Images as Media: Sources for the Cultural History of the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean (1st Millennium BCE).

• Author: Beckman, Gary
• Position: Brief Reviews of Books

Images as Media: Sources for the Cultural History of the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean (1st Millennium BCE). Edited by CHRISTOPH UEHLINGER. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, vol. 175. Fribourg, Switzerland: UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2000. Pp. xxxii + 408, plates, illus. FS 145.

The profusely illustrated volume contains sixteen papers delivered at a conference convened in Fribourg in November 1997 to celebrate both the sixtieth birthday of Professor Othmar Keel and the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Swiss Society of Ancient Near Eastern Studies. It also includes an introduction by the editor, as well as an afterword presenting the text of his opening address to the gathering.

The first of Uehlinger's contributions elucidates the theme of this particular meeting and collection: To what extent did seals, amulets, and other small objects function as the "mass media" of the first millennium B.C.E.? That is, how efficiently did their iconography disseminate religious and political messages to large numbers of people? His remarks to the participants look back on the scholarly career of Professor Keel and consider the development of the "Fribourg School" of iconographic studies.

The volume's contributors discuss art produced during the relevant period throughout most of western Asia, northeast Africa, and the...