle that visual and physical form constitutes meaning in its relational existence with other things and people through time and space.5 One thread that runs through all the chapters is my experimentation in drawing on, differentially, aspects of formalism as well as semiotic and contextual approaches. I have sought to take advantage of each without losing sight of the others. Indeed, a question emerges: are these units of analysis—formalism, contextualism, semiotics, with which we are so fond of labeling ourselves and others—themselves too bounded, too constraining? Might these very units of analysis be unstable? How can we consider explicitly the analytic tools that we are using without becoming wedded (or divorced) from any, and what is gained or lost from the different perspectives? As Webb Keane articulated in a recent talk at the US Theoretical Archaeology Group, our intellectual goal should be the reconstruction of a textured picture of dense entanglements in which applying different approaches allows for certain things to come into higher relief 176

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than others.6 Thus, this study results from a complex conjunction of my own enchantment, a focus on certain regions and objects that are set in high relief, and the process of working through the object-human relationship. Although theorized concepts of materiality have only occasionally made an explicit appearance in the pages of this volume, they have served as a critical component in my own intellectual engagement with the Levantine artworks and underlie many of my theoretical stances. Materiality, as a disciplinary subfield, is itself elusive and manifold in its permutations.7 This has had the benefit of opening up multiple avenues of inquiry during the course of this book while remaining grounded in the very being of the object itself.8 In this way, the study has touched on a number of themes—collective memory-making strategies, the efficacy of style, the properties of ensnarement borne by visual and material forms, the reuse and recycling of luxury arts, to name the most central. For each of these themes, the underlying contribution of materiality theories is the constitutive property of things; they do not simply reflect or signify or even represent/re-present—they are and they make. We are forced, as Daniel Miller notes, “to acknowledge the centrality of materiality to the constitution of humanity.”9 It is precisely this property that permits objects to serve as sociological evidence of the distant past. Indeed, a prime motivator of this study is the mutual dependence of “things” and social relations, such that in actuality it is impossible to draw hard boundaries between the two, although we often resort to such distinctions for analytic purposes. According to such a perspective, material artifacts, as the primary evidence for ancient societies, carry a sociological force as “survivors” and “witness-participants” of past dynamic situations. It is in this way that Christopher Pinney begins his study of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Indian chromolithographs, first asking, “Can one have a history of images that treats pictures as more than simply a reflection of something else, something more important happening elsewhere?” and then arguing for a history made by art rather than a history of art.10 My diverse case studies have presented the argument that art is a catalyst and glue for community identity; social communities are thus made by the artworks themselves. And one principal way in which art objects do their work is through style, as it is produced, consumed, and appreciated through shared human practices.

Glancing Back, Casting Ahead The artworks at the heart of this book have been studied intensively since they first started appearing in archaeological excavations in the middle of the nineteenth century. Because the vast majority has been discovered in areas outside their presumed place of manufacture, scholarship has relied on stylistic analysis for purposes of classification and attribution. Chapter 1 unpacked this mode 177

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of scholarship, arguing that stylistic groupings cannot be assumed to map onto geography; that is, style is not autochthonous but rather the product of and contributor to potentially fluid communities of practice. The style-geography association, typically married to linguistic affiliation, has effectively blinkered us to what else might have been going on. Thus, I have proposed breaking apart the fixed connections between language, style, and geography in order to interrogate their relationship to one another in the greater Levant during the early Iron Age. My analysis suggests that during this period, these three entities are in fact more flexibly and changeably associated than we usually consider them to be. For example, as Eleanor Guralnick rightly notes regarding the Levantine bronze bands found at Olympia, the stylistic variation within the bronzes cannot be attributed to different workshops (understood as spatially and temporally separate), as proposed by Ursula Seidl, but must instead point to the interaction and cross-contact of several Levantine craftsmen who might have come together to produce a single major project—exactly the kind of pan-Levantine interactions that I suggest in the first chapter.11 In the tenth and ninth centuries (and most likely also the eleventh), flexible and fluid identities networked across the greater Levant. This is evident in the spectrum of related but not identical styles seen among all media: ivories, metalworks, stone reliefs, stone vessels, and later, engraved tridacna shells. It is also evident in the widespread geographic distribution of early Phoenician monumental inscriptions, well outside the geographic confines of what gets defined as Phoenicia in the later centuries. The Phoenician language can be understood to be transregional during the early centuries of the Iron Age, with its script adopted and adapted for Aramaic, Moabite, Ammonite, Hebrew, and even Greek.12 In the eighth century and afterward, we see increasingly hardened community identities forming around a constellation of language and place that, over time, fuses and fossilizes—what we might call an ethnogenesis. It is these later community identities—mythologized as anchored to a singular place and language— that have left the greatest amount of textual evidence behind and that have colored our historical lens of the earlier periods. This later situation has often been projected back onto the earlier eleventh through ninth centuries. However, such a retrojection masks the fact that this creation of ethno-linguistic identities was a diachronic development from an earlier situation that appears to have been more fluid and interconnected, what I have been calling networked. The ongoing fluidity and mobility of styles over the course of the Iron Age in the Levant further challenge any straightforward acceptance of these narratives of bounded communal identities. Yet significantly, the very production of these mythologized narratives themselves fuels their ongoing development as they are consumed and internalized by their human interlocutors. There has long been scholarly consensus that the stylistically defined “North 178

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Syrian” artworks date to the ninth and eighth centuries (now pushed back into the tenth and eleventh centuries), while those defined as “Phoenician” date to the later part of the eighth through the seventh centuries, and my study may appear to do no more than to support such a chronological distinction. However, I contend that our continuing use of these geographically bounded terms—North Syrian and Phoenician—in reference to stylistic categories forces us to tie style to geographic place too tightly. If the Phoenician style appears only in the eighth century, one might ask: what would art from a Phoenician place, say, Tyre, look like in the tenth century?13 Is it intellectually satisfying to accept that there was no “art” produced in this region during these early centuries? Certainly enough archaeological evidence has come to light in recent years to suggest that the Levantine coast, including those areas ascribed to Phoenicia, flourished during the eleventh through ninth centuries.14 Indeed, Phoenicia/Phoenician is one of the most problematic terms for the study of the early Iron Age Levant. In it, we see an exemplar of the conflation of people, language, place, and style, all bound up in a problematic Greek term. Although the historical inaccuracy of the term Phoenician with respect to a political entity has been remarked on repeatedly in scholarship,15 the use of it as a stylistic designation continues mostly unchallenged.16 However, the longaccepted stylistic division between Phoenicia and North Syria may be more of a chronological than a geographic distinction. If so, our use of the geographically oriented terms Phoenician and North Syrian might be better rephrased in chronological terms as “earlier early Iron Age” (eleventh/tenth- through eighth-) and “later early Iron Age” (eighth- through sixth-century) Levantine styles. The animal markings discussed in chapter 2, which are linked to a Late Bronze Age heroic age, are found on works generally ascribed to the North Syrian style. If we consider these patternings from a solely chronological perspective rather than a regional one, we might postulate that stronger connections to the Bronze Age past were expressed in the years immediately following the Bronze Age, a time marked by greater instability and opportunism.17 As identities became more entrenched, the ties to the heroic age lessened. Likewise, a shift in the eighth and seventh centuries to the “Phoenician” style, which is characterized by its heavily Egyptianizing imagery, may point to an aesthetic reaction against Assyrian encroachment and a concomitant allying with the Egyptian state. That Egypt played a role in stirring up Levantine rebellions against Assyria is well known from the historical records, and eventually prompted the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal to campaign against its rulers in the seventh century.18 If we dispense with notions of the autochthonous nature of artistic style, we can see how networks of practice might have expanded, contracted, and crisscrossed over the course of the first centuries of the first millennium, such that social and political relations were being forged and reshaped around these very 179

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artworks (among other things). Such processes could have resulted in the graduated stylistic spectrum that remains evident today in the early Iron Age Levantine portable arts, and that I propose are indicative of fluid community edges, kaleidoscopically interdigiting with one another across the greater Levant. It seems that the earlier period of especially fluid community identities was also the time when groups looked back most strongly to a prior “golden age,” drawing on and fostering memories of heroic qualities. When situated in a time of more fungible identities, such social memory—even nostalgia—makes sense. Yet this situation should not be understood as predetermined in some way by the historical framework of the early Iron Age. The processes of community formation could result instead in the hardening of stylistic boundaries in opposition to an Other, as is evident in Assyrian state artistic production, explored in chapter 3 as a counterpoint to the Levant. Thus, we can see the entangled nature of artistic production and “historical” happenings; rather than either one serving as an explanation for the other, their mutually constitutive entwinement needs to be addressed through close study of specific situations. While Levantine political communities remained small but closely interconnected with one another, a single monolithic Assyrian court community expanded, engulfing its neighbors, with the important exception of Babylonia. Over the course of the first millennium, an “ethnic” association through language may have played a partner role in an increasing entrenchment of community boundaries, as the declarations of belonging inscribed on metal bowls examined in chapter 4 suggest. The explicit inscription of personhood on the bowls, which begins in the early centuries of the Iron Age and continues through the seventh century until it becomes almost commonplace in the following centuries, appears to contribute to the growing consolidation of community identities linked to ethno-linguistic and kinship concerns. In this instance, generally shared practices of ritual drinking and libating, which might have served to bind communities together across the wide extent of these bowls’ geographic distribution, may instead have accentuated specific community identities by means of the diverse languages and scripts marked on them. In each locale of their final deposition, this activation of community identity took on culturally specific forms and significances. These are evident, for example, in the distinctly different patterns found on Cyprus (where all inscribed bowls used the Greek language written in the Cypriot syllabary) in contrast to Etruria (where “foreign” West Semitic languages occur on two metal bowls, while Etruscan inscriptions are restricted to local ceramic drinking wares). Similar concerns arise in the analysis of the refashioned items from Salamis on Cyprus, discussed in chapter 5. While we should perhaps not interpret these reworked materials as a mirror reflecting the sociopolitical developments taking place on the island as a whole during the eighth and seventh centuries, we might consider how they

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participated in the contemporaneous negotiations of ethno-linguistic identity seen in the development of languages and scripts during this time (and perhaps to be associated with related processes for the inscribed bowls). I have focused in this study on the greater Levantine region and its associated artistic production, but I would suggest that this situation of diachronic change and community identity formation is an appropriate lens through which to view much of the Near East and eastern Mediterranean in the early Iron Age.19 Although cause and effect are especially difficult to discern during the last century of the second millennium and the first two of the first millennium, there appears to be a correlation between the Late Bronze Age “collapse” and the subsequent transregional fluidity of community identities, which provided a rich array of possibilities, potentialities, and opportunities for community coalescence. Community formation occurred in different ways across these regions, and by the eighth century clearly divergent paths emerged among areas such as Assyria, the Levant, Cyprus, Egypt, Anatolia, and Greece. These pathways also incorporated artworks from earlier periods, as was explored in the last chapter, demonstrating the ongoing efficacy of portable luxury goods in the shifting formation of community identity. The reuse and recycling of older artworks also point to the dynamic interaction between memory and community, old and new, tradition and innovation. It is not possible to trace just one trajectory or one narrative. For the bronze horse-bridle elements found at Samos and Eretria, the Greek story is but another episode in a larger narrative of these objects; it is not possible to grasp the effect of those objects found in the “West” without understanding how they circulated and were used, reused, and disposed in the “East.” Thus, the many small pieces must be interlocked in a complex, multidimensional puzzle encompassing both space and time. Over the course of this book, I have attempted to put together some of these puzzle pieces by examining the role of portable luxury arts in community formation from a number of different perspectives. Totalizing models have often been used to explain how these objects were produced and distributed across the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. However, as the case studies in chapter 5 indicate, channels by which items circulated, were reused, and were reimagined did not operate in only one arena (often implied, in the case of “Phoenician mercantilism,” as similar to a capitalist free market). Rather, power, control, and opportunistic possibilities all played important roles at different times and places. Thus, these artworks—as a corpus and as individual pieces—cannot be explained through any single model of imperialism, competition, commercialism, or the like. The situation is far from straightforward, requiring close analysis of specific, individual cases. This is not to say that the separate instances should be studied in isolation, but to maintain that we need to be sensitive to the many stories behind any given object’s manufacture and use. This book does not

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tell all the possible stories. Nonetheless, it strives to bring together a number of different ones, which are not usually told together, in order to begin to build a narrative from the bottom up. Consequently, this study has sought to provide a richer understanding of these long-enigmatic artworks through a serious commitment to their formal, stylistic, material, and physical properties, and the ways in which these material aspects encourage and condition relationships—relationships with one another, with larger assemblages of artworks and spaces, and with human beings. In pursuing this endeavor, I am not advocating a simple inversion of the intellectual hierarchy to privilege things over people or formalism over contextualism. Rather, I have placed emphasis on the relational nature of interaction among a multitude of entities—artifacts, humans, spaces, times—whose dynamics, in their very being, are social life. Because these relationships are shifting with respect to one another and encompass the totality of the human and the material worlds, it is desirable—if not in practice possible—to examine all components with equal intensity and to take seriously their known or possible effects. It must also be acknowledged that because of this shifting and dynamic element, my study alone cannot provide a “one-size-fits-all” explanation. Indeed, my choice to structure the volume around a series of disparate case studies was based on this fundamental acknowledgement. I do not claim to provide all the answers for all the artworks and social situations that came into being during the early first millennium BCE. However, my select examples offer a number of diverse glimpses into what must remain an only partially accessible ancient past.

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NOTES

Introduction 1. See, for example, Yaeger and Canuto 2000. 2. Of the numerous publications, some examples are Moore 2010; Hendel 2010, 2005; Mills and Walker 2008b; Assmann 2006; Van Dyke and Alcock 2003; Misztal 2003; Jonker 1995. 3. For one critique of the term collective, see Mills and Walker 2008a, 5–6. The phrase “social structures” is ibid., 5. 4. Bell (1992, 21–23) brilliantly pinpoints the (il)logic of Durkheim and other theorists of ritual: as a first level of analysis, Durkheim distinguishes between ritual as action versus belief as thought; then, in a second level of analysis within the analytical category of ritual established in the first level, he sees this same dichotomy of action and belief as mediated by ritual. Bell notes that it is because of these noncompatible levels of analysis that later scholars have read Durkheim in opposing ways: either as promoting the collective against the individual, or as bridging the collective and the individual. 5. As argued by Coser (1992), who edited the English translation of Halbwachs’s work. 6. See Halbwachs (1992, 40): “It is not sufficient, in effect, to show that individuals always use social frameworks when they remember. It is necessary to place oneself in the perspective of the group or groups. The two problems, moreover, are not only related: they are in effect one. One may say that the individual remembers by placing himself in the perspective of the group, but one may also affirm that the memory of the group realizes and manifests itself in individual memories.” See also Moore 2010, 403. For further discussion of collective memory, see chapter 2 of the present text. 7. See chapter 1, n45. 8. For a similar argument with respect to Archaic Greece, see Malkin 2011, 12–13. 9. This argument is in contrast to that made by some scholars, for example Niemeyer (2004,

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249), which proposes that “Phoenician” ivories and bowls were made only for “export.” See also Hoffman 2005, 359 n42. In support of palace-based, non-export-driven production, see G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 69–74. 10. The discernment of degree of Assyrian control in the greater Levant is not always straightforward; however, the presence of certain distinctively Levantine architectural and urban forms, such as the bit hilani–type reception hall, is indicative of more indigenous social practices. Ivories from Til Barsip and Arslan Tash derive from strongly Assyrian occupation levels and are addressed separately in chapter 5. Ivories from Samaria have no clear archaeological context and appear most likely to be in reused fill from the Hellenistic period (Tappy 2001, 443–95; also Uehlinger 2005). A bronze frontlet from the bit hilani–type Building I at Tell Tayinat is probably from an Assyrian occupation level; discovered in the first season of the University of Chicago’s excavation in 1935, Kantor (1962, 95) reconstructs its findspot as a floor above one dated to Tiglath-Pileser III, who conquered and incorporated the city into the Assyrian state in 738. Likewise, ivories found during recent excavations by the University of Toronto expedition also belong to Assyrian occupation levels (Harrison and Osborne 2012, 118). 11. Several ivory palm fronds were published as coming from the Temple of the Storm God Tarhunzas at Carchemish; ivories from a cremation burial on the acropolis were briefly mentioned as well (Woolley 1978, 167, plate 71f ). Neither context, however, has good chronological controls. For recent discussion of the architecture of the temple, dating its period of use from at least the tenth century into the eighth, see Gilibert 2011, 50–52. 12. At Zincirli, a heterogeneous group of ivories and metal objects was found. These items were associated with two major reception buildings on the citadel, Buildings J and K (originally designated as a single structure, the Nordpalast), and a nearby storage building, Building L (von Luschan 1943, plates 46g–k, 47c–e, 56a, 61–72; Pucci 2008, 59–68). They are generally assigned to the destruction layer from the citadel area dated to some time after 676, based on the occurrence within it of two letters naming the eponym for 676 under Esarhaddon (Pucci 2008, 37). By this time Sam’al was a tributary but semi-independent state to the Assyrian Empire, but yet to be fully incorporated into the Assyrian provincial system—this came later in Esarhaddon’s reign, around 670 BCE (ibid., 79–80). Among the metal items are a fragmentary bronze chariot pole ornament with relief decoration (S3779; von Luschan 1943, fig. 91, plate 40c) and several silver pendants (S3625, S3626, and S3691; ibid., plates 46g, i, and k; 47c, d, and e). A betterpreserved bronze chariot pole ornament was recovered from Hilani III (S2314; ibid., fig. 90, plate 40d), probably to be dated in the latter part of Barrakib’s reign or later (Pucci 2008, 33). At Hama, ivory fragments were excavated from the destruction layer of Building V on the citadel of Hama phase E1, attributed to Sargon II in 720 BCE; a very few ivories were also found in Buildings III and IV (dated ca. 800–720 BCE) (Riis and Buhl 1990, 16–18, 204–56; Mazzoni 2009, 108–9). Although Building V is poorly preserved and at a distance from the main structures of the citadel gate and reception halls (Buildings I, II, and III), it appears to have been a smaller reception hall of the bit hilani type. Mazzoni (2009, 109) suggests that the wealth of ivories from this building in contrast to the very few found at Buildings I–III may stem from its more outof-the-way location, which spared it from the extensive looting noted in the main structures. Additional ivories were found in Building IV, located between the major complex of Buildings I–III and the peripheral Building V. The function of this building is debated (ibid., 108), but its architectural form is clearly not that of a reception hall but rather resembles that of a storage facility, similar to the form proposed for Building L at Zincirli. 13. Markoe 1985, 213 Is 1. The bowl was discovered during early excavations by the University of Chicago expedition in the pre-Assyrian level IV in the area near Building 338, which has been interpreted as a grand residential structure (Lamon and Shipton 1939, 47–59; Kepinski 1989, 164–66; Shiloh 1993). 14. A relatively large group of fragmentary ivories was excavated from what is most likely a funerary structure at Tell Halaf (Hrouda 1962, nos. 49–75). The pieces were found in a pit beneath a basalt statue of a seated woman holding a cup (Orthmann 1971, A/2). This statue

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and another one, also with a pit beneath it, appear to have been erected in two separate brick chambers near the citadel gate; both of these had been covered by the so-called Lehmziegelmassiv (a brick terrace) during a later, late-eighth-century building phase at the site (Pucci 2008, 91, 118; Cholidis and Martin 2010, 211–19, 356–57). The pits also contained ashes and other goods of ritual and luxury nature. Though there are no clear parallels for these purported graves in the Iron Age Levant, they appear to tap into the long-standing Levantine tradition of ancestor cult and the spatial association of a dynastic founder with a city gate (Pucci 2008, 119; Mazzoni 1997). Another unusual tomb at Halaf—referred to as the Alte Gruft and associated by its German excavators with the earlier phase of the Temple-Palace/West-Palace (Altbau) later built over by the terrace associated with the Neubau/Kapara phase (Pucci 2008: 96; Cholidis and Martin 2010: 356)—preserved one small ivory of uncertain form along with gold plaques (Hrouda 1962, nos. 1–8, 76). One of these plaques (no. 1) is particularly elaborate, depicting two rampant goats flanking a voluted palmette. 15. Iron Age IIA–B (tenth-century) burial cave; the bowl was placed upside down close to the wall of the cave’s northeastern niche, and was overlaid by an adult (probably female) skull; it was found next to poorly preserved bones (Alexandre 2006). The bowl carries an early (tenth-century) West Semitic alphabetic inscription. See chapter 4 of the present text for further discussion of these inscribed bowls.

