Kulturkonflikte im Vorderen Orient.

• Author: Downey, Susan B.
• Position: Book review

Kulturkonflikte im Vorderen Orient. Edited by KLAUS S. FREYBERGER, AGNES HENNING, and HENNER VON HESBERG. Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Orient-Abteilung, Orient-Archaologie, vol. 11. Rahden, Westfallen: VERLAG MARIE LEIDORF, 2003. Pp. vii + 303, illus.

This volume presents the papers from a colloquium held in 2000 at Cologne University. The overall theme is cultural identity in the ancient Near East, principally Syria, after the introduction of Hellenistic culture into a region with a Semitic population. A few papers deal with areas bordering on the Roman province of Syria: Commagene (Bruno Iacobs), Hellenistic Uruk (Gunvor Lindstrom), and the building program of Herod the Great in modern Israel (Sarah Japp). Within Syria, the major concentration is on Palmyra and the Hauran, but there is also an essay on sanctuaries in the Massif Calcaire in northern Syria (Patric-Alexander Kreuz). Many of the papers deal with material culture, but there are also essays on cultural identity based largely on epigraphical evidence (Michal Gawlikowski and Jean-Baptiste Yon on Palmyra).

A particular merit of the volume is that many of the papers, especially those dealing with the architecture, architectural decoration, and sculpture of the Hauran combine new discoveries with material long known but often published poorly or not at all. The papers by Michael Kalos and Thomas Maria Weber on the sanctuary at Sahr in the Ledja (Sahr al-Lagat) provide a good example. This sanctuary was studied by Howard Crosby Butler in 1919 as part of the Princeton Archaeological Expedition to Syria (H. C. Butler, Publications of the Princeton University Archaeological Expeditions to Syria in 1904-5 and 1909, Division II: Architecture, Section A: Southern Syria Part 7: The Ledja [Leiden: Brill, 1919], 441ff.). Subsequent discussions have relied on Butler's observations, but excavations conducted in 1998 and 1999 under the direction of Michael Kalos have permitted a new reconstruction of the architecture. Weber combines fragmentary sculpture unearthed in the new excavations with that published by Butler and other fragments in the museum at Soueida to suggest an elaborate sculptural program that permits a new historical interpretation of the sanctuary. He proposes a complex ensemble that includes on the west side a rider, identifiable as Herod Agrippa II, as well as figures in chariots drawn by lions and panthers, and on the east side Athena and another deity on a chariot...