The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean

by Carolina Lopez-Ruiz

  Conclusions

  The reemergence of the ancestral city-states on the Phoenician coast during the political vacuum in the early first millennium bce (Arwad, Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre, to name but the principal ones) ushered in a rapid reestablishment of Phoenician terrestrial and overseas trade routes in the Levant and the Mediterranean alike (Cyprus, Crete, Sardinia, Andalusia…). As was the case in Tanis and Memphis, growing communities consisting of Phoenician ship owners, traders, administrators, artisans, and their relatives were active in an ever-expanding network of similar ports of trade, importing and exporting a wide array of finished products to the hinterland and far beyond. Whether in Cyprus (Kition) or in the west (Carthage, Sardinia, Cádiz), several of such old or new foundations prefiguring Greek emporia rather than “colonies” grew into the catalysts of the Phoenician overseas expansion, later to become the backbone of the Punic world. In due course, some Levantine deities occasionally evolved into local assimilations (dual divinities such as Shadrafa, Sardus Pater, and their likes). Style idioms and ancestral technologies current in the artistic output of the Phoenician coast and whether or not inspired by that of their trade partners in Syria, Cyprus, and Egypt, considerably contributed to the Orientalization process discussed elsewhere in this volume. Until the curtailing of the Sidonian and Tyrian overseas trade in the early seventh century bce, the prestige of luxurious Phoenician artifacts was bolstered by the distribution of metal incense stands and bowls with embossed and engraved narrative friezes frequently in an Egyptianizing fashion current also in the production of beautifully carved and inlaid ivories, as well as on the bases of seals, often in semiprecious stones. Individual motifs recur in the decoration of jewelry, bronze, and glass (paste) oinochoai and in refined trinkets (figurines, amulets). The use of molds, stamps, punches, and impressions thereof facilitated the reproduction of identical motifs and designs on different sorts of supports, whether in metal or softer materials. This replicating capacity explains why at the time of the spread of the alphabetic writing system in the Levant and all over the Mediterranean realm, Phoenician art stands out as a multimedial expression of cultural communication and interaction. Other artistic currents are especially revealing of the ease with which Phoenician artists readily absorbed foreign elements into their own productions, a reason why their art is often labeled “eclectic.” The analysis of ivory carving, for one, exposes how far-reaching the impact of contemporary Egypt was, penetrating to the very heart of autochthonous religious concepts through motifs referring to cosmological and creation myths rooted in Egyptian popular beliefs. Besides stelae with curved upper ends attested since the Late Bronze Age and ultimately drawing on Egyptian prototypes, specific Pharaonic architectural types of shrines of the naiskos type were copied in the design of monumental source shrines (Amrit, Byblos, Sidon, Nora). Throughout the first millennium bce, stone stelae and statues feature local deities and rulers clad in Egyptian attire as recurring in the iconography of seals and ivories. Altars inspired by Egyptian Djed pillars and pylon shaped stands with cavetto moldings abound in Phoenicia, Cyprus, and the Punic west, where the concept of the typical sphinx thrones (kerub) was equally known. From the later eighth century bce onward, the repertoires of stone sculpture and terracotta figurines are enriched with artistic impulses from Cyprus; these are intermingled with sculptures and coffins ascribed to Ionian hands starting two centuries later, when Sidon plays a predominant rule. Both Egyptianizing and local traditions survive the era of the Persian dominion, however, as witnessed by the rich finds of sculptures from Tyre’s periphery, among other areas. Indeed, these are salient even in later, Hellenistic age monuments, as documented by religious and funerary reliefs. They all stand as proof of a millenary openness to external influences, which Phoenician art largely displayed in contrast to neighboring cultures, and this penetrated well into the deepest strata of religion, the most conservative realm of ancient Near Eastern artistic self-definition.

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  Chapter 24

  Levantine Art in the “Orientalizing” Period

  Marian H. Feldman

  The concept of an “Orientalizing” period, first formulated during the nineteenth century, has become fully entrenched in our understanding of the development of “Western” arts (primarily Greek, but also Etruscan and Iberian) over the course of the first millennium bce (see, e.g., Neer 2012: 94). The Phoenicians, moreover, played a dominant role as prime agents of this Orientalizing process. Yet while the notion of an Orientalizing “period” or “phenomenon” or even “revolution” continues to prove fertile, persistent logical issues complicate and challenge this orthodox narrative. On a most basic level, the designation “Orientalizing” and its association with the Phoenicians encapsulate complex assumptions and biases that condition and constrain the possibilities for understanding the development of the arts of the ancient Mediterranean, as well as the cultural interactions that underlie t
hese developments. This chapter briefly surveys Orientalizing as an intellectual and historiographic concept, including recent critiques, and reconsiders the role of purportedly Phoenician arts within the existing narratives. It hews closely to the accepted Orientalizing period chronologically, focusing on the eighth and seventh centuries bce, only occasionally extending into the better documented periods of the sixth century onward, when the city of Carthage dominated the western Mediterranean.

  The Orientalizing Periods in Greece, Italy, and the Western Mediterranean

  While objects have long circulated around the Mediterranean, the eighth and seventh centuries bce present a unique conjunction of, first, a spike in the number of apparently Eastern objects found in Greece, Italy, and elsewhere in the western Mediterranean; and second, an explosion of local artistic and cultural developments in these same locations. The nonindigenous objects have most often been associated with the cultural regions of the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, the Levant, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia, typically bundled together under the rubric of the East, the Near East, or the Orient. Their appearance in the purportedly less developed cultural areas of Greece, Italy, and Iberia has been linked to new developments—both artistic and more broadly sociocultural—emerging in each of these areas. Indeed, the Near Eastern objects have been seen as prime catalysts for developments that appear to lead ultimately to “classical” phases of these Western cultures, and for this reason, the entire time period is often referred to as the “Orientalizing period.” Many discussions conflate specific objects/influences deemed to have Eastern connections with the entire time period, an aspect that contributes to the complications surrounding the question: What is Orientalizing? Often left unarticulated is the precise nature of the relationship between the presumed interaction with foreign people and goods, and the development of internal cultural forms and norms within any given area.