Chapter 1 1. Such as the “South Syrian”/”Intermediate” ivories, which also pose challenges to the stylistic assessment of Levantine ivories, as discussed later in this chapter. 2. Barnett 1935, 184. 3. For example, G. Herrmann (1989, 85) writes, “It [the large number of ivories from Nimrud] allows us to gather together groups of similar styles and thus, if it can be accepted that a coherent style-group was probably the output of a specific ‘school’ of carving, to define the production of different schools.” 4. For example, Winter (1981, 105): “As we have suggested previously, divisions into groups cannot be done entirely on the basis of iconography, as there seems to have been a common pool of motives and themes in the ninth–eighth centuries B.C. shared by most Levantine cultures, who similarly shared many cultural and religious traditions. Therefore the means of distinguishing between art works would have to be not on the presence of motives so much as in aspects of style: the use of space and proportion, the repetition of certain details, etc.” See also Winter 2005. 5. For example, the fuzziness of style-group boundaries is noted in several places by G. Herrmann and Laidlaw in the final catalogue of the Nimrud ivories project (G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2013, 40, 57, 115). 6. For overviews of the scholarship of first-millennium Levantine ivories, see Thomason 1999: 16–54; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 53–68. 7. For a brief overview of the history of the discovery of the Nimrud ivories, see G. Herrmann, Coffey, and Laidlaw 2004, 5; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 27–29. 8. See the introduction to this book for references to objects found within the greater Levant. See Winter (1976b) for distribution maps of North Syrian- and Phoenician-type ivories, and Barnett 1982, 43–55. 9. For a recent review of the history of scholarship of the Nimrud and related ivories, see G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 53–55. 10. Poulsen 1912, 37–59. For discussion of the geographic parameters of North Syria, see note 45 below. 11. Barnett 1935, 1975. 12. Barnett 1975, 63. 13. Barnett 1935, 194–95. 14. Barnett 1975, 44–49. 185

Notes to Pages 5–15

15. Ibid., 133–35. 16. Winter 1976b. 17. Ibid., 14. 18. Ibid., 15, 21. 19. For example, a group of four-sided ivories carved in relief from Zincirli-Sam’al that depicts standing female and male figures in highly Egyptianizing dress and attributes provides a good case for including Zincirli on the map of Phoenician ivory distribution, adding a northern location for the occurrence of the designated Phoenician style (von Luschan 1943, plates 66–67; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2013, 30–32). 20. Winter 1981. Barnett (1935, 186) also notes this situation in his early discussion of the Loftus ivories; with respect to the stylistic variation within the Loftus group he writes, “The extremes form two clearly recognizable groups with a certain number of an intermediate class, of which at present I find it a little hard to say to which camp they belong.” 21. For a discussion regarding the problem of using the Haza’el inscription as an indicator of production at Damascus, see chapter 5. 22. Winter 1981, 103; Barnett 1967, 1–7. 23. G. Herrmann objects to the use of the term South Syrian, preferring to use the term Intermediate or Syrian­Intermediate. For the most recent review of the South Syrian/Intermediate terminology debate, see G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 56; 2013, xix. These are the main ivory styles/traditions discerned at Nimrud; ivories in other styles have been excavated in small quantities elsewhere, such as at Hasanlu, where a local ivory-carving tradition has been identified (see Muscarella 1980). 24. There is a lot of slippage and imprecision in the ways the terms tradition, style, school, workshop, and hand get used in the scholarly literature that has contributed considerably to the ongoing classification arguments. For recent discussions focused on the problems inherent in the terms workshop and school, see Winter 2005; di Paolo 2009; and below. 25. G. Herrmann 2005, 12; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 56. 26. G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 56. 27. See, for example, ibid., 55–56. 28. See, for example, Suter 2010; and discussion below. 29. Gibson-Wood 1988. 30. See Davis 2011, 86–93 for a recent review of Morellian connoisseurship. 31. Gibson-Wood 1988, 207. 32. Ibid., 211. 33. On Berenson’s role in codifying the “Morellian method,” see ibid., chaps. 10–12. Berenson’s financial gains through his connoisseurial attributions add another dimension to the discussion. 34. Ginzburg and Davin 1980; Davis 2011, 88, with additional references. 35. Berenson 1902, 125. 36. Gibson-Wood 1988, 169, 178; Anderson 1987; Lennon 1987. 37. Morelli 1892. Layard spent much time in Italy and owned a palazzo, Ca’ Capello, in Venice that today houses the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Venice, Ca’ Foscari; see Lennon 1987, 140; and Arnott 1987. 38. Layard spent his childhood in Florence and thus had an early and extensive exposure to Italian arts (Anderson 1987, 112). “Henry loved Florence, exploring it with his gentle aesthetic father who pointed out the beauties of the works of the great Masters and taught him how to distinguish them by their peculiarities of style or ‘manner’ ” (Waterfield 1987, 7). See also Layard’s own account of this in his autobiography, Layard 1903, 1:27. 39. Layard 1849, 2:10 (although Nineveh is referred to in the book title, it was in fact Nimrud that Layard was excavating at this time). 40. Kugler 1902, xix–xx. 41. Quoted passages are from Berenson 1902, 123. On the “founding tautologies” and circu-

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larity of Morellian connoisseurship, see Davis 2011, 89, 108. With respect to the Levantine arts, see Winter 2005, 24. 42. Berenson 1902, 113, 119; on Berenson’s use of external evidence to confirm his attributions rather than relying solely on his connoisseurial evidence, see, with references, Ebitz 1988, 209–10; similarly for Morelli, see Wollheim 1973. 43. Ebitz 1988, 210. 44. See Winter 2005, 24; di Paolo 2009, 140; Suter 2010, 994–95. 45. In fact, carved monumental architectural reliefs might be understood to be the defining characteristic of North Syria, a geographic designation that is solely the product of academic scholarship. That is, a site is considered part of North Syria due in large part to the presence of such reliefs (Brown 2008b, 4). While the sites that produce such reliefs cluster broadly across an area of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria (see map in Orthmann 1971, 566), no clear physical boundaries circumscribe the sites, nor do they share linguistic or political affiliations. The appearance of carved basalt reliefs at the southern Levantine city of Karak, Jordan, further complicates this definition (see n131 below). For a general defense of approaching North Syria as a coherent entity, see Winter 1973. 46. Winter 1976a. For another, more recent example of this approach, see Wicke 2005. 47. Winter 1976a, 42–43. 48. For a critique of the use of stylistic development in dating the reliefs, see Brown 2008b, 261–77, esp. 268–71. 49. Ibid., 269; emphasis in the original. See also discussion in Aro 2003, 293–97. 50. Winter 1989. 51. Winter 1976a. 52. Winter 1983. 53. Osborne 2013, 14. 54. Struble and Pace 2012. For brief mention of the itinerant nature of stone-working workshops in the northern Levant, and reference to regional stone-working workshops at the basalt stone quarries at Yesemek and Sıkızlar, see Harmanşah 2013, 156, 181. 55. For the unreliability of documents and signatures, see Berenson 1902, 111–19. 56. For example, Mallowan and Herrmann (1974, 35): “This term [workshop] is used here in its art-historical sense to indicate a small group of men working under a master craftsman.” However, even the Renaissance workshop model has been shown to be a more complicated, multidimensional entity than is often assumed by non-Renaissance scholars. See, for example, A. Thomas (1995), who addresses the complexity of Renaissance workshop organization, patronage, and artistic collaboration and their effects on style. 57. On Late Bronze Age ivory, see, with references, Gachet-Bizollon 2007 and Fischer 2007. 58. Caubet and Gaborit-Chopin 2004, 29. Caubet and Poplin (2010, 6) are somewhat less absolute in this conclusion (and see also Caubet 2002). 59. Moorey 1999, 116. 60. Ibid., 116–17. For the second-millennium elephants, see the recent discovery of an almost complete elephant skeleton in the palace at Qatna (Caubet and Poplin 2010, 3n15). 61. The tusks of juvenile elephants contain enamel at the tips, which is undesirable, while those of adult elephants do not, making them preferable (Moorey 1999, 116). Mallowan (1966, 483), citing ethnographic evidence of ivory carving in Delhi and Jaipur, notes that the prime age for “harvesting” an elephant’s tusk is fifty years, which is approximately midlife. 62. See Isaacman and Isaacman 2004, 83–122. 63. Barnet 1997, 3–4. 64. G. Herrmann and Laidlaw (2009, 69–75) make a similar argument in proposing a palacecentered production model. Suter (2010, 996–97) has suggested semi-independent workshops that worked on commission for local kings and elites. 65. “Tools and workshop conditions of ivory carvers in ancient Mesopotamia, as in SyroPhoenicia are unknown” (Moorey 1999, 125). See discussion in Winter 1973, 464–68, 473–77.

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66. Wicke 2005, 71. 67. Ibid. Nonetheless, Wicke accepts the validity of the workshop model of production as a whole. He proposes an attribution of the so-called Round Cheeked and Ringletted style-group to ancient Sam’al (Zincirli), arguing in general for a Northwest Syrian “school” of ivory carving in the eighth century. He (pp. 68–69) explicitly states his assumption that similar objects will come from the same region and time, despite also noting the challenge of determining what degree of similarity is necessary for two items to be grouped together. 68. Riis and Buhl 1990, 224. 69. Mazzoni 2009, 108. 70. See discussions by Gachet 2000; Gachet-Bizollon 2007. See also Mallowan’s (1966, 483– 84) ethnographic observations of the Indian ivory carvers’ tool kit. 71. Moorey 1999, 126; see also chapter 2 of the present text for more detailed discussion about the physical properties of ivory. 72. G. Herrmann 1986, 47; Gachet-Bizollon 2007, 18. 73. Di Paolo 2009. While di Paolo raises many important critiques, I am not convinced by her own conclusion that the similarity of themes and styles over a wide range of ivories suggests autonomous artisans in close contact with one another as opposed to artisans grouped into highly structured bodies (i.e. workshops) in competition with one another (di Paolo 2009, 142). The physical difficulty in procuring ivory as deduced from modern ethnographic studies strongly implies that access to the material would have been quite limited and probably highly controlled. Thus, it would appear that however the artists were organized, they had to be engaged in close relationships with the elite institutions controlling the raw ivory. 74. Ibid., 133n1; and see Moorey (1999, 16–17) regarding the fluidity of where crafting activity may have physically occurred. 75. Moorey 1999, 14. 76. For the Iron Age Levant, intriguing references to “houses of craft/skill and knowledge” and “masters of the skill/craft” are found in Luwian hieroglyphic display inscriptions (Hawkins 2000, II.13+14 [KARKAMIŠ A2+3], II.40 [KÖRKÜN], IV.5 [MARAȘ]; Hawkins and Morpurgo Davies 1986). Their uncertain interpretation, however, does not aid in this discussion. 77. Winter 1992, 138–39; di Paolo 2009, 139–40. 78. Di Paolo 2009: 139–40. 79. Ibid., 140. 80. Winter 1992, 136–37; Wicke 2005, 68; G. Herrmann 2005, 16–18. 81. Winter 1992, 136–37; italics are Winter’s. 82. G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 77–78, nos. 259 and 260. More recently, G. Herrmann and Laidlaw (2013) assign both of these ivories to the Phoenician tradition. IM 79522 is mentioned as “a unique example” of the Ornate Group (G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2013, 35) but not listed under the Ornate Group at the back of the chapter, while IM 79523 is not mentioned in the main text but is listed at the end of the chapter under the group “Pharoah statues and other statuettes” (ibid., 52). It is not entirely clear how they see these two groups relating to each other. 83. G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, no. 348. For similar questions regarding attribution to style-groups, see Winter 1992, 137–38. 84. This is acutely a problem of the Levantine ivories and metal objects and does not plague all modern groupings based on style, as will be examined in chapter 3 for the case of the Assyrian artistic style. 85. For similar conclusions, see di Paolo 2009; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 69–75. 86. Suter 2008. 87. Ibid.; Brown 2008b. 88. Suter 2010, 996–97. 89. See also Barnett 1982, 46. 90. For use of “Phoenician” designation, see Markoe 1985 and Markoe 2007, 168, but for his

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qualification of this term, see Markoe 2000, 148n9; Markoe 2007, 170; for use of North Syrian and South Syrian/Aramaean in addition to Phoenician designation, see Winter 1990; and also Barnett 1967 and Barnett 1974, 25–28. 91. Markoe 2007, 170. Markoe (p. 171) suggests that the stylistic heterogeneity of the bowls may be linked to itinerant artists. 92. Onnis 2009. 93. Ibid., 148. 94. Ibid. 95. For distribution maps, see Stucky 2007, 222; for Nimrud and Nineveh examples, see Curtis and Reade 1995, 148–50. Thanks are due to Laure Marest-Caffey, a PhD student in the History of Art Department at Berkeley, for her work done on the tridacna shells in a graduate seminar in fall 2010. 96. Stucky 1974, 90–95; however, due to finds at Nimrud, Nineveh, and elsewhere, they have also been dated contemporaneous to the North Syrian ivories in the ninth and eighth centuries (see Reese and Sease 2004, 39–41). 97. Stucky 1974, 86–89. 98. For ivory examples, see, for example, Barnett 1975, plates 70 and 91. The tridacna heads have also been compared to bronze “siren” attachments generally attributed to North Syria or Urartu. 99. Stucky 2007, 223; see also Routledge 1997, esp. 37–38; for stone palettes, see Sease and Reese 1994; Reese et al. 2002, 457; Reese and Sease 2004, 41. 100. Sedman 2002, 353–56. 101. Ibid., 355. From Arslan Tash, Thureau-Dangin et al. 1931, plates 36–42; for Nimrud, see G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, plates 20–21. 102. Sedman 2002, 355–56. 103. Millard 2005, 7–8. 104. Wicke (2009, 260–62, citing Dornemann 1983, 132–35) makes a similar argument using molded clay female heads and Ammonite sculpture. 105. From Carchemish, Rasm el-Tanjara, Tell Denit, Tell Afis, Zincirli, and Nineveh (Mazzoni 2001, 2005; Wicke 2008). 106. Merhav 1980; Mazzoni 2005; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 51; Hussein, Kertai, and Altaweel 2013, plate 40a. 107. Gunter 2009, 110. See also Winter 1973, 463. This is further supported by the Haza’el inscribed ivories and bronzes discussed later in this chapter, briefly in chapter 2, and more fully in chapter 5. 108. Gunter 2009, 106–17. 109. Bunnens 2000, 16–17; Lipinski 2000. 110. Brown 2008a; Winter 1979, 137. 111. Özyar 2013, with references to earlier publications. 112. For recent overview of the inscription’s date, see Bryce 2003, 104. 113. Winter 1979, 138. 114. The Karatepe inscriptions comprise five versions of the same text of the local king Azatiwatas; three of them are in Phoenician, and two are in Luwian (see Winter 1979, n140; Özyar 2013). 115. The base is of basalt in the form of a chariot pulled by two bulls, and supports a limestone statue of the weather god. Hawkins 2003, 147, 148; Tekoglu and Lemaire 2000. 116. Hassan-Beyli stele cited in Röllig 1992, 97; Lemaire 1983. For the Incirli stele, which also includes short inscriptions in Akkadian and Luwian, see Kaufman 2007; Dodd 2012. On Awariku in general, see Bryce 2012, 155–61. 117. Röllig (1992, 98) lists several of these Phoenician inscriptions that consistently co-occur with Luwian inscriptions; see also G. Lehmann 2008, 218–21. An interesting example of possible

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Luwian influence/borrowing in the presumed homeland of Phoenicia may be found in the inscription of Ahiram’s sarcophagus from Byblos, in which R. G. Lehmann (2004, 33–37) proposes the appearance of a Luwian loanword, sarla/i (libation, offering). 118. Friedländer 1969, ix (cited in Ebitz 1988, 209). 119. See, for example, Whitney Davis’s discussion of the attribution of a painting to and against Raphael (Davis 2011, 98–112). 120. Neer 2005, 21. 121. In fact, Berenson’s writings represent the logical outcome of the application of connoisseurship (see Gibson-Wood 1988, 238–47; Ginzburg and Davin 1980; Melius 2011). 122. The reality of stylistic differences among a single artist’s oeuvre, when we have more biographical information, has prompted the modification of this assumption to incorporate a biologically derived developmental scheme of an artist’s early, mature, and late phases. Regarding the problem of using essentialized identities to categorize the Levantine ivories and metalwork, see Gunter 2009, 83. 123. Scigliuzzo 2005. 124. Onnis 2009. 125. Scigliuzzo (2005, 563) proposes that a workshop can be identified as the “particular system of modulations resorting to the same surface transitions (modeling patterns).” According to Scigliuzzo (ibid., 562–63, 578), different hands equate with “micro-variants” of this system, and she suggests that although the same person “will inevitably produce micro-variants,” an individual carver can be identified through the regular association of a nucleus of micro-variants. She notes in her conclusions that the identification of different “hands” does not necessarily indicate different human beings, suggesting that her thirteen identified hands represent around ten actual craftsmen. 126. Onnis 2009, 148. 127. In a manner similar to the kitab­khana of Safavid Iran, which Marianna Shreve Simpson (1993, 116) has argued was “ephemeral as a locus of artistic manufacture” and “may have functioned more like a decentralized cottage industry than a unified atelier.” See also Fisher and Fisher 1985. 128. Winter 1976b, 14. 129. The presence of Phoenician and/or South Syrian ivories at northern sites such as Zincirli and Arslan Tash indicates the occurrence of the opposite situation: southerly classified ivories at northern locales. For a discussion of the Arslan Tash ivories, see chapter 5. 130. Yadin 1958, plate 30:2; Yadin 1961, plates 119, 120, 328, 329. 131. Winter 1981; for the Damascus relief, Institut du monde arabe 1993, cat. no. 228 (in the Damascus National Museum). 132. Housed in the Karak Museum, Jordan (Canova 1954, pt. 2, pp. 8–9, fig. 4). A second basalt orthostat with an effaced body of a lion exists in the vaults of the Karak Museum, but is unpublished (Weber 2013). See also Routledge 2004, 178–80. In addition to the Karak lion reliefs, a monumental basalt statue of a standing male figure, approximately two meters tall and broken below the knees, was uncovered in 2010 in the area in front of the Roman theater in Amman, Jordan (Burnett 2013). Though without any exact parallel, it is roughly similar to large-scale basalt statues of ancestors erected in the northern Levant at locations such as Zincirli. 133. This chronology has been constructed in part according to the regionally determined assumption that North Syrian artistic production ceased after incorporation into the Assyrian Empire, with a terminal date of around 717 BCE and the fall of Carchemish. Given the evidence of the tridacna shells, as well as the chronological ambiguity of most of the archaeological findspots of North Syrian ivories, for example at Nimrud and Til Barsip, this assumption has to be reevaluated. However, that production of the North Syrian style occurred as early as the ninth century, if not earlier, appears to be confirmed by the Haza’el inscriptions (see discussion in chapter 5) and the archaeological contexts at Lefkandi and the Kerameikos in Greece (Braun-Holzinger and

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Notes to Pages 36–39

Rehm 2005, 105) and at Hasanlu in Iran (Muscarella 1980, 118–47). Thus, while an “end date” for this purported style remains uncertain, a concentration of production in the earlier centuries of the first millennium appears secure. The absence of supposedly Phoenician-style artifacts in clearly ninth-century or earlier contexts supports a chronological range in the eighth and seventh centuries, although this argument based on absence is tenuous. 134. Winter 1979. 135. Scigliuzzo 2005, n6. 136. For this, see also Suter 2010, 995. 137. Greenblatt 2010, 3. 138. See, for example, Yaeger and Canuto 2000. 139. Gunter 2009, 94–95. 140. Ibid., 95. 141. Osborne 2011, 188–201. See also Osborne 2013; Thuesen 2002, 53–54; Melville 2010, 89–90. 142. Osborne 2013, 14. 143. Lauinger 2011; Casana 2009; Casana 2013. 144. Winter (2005, 32), citing her own work of 1976a and G. Herrmann 2000. 145. Regional pottery styles most likely provide different evidence for community networks in the Iron Age Levant and would be an intriguing project to pursue. Yet, critically, they do not need to form the same patterns of networks as the ivories and metalworks (or any other material culture artifact), because the communities they define are not monolithic blocks, as in the culture-history paradigm (abutting one another across space and evolving in linear fashion through time), but rather describe flexible sets of people coming together (or not) at different times and places for different reasons, just as it is now acknowledged that any one corporeal human being can have multiple identities between which she or he moves, contingent on situation.

