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Phoenician and North Syrian Ivory Carving in Historical Context: Questions of Style and Distribution*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Extract

Ivory as a material has a unique and fascinating appeal by virtue of its rich warm colour and sheen. Since very early times, ivory has been synonymous with luxury, as witnessed in the Old Testament reference to Ahab's “house of ivory”, the epitome of luxurious living; in Amos' imprecation against the rich “that lie upon beds of ivory”; and in Ezekiel's lament for Tyre, perfect in beauty, where the very benches are made of ivory. In addition, we are told that Solomon's royal throne was made of ivory, commissioned from Phoenician craftsmen who excelled in this art. Finally, the identification of ivory with luxury and hence corruption is clear in the Homeric allusion to the “Gate of Ivory”, through which dreams pass that mislead.

The discovery of actual ivory objects more-or-less contemporary with the literary references during excavations of the Assyrian palaces at Nimrud in the mid-nineteenth century thus engendered great excitement. The pieces were not only beautiful in themselves; they also brought the ancient traditions to life.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1976

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Footnotes

1

I Kings22:39; Amos6:4; and Ezekiel27:6.

References

2 I Kings 10:8Google Scholar.

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5 Cf. accounts in Luckenbill, D. D., Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia (Chicago, 1926, 1927; henceforth: ARAB), Vol. I, §§ 459, 475, 476, 479 (Aššurnaṣirpal II)Google Scholar; §§ 585, 593, 625 (Shalmaneser III), etc.

6 Hasanlu: A few fragments published by Muscarella, O. W., “Hasanlu 1964,” BMMA 25 (1966), 121—36Google Scholar; the entire corpus is currently being prepared for publication by the same author. I am grateful to him and to Robert H. Dyson, Jr., Director of the Hasanlu Project, for permitting me access to the unpublished material.

Khorsabad: Loud, G. and Altman, G. B., Khorsabad II, The Citadel and the Town (Oriental Institute Publications XXXVIII; Chicago, 1938), Pls. 51–6Google Scholar.

Tell Halaf: Hrouda, B., Tell Halaf IV: Die Kleinfunde aus historischer Zeit (Berlin, 1962), Pls. 9:46–58Google Scholar; 10:59, 63, 64; 11:71; 12:78, 80, 81.

Arslan Tash: Thureau-Dangin, F.et al., Arslan Task (Paris, 1931), Pls. XIX–XLVIGoogle Scholar.

Zincirli: von Luschan, F., Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli V (Berlin, 1943; henceforth AiS), Pls. 60:as–bb; 63; 64a, c; 65; 66; and drawings, 67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Tell Tainat: unpublished fragments in the collection of the Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago. I am grateful to Alfred Hoerth, who is scheduled to publish the material, for permission to make reference to them here.

Hama: Ingholt, H., Rapport préliminaire sur sept campagnes de fouilles à Hama, 1932–1938 (Copenhagen, 1940), Pl. XXXIVGoogle Scholar.

Samaria: J. W., and Crowfoot, G. M., Samaria-Sebaste II: Early Ivories from Samaria (London, 1938)Google Scholar.

7 Major pieces were published in the general work, Mallowan, M. E. L., Nimrud and its Remains (2 vols., New York, 1966; henceforth, N&R), passimGoogle Scholar. In addition, the following complete catalogues have appeared in the schedule of full publication of the ivories: Orchard, J. J., Equestrian Bridle Harness Ornaments (Ivories from Nimrud 1949–1963, Fasc. I, Part 2; Aberdeen, 1967)Google Scholar; Mallowan, M. E. L. and Davies, L. G., Ivories in Assyrian Style (Ivories from Nimrud 1949–1963, Fasc. II; Aberdeen, 1970)Google Scholar; Mallowan, M. E. L. and Herrmann, G., Furniture from SW7, Fort Shalmaneser (Ivories from Nimrud 1949–1963, Fasc. III; Aberdeen, 1974; henceforth, SW7)Google Scholar.

8 Barnett, R. D., Catalogue of the Nimrud Ivories in the British Museum (London, 1957; henceforth, CNI)Google Scholar.

9 Poulsen, F., Der Orient und die frühgriechische Kunst (Leipzig, 1912), 3853Google Scholar.

10 Barnett, R. D., “The Nimrud Ivories and the Art of the Phoenicians,” Iraq 2 (1935), 185–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Phoenician and Syrian Ivory Carving,” PEQ, 1939, 419Google Scholar.

