Die orientalische Stadt: Kontinuitat, Wandel, Bruch.

• Author: DE MIEROOP, MARC VAN
• Position: Review

D[ddot{i}]e orientalische Stadt: Kontinuit[ddot{a}]t, Wandel, Bruch. Edited by GERNOT WILHELM. Colloquien der Deutschen Orient-Gesell-schaft, vol. 1. Berlin: SAARBR[ddot{U}]CKER DR[ddot{U}]CKEREI UND VERLAG, 1997. Pp. xiii + 409, illus. DM 139.

This book represents the publication of the majority of papers delivered at the first international conference of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft in May 1996, and the editor, Gernot Wilhelm, is to be congratulated for the speed with which the publication was accomplished. Its theme is the "Oriental" city, where Orient refers, as in the term Orient-Gesellsehaft, to the Near and Middle East only (although North Africa, as far west as Morocco, is mentioned as well). The focus of the conference was on continuity, change, and discontinuity and almost all papers investigate questions over long historical periods, although they do not always draw conclusions regarding the causes for change or for the lack thereof.

As it would be somewhat meaningless to provide comments on the individual contributions, I would like in this review to ask the question: "How does this volume reflect the current scholarly perceptions of the Near/Middle Eastern city?" The importance of this question is made clear by Liverani's excellent contribution, entitled "The Ancient Near Eastern City and Modern Ideologies." Here he demonstrates clearly that the various concepts of the ancient Near Eastern city, from the first archaeological discoveries in the mid-nineteenth century till today, were very much determined by contemporary ideologies and political situations. For instance, the Hegelian teleology of rationality's fulfillment in Western civilization could not find a place for the newly excavated Mesopotamian cities, almost contemporary with classical Athens. Hence, Nineveh and Babylon had to be described as non-cities. Liverani points out how recent scholarship shows two "risky" trends. On the one hand a tendency exists to present the Near/M iddle Eastern city as unchanging, from prehistory to the early modern period, if not until today. A second trend, in direct opposition to the first one, is the stress on the uniqueness of every city and the resistance to building a model of the ancient Near Eastern city that could be used in comparisons with other urban models (classical, medieval European, etc.). The latter attitude is very common in current scholarship, showing a general discomfort with grand narratives and reductionist...