Chapter 2 1. Translation from Roth 1995. 2. They should not really be thought of as “laws” (Westbrook 2003, 18). 3. The Akkadian word translated as “craftsman” is ummânu, which encompasses a wide range of skilled practitioners, including those with expert knowledge (CAD U, ummânu 2a). For brief discussion of this law, see Y. Cohen and Kedar 2011, 237–38. 4. Kantor 1956, 173–74; Barnett 1975, 43; Winter 1973, 279–82; 2005, 25; G. Herrmann 1989, 104. 5. Winter 1976b, 9–10 makes this comparison and cites early work of Barnett and Kantor. 6. For the Enkomi ivories, see A. Murray, Smith, and Walters 1900; and comparison with Levantine ivories, Winter 1976b, 11; for the bowls, see Markoe 1985. 7. In this, I am developing further the suggestion made by Winter (2005, 31) that markings such as the animal patterning under study here might have “iconographic significance” as opposed to being a “stylistic fingerprint.” 8. See discussion in chapter 1. 9. Indeed, Berenson makes culturally contingent arguments for why certain parts of the human figure, like the ears, were not important in Renaissance Italy and therefore not created through direct authorial intent (Berenson 1902, 129–30). 10. See Kitayama and Cohen 2007. 11. This assertion derives from notions proposed by Bruno Latour and others in the ActorNetwork Theory and its derivations and applications in anthropological materiality studies. For brief overview and references, see Feldman 2010, 148–51. 12. Following a line of argument that I am not fully in agreement with (derived principally from Wittgenstein) and reaching perhaps slightly different conclusions than I do (concerning the irreducibility and irrefutability of the primacy of style within art historical and archaeological disciplines), Neer (2005) nevertheless comes to a similar understanding of style in contemporary art history as intrinsically linked to human, and in particular social, engagements among 191

Notes to Pages 39–47

people and things—namely, the engagements between contemporary art historians and the objects of their study. I would extend Neer’s notion of style (as constitutive of social discourse and identity within the modern disciplines of art history and archaeology) back in time, such that style can be seen to have been constitutive in similar ways in the past. 13. Caubet and Poplin 2010, 6. 14. African elephants grow larger tusks that have harder and more delicately grained dentine (Moorey 1999, 116). Moorey (ibid.) cites the Samaria ivories as having been identified as African elephant, and further notes that the large scale of some Levantine ivories found at Nimrud also suggests the use of African ivory. 15. The dentine is composed of 30-percent organic material (mainly collagen and water) and 70-percent inorganic. The presence of organic material has allowed for some C14 dating to be conducted on more recent ivories (see Williamson 2010, 454–55), but not yet with any successful results for ancient ivories. 16. Caubet and Poplin 1987. 17. Cutler 1994, 32–33. 18. For a recent study of paint traces on Levantine ivories, with references to earlier studies, see Reiche et al. 2013. 19. Winter (1995a) has argued that precisely these qualities of polychromy and luster were given high aesthetic value in Mesopotamia. 20. ND 2548, British Museum 127412 (one of a pair with ND 2547[B], now missing from the Iraq Museum, Baghdad); approximately 10 cm high by 10 cm wide; found in Well NN in the Northwest Palace (Mallowan 1966, 139–44; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, nos. 356a and 356b). Mallowan (1966, 142) describes these ivories thus: “The dazzling beauty of these two pieces gleams before one’s eyes like a faceted polychrome jewel.” Compare with similar exploitation of an ivory’s grain from the Byzantine and medieval periods (Cutler 1985, 7). 21. Cutler 1994, 23–29. 22. This is in contrast to G. Herrmann’s (2005, 15) view that the assemblage of numerous small pieces onto single pieces of furniture would have caused viewers to overlook the details. 23. See, for example, a multilingual tablet found in a thirteenth-century private library at Ugarit (RS 25.421) in which a mother’s beauty is equated with “a perfect carved ivory, replete with charm”: Nougayrol et al. 1968, 310–19; also Westenholz 1992, 383–85; Gadotti 2010. 24. Gell 1999; and see discussion related to the metal bowls in chapter 4. 25. Gosden 2013. 26. Cutler 1994, 37. 27. Bourdieu 1990. 28. See especially ibid., chap. 3. Within this scheme, Bourdieu (ibid., 60) explicitly establishes an ongoing dialectic between what a connoisseur would call personal style and regional style, noting that personal styles are simply varying degrees of deviation from the habitus. 29. For an example of applying practice theory to questions of style in archaeology, see Dietler and Herbich 1998. For the application of practice theory to technology, see Dobres 2000; Lemonnier 1993. 30. For an exception, see Scigliuzzo 2005, which is discussed in more detail above in chapter 1. 31. Barnett 1935, 195. 32. Barnett 1975, 45–47. 33. Kantor 1956: 173–74. 34. G. Herrmann 1986, 1989; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 91–99. For a discussion of Herrmann’s style-groups, see chapter 1. 35. Barnett 1975, 45–46. See also discussion above in chapter 1. 36. Riis 1970: 169–70. He notes the “boomerang or spindle and flame patterns of the legs” (ibid., 170). 37. Mazzoni 2009.

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38. Ibid., 120. 39. G. Herrmann 1989; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 98–99; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2013, 100. 40. G. Herrmann and Laidlaw (2009, 96–99) review these finds and provide references. 41. Winter 1983, 1989. She (1989, 331) argues against Herrmann’s attribution of the ivories to Tell Halaf due to disparities of quality and conception between the ivories and the relief carvings from the site, as well as what she sees as the city’s peripheral political and economic status in the greater North Syrian region. 42. Affanni 2009. 43. G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, p. 132, no. 19. 44. Di Paolo 2009, 142. 45. For an interesting Bourdieu-like approach, Ebitz (1988) proposes that we see connoisseurship operating within a logic of social practice that neither articulates nor justifies its methods; he criticizes connoisseurship for failing to see this sort of social practice within the production of the artwork itself, that is, failing to acknowledge that art is a product of similar types of social practice. 46. See chapter 5 for references. 47. Davis (2011, 75–119) complicates this notion by suggesting a distinction between style and stylisticality, the latter of which is only the appearance of related practices without any necessary temporal or spatial relatedness. 48. Along similar lines in archaeology, see Conkey 1990, 15: “The view of material culture as an active, constitutive element of social practice is supported here, a view that implies by extension, that what style can ‘tell’ us about is not culture or groups per se, but the contexts in which group or other social/cultural phenomena are mobilized as process” (emphasis in the original). 49. Elsner 2003. 50. Bourdieu 1990, 18. 51. Ibid., 19. 52. See, for example, this comparison in Winter 1998, 1976b; and G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, fig. 14. 53. Regarding general problems of defining style, see Feldman 2006b, 90–91. Because style is such a slippery term and is used in so many ways, I have argued in the past that we need to be more precise in its definition and use. Here, however, I would like to remain somewhat vague in my definition in order to accommodate a range of production qualities without having to determine degrees of artistic intentionality that come into play when trying to tease out “Morellian” stylistic traits from other “conventional” or “manipulated” traits (e.g. Mazzoni [2009, 110] argues that the animal patternings should not be seen as stylistic but rather conventional and therefore able to appear in different styles in different places). 54. Cf. Conkey 1990, 7, “The word ‘style,’ like the rest of language, works by difference, and we certainly have used the study of style as our access to difference” (emphasis in the original). 55. Bourdieu himself invokes artistic style in just such a manner (1990, 13): “The coherence without apparent intention and the unity without an immediately visible unifying principle of all the cultural realities that are informed by a quasi-natural logic (is this not what makes the ‘eternal charm of Greek art’ that Marx refers to?) are the product of the age-old application of the same schemes of action and perception which, never having been constituted as explicit principles, can only produce an unwilled necessity which is therefore necessarily imperfect but also a little miraculous, and very close in this respect to a work of art.” 56. Gilibert 2011, 29–30. 57. For example, Bourdieu’s (1984) postulation that despite an apparent ability to choose from among aesthetic options, people’s aesthetic preferences strongly tie in with their social position and replicate from generation to generation. 58. On this, see also Winter 2005, 31. 59. Bourdieu 1990, 56; also ibid., 54: “The habitus, a product of history, produces individual

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Notes to Pages 54–64

and collective practices—more history—in accordance with the schemes generated by history. It ensures the active presence of past experiences, which, deposited in each organism in the form of schemes of perception, thought and action, tend to guarantee the ‘correctness’ of practices and their constancy over time, more reliably than all formal rules and explicit norms. This system of dispositions—a present past that tends to perpetuate itself into the future by reactivation in similarly structured practices, an internal law through which the law of external necessities, irreducible to immediate constraints, is constantly exerted—is the principle of the continuity and regularity which objectivism sees in social practices without being able to account for it; and also of the regulated transformations that cannot be explained either by the extrinsic, instantaneous determinisms of mechanistic sociologism or by the purely internal but equally instantaneous determination of spontaneist subjectivism.” 60. Kantor 1956; Barnett 1975, 43; G. Herrmann 1989; Winter 1973, 1976b. 61. Kantor 1956, 173–74. 62. Feldman 2006b, and forthcoming. 63. Feldman 2006b, 95–97. Note that I do not argue for a shared biological or geographic origin for these objects, but rather that their shared stylistic features point to shared social relations among the producers and consumers regardless of whether they were made in the Aegean, Cyprus, or the Levant or by Aegeans, Cypriots, or Levantines. 64. Kantor (1956, 174) notes the close stylistic connection between the Lion Gate at Mycenae and ivories. Similarly, Potts (1987, 70) associates the Lion Gate with a carved ivory lid depicting two antithetical lions found at Pella, Jordan. Given the extreme rarity of monumental stone sculpture in Mycenaean Greece and the uniqueness of the Lion Gate relief, one almost wonders whether the Lion Gate was not sculpted using an ivory carving as a model, along the lines of the argument that Winter (1989) advances for the carved orthostats at Tell Halaf. This possibility was suggested to me by Dr. Peter Pavúk, Bratislava University, Slovakia (pers. comm., 2010). The Late Bronze Age rock reliefs of Yazılıkaya might also be ascribed to this process of transmission from small to large scale, as has been argued by Alexander (1986, 34), who has suggested that the techniques of sculpting the reliefs owe much to small-scale glyptic. 65. For the material from Mycenae, Byblos, and Lachish, see Feldman 2006b; for Enkomi, see A. Murray, Smith, and Walters 1900, plates 1 and 2: 872, 883. 66. For images and general discussion of these, see Feldman 2006b. 67. Halbwachs 1992; Misztal 2003. 68. Connerton 1989, 13, 37. 69. The ancient historian Jan Assmann has applied Halbwachs’s theories in his work on cultural memory in ancient Egypt and the Near East. Assmann (2006, 7), while still maintaining a strict division between an individual and the collective, draws on Halbwachs to argue for collective memory as a “projection on the part of the collective that wishes to remember and of the individual who remembers in order to belong.” Assmann focuses almost exclusively on textual evidence, and his discussions contribute less to an examination of material culture in processes of social memory making. 70. Ward and Joukowsky 1992; Liverani 2003; Sherratt 2003a. 71. Dodd 2005; Harrison 2009; Venturi 2010. 72. Hodos 2006, 3–5. 73. Gilibert 2011, 6–8. 74. Dodd 2005; Brown 2008b. 75. Hawkins 1988, 106–8; Dodd 2005, 244. 76. Harrison 2001, 129; Harrison 2009; Thuesen 2002, 53–54. For Haza’el’s conquests, see discussion in chapter 5 of this book. 77. Brown 2008b. 78. Bonatz 2000b, 2001; Brown 2008b; Dodd 2005; Gilibert 2011; Harmanşah 2013. 79. Gilibert 2011. For brief discussion of social memory of place, see Van Dyke and Alcock 2003, 5–6.

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80. Denel 2007. She cites four kinds of evidence for these ceremonies: indentations in stones that served as receptacles for libations and offerings; images on orthostats that depict acts of offering; representations of processions; and inscriptions that refer to installation of offerings and dedications (ibid., 183). Also, Gilibert 2011. 81. Mazzoni 1997; Cooper 2006, 234–36. 82. Gilibert 2011, 114. 83. The Southwest City Gate, dated to Middle Bronze I or very beginning of Middle Bronze II (Matthiae 1997, 382). 84. Woolley 1955, 92–93. 85. For the Hazor sculptures, see chapter 1, n130. 86. Kohlmeyer 2009. Kohlmeyer (2011) proposes that the Temple of ‘Ain Dara also dates to the Hittite period. 87. Mellink 1970; Mielke 2011, 1041. 88. Hawkins 2003, 146, with references; Hawkins 1988. 89. Hawkins 2003, 146–47. 90. Dodd 2005, 250; Bryce 2012, 60–63. 91. Hawkins 2000, 295–99, 301–4. 92. Hawkins 2003, 146; Bryce 2012, 18–19. 93. The more modeled, rather than linear, form of this patterning on the Mycenae lion gate complicates this comparison, especially in light of abstracted patternings seen on animals in the Hittite realm, such as on the reliefs at Alaca Höyük, which in my opinion diverge significantly enough from those being discussed here to be left out of this discussion. 94. Assmann 2006, 117. 95. Hawkins 1988; Kohlmeyer 2009; Gonnella, Khayyata, and Kohlmeyer 2005. 96. For discussion of the Arslan Tash and Til Barsip archaeological contexts, see chapter 5. 97. See discussion of archaeological context at Samaria in the introduction to this book, n10. 98. See discussion of archaeological contexts in the introduction to this book. 99. Found near the outer citadel gate (von Luschan 1943, plate 9i). 100. Winter 1973, 408–13; Bär 1996, 33, 35, 36, 39, 42, 44, 48, 50, 51; Thomason 1999: 115–25, 393–400. 101. Bourdieu 1990, 16: “marriage ritual conceived no longer simply as a set of ritual acts signifying by their difference in a system of differences (which it also is) but as a social strategy defined by its position in a system of strategies.” 102. Hobsbawm 1983. 103. Feldman 2006b. 104. Liverani 1990; R. Cohen and Westbrook 2000; Podany 2010, 191–304. 105. Bourdieu 1984. 106. The literature for all these areas is extensive and diverse; the following represents only a small sample. For Egypt, see Der Manuelian 1994; Mysliwiec 2000: 111–12; Russmann 2001, 40–45. For Cyprus, see Smith 2009, 254. For Greece, among many, see Hall 1997, 138–40; Hurwit 1992, 121–22; Jones 2010, 12; I. Morris 2000, 173; S. Morris 2007. For early Israel, see Halpern 1988; Hendel 2005, 75–94; McCarter 1980. 107. The tablets associated with Ashurbanipal’s library come primarily from the Southwest Palace (see Fincke 2004; Lieberman 1990). Ashurbanipal was not the first Assyrian king to collect Babylonian tablets, though his collecting activities stand out for their extensiveness (Frame and George 2005, 279). 108. For the Greek and biblical narratives, there appears to be a greater emphasis on memorializing a past that is irrevocably gone, while for Egypt and Mesopotamia, the emphasis seems to lie more on recreating the past in the present. In terms of chronology, I approach the texts from the temporal standpoint of their consumption during the period under study rather than from the thorny problem of their “original” composition.

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109. Narrative is one of the four archaeologically recoverable venues for the construction of collective memory identified by Van Dyke and Alcock 2003. 110. Winter 1995b. 111. Vance 1973, 573–74. 112. Winter 1995b, 259. 113. Winter 1976b, 9–11. 114. Ibid., 17.