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12 Cf. for example, Orthmann, W., Untersuchungen zur späthetitischen Kunst (Bonn, 1971; henceforth, USK), Pls. 15, 28 and 57Google Scholar; and von Luschan, AiS V, Pls. 46k and 47d. The Tell Tainat head = Oriental Institute Field Registration Number T.2660; I am grateful to W. Orthmann, who will publish the stone sculpture from the ‘Amuq excavations, for permission to refer to the piece here.

13 Garstang, J., Land of the Hittiles (London, 1910), Pl. LXXXIV, 320Google Scholar.

14 Barnett, , CNI, 62Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., 43.

16 Ibid., 155–61.

17 Cf. ibid., S. 13–18 and S.23; and Mallowan, , N&R II, Figs. 499 and 525Google Scholar.

18 Barnett, , CNI, 63110, compared with 111–122Google Scholar.

19 Cf., e.g. Mallowan and Herrmann, SW7.

20 Ibid., nos. 1, 2, 8, 9, 19, 21, 22, 46, 57, 63, 64.

21 Mallowan, , N&R II, Fig. 481Google Scholar; Orchard, Equestrian Bridle Harness Ornaments, nos. 137, 147; Barnett, CNI, S.146.

22 Cf. on this, Frankfort, H., Cylinder Seals (London, 1939)) 208–9Google Scholar.

23 An example of the Egyptian winged disc was in fact found at Nimrud, carved on an ivory scarab inscribed with the name of 26th Dynasty pharaoh, Taharka, a contemporary of Esarhaddon of Assyria (cf. Mallowan, , N&R II, Fig. 583 (photo reversed))Google Scholar.

24 Akurgal, E., Art of the Hittites (New York, 1962), Pl. XXIX and Fig. 78Google Scholar; Bossert, H., Altanatolien (Berlin, 1942), nos. 705–7Google Scholar.

25 Cf. Pritchard, J. B., ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (2nd edition; Princeton, New Jersey, 1955) 203Google Scholar.

26 The winged disc as it appears in Assyrian glyptic has its own basic characteristics, and thus constitutes a third group, quite distinct from both the Phoenician and the Syrian discs described here (cf. Porada, E., Corpus of Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections I: The Collection of the Pierpoint Morgan Library (Washington, D.C., 1948), 640, 648, etcGoogle Scholar.

27 Bey, O. Hamdy and Reinach, T., Une necropole royale á Sidon (Paris, 1892), Fig. 19Google Scholar; Harden, D. B., The Phoenicians (London, 1962), Pl. 91Google Scholar; Kantor, H.J., “The Ivories,” in McEwan, D.et al., Soundings at Tell Fakhariyeh (Oriental Institute Publications LXXIX; Chicago, 1956), Pl. 66BGoogle Scholar.

28 Woolley, C. L. and Lawrence, T. E., Carchemish II (London, 1921), Pl. A. 16:1Google Scholar.

29 Woolley, C. L. and Barnett, R. D., Carchemish III (London, 1952), Pl. B.36cGoogle Scholar.

30 Til Barsib: Orthmann, USK, Pl. 53 a; Bireçik: ibid., Pl. 5c. Cf. also, discussion in Ussishkin, D., “On the dating of some groups of reliefs from Carchemish and Til Barsib,” An. St. 17 (1967), 181192CrossRefGoogle Scholar; as well as in Orthmann, , USK, 133–48Google Scholar.

31 Orthmann, USK, Pl. 66d.

32 Ibid., Pl. 51c.

33 Mallowan and Herrmann, SW7, nos. 1, 4, 22, 38, 50, etc.

34 Parrot, A., Sumer (New York, 1959), Fig. 346Google Scholar.

35 Woolley, and Barnett, , Carchemish III, Pl. B.49aGoogle Scholar (= Orthmann, USK, Pl. 35d).

36 Mallowan, , N&R II, Fig. 481 (= our Plate I a)Google Scholar, as well as Figs. 428, 467, 482, 526, 627, to cite but a few.