Chapter 3 1. Baines 1994, 71–72. 2. I acknowledge that this process of description does not derive simply from a transparent and self-evident/inherent set of features, but rather is itself a construct of art historical scholarship. 3. See, for example, Turner 1970. 4. In contrast to Gunter 2009, 34–40 (derived from the concept as applied to the Roman Empire—Romanization—itself now a contested analytical construct; see Woolf 1998, 1–23; Gosden 2004, 104–13; Dietler 2010: 45–47). My usage is more in line with Dietler’s (2010, 123) proposal, “Hence, if one wishes to continue to employ the problematic term Romanization, then it is perhaps best reserved for the process of self-definition that was occurring within Rome itself—a process that was obviously linked to the broader colonial world in which it had become entangled and to developments in the provinces.” 5. Moortgat (1969, 134), for example, notes that within an art historical framework of stylistic development, change in Assyrian art happened at the level of “pictorial structure” (i.e. composition) and not at the level of formal style, which stayed the same. For studies stressing the developmental aspects of Assyrian art, see Madhloom 1970 and Russell 1991. Sargon’s reliefs from Khorsabad exhibit stylistic divergences, in particular an interest in more volumetric relief, that may be associated with looking back to the Old Akkadian period and his earlier namesake, Sargon of Agade (see brief discussion in Feldman 2007, 279). 6. Frankfort 1996, 154. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid., 157. 9. Ibid., 163. 10. Ibid., 168. 11. Groenewegen-Frankfort (1951, 172), discussing various winged composite creatures, writes, “They gained in the hands of subtle and sophisticated craftsmen an—for monstrous form—almost absurd concreteness in muscular detail.” Parrot (1961, 12–14): “Here we have one of the reasons why Assyrian art never moves us; it is too persistently ‘directed,’ dutifully stereotyped. . . . Hence the elaboration—and the petrification—of the royal iconography. . . . Similarly the scenes represented conform to cut-and-dried formulas. . . . In studying both the content and the formal qualities of this art, we cannot fail to see the large part played by convention. In the reliefs everything is represented on the same plane, without the least hint of depth. As Gadd has observed, it is as if all were visualized on an opaque screen, with nothing in front of or behind it. The artists’ chief concern was symmetry, orderly arrangement. Their compositions are so rigorously balanced that they often reproduce, in reverse, a scene already represented.” Moortgat (1969, 134): “It is true that Late Assyrian relief, no less than Middle Assyrian relief, remained an art of decorating flat surfaces, based on drawing, incised lines, and engraved outlines rather than on modeling or plasticity. Assyrian relief always remained decidedly flat, with emphasized bodily contours and linear infilling of details. Even in Assyrian sculpture in the round it is the surface, the garment, which stands in the forefront of artistic interest.” 12. Collon 1995: 136. 13. Ibid., 144. 14. Collins 2008. 196

Notes to Pages 75–83

15. Ibid., 25. 16. See, for example, A. Cohen and Kangas 2010, 50. 17. Ataç 2010. 18. See ibid., part 1, and esp. p. 82. 19. See, for example, Collon 1995, 129–30: “It is also difficult to make comparisons between one class of object and another since the iconographic repertoire and the decorative motifs used by the different groups of craftsmen rarely overlap. The Assyrian reliefs can be relatively closely dated because they were set up in their palaces by known kings; however, the scenes depicted on ivories and cylinder seals are either completely different or are treated in quite another way.” She is thinking primarily of seals here, as is reiterated in Collon 2001, 2. 20. See, generally, Herbordt 1992, 1–14; Collon 2001, 1–6. 21. Winter 2000, 64–65. 22. Within glyptic studies, usually a distinction is made between “cut and drilled” and “modeled” seals according to an early designation by Edith Porada cited by Collon (2001, 1). However, one can in fact see these two sets of seals as existing along a continuum from less to more masking of the cutting disk and drill through the use of hand filing and modeling. 23. The increase in volumetric relief of seventh-century seals should be seen as a direct response to relations with Babylon rather than as any teleological stylistic progression. For further discussion about the incorporation of Babylonian stylistic elements into Assyrian arts, see later in this chapter. 24. Winter 2000. 25. Winter 2000, 79. Winter (2000, 83) notes that the correlations between palace reliefs and seals seem greatest in the ninth century, whereas in the eighth and seventh centuries there is more distance between them on an iconographic level. 26. Mallowan and Davies 1970. See also G. Herrmann 1997; and G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 101–11. 27. Mallowan and Davies 1970, 1. G. Herrmann and Laidlaw (2009, 109–11) propose a group of seven ivories as “Assyrianizing” in that they do not present the strongly distinctive stylistic boundaries evident in the other Assyrian ivories. 28. For techniques, see G. Herrmann 1997, 285. 29. Mallowan and Davies 1970, 1; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 102. 30. Mallowan and Davies 1970, 1–8; see also G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 101–11. With regard to the ivories in the private houses, Mallowan and Davies (1970, 7) propose that though they were produced in the ninth century (according to stylistic criteria), they “must for the most part have been acquired at a relatively later period by wealthy merchants or courtiers from dismantled, damaged, or even looted furniture.” See further discussion of such late “reappropriation” in chapter 5. 31. One might even say that all such depictions represent seized items, including those depicted in less obviously militaristic compositions such as Ashurbanipal’s garden scene, analyzed below. 32. Russell 1993. 33. Sin­ahhē­erība šar kiššati šar Aššur / ina kussî nēmedi ūšibma / šallat Lakīsu / maharšu ētiq ˘˘ ˘ (Russell 1999, 287–88). 34. Bär 1996. 35. Cifarelli 1998. 36. Ibid., 214–18. 37. See also Gunter 2009, 32–34; Zaccagnini 1982; Fales 1982. 38. Ataç 2010, 32. 39. Ibid., 45–46. 40. Machinist 1993; see also Liverani 1979. 41. Bär 1996, 3–6. 42. Oded 1979, 1, 79.

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43. Liverani 1992, 155. Likewise, the CAD (Š, pt. 1, šallatu A, 252) comments: “In royal inscriptions where šallatu occurs beside bušû, etc., or in late texts, beside hubtu, it is often difficult to distinguish whether the latter refers to goods and šallatu to persons, or whether šallatu is a more general term for booty, including objects, livestock, gods, and prisoners.” 44. CAD M, pt. 1, maddattu 1, 13–14. 45. Thomason 2005, 123–24. 46. Ibid., 124. 47. CAD E, etēqu A1d, 386. 48. See discussion of these finds in chapters 1 and 2, and in chapter 5 for their contexts after Assyrian seizure. 49. Oates and Oates 2001. 50. G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 113. 51. Ibid., 27–52. 52. Ibid., 36–37. 53. G. Herrmann 1997, 287. 54. G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 113–14. 55. Gilibert 2004; Bonatz 2004, 399; Brown 2008b, 220–23. 56. Pittman 1996; Feldman 2006a. 57. Thomason 2005, 141. 58. Ibid., 141. 59. See discussion above and n4. 60. Barnett and Falkner 1962, 29–30, plates 88, 93. 61. It is unclear from where exactly these gods were taken. Barnett and Falkner (1962, xxv) suggest that this relief is associated with a nearby one showing the submission of Tutammu of Unqi in the west (see also Tadmor 1994, 240). 62. See, for example, Bunnens 2006a. 63. Southwest Palace, Rm 64 (Russell 1991, 170, fig. 89). 64. For a parallel phenomenon in the inscriptions, see Zaccagnini 1982, 411, 414. 65. Gilibert 2004, 377. Gilibert, however, interprets this artistic device as evidence for “SyroAnatolian lifestyles” adopted by the Assyrian court. 66. Gunter 2009, 33. 67. Cifarelli (1995) traces these strategies back to the Middle Assyrian period, which is not unsurprising given our increasing knowledge of the continuities from the Middle Assyrian into the Late Assyrian periods (see, e.g., Fales 2011; regarding the artistic realm, see, for example, Feldman 2006a and Pittman 1996). 68. Ataç 2010. 69. Cifarelli 1995, chap. 2. 70. Machinist 1993. 71. Ibid., 85. 72. Ibid., 86. 73. Oded 1979. The emphasis on reorganization of conquered areas appears to gain in momentum from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III onward, a period noted for administrative and bureaucratic reforms that literally incorporated foreign lands into the Assyrian state as provinces (Machinist 1993, 92). 74. Albenda 1974; Albenda 1976; and especially, Albenda 1977. See also Bär 1996, 231. 75. Albenda 1977. 76. Thomason 2001, 89–91. 77. Oates and Oates 2001, 78–90; Root 2011, 450–53; and see chapter 4 of this book for more on the Queens’ Tombs. 78. For references to Ashurbanipal’s receipt of women as tribute, see Bär 1996, 55. 79. Rehm 2005. Rehm, however, does not consider the other aspects of the scene that point to foreign associations, as detailed by Albenda 1976 and 1977.

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80. Curtis 1996, 167. 81. For discussion of one possibility, now thought not to be a couch, see ibid., 175–76. Examples have been reconstructed from surviving ivory inlays at Arslan Tash in Syria and Salamis on Cyprus (see chapter 5 of this book for discussion of the Arslan Tash and Salamis ivories). Depictions of couches appear in Assyrian reliefs in both Assyrian and non-Assyrian contexts, confusing our ability to make a clear attribution of the couch in Ashurbanipal’s garden relief. Nonetheless, a closer consideration of the contexts in which such couches occur and the visual specificity of particular cultural traits shown on the garden scene couch suggest the greater likelihood of it being a foreign piece of furniture in this particular composition. Relative to other types of furniture, such as tables and chairs, couches are depicted only infrequently in Assyrian depictions. Couches do appear frequently among the lists of tribute and booty, often explicitly described as ornamented with ivory (see Bär 1996; Thomason 1999, appendix 3). From the reign of Shalmaneser III, two images of couches appear on the bronze bands of his gate at Balawat—once in an Assyrian military camp and once as the support for the king of Hamath, who lies watching the siege of his city (Schachner 2007, 133–36, 225, plates 4, 13, 27b, and 61a). Tiglath-Pileser III’s reliefs from the Central Palace include an additional two depictions—again, once in an Assyrian camp and once being carried out as booty from a besieged western city (Barnett and Falkner 1962, plates 60, 90, and 91). Sargon’s palace at Khorsabad preserves no images of couches, despite the numerous depictions of other types of furniture being both carried and used. However, the number of depictions increases dramatically in the Southwest Palace at Nineveh, again almost evenly divided between Assyrian camp scenes and scenes of booty (nine camp scenes, three of which include epigraphs proclaiming the camps to be those of Sennacherib, including one from the siege of Lachish [Throne room 1 (B): slab 9 (Barnett, Bleibtreu, and Turner 1998, no. 26, plates 30, 35); Rm 5 (ibid., no. 76, plate 69); Rm 7 (ibid., no. 190, plate 129); Rm 8: slab 3 (ibid., no. 200, plates 133, 138); Rm 10: slab 7 (ibid., no. 213, plate 142); Rm 36: slab 13 (ibid., no. 438, plates 322, 346–48); Rm 47 (ibid., no. 515, plates 395–402); and two scenes from unknown locations (ibid., nos. 694, 695, plates 504, 505)]; seven booty scenes, several of which have been dated on stylistic grounds to the period of Ashurbanipal [two scenes from Rm 28 (ibid., nos. 344, 346–47, plates 246, 247, 251–55); Rm 38 (ibid., no. 453, plates 364–65); Rm 48 (ibid., no. 525, plates 404, 411); three scenes from Court 19 (ibid., nos. 277, 283, 284, plates 193, 195, 208–11, 213)]). In the North Palace that Ashurbanipal built after using the Southwest Palace for the early years of his reign, only two other images of couches survive. One appears in a rendering of the Assyrian camp, while the other is shown carried as booty along with other furnishings from the Elamite city of Din-Sharri (Rooms S′ and V′/T′ [Barnett 1976, plates 66, 77]). 82. For Balawat gate relief (Band XIII of Gate C), see Schachner 2007, plate 13. 83. For opposed volutes decorating the crossbars of Assyrian furniture, see Curtis 1996, 168– 69. Note how the furniture has been carefully arranged within the relief ’s composition to best show all the decorative features of both pieces. 84. Bunnens 2006b. 85. The Banquet Stele is a stone slab standing approximately 125 by 100 centimeters. It was found set up in a small niche-like opening—designated EA by the excavators—off the outer courtyard of the Northwest Palace, built by Ashurnasirpal upon moving the royal capital from Assur to Nimrud. In four columns of text surrounding a carved depiction of Ashurnasirpal on the front and continuing on the back and on one side, the inscription details the founding of the city, the construction of the palace, and the establishment of the city’s temples, all culminating in a lavish banquet inaugurating the new palace. For translation, see Grayson 1991, A.0.101.30. 86. See Horowitz 2011, 124, 336; according to Horowitz (336–37), in Assyria the “only attested example of foundations resting on the Apsu dates to the reign of Esarhaddon, a time of close cultural ties between Assyria and Babylon.” 87. For Enuma Elish, see Foster 2005, 436–86; Lambert and Parker 1966. 88. Foster 2005, 436–37.

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89. Line references are to Foster 2005. 90. Bunnens 2006b, 255. 91. Ataç 2010, 144. 92. The reliefs were found in the 1850s and recorded as having fallen from an upper story into Room S of the North Palace. Their exact placement in an architectural space remains tentative. For discussion of the archaeological context and two similar, but slightly differing, reconstructions, see Albenda 1976 and Barnett 1976, 32–33, plates 63–65 and F. 93. In the so-called Mappa Mundi or “Babylonian Map of the World,” which presents a late Babylonian conception of the world order, the bottom (or foot) of the world lies in a swampy area that corresponds to the marshlands of southern Mesopotamia. In this configuration, the marshes representing the south are the bottom/foot, while the top or head is equated with the north, which cosmologically represents both divine and human kingship (see Huxley 2000, 113, 134–35; and Horowitz 2011, 20–42, esp. 28). 94. Albenda 1977, 44. 95. Barnett 1976, catalogue entry for plate 64. 96. Ibid., plates 56–62. 97. This compositional arrangement is standard in third-millennium-BCE arts of southern Mesopotamia (see Winter 1985). 98. Albenda (1976, 65) proposes that it shows Ashurbanipal as aged and infirm. However, this is too literal a reading of these reliefs. 99. An Assyrian recension with the substitution of Ashur/Ansar for Marduk is known as one “Assyrianized” version (Lambert 1997), but the overall predominance of the Babylonian version in Assyria is notable. 100. For the stele, see André-Salvini 2008, 139, cat. no. 95. See also the brief discussion of Babylonian stylistic elements, such as its sculptural roundness, in seventh-century NeoAssyrian art in Hrouda 2003, 5. 101. See Collon 2001, 4–5, plates 36–38. 102. Oates and Oates 2001, 216; Heidel 1956, col. iv, 11. 32–38. 103. Bonatz 2004, 395–96; Fuchs 1994, 80–81, 312:11. 59–68. This text has also been used to show that the Assyrian kings used these furnishings; however, the text only juxtaposes the celebrating of a festival to a list of items received as “tribute” (maddattu). 104. Machinist 1993, 95.

Chapter 4 1. For general references to mutilation of reliefs, see Bahrani 2003, 149–84; Porter 2009. 2. For mutilation of Ashurbanipal’s garden relief, see Nylander 1999; Álvarez-Mon 2009, 146. 3. Nylander 1999, 77–78. 4. Ibid., 78. 5. Thus, the bowl held by Ashurbanipal’s consort does not need to be erased, as she does not constitute the human locus of power within this image. 6. The bowls displaying figurative decorations have been consistently included among the “Phoenician” bowl corpus, while those with geometric patterning have been more variously grouped. 7. For general works on these bowls, with references, see Markoe 1985, 2007. Though typologically distinct, these bowls can be related to a much larger group of metal bowls with gadroons and/or omphaloi based on their contexts/use and the content of the inscriptions (see, for example, Sciacca 2005; Hasserodt 2009; and discussion below). 8. For a brief review of the scholarship on the metal bowls and their designation as Phoenician, see Riva and Vella 2006, 4–10. 9. Onnis 2009, and see discussion in chapter 1. 10. The bowls belong to a larger, multicultural sphere of production and practice that makes even the designation of Levantine problematic. 200

Notes to Pages 103–115

11. Two additional inscribed and decorated bowls are known, but neither has a provenance. One is an unpublished bowl in the Iran Bastan Museum in Teheran that reportedly has a Phoenician or Aramaic inscription (Markoe 1985, U3). The second is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with two inscriptions: “belonging to Mattanba’al” (eighth-century Phoenician?) and “belonging to ’zwr” (seventh-century Aramaic?) (Institut du monde arabe 2007, cat. no. 163). I also do not include in my group the inscribed and decorated bronze bowl from the Arjan tomb in southwestern Iran, because of its large size, 43.5 cm in diameter, which suggests a quite different use from that of the bowls under consideration here (Majidzadeh 1992; Álvarez-Mon 2004; and Álvarez-Mon 2010, 122–43). 12. See, for example, Millard 2008, 268–69; and discussion below in this chapter. 13. Millard (2008, 269) writes, “Comparable in many ways to the seals are the alphabetic inscriptions on some of the bronze bowls which Layard recovered and also on the heads of ceremonial staves.” 14. For example, a bronze bowl found in a tomb at Assur with an intricately modeled raised network pattern, an incised rosette in the center, and inscribed as belonging to Ashurtaklak, an Assyrian official, which I have not included in this study, although arguably I could do so (Haller 1954, 109–10; Curtis 2013, 70). Or an uninscribed silver bowl from a pit in Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud, which has gadroons ornamented with lions’ heads and a decorative band of running ibexes and vegetal motifs around the neck (Curtis 2013, 69–70, plate 36: 508). 15. British Museum N 5, shallow rounded bottom, bronze with silver stud in center, diam.: 15.9 cm, whole; West Semitic (on outside, below rim, 1 line, partially erased); British Museum N 14, hemispherical, bronze, diam.: 15.5 cm, whole; West Semitic, l’lhly spr’, “Belonging to El-heli, the scribe”; British Museum N 19, flat-bottomed, bronze, diam.: ~19.3 cm, whole; West Semitic, l’bpt, “Belonging to Abipat”; British Museum N 50, flat-bottomed, bronze, diam.: 16.5 cm, whole; ˙ ˙ lybhr’l, “Belonging to Yibhar’el”; British Museum N 75, flat-bottomed, bronze, diam.: 17.8 cm, ˙ ˙ whole; West Semitic, l’hyw, “Belonging to Ahiyo”; and British Museum N 619, open dish, bronze, ˙ ˙ diam.: 19 cm, whole; West Semitic (Aramaic?), lb‘l’zr spr’, “Belonging to Ba‘al-’ezer, the scribe.” See Barnett 1967; Heltzer 1978, nos. 2, 5, 7, 8, and 11; Heltzer 1982; Curtis and Reade 1995, no. 103. Vocalizations of the personal names are from Heltzer 1978. 16. Iraq Museum 105697 (ND 1989/6), shallow rounded bottom, gold, diam.: 17.7 cm, whole; cuneiform Akkadian (on outside near rim, 1 line, complete): šá mí ia-ba-a MÍ.É.GAL šá mTUKULA-É.ŠÁR MAN KUR AŠ, “Of Yaba of the palace of Tiglath-Pileser III, king of the land of Assur.” Al-Rawi 2008, no. 18; Wicke 2010, with earlier references. 17. Armou: Cyprus Museum 1980/XII-18/2, shallow rounded bottom, bronze, diam.: 15.0 cm, whole; Cypriot Greek (outside below rim, 6 characters in one line): ta-a/i-re-no-e (Markoe 1985, Cy22). Kourion: MMA 74.51.4552, shallow rounded bottom, silver, diam.: 15.4 cm, whole; Cypriot Greek (on inside, in outer register, 11 characters in 2 lines, complete): 1. e-pi-o-ro-si-e 2. a-pi-a-la-e-MI, “I am the bowl of Epiorwos, son of Dies”; MMA 74.51.4552A, shallow rounded bottom, silver, diameter not preserved, rim fragment; Cypriot Greek (on rim inside, 16 characters in one line): ti-we-i-te-mi-wo-se e-mi to-pa-si-le-wa-ta-ti-[- -, “I belong to king (prince) Diweithemis”; MMA 74.51.4554, shallow rounded bottom, silver with gold plating, diam.: 16.8 cm, whole; Cypriot Greek, 1. (on inside, immediately to left and above main scene of the outer zone, 13 characters in one line, partially erased): Akestoro(s) to Pa[pho] Basilefos, “I am [the bowl] of Akestor, king of Paphos”; 2. (on inside, beneath rim and above human-lion combat, 8 characters in one line): [Ti]mykret[e]os (?) hemi, “I am [the bowl] of Timokretes”; MMA 74.51.4557, shallow rounded bottom, silver, diam.: 17.5 cm, fragmentary, mainly outer zone; two inscriptions in Cypriot Greek, 1. (on inside, over figure of recumbent queen in outer register, 6 characters in one line, complete but corroded at the end): no consensus on translation; 2. (on inside, over figure of recumbent king, unclear): no consensus on translation. See Markoe 1985, Cy6, Cy8, Cy11, and Cy14; Matthäus 1985, nos. 424, 429, 437, 439, and 442; Karageorghis 2000, nos. 299, 302, and 307; and below, n27 and n113. 18. Lamia Archaeological Museum, inv. no. M3510, hemispherical, bronze bowl with raised

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omphalos, diam.: 21.3 cm, whole; Luwian hieroglyphs, mu­wa/i­zi­sa, “(of?) Muwazi”. Onasoglou 1981, 21, 50; Kourou 2008, 329, 335, fig. 22: 1a–e; Hawkins 2000, 569, plate 327, no. 12.14; Institut du monde arabe 2007, cat. no. 177. 19. National Archaeological Museum, Athens, NM 7941, shallow rounded bottom, bronze, diam.: 20.4 cm, whole; Aramaic (on outside, below rim, 12 characters in one line, complete): lngd/r br myf ’, “belonging to Nagid/r, son of Mepha”. Markoe 1985, G3 (Markoe cites an unpublished Phoenician inscription on another bronze bowl found in one of the sanctuary wells [his G6 = Olympia Museum inv. no. B6049]; however, no other scholar has noted the inscription, and personal communication with Kathrin Fuchs [March 2012] confirmed that there is no inscription visible on the bowl). 20. Bernardini Tomb: Museo di Villa Giulia, Rome, inv. no. 61574, shallow rounded bottom, silver, diam.: 19 cm, interior fragmentary; Phoenician (on inside, above outspread wing of falcon at top of medallion, 13 characters in one line, complete): ’shmny’d bn ‘sht’, “Eshmun-ya’ad, son of Ashto”; Markoe 1985, E1; Neri 2000. Pontecagnano: Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, inv. no. Dutuit 170, shallow rounded bottom, silver, diam.: 19 cm, fragmentary; Phoenician (on inside, among pseudohieroglyphs of medallion ground line, directly below group of kneeling prisoners, 8 characters in one line, complete): blš’ bn nsk, “Blsh’ son of Nsk” (?). Markoe 1985, E10; D’Agostino 1977; and below, n27. 21. In particular, Markoe 1985, and recently Vella 2010. 22. Amadasi 1991; Barnett 1967; Garbini 1977; Heltzer 1978, 1982; Mitford 1971. 23. However, other metal bowls from the Queens’ Tombs bear such personal inscriptions in Akkadian (see al-Rawi 2008), as does a bronze bowl from Assur (see above, n14). 24. From Tomb III of the Queens’ Tombs comes a poorly published silver omphalos bowl (diam.: 18–20 cm) also with a Luwian hieroglyphic inscription on the outside, below the rim, translated by Hawkins (2008) as “(of ?) Santasarmas(?).” 25. For general overview and references to early Cypriot writing, see Hirschfeld 2010. 26. Several other languages and scripts are represented among the group of undecorated metal bowls. A bronze bowl from the Nimrud storage hoard has an inscription that has been identified as an Anatolian language, possibly Lydian (Barnett 1969). There is also a series of metal omphalos bowls (along with other elements of a drinking kit) from a tomb near Antalya with Phrygian inscriptions, although they do not follow the same formula, appearing to name a Phrygian hero, Attis (Varinlioğlu 1992; Brixhe 2004, 108–18). Several bronze bowls from Tumulus MM at Gordion bear Phrygian inscriptions applied on wax (Brixhe 1981, 273–77). The decorated bronze bowl from the Arjan tomb in southwest Iran bears an inscription in Elamite naming Kidin-hutran, son of Kurlash (see Majidzadeh 1992; Álvarez-Mon 2004; and ÁlvarezMon 2010, 122–43). 27. The exceptions are two from Cyprus. One appears to provide either names and/or titles of a queen and king (MMA 74.51.4557; Markoe 1985, Cy6; Karageorghis 2000, no. 307). The other gives only a single word, which might be a name, ta-a/i-re-no-e (Cyprus Museum 1980/XII-18/2; Markoe 1985, Cy22; Matthäus 1985, no. 442; O. Masson 1981); Olivier Masson suggests that the final e might be an abbreviation of “e-mi,” meaning “I am (the bowl of)” (O. Masson 1981, 146). In one instance, an inscription has been interpreted as referring to the producer/artist, though it follows a similar formula as the rest do: blš’ bn nsk (on the silver bowl from Pontecagnano; Markoe 1985, E10, citing Garbini [1977], translates bn nsk as “son of the corporation of the metal casters”; arguing instead that this refers to the owner, Amadasi 1991, 415). 28. The three bowls are MMA 74.51.4552 (Markoe 1985, Cy11; Karageorghis 2000, no. 302), MMA 74.51.4552A (Markoe 1985, Cy14), and MMA 74.51.4554 (ibid., Cy8; Karageorghis 2000, no. 299). This is standard phrasing for Greek inscriptions (see, as example and with other references, Murray 1994). 29. MMA 74.51.4552 (Markoe 1985, Cy11; Karageorghis 2000, no. 302). 30. See Hawkins 2000, 569, plate 327, no. 12.14. 31. Personal inscriptions appear on stone funerary steles, such as the Katumuwa stele from

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Zincirli discussed below or Phoenician funerary steles from Kition on Cyprus (see Amadasi and Karageorghis 1977, 48–103; Yon 2004, 178–84, 196–98). 32. Millard 2005 and Millard 2008, 268; and see further discussion in chapter 5. 33. Millard 2008, 268. 34. This may also account for another type of object that receives inscriptions of personal names: mace heads (Millard 2005, 4–5). 35. Other inscribed objects from the very beginning of the Iron Age may share some of the features of the bowls in terms of their connection with a named individual—spits, tripods, and arrowheads (see below and Alexandre 2002, *66, *69; Alexandre 2006). There is a marked increase in inscribed objects during the Iron Age in general, starting especially in the eighth century. Other vessels, such as storage jars, are occasionally inscribed with the same type of possessive naming, as on a store-jar fragment at Hazor stratum VI (see Yadin et al. 1960, 72–73) and a small jug from Kition in the Cesnola collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA 74.51.1401; Amadasi and Karageorghis 1977, nos. D6, D9, D13, D34, D35, D36, F6). The lmlk jars of the southern Levant form another corpus of possessive inscriptions, although ownership is more generally ascribed to “the king” rather than to an individually named person (with earlier references, Lipschits 2012; Na’aman 1979). 36. For brief overview, see Millard 2005, 5–7. 37. Avigad 1997. 38. For examples of these seal inscriptions, see Watanabe 1993, 1995. For Neo-Assyrian seals, see also Herbordt 1992; Winter 2000; Collon 2001. 39. The word for “seal” is written using the Sumerian logograms: NA4 KIŠIB. 40. Gell 1998; Strathern 1991; Wagner 1991. 41. Winter 2001, 2. 42. Cassin 1987, 273–74. 43. Riva 2010a, 217–19. 44. Ibid., 218. 45. Closed containers stamped (with a seal) or inscribed with declarations of belonging, such as the lmlk jars (see above, n35), offer an intriguing counterpoint to the metal bowls. The bowls are designed for temporary holding of a liquid as it transitions from storage container to either mouth or libation locale. They take an open form, often with an unstable base that emphasizes the short temporal aspect of its containing function; liquids are meant to go into and out of the bowls in fairly rapid succession. The jars are for longer-term storage, with closed forms and large bodies. As such, they required administrative oversight that is different from that of the bowls. Their stamping with the name of either an individual person or the institution of kingship in the case of the lmlk jars might be understood in a fairly straightforward manner as marking ownership. This marking of ownership or possession, however, connects them to the bowls, and is worth considering more closely. When do we mark items with declarative statements of ownership/possession? When we have reason to think that these items might be removed in space or time from our physical person. As such, even in the mundane realm of institutional administration, we can extrapolate from the inscribed seals (both Levantine stamps and Neo-Assyrian cylinders) and stamped jars a need to link both the material device and the practices with which it was entwined back to a specific individual. 46. Joyce 2003, 116. 47. Barnett 1974, 30–31; Curtis 2013, 3–6. 48. See, for example, Riva 2010b, 154. 49. Textual references to various types of small bowls lend further support to the multifunctionality of such vessels (see Hasserodt 2009, 9–22). 50. Stronach 1996, 177–78. For a general review of the gesture of balancing a wine cup on the fingertips, see M. Miller 2011. 51. Bonatz 2000a, 50–64; and see discussion of Katumuwa stele from Zincirli below. 52. The overlap in iconography has been pointed out in Greer 2010, 31–33; 2007.

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53. For interaction between the living and the dead as intertwined parts of the social world of Mesopotamia, see Jonker 1995, 189. 54. For the tombs, see Damerji 1999, 2008; Oates and Oates 2001, 78–90. The Assur inscribed bowl also came from a tomb (see above, n14). 55. For translation of the tablet, see Tadmor and Yamada 2011, no. 2003, pp. 164–66. 56. Markoe 1985, 176; Karageorghis 2000, 180. 57. Karageorghis and Masson 1981. 58. Neri 2000; Markoe 1985, E1. 59. See D’Agostino 1977, esp. 52–53. 60. Onasoglou 1981. 61. Following Catherine Bell’s general notion of ritual and ritualization (1992). 62. In support of the opposition between these two spheres of practices, see Grottanelli 1995. 63. Tsukimoto 1985. 64. Oates and Oates 2001, 82. 65. Jonker 1995, 187. 66. Ibid., 2. 67. Ibid., 233. 68. Riva 2010b, 175. 69. McLaughlin 2001. 70. Greer 2007. 71. For discussion and references, see Lewis 1989, 80–94; McLaughlin 2001, 70–79; Greer 2007, 247n8. 72. McLaughlin 2001, 35, 65–70. 73. Lewis 1989, 94. 74. Greer 2010. Greer notes an unprovenanced bronze bowl dated to the early fourth century that includes an inscription on it, “we 2 cups are offerings for the marzēah of Shamash” (ibid., ˙ 33n35; McLaughlin 2001, 37–38). 75. Discovered in 2008; 99 cm tall, 72 cm wide, and 25 cm thick, with convex and undecorated back (Schloen and Fink 2009; Struble and Herrmann 2009; Pardee 2009; Younger 2009). 76. Though none of the others have primary deposition contexts like that of the Katumuwa stele. See Bonatz 2000a. 77. This is a clearly rendered version of a gadrooned vessel known archaeologically from eighth-century finds stretching from central Anatolia (Phrygia) to Assyria and Babylonia (Struble and Herrmann 2009, 23; for a study of this type of bowl, see Sciacca 2005). For general overview of bowls depicted in the funerary steles, see Bonatz 2000a, 90–92. 78. Struble and Herrmann 2009, 24–25. 79. Pardee 2009, 54, 65. 80. For translation, see Pardee 2009. 81. Ibid., 62. 82. See Struble and Herrmann 2009, 30n27 for the other two inscriptions, including the inscription of Panamuwa I on a statue of the god Hadad from the first half of the eighth century that asks that his “soul” eat and drink with Hadad (found at Gercin, 7 km northeast of Zincirli; Schloen and Fink 2009, 11; Bonatz 2000a, 69–70). 83. This is the solution proposed by Schloen and Fink (2009, 10–11), which has significant implications for their understanding of the concept of the “soul” residing in the stele as described in the inscription. I will not go into the various debates surrounding Semitic versus Indo-European conceptions of the soul and the afterlife, because I am interested more generally in the practice of drinking and libating in connection with cults of the dead that cross cultural and ethnic boundaries. 84. On the question of the physical relationship between interment and mortuary cult activity, see Struble and Herrmann 2009, 38n37.

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85. In general, Struble and Herrmann 2009, 41; for the Zincirli stele depicting a woman, see Orthmann 1971, Zincirli K/2; Bonatz 2000a, C46; Struble and Herrmann 2009, 29n22. 86. Riva 2010b, 93, 101. 87. See, for example, Gilibert 2009; Romero 2011; Steel 2002. 88. For a comparison of Greek practices and the marzēah, see Carter 1997. For the Greek ˙ symposium, see Murray 1994 (with references); Pantel 1995. For the dead, which includes water libations, see Garland 1985, 110–15; Kurtz and Boardman 1971, 209–11; Lissarrague 1995, 126–27. 89. Dietler 2006; Hamilakas 2008. In the kispu rituals, it seems to be primarily water, not wine, that is offered, although beer probably was also involved. 90. Dietler 2006, 232. 91. Stronach 1996, 193n5. 92. Westenholz 1997. 93. See, for example, Feldman 2007. 94. Al-Rawi 2008: 124. 95. MMA 74.51.4554 (Markoe 1985, Cy8; Karageorghis 2000, no. 299). 96. An unprovenanced bronze bowl now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York also bears the inscriptions of two different owners which have been dated according to the paleography of the inscriptions to ca. 750 BCE and to the beginning of the seventh century. The earlier inscription may be Phoenician, while the later one may be Aramaean. See Institut du monde arabe 2007, cat. no. 163. 97. A related example, also from Cyprus, is a silver bowl from Tomb 2 of the Royal Necropolis at Salamis. Though uninscribed, the bowl exhibits a palimpsest of an earlier engraved design, which was smoothed down and replaced by a new engraving. See Karageorghis 1967, 19–20. 98. Postgate (2008, 178) discusses the terminology for the Assyrian king’s principal wife as simply “the palace” or “the one of the palace” (ša ekalli or issi ekalli); see also Tadmor and Yamada 2011, no. 2005, p. 167. 99. IM 105694. Damerji 1999, 39, fig. 31 top; al-Rawi 2008, text no. 18. 100. Curtis 2008, 244–45; see also Stronach 1996, 187–88. 101. Wicke 2010. 102. There is some disagreement regarding to which language the name belongs, whether Aramaic, Hebrew, or early Arabic, but general consensus is that it is indeed West Semitic (see Millard 2008, 269, with references). Postgate (2008, 178) notes that by the end of the eighth century, Aramaeans were “deeply embedded in the population of Assyria,” and thus the West Semitic name may be no more than a reflection of the growing presence of Aramaeans in Assyria. 103. Hoffman 1997, 28 and 120–23. 104. See ibid., 121 for review of debates surrounding the translation and date of the inscription. 105. Ibid., 123. 106. Jonker 1995, 189. 107. Ibid., 234. “By repeating the past, the performer of the ritual embodies the past in the present and shapes it” (ibid., 233). 108. Riva 2010b, 107. 109. Hamilakas 2008, 15–16. 110. See comparison and discussion in Wicke 2010. 111. MMA 74.51.4557. Markoe 1985, Cy6; Karageorghis 2000, no. 307. 112. Karageorghis (2000, no. 307) identifies it as a bowl; Markoe (1985, Cy6) identifies it as fruit. 113. Over the woman, Mitford (1971) reads: genitive of name Kyprothales; newer reading as “she who reigns over Cyprus” (Neumann, cited in Karageorghis 2000, 189); over the man, possibly pa-si-le-se (basiles), “king” (Karageorghis 2000, 189). 114. Karageorghis 2000, no. 307. The chronology of the bowls is not well established, al-

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though most scholars place the silver bowls in the later part of the eighth and seventh centuries, and the bronze ones in the ninth and eighth centuries. 115. Murray 1990, 1994. For one discussion of the relationship between the Greek symposium and the Near East, see Matthäus 1999, 1999–2000. 116. See Curtis and Reade 1995, no. 103; Barnett 1967. 117. The mauled animals are identified as hares by Curtis and Reade (ibid.), but what appears to be the depiction of hooves suggests this is incorrect. 118. Gell 1999; and see discussion of this idea above in chapter 2, n24. 119. Two of the boats show a winged scarab beetle flanked by various Egyptian divine figures; a third includes a standing Osiris figure. Although the fourth boat is broken, it retains part of a female figure making an offering to some central element, of which only the upper part of a double-plumed crown remains. 120. MMA 74.51.4554. Markoe 1985, Cy8; Karageorghis 2000, no. 299. 121. Wicke 2010. 122. MMA 74.51.4552. Markoe 1985, Cy11; Karageorghis 2000, no. 302. 123. For Qatna, see Pfälzner 2008, 2009. For Bronze Age Ebla, Alalakh, Hazor, and Hatti, see references in Struble and Herrmann 2009, 38. 124. See, for example, Lagarce 1983. 125. For general discussion with references, see Feldman 2006b, 51–54, 65–66. 126. For general discussion with references, see Feldman 2006b, 38–41; the second Tell Basta bowl also exhibits repoussé decoration in several concentric registers, although worked so as to appear on the exterior instead of the interior of the vessel (see W. Simpson 1959). 127. See above, n103. 128. Inv. no. N 1450; Åström and Masson 1982, 72–76; Yon 2004, 365–66. 129. Reading by Pierre Bordreuil in Yon 2004, 365. There are also several metal bowls bearing Cypro-Minoan inscriptions on them that seem to date to the very end of the Late Bronze Age. Cypro-Minoan remains undeciphered, but the inscriptions are placed in the same location, on the outside, immediately below the rim. For a silver one from Enkomi, see O. Masson 1968, 66n5; for three bronze bowls of uncertain provenance in the Cyprus Museum, see O. Masson 1968; for a silver bowl from Ras Shamra-Ugarit, see Schaeffer 1932, 22, 23 fig. 15. 130. Alexandre 2002, *66, *69; Alexandre 2006. 131. Karageorghis 1983, no. 16, pp. 59–76, plate 63: 16, fig. 88: 16; E. Masson and Masson 1983, 411–15. 132. Riva 2010b. 133. Curtis 2013, 65–67. 134. Most have no precise archaeological provenance, although one was found in a burial cave in the Beq’a Valley of Lebanon and four were found near Bethlehem. See Alexandre 2002, *67; Deutsch and Heltzer 1994, 11–21; Deutsch and Heltzer 1995, 11–38; Cross 1993; Millard 2005, 5. 135. Sherratt 2003b, 229. 136. Riva 2010b. 137. Bonatz 2000a, 161–65; 2000b. 138. Struble and Herrmann 2009, 42. 139. On the notion of these bowls being part of a pan-Mediterranean group, see Hoffman 2005, 379–80. 140. “We can say that over the course of the Late Bronze and Iron Ages there was some form of coexistence and mutual cultural adaptation of people of diverse ethnic origins” (Schloen and Fink 2009, 9). See also Bryce 2012, 202–3. 141. There are Phoenician inscriptions from the island, just not on any so-called Phoenician bowls (see, for example, Amadasi and Karageorghis 1977; Sznycer 1980; Yon 2004, 169–229). The Hala Sultan Tekké bowl (see above, n125) bears an alphabetic cuneiform inscription in a West Semitic language related to Ugaritic and possibly also Phoenician. Eight fragments of what appear to have been two bronze bowls are thought to come from the area of Limassol (ancient

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Amathus); they bear part of an eighth-century Phoenician dedicatory inscription to Ba‘al of Liban and name a governor of Qarthihadast, servant of Hiram, king of the Sidonians (Smith 2008, 272–73; O. Masson and Sznycer 1972, 77–78; O. Masson 1985; Sznycer 1985). There is a late ninth-century ceramic bowl from Kition with a Phoenician inscription on it, but it is dedicatory rather than possessive (Amadasi and Karageorghis 1977, D21); also, an inscription painted onto a White Painted II bowl from Salamis found close to a Phoenician jar with a child burial that may preserve the final letters of a personal name (Sznycer 1980, 127), and one in the possessive format painted on a potsherd from Tomb 77 of the Salamis necropolis (ibid., 128–29). 142. Sherratt 2003b, 234–36. 143. Ibid., 236. Sherratt also notes (p. 231) how much the historical Greek identity was bound up with language distinctions in contrast to the second millennium BCE, when language does not seem to have carried the same emotive weight. For some recent interpretations of the significance of the Greek and Phoenician languages for understanding the history of early Iron Age Cyprus, see Iacovou 2008; Voskos and Knapp 2008.