37 Mallowan and Herrmann, SW7, nos. 2, 3, 21, 22, 46 and 66, as compared with nos. 1 and 65.

38 Mallowan, N&R II, Figs. 504 and 465, resp. I would like to express here my gratitude to Professor Edith Porada, whose initial observations on the Phoenician sphinx provided the stimulus to make this comparison.

39 Cf. Orthmann, USK, Pls. 64b and 64d (Zincirli); Pl. 50b (Sakçe Gözü).

40 al-Ush, M. Abu-al-Farajet al., Catalogue du Musée National de Damas, (Damascus, 1969), Fig. 15Google Scholar.

41 Bossen, H., Altsyrien (Tübingen, 1951), no. 501Google Scholar.

42 “Conceptual” art suggests that what is in the mind of the artist takes precedent over visual reality (cf. Gombrich, E., Art and Illusion (New York, 1960), Ch. I)Google Scholar. While conceptual principles generally hold true for the art of the ancient Near East as a whole (e.g., the sphinx itself is a “conceptual” creature), they do so to varying degrees, depending upon the specific region or chronological period, as, for example, Akurgal, E. has demonstrated in the development of Neo-Assyrian relief carving (The Art of Greece: Its Origins (New York, 1968), Ch. I)Google Scholar.

43 For example, Barnett, CNI, A.4, C.60, C.62; Mallowan, , N&R I, Fig. 67Google Scholar, and N&R II, Figs. 506 and 523; Crowfoot, and Crowfoot, , Samaria-Sebaste II, Pls. V:3 and VII:7Google Scholar; and Wilkinson, C. K., “The First Millennium B.C.,” BMMA 18 (1960), Fig. 23 (= our Plate IVa)Google Scholar.

44 The significance of the frontal view has been interestingly discussed by Barre, W. La, “Ethology and Ethnology: A Review article of O. M. Watson, Proxemic Behavior: A Cross-Cultural Study,” in Semiotica 4 (1972), 8396Google Scholar. In particular, he documents the frontal turn of the head in painting, film and television as a direct invasion of privacy which engages the viewer and does not permit “the dramatic illusion that one is watching a situation unseen” (pp. 90–1); that is, the viewer cannot remain uninvolved, whereas when figures are shown in profile, the spectator can remain out of direct contact. Therefore, the choice on the part of an artist or of a style for drawing heads in profile must be correlated with a desire for lack of direct contact.

45 Hayes, W. H., The Scepter of Egypt, Vol. I (New York, 1953), Fig. 150Google Scholar. In fact, Barnett has very aptly suggested (PEQ, 1939, 16Google Scholar) that the use of polychrome inlay in Phoenician ivories must be a further reflection of ties with Egypt, specifically indebted to the techniques used in inlaid jewellery, as the effect of the finished pieces must have been very much the same in the two media, (cf., for example, our Pl. IVb and c.)

46 Montet, P., Byblos et l'Egypte (Paris, 1929), Pl. XCIVGoogle Scholar.

47 I refer in particular to the trapezoidal piece of embossed gold foil from Tyre (Frankfort, H., Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient (Baltimore, 1958), Fig. 69)Google Scholar, which was clearly made in the same workshop as a number of decorated gold foil pieces from the tomb of Tutankhamon at Thebes, as well as to the letters of the kings of Tyre and Byblos found at Amarna which make these connections explicit (cf. Mercer, S. A. B., ed., The Tell el-Amarna Tablets (Toronto, 1939), letters 146–155, 68–92 and 103–38)Google Scholar.

48 Montet, Byblos, Pl. XCV (= our Plate Vc).

49 Cf. Egyptian examples of the New Kingdom: Hayes, W. C., The Scepter of Egypt, Vol. II (New York, 1959), Fig. 74Google Scholar.

50 This raises the question of the possibility of establishing a relative chronology for Phoenician art as it becomes more spatially balanced, since we really have so few excavated pieces upon which to base a firm sequence. This is, of course, beyond the scope of the present study, but it might be possible to establish, for example, that the more egyptianizing pieces, like metal bowls from the Etruscan tombs, are indeed later than some of the Phoenician bowls from Nimrud, which show more crowded figures and occasional motifs similar to North Syrian work.

51 Barnett, , Iraq 2, 190191Google Scholar; Kantor, H. J., “Syro-Palestinian Ivories,” JNES 15 (1956), 173–4Google Scholar.