Chapter 5 1. Many of the ideas in this chapter owe their conception to presentations and papers from a graduate seminar at UC Berkeley taught jointly with Andrew Stewart in fall 2010. In particular, I gratefully draw on the work of Christopher Bravo (on the Olympia bronze bands), Erin Pitt (on the Til Barsip ivories), and Jessica Stair (on Salamis Tomb 79), and technical comments by Laure Marest-Caffey. 2. The inscription belongs to the pattern described in chapter 4: “belonging to Nagid/r, son of Mepha.” 3. Strøm 1992. 4. See, for example, Gunter (2009, chap. 4), who reviews much of this literature. 5. In principle, reuse refers to redeployment of worked objects but does not involve altering the physical state of the original material, while recycling involves the reworking of the physical materials themselves (Brysbaert 2011, 184). In practice, the line between these two activities blurs, and I use the terms interchangeably in this chapter as a reflection of this ambiguity. 6. Guralnick 2004. 7. Borell and Rittig 1998. Sphyrelata are sculptures created by attaching hammered metal plates to a core of wood or other material. 8. Mallwitz 1988, 98. 9. Ibid.; Borell and Rittig 1998, 1. 10. Gauer 1975, 230, 243; Mallwitz 1988, 98; Hockey et al. 1992, 289n4. 11. Gauer 1975, 14–15; Borell and Rittig 1998, 208–11; Hockey et al. 1992, 287–89. 12. The bowl is Olympia Museum inv. no. B6049; Markoe 1985, G6. See in general the inventories of the wells listed by Gauer 1975; for SO 6, see ibid., 34–35. 13. Seidl 1999. 14. Guralnick 2004, 193. 15. Ibid., 219. 16. Ibid., 204–9. 17. Ibid., 215–18. 18. The insight regarding the probability that such large statues would have been manufactured on site is thanks to Chris Bravo. For workshops at Olympia, see Baitinger and Völling 2007, 207–13. 19. Borell and Rittig 1998, 212–13. 20. As is proposed by Seidl 1999. 21. Guralnick 2004, 188, 202–3. 22. Ibid., 218–19. 23. For overview of the archaeology, see G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 233–34; Oates and Oates 2001, 135–39. 207

Notes to Pages 136–146

24. Oates and Oates 2001, 137. 25. G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 233. 26. Ibid. 27. Oates and Oates 2001, 137. 28. G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 234. 29. Ibid. For general overview of post–Assyrian Empire occupation at Nimrud, see Oates and Oates 2001, 257–58. 30. Mallowan 1954, 148. 31. Oates and Oates 2001, 139. 32. G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 234. 33. Mallowan 1954, 131; G. Herrmann and Millard 2003, 380. 34. Mallowan and Davies 1970, 7. 35. For the wells, see Oates and Oates 2001, 90–104. 36. Well AJ: IM 79518 (G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, no. 275); TW20 ND 3587/IM 56968 (ibid., 238). 37. Oates and Oates 2001, 41 fig. 20, 44, 138. Joan Oates (ibid., 278n65) says that the level in which the vase top was found was not recorded by Mallowan, “but was certainly either Level 3 or Level 2. My own memory and Mallowan’s comment suggest Level 2, perhaps with the ivories in room 42 [sic], but I cannot be absolutely certain of this so many years later. I am certain, however, that it was part of the 612 BC destruction debris.” 38. For a similar forensic study of looters’ motivations in current events, see Bogdanos 2005. 39. On the human remains in wells, see al-Fakhri 2008. 40. For the ivories and their archaeological context, see Bunnens 1997a. 41. For discussion regarding the use of Building C1, see Bunnens 1997b, 20–22. 42. Bunnens 1997a, 437; 1997b, 25 n29. 43. Bunnens 1997b, 25. For another Assyrian provincial center that continues after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, see Kühne 2002. 44. Bunnens 1997a, 438. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid., 450. 47. Ibid. Bunnens (ibid.) further notes that there is no indication that Building C1 served as a storage facility for ivories being shipped from the Levant to the Assyrian capital. 48. G. Herrmann and Millard 2003, 386. 49. Bär 1996, 26n226; see, for example, ABL 568 in Parpola 1987, no. 34. 50. G. Herrmann and Millard 2003, 377. 51. Bunnens 1997b, 25. Bunnens (1997a, 438) also notes that the pottery from all three phases (C, B, and A) is homogeneous: “The homogeneity of the material found in phases B and A, especially the pottery, which is very similar to the material from phase C, indicates that the final abandonment of building C1 cannot have occurred a very long time after the destruction of phase C.” 52. Bunnens 1996–97, 61–62. 53. Bunnens 1997b, 24–25. 54. Thureau-Dangin et al. 1931; Turner 1968; Winter 1981; Cecchini 2009. 55. Turner 1968. 56. The site was excavated for two seasons by the French mission in 1928. Albenda’s (1988) study of the stone carvings from the site proposes Assyrian occupation from the time of Shalmaneser III in the late ninth century through Sargon II at the end of the eighth. Pre-Assyrian occupation is indicated only by a single stone pedestal carved with a pair of bulls that Albenda (ibid., 6) compares to tenth-century examples from Carchemish. 57. Cecchini (2009) argues for a bed and a throne. 58. Winter 1981, 122.

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Notes to Pages 146–151

59. Thureau-Dangin et al. 1931, 89. 60. Ibid., 90. 61. Ibid., 90–92, nos. 43, 44, 92, 93, 104–7, 111, and 112 (= the ivory fragments with the Aramaic inscription of Haza’el). 62. The group found 3 to 4 meters away includes nos. 94–96, 101–3. Ibid., 91–92. 63. On Haza’el and his inscribed luxury goods, see below. 64. Winter 1981. Georgina Herrmann subsequently argues for calling this style-group “Intermediate” and, most recently, “Syrian-Intermediate” (see discussion above in chapter 1). 65. This point is also made by Cecchini 2009, 97. See further discussion of the Samos and Eretria pieces below. 66. Winter 1981, 104. 67. Ibid., 122–23. The discovery at Arslan Tash of bull gateway figures inscribed for TiglathPileser III (see Albenda 1988) may indicate that he was particularly interested in securing and endowing the city. 68. For example, Grayson 1996, A.0.102.10 (iii 45b—iv 15a), A.0.102.14 (97b–99a, 102b–104a), A.0.102.16 (122′b–137′a, 152′–162′a), and A.0.102.40. 69. Ibid., A.0.104.8. 70. Ibid., A.0.105.1; Baker 2008. 71. Remarkably similar ivories have been found in Fort Shalmaneser, for example, in SW 11/12. See G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2013, 59, 85, plates 11, 66–78. 72. For the distribution of tribute within the Assyrian state, including to high officials and booty to soldiers, see Bär 1996, 21–26, esp. 26n226. 73. Reyes 1994, 54; Gunter 2009, 27. 74. Reyes 1994, 63–64. 75. Janes 2010, 140. Also Blackwell 2010. 76. For an overview with references to excavation reports, see Rupp 1988. 77. Ibid., 116, table 1. These dates are slightly higher than those given by the excavators. 78. Ibid., 121–22. 79. Karageorghis 1973. 80. The following section on the archaeological context is drawn from ibid., 4–14. 81. Rupp 1988, 118–19. 82. See Karageorghis 1973, 12, 92. He (p. 11) also claims that the pottery found in cauldron 202 was placed there during the second burial. 83. Ibid., 11. 84. Ibid., 11. 85. Rupp 1988, 129. 86. For the published archaeological report, see Karageorghis 1973, 87–88, 91–92. Dimensions, as given by Karageorghis (ibid., 87–88), are: total height: 90 cm; frame of seat: 58.5 cm wide and 49 cm deep. 87. An observation made by Welkamp and de Geus 1995–96, 89. 88. Karageorghis 1973, 91. 89. Welkamp and de Geus 1995–96. 90. Karageorghis 1973, 11. 91. Ibid., 11, 89, 92. 92. Ibid., 92. 93. Ibid. 94. Ibid., 89. 95. Ibid., 10–11, 97–108, 214–21. 96. Hundt 1973, 215–16. 97. Thanks to Laure Marest-Caffey for first pointing this out to me. Muscarella (1992, 36), citing Benson (1960, 65) and H.-V. Herrmann (1966, 146), notes that no cauldrons with siren

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Notes to Pages 151–158

attachments together with griffin protomes have been recovered in the Near East, only in the West (including Cyprus). 98. H.-V. Herrmann 1966, 6; note that Herrmann includes a cauldron from the Barberini Tomb at Praeneste as well, although the presence of siren attachments is not certain. 99. H.-V. Herrmann (ibid., 145) comes to the same conclusion regarding the siren attachments on cauldrons found in Greece and Italy. 100. Karageorghis 1973, 100, 216. 101. H.-V. Herrmann 1979; Muscarella 1992. There is a cast griffin protome from Susa, which H.-V. Herrmann (1979, 138n8) says is both late in date and “eindeutig griechisches Erzeugnis.” 102. Rupp 1988. 103. Blackwell 2010. 104. Knapp (2008, 341–45) reviews the Iron Age inscriptions referring to Cyprus in the eighth and seventh centuries. For the Assyrian sources, see also Gunter 2009, 17–22. For external references to Kition, see Yon 2004, 47–59. 105. Knapp 2008, 343–44. 106. Malbran-Labat 2004, 345–54; Shafer 1998, 266–67. 107. Shafer 1998: 262–63; Reyes 1994, 51–52. 108. Iacovou 2008, 643. 109. Iacovou 2002, esp. p. 83; Iacovou 2008, 643. 110. Rupp 1988, 116–17, table 1. 111. Karageorghis 1973, 93 [citing Mallowan 1966, 534 fig. 451, 547 fig. 479, 567 fig. 511]; G. Herrmann 1986, nos. 655, 1006. 112. G. Herrmann 1986, 20–21; 2002, 140–41; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2009, 77–78; G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2013, 39–40. 113. Karageorghis 1973, 93; Crowfoot and Crowfoot 1938, 14, 34, plates 2 no. 2, 17 no. 6. 114. See Rupp 1988, 120, table 3. 115. Ibid., 127. 116. See, for example, Burkert 1992, 16; S. Morris 1992, 134, 147; Gunter 2009, 124–28; for dates of Haza’el’s reign, see Lemaire 1991. 117. Gunter 2009, 127. 118. This bibliography is referenced in Younger 2005. 119. Kyrieleis 1988; Röllig 1988. 120. Charbonnet 1986, esp. 123. 121. Although no evidence of the means of affixing was recovered. For details of the archaeological context, see ibid., 117–21. 122. Ibid., 130. 123. Ibid., 122; Kyrieleis 1988, 39–41. 124. Kyrieleis 1988, 41. 125. Jantzen 1972, B 1123, plate 52. 126. That blinkers could also feature such an intricate frieze is evident on the many examples in ivory found at Nimrud (see Orchard 1967, nos. 75–89, 95–100). 127. Charbonnet 1986, 129. 128. Matched bridles might be expected, however, for a team of horses. 129. Jantzen 1972, B 1151 and B149, plate 53. 130. For example, Kyrieleis 1988, 59; Gunter 2009, 146. 131. Strøm 1992 (and see summary in Gunter 2009, 152–54). 132. Bron and Lemaire 1989. 133. Eph’al and Naveh 1989. 134. See Younger 2005, 257–59. Note that Röllig (1988) interpreted both the inscription and the blinker to be the products of Haza’el of Damascus. 135. If, as proposed by Bron and Lemaire (1989), HDD is the name of the king of ‘Unqi, then the inscription would presumably have been written in that kingdom and thus indicative of an

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Notes to Pages 158–166

Aramaic dialect of that location analogous to that associated with Sam’al (see Amadasi Guzzo 1996, 331). 136. Eph’al and Naveh 1989, 198. A bronze frontlet of similar style was excavated at Tell Tayinat, the only example of a bronze frontlet found in a northern Levantine context (Kantor 1962). The northern Levantine connection is further highlighted by an unusual sculpted basalt horse’s head found at Zincirli that shows a blinker and frontlet of similar shapes and ornamented with related relief images of a nude frontal female on the frontlet and a striding sphinx on the one preserved blinker (Orthmann 1971, 549, Zincirli K/3). 137. Lemaire 1991, 104. 138. For review of these, see Gunter 2009, 126. Eph’al and Naveh (1989, 200) summarize it thus: “Various inscribed objects, then, in which the name Haza’el occurs, were already scattered close to the end of the eighth century, from Assyria to Greece. However, while objects coming from Damascus and found in centres of the Assyrian empire (such as Nimrud and Arslan-Tash) can be explained as trophies, such an explanation does not apply to the objects found in the Greek temples of Samos and Eretria. It seems, then, that they did not reach Greece directly as booty, but rather as valuable objects acquired somehow by trade.” 139. There are four known inscriptions of Haza’el on luxury goods (two bronzes and two ivories). Other inscribed luxury objects, aside from the metal bowls detailed in chapter 4 and comprising a very different genre of inscription, are an ivory naming the city of Hamath and a shell fragment with Luwian hieroglyphs naming Urhilina, a ninth-century king of Hamath, both discovered in the same room as an ivory with the inscription “our [lor]d Haza’el” in T10 of Fort Shalmaneser at Nimrud (G. Herrmann and Laidlaw 2013, 8; Bryce 2012, 136 fig. 9), an ivory from Nimrud that seems to name the city of Lu’ash (Millard 1962 and Millard 2008, 268–69), and an ivory pyxis naming Bit-Gushi, the kingdom of Arpad (Puech 1978); see also general discussion in Eph’al and Naveh 1989, 197. 140. See Younger 2005, 261; Lemaire 1991, 92. 141. See Younger 2005, 260–61; Lemaire 1991, 91–92. 142. See Eph’al and Naveh 1989; Lemaire 1991. 143. Eph’al and Naveh 1989: 197. 144. See Grayson 1996, A.0.104.6 (inscribed by the governor Nergal-erish), A.0.104.7, A.0.104.8 (which records among the tribute an ivory bed and a couch inlaid with ivory). 145. During the reign of Shalmaneser IV (782–773 BCE), the turtan Shamshi-ilu also claims to have received tribute from Damascus. See the discussion above in the section on the Arslan Tash ivories. 146. Amadasi Guzzo 1996, 336. 147. Grayson 1996, A.0.102.92. See also the Akkadian inscription added to an alabaster vessel found at Assur that records the vessel as coming from the treasure house of Abdi-milkuti, the king of Sidon, whom Esarhaddon defeated with the help (divine sanction) of numerous gods, and another one from the reign of Adad-nirari I (cited by Eph’al and Naveh 1989, 196–97n23; von Bissing 1940, nos. 8 and 32). 148. In this vein, it is worth recalling that Haza’el is thought to have authored the monumental Tel Dan inscription commemorating various military victories (for the extensive bibliography, see Younger 2005, 246n4). Haza’el’s name has recently been reconstructed on a stele fragment found at Tell Afis in Syria in 2003 (see Younger 2007, esp. p. 139). 149. Kyrieleis 2009, 140. 150. For example, Strøm (1992, 49) suggests that “Phoenician bowls” found in Greek sanctuaries were from the spoil of Sargon II’s conquests in the west. 151. Gunter 2009, 153. 152. See ibid., 144, 153; Muscarella 1989. Most scholars, however, assume a maritime route of circulation (see, for example, Kyrieleis 2009: 139). 153. Winter 1988, 211; Muscarella 1992, 42; Muscarella 1989. For Gordion in general, see Voigt 2011.

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Notes to Pages 167–169

154. Cf. Muscarella 1992, 43. 155. For similar caution with respect to the movement of cauldrons and attachments to Greece, see ibid. (and less emphatically with respect to the Samos frontlet and Eretria blinkers, ibid., 44n107). 156. Agbe-Davies and Bauer 2010, 14. 157. See, for example, the list of blinkers found in the Assyrian royal storehouses (Wicke 1999, 831–34). 158. Disassembled furniture elements in both bronze and ivory also appear in the Greek sanctuaries as “fragments” rather than as whole pieces of furniture (Strøm 1992, 48n12; also Barnett 1975, 129). 159. This is an often-made comment, with references to Homeric passages that provide the genealogies of prestigious goods (see, for example, Gunter 2009: 132–33). 160. This is a generous total, based on the finds listed in Braun-Holzinger and Rehm 2005, 29–39. 161. Brysbaert 2011.

Conclusion 1. Following on Kuhn’s paradigm shift, in which sets of anomalies require new tools that in turn enact new paradigms (Kuhn 1970). 2. Gell 1999. 3. Specifically, the theoretical approaches that start from Saussurian assumptions of signification (further elaborated by Derrida), in which meaning is inherent not in an object itself but rather in a never-ending chain of (deferred) signifiers. See Keane 2005 for a defense of Peircian semiotics in materiality studies as an alternative to Saussure, because Peirce’s work “located signs within a material world of consequences” (Keane 2005, 186). 4. On this, see D. Miller 2005b, 1; also Strathern (1990, 38, italics in the original): “Making social (or cultural) context the frame of reference has one important result. It led to the position that one should really be studying the framework itself (the social context = society). The artefacts were merely illustration. For if one sets up social context as the frame of reference in relation to which meanings are to be elucidated, then explicating that frame of reference obviates or renders the illustrations superfluous: they are become exemplars or reflections of meanings which are produced elsewhere.” 5. For a similar approach to Aegean pottery in the Levant during the Late Bronze to Iron Age transition, see Stockhammer 2012. 6. Webb Keane in the Question & Answer portion of the plenary session “The Future of Things” held by the US Theoretical Archaeology Group at Stanford University, May 3, 2009. 7. D. Miller 2005a; Pinney 2004; J. Thomas 2006; Latour 2005; Knappett 2008; Hodder 2012. 8. See D. Miller 2005b, 41. 9. Ibid., 34. 10. Pinney 2004, 8. 11. Guralnick 2004, 188, 202–3 (citing Seidl 1999). 12. Rollston 2008, 78; Sanders 2009, 112–13. 13. That Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and other cities that are later defined as Phoenician exhibit continuity from the Late Bronze Age and produced material artifacts at the end of the second millennium is known archaeologically, in particular through the pottery at Tyre (see Nuñez Calvo 2008). However, attribution of either large- or small-scale “artworks” to the eleventh through ninth centuries is more controversial. For example, the sculpted sarcophagus bearing an inscription of Ahiram at Byblos has been dated paleographically to the tenth century, but to the thirteenth century based on the carved imagery (see Markoe 1990, 18–22; Rehm 2004, 63–70). 14. See, for example, Gilboa 2005; Nuñez Calvo 2008. 15. Among many, see Röllig 1992, 93–94; Winter 1995b; G. Lehmann 2008, 204; BriquelChatonnet 2007, 33–34; Sherratt 2010; Woolmer 2011, 11–13. 212

Notes to Pages 169–179

16. With a nod to the problematic but nevertheless continuing acceptance of Phoenician as a stylistic category, see Vella 2010, 22–23n4. 17. For a similar conclusion regarding the relief carvings at Carchemish and Zincirli, see Gilibert 2011, 115–19. 18. Myśliwiec 2000, 105–9. 19. For example, with respect to Greece, see, with references, Hoffman 2005, 381; Malkin 2011.

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239

References

INDEX

Abdi-milkuti, 211n147 Abipat., 129, 201n15 Actor Network Theory, 191n11 Adad-nirari I, 211n147 Adad-nirari III, 152, 167–68; palace of, 86 Affanni, Giorgio, 55, 57, 63 Africa, 27; ivory acquisition from, 27; and Swahili merchants, 27 Ahiram, 189–90n117, 212n13 Akestor, 126, 132, pl. 11 Akkad, 74. See also Mesopotamia Akkadian Empire, 74–75, 125 Alaca Höyük, 69, 195n93 Alalakh, 69 Alashiya, 73 Albenda, Pauline, 101, 198n79, 208n56 Alcock, Susan, 66–67 Aleppo, 71; Temple of the Storm God at, 69. See also Halep Alexander, Robert L., 194n64 Amadasi Guzzo, Maria, 168 Amman, 190n132 Amy (of Neith), 134 Anatolia, 96, 159, 169, 181, 204n77

241

animal markings: heroic past, evoking of by, 77; in luxury arts, 64–65; as North Syrian styles, 179 Antioch, 4 Apsû, 102–3, 199n86 Archaeologies of Memory (Van Dyke and Alcock), 66 Arka, 38 Armou, 115, 121 Arnuwanti, 70 Arslan Tash. See Hadatu Arslan Tash ivories, 34, 59, 71, 117, 150–53, 160, 184n10, 199n81; at Bâtiment aux Ivoires, 141, 151; displacement of, 171–72; Haza’el inscription at, 16, 167–68; as Phoenician and North Syrian hybrid, 16–17; tribute or booty, redistribution of, 153 art history: artistic intentionality, 47; and style, 51 artistic intentionality, 50, 72; and connoisseurship, 47 artistic styles: as autochthonous, 18; communities, or shared practices, 40

art objects, 6; community-building potential of, 7; material effects of, 2 Ashur (the god), 93 Ashurbanipal, 159, 179; couch, as foreign, 101–2; face and bowl of, 111–13, 147, 200n5; garden scene of, North Palace at Nineveh, 7, 100–4, 108, 111–12, 120, 199n81; library of, 74, 195n107; stele of, 106 Ashurnasirpal II, 79, 92–94, 98, 109, 120; Banquet Stele inscription, 102–4, 106, 199n85; Enuma Elish, association between, 102–3; Kalhu, rebuilding of, 102–3 Ashurtaklak, 201n14 Assmann, Jan, 71, 194n69 Assur, 34, 168, 199n85, 201n14, 204n54, 211n147 Assyria, 8, 55, 68, 71, 73, 79, 81, 100, 103, 116, 136, 153–54, 167, 169, 171–72, 179, 181, 204n77, 211n138; alterity, negative valuation of in, 92; Aramaeans in, 205n102; and Babylon, 199n86; and Babylonia, 106; booty and tribute, in non-Assyrian world, 88–89, 91; Cyprus, tribute paid to by, 159; and Enuma Elish, 104, 106; fall of, 140, 145–46, 148; furniture in, 101–2; invasions by Babylonian and Median states, 111; Levant, expanding imperialism in, and intercultural tensions, 76, 78; non-Assyrian world, controlling of, 86, 88; and Other, 91–93. See also Assyrian Empire Assyrian art, 196n11; Assyrianness of, 7; Assyrian-style ivories, 95; foreigners, depiction of in, 92; non-Assyrian things, rendering of into, 88; oppositional nature of, 7; seals, and extended personhood, 118–19; style of, creation and order, rhetorical form in, 103–4; stylistic development of, 196n5; types of, and community formation process, 110 Assyrian court style, 7, 12, 180; agency, role of in, 96; Assyrian administration, link to, 79; Assyrian imperial identity, as critical component of, 109; coherent style of, 98, 100; and community, 109–10; consistency of, 81–82, 84, 86, 109; as habitus, part of, 81; ivories in, 85–86; leitmotif in, 83–84; linear detail, concentration on, 84, 86; kingship, as visual statement of, 83; non-Assyrian things, 95–96; oppositional nature of, 80; orderly nature of, 81; and Otherness, 80, 108; seals in, 84–85; traits of, 80, 83 Assyrian Empire, 6, 72, 79, 140–41, 150, 153,

242

Index

160, 171–72, 184n12; fall of, 141, 144–47, 149, 153–54, 168; Levantine ivories, acquisition of, 94–95, 108; redistribution of prestige pieces, as reward, 154. See also Assyria Assyrianization, 101; alterity, negative valuation of, 98; Assyrian identity, formation of, 89; exclusion, communities of, 110; of foreign booty and tribute, 96, 98, 100; non-Assyrian world, depicting of, 88– 89, 96; the Other, 89, 93, 98, 100, 109; royal inscriptions, coherence of, 100; as social engagements, set of, 81; as term, 80–81 Ataç, Mehmet-Ali, 84, 92, 100, 103 Athens, 67 Attis, 202n26 attribution: and authenticity, 26; connoisseurship, as unprovable, 36; metal bowls, and questions of, 114; as process, difficulty of, 28–29 Awariku/Urikki, 36 Azatiwatas, 35 Babylon, 103, 159, 197n23; and Assyria, 199n86 Babylonia, 73–74, 102–3, 180, 204n77; and Assyria, 106; and Babylonianization, 106; and Mappa Mundi, 200n93. See also Mesopotamia Baines, John, 79 Balawat Gates, 102, 145 Barnett, Richard, 13–16, 27, 32, 52–53, 64, 119– 20, 129; and Loftus Group, 186n20; Syrian school of ivory carving, 44 Barrakib, 184n12 Basta, 134 Berenson, Bernard, 18, 22, 36, 47, 191n9; methodology of, 19 Bernardini Tomb (at Praeneste), 115, 121, 128, 158; Phoenician inscription on, 131 Bit-Gushi, 168, 211n139 Blackwell, Nicholas, 159 Bonatz, Dominik, 135 booty (šallatu), 59–60, 86, 150, 169–70, 172; couches as, 102; Haza’el inscriptions, 168; Lachish reliefs, as visual parallel to, 93–94; period eye, process of, 96; tribute, distinction between, 93; tribute, as “statesponsored,” 8 Borell, Brigitte, 142, 145 Bourdieu, Pierre, 41, 193n55, 193n57, 195n101; habitus, concept of, 37, 51, 57–58, 60, 64– 65; know how, 51; learned ignorance, 44,

61–62; practical logic, 65; practice theory, 43–44, 66, 72; and ritual, 61; and taste, 63 Bravo, Christopher, 207n1, 207n18 Britain (prehistoric), 50 British Museum, 14 Bron, François, 166 Bronze Age, 7, 9, 67, 68, 134, 179; architectural reliefs, 70; funerary rituals during, 121–22, 124, 134; Hittite dynastic kinship, 70; Iron Age, transition from, as radical transformation, 74. See also Late Bronze Age Brown, Brian, 25 Buhl, Marie-Louise, 28 Bunnens, Guy, 102–4, 106, 148–50, 208n51 Busayra: stamped ceramic jars in, 34 Burnt Palace (at Nimrud), 14. See also Southeast Palace Byblos, 38, 65, 212n13 Byzantine ivories, 50–51 Carchemish, 25, 55, 68–69, 144, 190–91n133, 208n56; Water Gate at, 63 Cassin, Elena, 118 Caubet, Annie, 27, 48 Celtic metalworking, 50 Central America, 119 Cesnola, Luigi Palma di, 115, 120–21; and Cesnola collection, 203n35 Charbonnet, André, 164–66 chromolithographs, 177 Cifarelli, Megan, 92, 94, 100, 198n67 Cilicia, 4, 35–36 Çineköy, 36 Circolo dei Lebeti (Circle of the Cauldrons) tomb (at Vetulonia), 158 circulation: as term, 140 Codex Hammurabi, 43 collective identity, 47; and social identity, 126 collective imagination, 51, 63 collective memory, 67, 175, 177; animal style, and continuity of practice, 71, 77; and archaeology, 66; artworks, function of within, 73–74; belonging, sense of, 128; and city-state elite, 72; and community identity, 9, 73, 133; group identities, 108–9; and habitus, 72; kispu, as form of, 122; monumental architecture, 68–69; and narrative, 196n109; “pastness,” perception of, 72; place, social memory of, 68; public ceremonies, 68–69; shared social practices, 44; social identity, 126; and

243

Index

social memory, 2, 180; and style, 6, 41, 52, 71, 108–9; stylistic practices in, 64–66; stylistic traits, as critical component of, 44; and visual arts, 75 Collins, Paul, 83 Collon, Dominique, 83–84, 197n19, 197n22 communal identity. See community identity community: craft practitioners, as metanarrative, 43; displaced artworks, formed around, 8; kinship bonds, 43; relationships, and process of becoming, 44; as term, 2 community identity, 8, 175–76; and art, 9, 177; collective memory, 9, 73, 133; drinking rituals, 136; as ethnic, 76; ethno-linguistic and kinship concerns, linked to, 180; hardening of, 178; formation of, 181; formation of, and the Other, 180; ritual drinking and libating, 180 Conkey, Margaret, 193n48 Connerton, Paul, 128; inscribed and incorporated practices, distinction between, 66 connoisseurship, 6, 12–13; argument, circularity of, 22; artistic identity, 21, 36, 47; artist-individual, 18; attribution, and authenticity, 26; attribution of, as unprovable, 36; and characteristics, 20; cultural identity/ethos, 36; finished products, producing of, 26; formal analysis, distinguishing from, 22; and hands, 26, 37; and individual identity, 47; for Italian Renaissance painting, 18–21, 26; and the master, 22; master, characteristic traits of, 19; methodology of, 17–18; mode, of treatment, 20; and peculiarities, 20; and school, 26; and students, 22; and style, 44; style minutiae, 44; stylistic analysis, 36; visual analysis of, 19, 36; and workshops, 17–18, 22, 26, 37 contextualism, 176, 182 Crete, 55, 136; Phoenicians on, 127 Crowfoot, Grace, 27 Crowfoot, J. W., 27 cultural identity, 40 cultural memory, 2 Curtis, John, 101 Cutler, Anthony, 48, 50–51; and collective imagination, 63 Cyprus, 3, 8, 13, 115–16, 120–21, 129, 132, 134, 141, 154, 165, 180–81, 202n27, 205n97; Assyria, tribute paid to, 159; Greek inscriptions on, 136; languages and scripts, division

Cyprus (continued) between on, 136; and Levantine citystates, 160; Phoenician inscriptions on, 206–7nn141; and refashioning, 172 Cyprus Museum, 157 Dagron, Gilbert, 51 Damascus/Aram, 16, 38, 152–53, 161, 172, 211n138; South Syrian style in, 59 Dark Ages, 71, 74, 134 Davies, Leri Glynne, 85–86, 197n30 Davis, Whitney, 193n47 Delos, 64–65 Delphi, 169 Denel, Elif, 195n80 Derrida, Jacques, 212n3 Dietler, Michael, 196n4 Din-Sharri, 199n81 di Paolo, Silvana, 28–29, 57, 188n73 displacement, 141, 169–72; of artworks, 140; as term, 140 Durkheim, Emile, 2, 66, 183n4 Ea/Enki (god), 102 early Iron Age, 9, 181; funerary feasts in, 124; Levantine luxury arts, 11–12; territoriality in, 25. See also Iron Age Eastlake, Charles, 21 Ebitz, David, 22, 193n45 Ebla, 69, 134 Edomite, 34 Egypt, 65, 68, 73–74, 79, 150, 165, 179, 181, 194n69, 195n108 Elam, 102, 104, 150 Enkomi, 44, 65, 77 Enuma Elish (myth), 7, 81, 102–3; and Assyria, 104, 106 Eph’al, Israel, 166, 211n138 Epiorwos, 133 Eretria, 8, 59, 152, 181, 211n138; bronze blinkers at, 161–62, 164–65, 167–73; bronze blinkers, inscription on, 166, 168; bronze blinkers, as North Syrian regional style of, 162 Esarhaddon, 108, 159, 179, 184n12, 199n86, 211n147 ethnogenesis, 178 Etruria, 13, 76, 128, 131–33, 180; bowls, 115–16; drinking vessels in, 120 Etruscans: burial practice of, 135; commemorative rituals of, 122; drinking vessels of, 132; funerary banqueting of, 124; and Praeneste tomb, 127

244

Index

Euboea, 167 Europe, 75, 77 Fink, Amir, 136, 204n83 “Flame and Frond” ivories style-group, 54, 73; sphinxes of, 55–56, 63–64; workshop, attribution to, 57 formalism, 176, 182 Fort Shalmaneser (at Nimrud), 29, 52, 59, 86, 94–95, 108, 150, 152, 201n14, 211n139; Haza’el inscription at, 167–68 Frankfort, Henri, 82–83 French Revolution, 66 Fuchs, Kathrin, 202n19 funerary drinking: communal feasting and drinking, West Semitic tradition of, 122; cultural memory, 134, 136; communal identities, and ancestral kinship, 136; festivals of, 135; funerary practices, feasting, connections between, 124; funerary practices, and kinship, 135; funerary rituals, and kispu, 121–22; personal names, and ownership, 136; ritualization, and community identity, 137; and social identity, 135 Gaborit-Chopin, Danielle, 27 En Gedi, 34 Gell, Alfred, 50, 118; enchantment, notion of, 130–31, 176 Geus, Cornelius de, 156 Gilibert, Alessandra, 63, 68, 98, 198n65 glyptic studies, 197n22 Golgoi/Athienou, 132, 134 Gordion, 169, 171 Gosden, Chris, 50 Greece, 3, 8, 13, 59, 75–77, 116, 117, 129–30, 136, 144, 158, 161, 166–68, 181, 195n108, 211n138; Greek culture, 125; and inscriptions, 170; Orientalizing trends in, 139; sanctuaries of, and acquisition of cult paraphernalia, 165; sanctuaries of, bronzes at, 172; sanctuary officials, and elites, special ties to, 169 Greenblatt, Stephen, 40 Greer, Jonathan, 122 Groenewegen-Frankfort, Henriette, 83, 196n11 group identity: collective memory, 108–9; and memory, 2 Gunter, Ann, 35, 40, 98, 161, 169, 196n4 Guralnick, Eleanor, 141–42, 144–45, 178

Gürün, 70 Guzana, 4. See also Tell Halaf habitus, 37, 41, 43, 51, 57–58, 65, 81; collective memory, 72; relational interactions, as resulting from, 60; style, as prime element of, 61, 64, 72 Hadad, 204n82 Hadatu, 172. See also Arslan Tash Hala Sultan Tekké, 134, 206–7nn141 Halbwachs, Maurice, 183n6, 194n69; collective memory, 2, 66 Halep, 167. See also Aleppo Hama, 4; 15, 52–53, 55, 71; Building I at, 184n12; Building II at, 184n12; Building III at, 184n12; Building IV at, 5, 28, 184n12; Building V at, 184n12. See also Hamath Hamath, 4, 15–16, 52, 54, 102, 167–68, 211n139. See also Hama Hamilakas, Yannis, 128 Hammurabi, 43 Handbuch der Geschichte der Malerei von Constantin dem Grossen bis auf unsere Zeit (Kugler), 20–21 Hanni, 148–49 Haran, 145 Harpokrates, 131 Hasanlu, 13, 34, 55 Hassan-Beyli, 36 Hathor iconography, 131 Hatti, 68, 73 Hattusa, 67 Hawkins, John, 70 Haza’el, 16, 59–60, 68, 117, 141, 152, 161, 166, 170–71, 211n138, 211n139, 211n148; booty of, inscriptions on, 167–68, North Syrian artistic production, 190–91nn133 Hazazu, 167 Hazor, 34, 38, 69, 167 Hazruk, 167 Hebrew Bible: and Amos, 122; and Jeremiah, 122; marzēah. , as term, in, 122; and mizraq, 122 Heraion (on Samos), 141; bronze horse-bridle frontlet at, 161; Haza’el booty at, 161 Herodotus, 169 Herrmann, Georgina, 11, 13, 17, 29, 31, 54, 56, 94–95, 146–47, 150, 153, 185n3, 192n22, 193n41, 209n64; “Flame and Frond stylegroup” of, 44, 52, 73; and Ornate Group, 188n82; South Syrian term, objection to, 186n23