52 Barnett, , PEQ, 1939, Pl. VIII:1Google Scholar and Barnett, CNI S.1.

53 Mallowan, , N&R II, Figs. 455, 485, 558 and 559Google Scholar.

54 Ibid., Fig. 443.

55 For example, alabaster vases found at Ras Shamra (Schaeffer, C. F. A., Ugaritica III (Paris, 1956), 164226 and Figs. 118–204Google Scholar), and Egyptian elements on otherwise Syrian-style cylinder seals from Alalakh (Woolley, C. L., Alalakh (Oxford, 1955), Pls. LX:12A, LXIII:64 and LXVI:135)Google Scholar. In any event, it had been on the basis of such details on the Loftus ivories that W. Ll. Brown had pointed out in his review of Barnett, CNI (in PEQ, 1958, 65–9Google Scholar), that it is an oversimplification to state that there is no Egyptian influence in the Syrian group; it is rather a question of degree in relation to the Phoenician group.

56 Barnett, , PEQ, 1939, Pl. VII:2Google Scholar.

57 Bibliographical references to each entry on the distribution maps have been included as a separate list (cf. p. 13).

58 Although for purposes of space the present maps do not extend further west than Greece, two ivory carvings found in Etruscan tombs appear to be of Syrian type: one from Praeneste (Brown, W. Ll., The Etruscan Lion (Oxford, 1960), Pl. IGoogle Scholar), the other from Cervetri (ibid., Pl. XIII:b). Dr. P. R. S. Moorey has also been kind enough to inform me of the existence of a small (4 cm high) head in “Syrian” style found at Kish during the 1926–7 season (= excavation no. X.615 from Trench A.3 on Tell Ingharra, currently in Baghdad, IM 4374). I have not yet had an opportunity to study the piece, however Dr. Moorey notes that its archaeological context is one of debris, although “perfectly in accord with the usual datings” (personal communication).

59 Binford, L. R., “Archaeology as Anthropology,” Am. Ant. 28 (1962), 224Google Scholar.

60 In order to distinguish local adaptations from imported goods, it is necessary first to determine the geographical limit of the primary area, including regional sub-divisions, and then to demonstrate that the group has indeed been diffused beyond its original cultural region. It should then be possible to describe those modifications and transformations which are introduced by the adaptive culture. This is a process for which there are few guidelines (cf. Clarke, D., Analytical Archaeology, (London, 1968), 414Google Scholar), however such analysis is crucial to the recognition of special, regional adaptations such as the “local” style at Hasanlu (Muscarella, , BMMA 25, 121–36Google Scholar) or the “orientalizing” phase in Greece (Akurgal, Art of Greece, Ch. VI).

61 Luckenbill, , ARAB I, §§ 479, 578, 614, 769, 772Google Scholar; ARAB II, §§ 239, 590, 690.

62 Karageorghis, V., Salamis (New York, 1969), 23 and Pls. IV, V, VII, VIIIGoogle Scholar; Dupont-Sommer, A., “Les Phéniciens à Chypre,” Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus (Nicosia, 1974), 7594Google Scholar; for Palestine, apart from the references in I Kings and I Chronicles, the evidence is mainly that of pottery, for which, cf. Amiran, R., Ancient Pottery of the Holy Land, (Rutgers, 1970), 272–5Google Scholar. Phoenician-style ivories have also been found at Praeneste in Etruria (Brown, Etruscan Lion, Pl. XIV:b; and Curtis, C. D., “The Barberini Tomb”, MAAR 5 (1925), Pls. 9–11Google Scholar), at Tharros in Sardinia (unpublished; personal communication, W. Culican), at Carthage (Harden, The Phoenicians, Fig. 75; and Gauckler, P., Necropoles puniques de Carthage, I (Paris, 1915), Pls. CXLIII:1, 2, CL, CLI, ibid., vol. II, Fig. 419)Google Scholar, and in the Carmona region of southern Spain (Hispanic Society of America, Catalogue of Engraved Ivories (New York, 1928), Pls. I–XLVIII)Google Scholar. To date, no Syrian ivories have been found in the Far West, with which only the Phoenicians had historical ties (cf. below).

63 Cf. in this regard, Jantzen, U., Samos VIII: Ägyptische und orientalische Bronzen aus dem Heraion von Samos (Bonn, 1972)Google Scholar, and reviews by Muscarella, O. W., AJA 77 (1973), 236–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Herrmann, H.-V., Gnomon 46 (1975), 392402Google Scholar. Several of the pieces had been previously published by Kopeke, G., “Heraion von Samos: Die Kampagnen 1961/1965 in Sudtemenos,” Ath. Mitt. 83 (1968), 250314Google Scholar, with excellent discussion of foreign relations.

64 Barnett, , CNI, 46–9Google Scholar.

65 The tendency to ignore chronological differences in the distribution of artifacts is referred to in Adams, R. McC., “Anthropological Perspectives on Ancient Trade,” Current Anthropology 15 (1974), 240Google Scholar. New three-dimensional graphs have been devised to deal with three factors concurrently, for which cf. Clarke, , Analytical Archaeology, 430Google Scholar; however the present case includes too many variables to attempt such a diagram here.

66 Dyson, R. H. Jr., “Problems of Protohistoric Iran as seen from Hasanlu,” JNES 24 (1965), 202Google Scholar.

67 The Burnt Palace at Nimrud was apparently not destroyed until 614 B.C. with the sack of the city just prior to the fall of the Assyrian Empire (Mallowan, , N&R I, 204–5Google Scholar); however this would not preclude at all the ivories being considerably earlier and kept as heirlooms, which in fact seems to have been the case if one takes into account the virtual identity of some of the pieces with those from Hasanlu (esp. Barnett, CNI, S.13, as compared to Muscarella, , BMMA 25, Fig. 6Google Scholar). As far as the ivories from Tell Halaf are concerned, these fragments, too, are stylistically very close to the published Hasanlu pieces and those from the Burnt Palace. Hrouda argued that they must be ninth or even tenth century in date (Tell Halaf IV: Die Kleinfunde, 10 and 117), based upon their stylistic similarity to the Halaf reliefs and their discovery in a cremation burial jar below the Kapara building level, as well as the association of the jar in which the ivories were found with pottery of the mid-ninth century from Hama and the ‘Amuq. Now that there are not only similarly marked animal fragments but also a virtually identical small female head in the round wearing a high polos from Hasanlu (discovered in the 1974 season, = Has. 74N-225, 636, 502 and 311, unpublished), arguments for a ninth century date for the so-called “Brandgrab” ivories from Tell Halaf seems assured.

68 Although the dating of the shrine in which the Sarepta ivory has been found is not secure, it has been tentatively set at the eighth–seventh century B.C. on the basis of the objects found within (cf. Pritchard, J. B., Sarepta: A Preliminary Report on the Iron Age (Philadelphia, 1975), 40Google Scholar). As support for this, and quite consistent with the picture which we wish to establish here, Pritchard has noted that the best stylistic parallel for the Sarepta head comes from ivory carvings of Phoenician style found at Khorsabad (ibid., 26–8, with reference to Loud, and Altman, , Khorsabad II, Pl. 52 and Figs. 42 and 43Google Scholar).

69 Cf. Delitzsch, F., “Assurbanipal und die assyrische Kultur,” An Or 11 (1910), 5 f.Google Scholar, as cited in Hrouda, B., Die Kulturgeschichte des assyrischen Flachbildes (Bonn, 1965), 147Google Scholar.

70 Woolley, and Barnett, , Carchemish III, Pl. 71f. and pp. 167 and 211Google Scholar.

71 Cf. various references in Crowfoot, and Crowfoot, , Samaria-Sebaste II: Early Ivories, 24Google Scholar; Crowfoot, J. W., Kenyon, K. M. and Sukenik, E. L., Samaria-Sebaste I: The Buildings at Samaria (London, 1942), 110–11Google Scholar; and Crowfoot, J. W., Crowfoot, G. M. and Kenyon, K. M., Samaria-Sebaste III: The Objects from Samaria (London, 1957) 94–7Google Scholar. For a more complete discussion of the evidence, cf. the forthcoming review of Mallowan and Herrmann, SW7, in AJA 80 (1976)Google Scholar, by the present author.

72 Carpenter, R., “Phoenicians in the West,” AJA 62 (1958), 3553CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Forrer, E., “Karthago würde erst 673/663 vor Christ gegrundet,” in Kirsch, H., ed., Festschrift Franz Dornsieff (Leipzig, 1953), 8593Google Scholar; and more recently, Muhly, J. D., “Homer and the Phoenicians: The Relations between Greece and the Near East in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages,” Berytus 19 (1970), 1964Google Scholar.