245

Index

Herrmann, Virginia, 124, 135 Hesiod, 74–75 Hezekiah, 89 Hittite Empire, 13, 69; collapse of, 67; Luwian writing system in, 70 Hoffman, Gail, 127 Homer, 74–75 Horowitz, Wayne, 199n86 Hyettos, 144 Iacovou, Maria, 160 Idaean Cave, 55 imperialism, 74, 76 in-between ivories, 11–12, 16 inscriptions: as Akkadian, 116–17; as Aramaic, 116, 118; and arrowheads, 135; as Cypriot Greek, 116–17, 129; funerary feasts, 124; as Greek, 117; as Hebrew, 116, 118; and identity, 118, 135–36; individuals, association with, 126; identity, and memory, 128; as Luwian, 116–17; and memorialization, 127; and memory, 119; ownership and belonging, 134; personal names, 117; and personhood, 118–19; as Phoenician, 118; and possession, 117, 119; self-referentiality of, 117, 136–37; social memory, 119; as timeless, 113; as West Semitic, 116–18. See also metal bowls Iran, 3, 55, 113, 190n127 Iran Bastan Museum, 201n11 Iraq Museum, 133, 192n20 Iron II, 34 Iron Age IIA–B, 134 Iron Age, 2, 67, 69, 178; arts, golden age of, connection to, 7, 75; artworks of, courtly aspects of, 73–74; transition to, 134. See also early Iron Age Iron Age Levant, 1, 4, 6, 41, 95; animal markings in, 52; identity in, 44; Levantine style-groups, 39–40; luxury arts, 76; Phoenicia/Phoenician, as problematic terms, 179; portable arts, 180; regional pottery styles in, 191n145. See also Levant Ispekçür, 70 Israel, 1, 3, 74 Italian Painters (Morelli), 20 Italy, 3, 8, 100, 113, 116, 121, 131, 136, 158–59, 191n9; Orientalizing trends in, 139 ivory: Assyrian palaces, looting of and, 172; dentine of, 48–49; enchantment, notion of, 50; gloss of, 48–49; inscription on, as rare, 117; as non-Assyrian, 13; Phoenician

ivory (continued) and North Syrian styles, distinction between, 16; properties of, 48; raw materials, acquiring of, 26; regional groupings of, 13; style-groups of, 13; as tactile material, 50 Janes, Sarah, 154 Jonker, Gerdien, 122, 128 Jordan, 1, 3, 33 Joyce, Rosemary: Classic Maya earspools, 119 Kalhu. See Nimrud Kantor, Helene, 25, 52, 64, 77, 194n64; North Syrian animal style, 44, 73 Karageorghis, Vassos, 129, 154–57, 160, 209n82 Karak, 38, 187n45 Karak Museum, 190n132 Karatepe, 35, 39 Keane, Webb, 176 Kefar Veradim, 4–5, 134 Kerameikos: North Syrian artistic production, 190–91nn133 Khorsabad, 34 Kidin-hutran, 202n26 King of Kish, 125 kispu, 121, 124–25, 128, 134; collective memory, as form of, 122; marzēah. , connection with, 122 Kition, 65, 136, 159–60 Kourion, 115–16 Kugler, Franz Theodor, 20 Kuzi-Teshub, 69–70 Kyrieleis, Helmut, 164 Lachish, 65, 89, 91, 93–94, 108 Laidlaw, Stuart, 11, 94–95, 146–47; and Ornate Group, 188n82 language: ethnic association through, 180 Late Bronze Age, 6, 27, 38, 67, 69; animal markings, 73; animal markings, and shared collective memory, 77; artistic traditions, continuity of, 44; heroic kingship, connotations of in, 7; luxury arts, and courtliness, shared ideal of, 75; luxury arts, and heroic kingship, connotations of, 75; stylistic traits, 77; transregional fluidity, in subsequent period, 181. See also Bronze Age Late Cypriot IIIA:1 period, 134 Latour, Bruno, 191n11

246

Index

Layard, Sir Austen Henry, 13–15, 20–21, 186n38, 201n13 Lebanon, 1, 3, 13 Lefkandi, 67, North Syrian artistic production, 190–91nn133 Lemaire, André, 166 Levant, 1, 3–5, 7–8, 33, 38, 79–80, 101, 150, 167, 169, 180–81; Aramaic inscriptions in, as dominant, 136; city-states in, 76; city-states in, and Cyprus, 160; cultural boundaries, blurring of, 31; different languages in, 35–36; family tombs, location of in, 121; greater Levant, fluid identities across, 178, 180; greater Levant, overlapping in, 40–41; lmlk jars of, 203n35, 203n45; Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds: intertwining of, 171; peer polities of, 67–68; style, mobility of in, 31–32, 34–35; trade and exchange within greater Levant, 35; urban centers of, stylistic diversity among, 63. See also Iron Age Levant Levantine artworks: attributional pursuits of, 11; circulation of, 144; distribution of, 142; mobility of, 60, 140–41, 170–71; and practice theory, 43–44. See also Levantine ivories Levantine ivories, 12–13, 18, 51, 71, 173; African elephant populations, as derived from, 27; animal markings, as “fingerprint,” 52; Assyrian storehouses, connections to, 172; and bronzes, 153; communities, creating of in, 59; elephants, tusks of, 48; habitus, notion of in, 58; heterogeneous styles of, 38; hippopotamuses teeth, as derived from 48; Italian Renaissance paintings, 22; itinerant craftsmen, role of, 28; luxury items, and Haza’el inscriptions, 167; and North Syrian style, 5–6; and Phoenician style, 5–6; process and organization of, as unknown, 27–28; production, determining location of for, as contentious, 52; origins of, as open, 26–27; and social relations, 26; style of, 18; surface modulation, system of, 37; variability, degree of, 29, 31; workshop studies for, 57. See also Levantine artworks Levi-Strauss, Claude, 2 Lidar Höyük, 69, 71 Lindos, 16 Liverani, Mario, 100, 198n43

Loftus Group, 32, 52 Loftus, William Kennet, 14 Lu’ash, 54, 168, 211n139 Machinist, Peter, 92, 100, 109 Malatya, 69–70 Mallowan, Max, 85–86, 95, 147, 192n20, 197n30, 208n37; and House II, 146; and House VI, 146 Marduk, 103, 110, 200n99 Marest-Caffey, Laure, 189n95, 207n1, 209– 10n97 Mari, 134 Markoe, Glenn, 32, 202n19 Marx, Karl, 193n55 marzēah. , 124, 134; kispu, connections with, 122 Masson, Olivier, 202n27 materiality, 176–77 Mazzoni, Stefania, 28, 53 Megiddo, 4, 34, 64–65; Building 338 in, 5 memory: and identity, 113, 128, 133; group identity, cementing of, 2; and inscriptions, 113; and personhood, 119; and recycling, 181; and reusing, 181; and temporality, 113 mercantilism, 74, 76, 140 Mesopotamia, 43, 96, 106, 169, 192n19, 195n108; “cupbearer,” title of in, 125; funerary rituals in, 121; heroic pasts of, connections to, 74–75. See also Akkad; Assyria; Babylonia; Sumer metal bowls, 110; as Aramaean/South Syrian, 114; attribution, questions of, 114; and collective memory, 116, 126; and community, 125, 130; dating of, 115; decorated bowls, 113–14; decorated bowls, as “artistic corpus,” 116; decorated and inscribed bowls, as subgroup, 115; decorated and inscribed bowls, as special, 133; divine drinking, and fertility, association with, 112–13; drinking and feasting, 119–20, 130; enchantment, notion of, 131–33; erasing of, 112; functionality of, 120–21; group identification, 129; and identity, 116, 125, 130; imagery of, 128–30, 132–33; inscriptions on, 113, 115–16, 130; inscriptions, and decoration, in relation to, 131; as Levantine, 115; and libating, 120, 133, 135–36; as memorials, 126; and memory, 125, 130; as nonfigurative, 130; as North Syrian, 114; ornamentation on, 116; ownership of,

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Index

126; and personhood, 113, 180; personhood, and ownership, 125; as Phoenician, 31–32, 112, 114; as physical objects, 126; and power, 112, 121, 125; power, and time, 113; reinscription of, 139; ritual quality of, 121; seals, comparison with, 115, 118–19; seals, and extended personhood, 118–19; shape and size of, 113; social identity, 126; special significance of, 112, 116, 121; special use of, 119; as “talking objects,” 119; temporal nature of, 126; in tombs, 121; vessels, depiction of, 120; wine, association with, 119–20. See also inscriptions Metropolitan Museum of Art, 201n11, 203n35, 205n96 Midas, 169 Middle Bronze Age, 69 Millard, Alan, 34, 150, 153, 201n13 Miller, Daniel, 177 Mitanni, 73 Moorey, P. R. S., 27–29 Moortgat, Anton, 52, 83, 196n5, 196n11 Morelli, Giovanni, 19–21; and Grundformen style, 18 Mukish, 40 Musas. ir, 93 Mycenae, 65, 70; Lion Gate at, 194n64, 195n93 Nabopolassar, 145 Nabu: Ezida Temple of (in Nimrud), 86 Naveh, Joseph, 166, 211n138 Neer, Richard, 36; style, notion of, 191–92nn12 New Guinea, 40 Nimrud, 11, 20, 32, 34, 76, 102–3, 136, 160 Nimrud bronze bowls, 37–38, 116, 129–30, 135 Nimrud ivories, 17, 27, 34, 44, 50, 55–56, 85–86, 94–95, 117, 168, and connoisseurship, 20; Egyptianizing elements of, 13; as Hittite, 13; Loftus Group, 14–15, 52; as North Syrian, 77, 190–91nn133; and Ornate group, 160; as Phoenician, 13–15; as Syrian, 14; Town House Houses, 141, 146–47, 150–51, 153, 171–72 Nineveh, 32, 74, 108; sacking of, 145 Nineveh and Its Remains (Layard), 20 North Palace (at Nineveh), 111, 199n81, 200n92 North Syria, 4, 13, 16, 31–32, 35, 38, 41, 55, 60, 68, 96, 152, 179; architectural carved stone reliefs, 22–23 North Syrian: and artworks, 178–79; as term, 179

North Syrian style, 39, 59–61, 64–65; Barnettt and, 52; characteristics of, 187n45; emergence of, North Syrian artistic production, 190–91nn133; as steatite corpus, 34; Winter and, 77 Northwest Palace (at Nimrud), 11, 14, 20, 32, 56, 86, 94–95, 98, 101, 150, 192n20, 199n85; Area ZT of, 147; metal bowls of, 115; “Room of the Bronzes” in, 119; Well AJ of, 147 Nylander, Carl, 112 Oates, David, 146 Oates, Joan, 146, 208n37 objects: communities, and social practices, 109 communitizing, as process through, 109; as Phoenician, 112; and power, 112; royal connection between, 112 Old Akkadian Empire. See Akkadian Empire Olympia, 8, 158; bowls, 115–16, 139; bronze relief bands at, 140–42, 144–46, 168, 171–72, 178; Well 17, 144 Onnis, Francesca, 17, 32, 37–38 Opheltas, 135 Ornate Group ivories: Archaic smile of, 29, 31; and Mona Lisa ivory, 31; pegged wig characteristic of, 29–30; in Phoenician tradition, 188n82 Osborne, James, 25, 40 Palaeopaphos-Skales: Tomb 49, inscriptions on, 135 Palestine, 32 Panamuwa I, 204n82 Panamuwa II, 123 Parrot, Andre, 83, 196n11 Patina, 59. See also ‘Unqi Pavúk, Dr. Peter, 194n64 Pella, 194n64 personhood: and memory, 119 Phoenicia, 31–32, 37–38, 41, 152, 178–79; mercantilism of, 181 Phoenician: inscriptions of, 136; language of, as transregional, 178; style of, 37, 39, 61, 77–78; as term, 179 Phrygia, 169 Pinney, Christopher, 177 Pitt, Erin, 207n1 Pontecagnano, 115, 121; bowl at, 131; Etruscan tomb at, 127 Poplin, François, 48 Porada, Edith, 197n22 Postgate, N., 205n102

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Index

Potts, T. F., 194n64 Poulsen, Frederick, 13–14 practice theory, 5, 41, 43–44, 51, 66, 72 Qatna, 134 Queens’ Tombs (at Nimrud), 116; Tomb II, 115, 12–21; Tomb III, 125, 202n24 Ras Shamra-Ugarit. See Ugarit recycling, 140, 153, 172, 177, 207n5; and community, 181; and memory, 181 Rehm, Ellen, 198n79 reuse, 140, 172, 177, 207n5; and community, 181; and memory, 181 Reyes, A. T., 154 Riis, Poul J., 28, 52–53 Rittig, Dessa, 142, 145 rituals, 183n4; alcoholic beverages, and communal practices, 122, 125, 134; as commemorative, 122, 128; as communal, 136; and identity, 113; vessels, individual names on, 136 Riva, Corinna, 119, 122, 124, 128, 135 Röllig, Wolfgang, 166, 189–90nn117 Roman Empire: and Romanization, 196n4 Rupp, David, 154, 159–60 Sakçe Gözü, 23–25 Salamis, 180, 199n81; à jour plaques at, 156, 159–60; banqueting rites at, 154; cauldrons at, with griffins and sirens, 158–59; chair gamma at, 155–57, 159–60; dromos at, 154–55, 157; Heh-figure plaques at, 157, 160; Nimrud ivories, comparisons with, 160; propylaeum at, 155, 158; recycling and refurbishing at, 160, 172; Royal Tombs at, 141, 154, 159–60; Tomb 3 at, 154–55; Tomb 50 at, 154; Tomb 50a at, 154; Tomb 79 at, 141, 153–54, 158–60, 171 Sam’al, 4, 23, 184n12, 210–11nn135; Round Cheeked and Ringletted style-group in, 188n67. See also Zincirli Samaria, 160, 184n10, 192n14; Omrid period palace at, 71 Samos, 8, 16, 59, 181, 211n138; frontlet at, 161, 164–67, 169–71, 173; frontlet, and inscription, 166–68; frontlet, as North Syrian style, 162 Sargon II, 36, 88, 93–94, 108–9, 145, 184n12, 196n5, 199n81, 208n56, 211n150; stele of, 159–60 Sargon of Agade, 125, 196n5

Schloen, J. David, 136, 204n83 Scigliuzzo, Elena, 37, 39, 190n125 Seidl, Ursula, 144, 178 semiotics, 176 Sennacherib, 89, 91, 93–94, 111, 159 Shalmaneser III, 27, 93–94, 102, 145, 152, 166–68, 199n81, 208n56 Shalmaneser IV, 152 Shalmaneser V, 151 Shamash-sharru-us. ur, 146 Shamshi-ilu, 152 Sherratt, Susan, 135–36, 207n143 Sidon, 38, 212n13 Simpson, Marianna Shreve, 190n127 Sin-shar-ishkun, 146 social practice: and writing, 170 social relationships: material expression, 50– 51; “things,” mutual dependence of, 177 Southeast Palace (at Nimrud), 14, 111. See also Burnt Palace South Syria, 41, 55 South Syrian style, 38, 59; and style-group, 152 Southwest Palace (at Nineveh), 89, 195n107, 199n81 Sparta, 129 sphyrelata, 145, 207n7 sphyrelaton korai, 144 Stair, Jessica, 207n1 Stewart, Andrew, 207n1 Strathern, Marilyn, 118, 212n4 Strøm, Ingrid, 139, 165, 169, 211n150 Struble, Eudora, 124, 135 Stucky, Rolf, 32 style, 2, 9, 88; animal markings, as manifestation of, 65; art history, 51; artistic identity, 21; collective becoming, 59; collective memory, 6, 41, 52, 66, 71, 108–9; community identity, 61, 63; and connoisseurship, 44; consumption of, 44, 63; continuity of, 65–66; cultural practices, 51; and ethnicity, 40; geography and culture, role of in, through autochthonous link, 37; and group identities, 108–9; habitus, as prime element of, 61, 64, 72; knowledge and action, relationship with each other, 44; learned ignorance, and community identity, 62; linkages, creating of, 61; manufacture, location of, 12; and the Other, 80, 95– 96; place, and direct association, wariness of, 40; as practice, 44, 61; and practical knowledge, 65; production of, 11, 44; rhetorical role of, 109; and shared identity,

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95; and shared practices, 177; social and communal practice of, 41; and social practice, 65, 95; stylisticality, distinction between, 193n47; stylistic continuity, and practice, as passed on through, 73; as stylistic minutiae, 51, 81, 95; as term, 80, 84, 175, 193n53; visual forms, as minutiae of, 44; visual rhetoric, as ideal conveyance of, 103–4; and workshop, 11 style-groups, 31, 178; and schools, 29; and sets of ivories, 17; as term, 17 stylistic minutiae: and connoisseurship, 44 stylistic practices, 60–61 Sumer, 74. See also Mesopotamia Suppiluliuma I, 69 Suter, Claudia, 31 Syria, 1, 4, 27, 32, 41, 55, 65, 153, 187n45; and Syrian-style ivories, 38, 52 Tall ar-Rameh, 34 Tall Iktanu, 34 Tekke Tomb J (at Knossos North Cemetery): inscription of, 127; Shema bowl, 134 Tell Afis, 211n148 Tell Ahmar. See Til Barsip Tell Basta, 65 Tell Beit Mirsim, 34 Tell Halaf, 4, 25, 52, 54–55, 64–65, 70, 184nn14, 193n41, 194n64; animal markings at, 71–72; Temple-Palace at, 5, 71. See also Guzana Tell Nimrin, 34 Tell Tayinat, 55, 59, 68, 167, 184n10, 211n136 Temple of Apollo, 141, 161, 165, 167 Temple of the Storm God Tarhunzas at Carchemish, 184n11 Thebans, 144 Thomason, Allison, 96 Thureau-Dangin, François, 151 Tiglath-Pileser III, 36, 78–79, 109, 126, 151–52, 168, 184n10, 198n73, 209n67; Central Palace of, 86, 199n81; reliefs of, 96–98, 100 Til Barsip ivories, 8, 25, 71, 146, 184n10, 199n81, Building C1 at, 141, 147, 150–51, 153; displacement of, 171; mutilation at, 150–51; North Syrian artistic production, 190– 91nn133; phases of, 148; as secondhand assemblage, 148; styles, diversity of, 148–49 Timokretes, 126, 132 Tragana bowls, 115–16, 124, 130 Transjordan, 32 Treasure of Kourion, 115, 120, 129, 132; supernatural beings on, 133

tribute (maddattu), 94, 150, 172; booty, distinction between, 93; period eye, process of, 96 tridacna shells, 32–34 Turkey, 1, 4, 59, 153, 187n45 Turner, Geoffrey, 151 Tutammu, 198n61 Tutankhamun, 65 Tyre, 38, 136, 212n13 Ugarit, 65, 134 ‘Unqi, 40, 59–60, 166–67, 210–11nn135. See also Patina Urhilina, 211n139 Vance, Eugene, 75, 77 Van Dyke, Ruth, 66–67 Vasari, 18 Warika, 36 Welkampe, Annette, 156 Wicke, Dirk, 28, 132, 188n67 Winter, Irene, 13, 16, 22–23, 25, 29, 35, 38–40, 55, 71, 75, 77, 85, 118, 185n4, 192n19, 193n41, 194n64, 197n25; South Syrian style-group traits, 152 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 191–92nn12 workshops, 31, 35, 187n56, 188n67, 190n125; ar-

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Index

chaeological discovery of, 28; attribution process, difficulty of, 28–29; city-states, as synonymous with, 17; and connoisseurship, 17–18, 22, 26, 37; connoisseurship, methodology of, 17–18; craft production, 29; human and geographic/political entity, as stand in for, 18; individual artists identities, blurring of, 19; and master artists, 52; and schools, 29; as social, 28– 29; as spatial, 28–29; style-groups, 56–57; stylistic heterogeneity, 25–26; as term, as problematical, 28, 38; unconscious action, revelatory power of, 19 Ya’a, 159 Yaba, 116, 120–21, 124, 126–28 Yaba gold bowl, 134; imagery of, 132–33 Yamhad, 40 Yarim-Lim: palace of, 69 Yazilikaya, 194n64 Zincirli, 4, 23–25, 55, 68, 71–72, 144, 186n19, 190n132, 211n136; Building J at, 184n12; Building K at, 184n12; Building L at, 5; Hilani I at, 124; Hilani III at, 184n12; Katumuwa stele, 122–25, 135; Kilamuwa stele, 31, 35. See also Sam’al