73 Kübler, K., “Ausgrabungen im Kerameikos,” AA 55 (1940), Figs. 19–20Google Scholar. See especially the hair and dress of figures and the stylization of animals as compared with ivory pyxides of North Syrian style from Nimrud. The motif of holding the tail of an animal is also found on reliefs from Carchemish (Woolley, and Lawrence, , Carchemish II, Pl. B.10aGoogle Scholar) and on the bronze equestrian frontlet from Tell Tainat (Kantor, H. J., “A Bronze Plaque with Relief Design from Tell Tainat,” JNES 21 (1961), Pl. XIIGoogle Scholar). Kübler's dates for the associated pottery from the Kerameikos tomb are corroborated by the more recent excavation of a grave in the Athenian agora: cf. Smithson, E. L., “The Tomb of a Rich Athenian Lady,” Hesperia 37 (1968), 77111CrossRefGoogle Scholar, as compared to Kübler, K., Kerameikos V (Berlin, 1954), Pls. 28 a and 73 aGoogle Scholar.

74 Herrmann, H.-V., Die Kessel der orientalisierende Zeit (Olympische Forschungen, Bd. VI; Berlin, 1966), 87Google Scholar.

75 Karageorghis, Salamis, Figs.21, 24, 26; Poulsen, Der Orient, Figs. 14–15 (Praeneste), 17–19 (Cervetri), 20 (Salerno), and 123 (Vetulonia); Gjerstad, E., “Decorated Metal Bowls from Cyprus,” Op. Arch. 4 (1946), Pls. VIII and IXGoogle Scholar.

76 CNI, 166.

77 Oates, D., Studies in the Ancient History of North Iraq (London, 1968), 118Google Scholar.

78 Cf. Goetze, A., “The Struggle for the Domination of Syria (1400–1300 B.C.),” CAH fascicule 37 (1965), 3Google Scholar.

79 For a discussion of the Amanus as a geographical barrier and the resultant separateness of the Syrian coastal strip, cf. Seton-Williams, M. V., “Cilician Survey,” An. St. 4 (1954), 121 and 126Google Scholar. The date and role of the Al Mina colony has been studied by Boardman, J., “Tarsus, Al Mina and Greek Chronology,” JHS 85 (1965), 515CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and by du Plat-Taylor, J., “The Cypriot and Syrian Pottery from Al Mina,” Iraq 21 (1959), 6296CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the colony and other early Greek installations on the Syrian coast are also discussed by Riis, P. J., Sukas I: The North East Sanctuary and the First Settlement of the Greeks in Syria and Palestine (Copenhagen, 1970)Google Scholar.

80 Cf. above, note 73.

81 Luckenbill, , ARAB I, §§ 447 and 475–9 (Aššurnaṣirpal)Google Scholar; ibid., §§ 599–603, 608–11 and 655 (Shalmaneser).

82 Ibid., §§ 750–60.

83 Ibid., §§ 769; and Saggs, H. W. F., “The Nimrud Letters, 1952—Part II: Relations with the West,” Iraq 17 (1955), 144–54Google Scholar, for a discussion of proceedings during the reign of Tiglath-pileser III.

84 Luckenbill, , ARAB II, §§ 5, 8, 26, 29, 45Google Scholar.

85 Ibid., §§ 8, 41, 46, 56; as a practice of Aššurnaṣirpal II, cf. Wiseman, D. J., “A New Stela of Aššur-Naṣir-Pal II,” Iraq 14 (1952), 30, ll. 33–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It is implied in one of the letters from Nineveh (Waterman, L., Royal Correspondence of the Assyrian Empire (Ann Arbor, 19301936), § 317)Google Scholar that some individuals from Carchemish were being sent to Babylon as well. An interesting glimpse into the reality of these repopulations is to be found in yet another letter (Waterman, , Royal Correspondence, § 633Google Scholar), which makes reference to a “man of Samaria” in Gozan; he must have been a product of just this sort of rearrangement.

86 Woolley, and Barnett, , Carchemish III, 211Google Scholar.

87 Tacitus, , Agricola 30:5Google Scholar.

88 Issawi, C., “The Decline of Middle Eastern Trade,” in Richards, D. S., ed., Islam and the Trade of Asia (London, 1970), 246–50Google Scholar.

89 The value of craftsmen amongst captives is clearly indicated in an administrative text from Nimrud (Parker, B., “Administrative Tablets from the North-West Palace, Nimrud,” Iraq 23 (1961), 47CrossRefGoogle Scholar), and is discussed by Oppenheim, A. L., “Trade in the Ancient Near East,” V International Congress of Economic History (Leningrad, 10–14 August 1970), (Moscow, 1970), 11Google Scholar.

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92 Luckenbill, , ARAB II §§ 239, 527, 556, 779Google Scholar.

93 Cf. on this also, Revere, R., “No-Man's Coast: Ports of Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean,” in Polanyi, K., ed., Trade and Market in the Early Empires (Glencoe, Ill., 1957), 56Google Scholar.

94 Blanco, A. and Luzon, J. M., “Pre-Roman Silver Mines at Rio Tinto,” Antiquity 43 (1969), 124–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The identification of Phoenicia in terms of its maritime activities is clearly reflected in the inscription of Shalmaneser III on his bronze gates from Balawat, (ARAB I, §614)Google Scholar, where it is noted explicitly: “I received the tribute of the ships of the men of Tyre and Sidon,” (italics ours) in lieu of the usual formula, “tribute of the men or the king of GN.”

95 That sea trade entails greater commercial risks than overland trade has been discussed by Larsen, M. Trolle, The Old Assyrian City-State and its Colonies (Copenhagen, 1975), 45Google Scholar. In a similar case, Babylon is granted the privilege of unrestricted trade by Esarhaddon (cf. Oppenheim, A. L., Ancient Mesopotamia, (Chicago, 1964), 94)Google Scholar, and this must at least in part have been related to the fact that the extension of Babylon's trade network into the Persian gulf was beyond the means of Assyria to handle herself.

96 Borger, R., Die Inschriften Asarhaddons, Königs von Assyrien, (AfO, Beiheft 9; Graz, 1956), 107–9Google Scholar. In the treaty, a number of the settlement terms deal with handling situations pertaining to the Phoenician ships (e.g., ll. 15–16: if a Tyrian ship is stranded in Philistine or Assyrian-controlled territory, everything on the ship belongs to Esarhaddon—following which is a list, ll. 18–22, of the ports subject to Assyria).

97 Saggs, , Iraq 17, text no. ND 2715, ll. 25–7, p. 128Google Scholar: “… do not sell it (timber) to the Egyptians (or) to the Philistines,” with discussion, p. 150.

98 Oppenheim, A. L., “Essays on Overland Trade in the First Millennium B.C.,” JCS 21 (1967), 253Google Scholar.

99 Both Dunbabin, T. J. (The Greeks and Their Eastern Neighbours (London, 1957), 36–7)Google Scholar and Barnett, (“Oriental Influences on Archaic Greece,” in Weinberg, S., ed., The Aegean and the Near East: Studies Presented to Hetty Goldman (Locust Valley, New York, 1956), 235–6)Google Scholar have noted that the earliest oriental imports to Greece seem to be Syrian. Although J. N. Coldstream indicates that, “Oriental imports and local influence are rare until well into the eighth century B.C., even in Athens,” he cites the Kerameikos bowl as possibly implying wider contact in the ninth century than is presently known (Greek Geometric Pottery (London, 1968), 344)Google Scholar. To my knowledge, the question of whether one can trace specific North Syrian elements as preceding Phoenician in influence on Greek art has never been systematically investigated, although the study by Ahlberg, G. (“A Late Geometric Grave-Scene Influenced by North Syrian Art,” Op. Ath. 7 (1967), 171–86)Google Scholar suggests that the North Syrian banquet scene of two persons seated opposite each other at table can be traced to the Late Geometric Period, “before the main wave from the East set in during the orientalizing Period,” some 50 years later.

100 Larsen, M. Trolle, The Old Assyrian City-State, 93Google Scholar.

101 Strabo, , Geography iii.5.11Google Scholar.

102 For a discussion of the economics of competition, where the desire is to raise the capital accruing to one's own region relative to others, cf. Friedman, J., “Economy and Space,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 6 (1958), 255Google Scholar.