Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age

by Joan Aruz, Yelena Rakic, Sarah Graff

A sweeping survey of objects from one of the richest artistic periods in history

This comprehensive book explores the spectacular art of the first millennium B.C. from the Near East to Western Europe. This was the world of Odysseus, in which trade proliferated with Phoenician merchants; of King Midas, whose tomb was adorned with treasures; and of the Bible, whose stories are illuminated by recent artistic and archeological discoveries. It was also a time of rich cultural exchange across the Mediterranean and Near East as diverse populations interacted through trade, travel, and migration. 

Assyria to Iberia showcases masterpieces that reflect the cultural encounters of this era. Stunning details convey the beauty and significance of more than 300 objects drawn from collections around the globe. These objects include carved reliefs from the majestic palaces of ancient Assyria, Phoenician fine bronze metalwork and carved ivories, and luxurious jewelry. Texts by over 80 international scholars provide a compelling picture of this fascinating period, one that is essential to understanding the origins of Western culture and art.

Genres: History, Ancient, Ancient History, Art

448 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2014

About the author

Joan Aruz is curator emerita, Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Reviews

[Sense of History]

The title of this book already suggests it: it covers a very large area (from present-day Iraq to Spain), and also the time period, from about 1200 to about 500 BCE, is not small. As is so often the case, this period is labeled as a transitional period (just notice how many historical studies label their studied period in that sense, and by doing that giving it more weight, whilst history itself is essentially transitional). And that is certainly partly true, if only because we have much less source material compared to the previous and subsequent periods, indicating that this period is different from the preceding and the following (but this, of course, could just be a case of myopia).

In the introduction, the compilers suggest that this period saw the transition from centralized states (pharaonic Egypt, the Mesopotamian empires, the Hittites, etc.) to smaller, decentralized units. That really is an oversimplification: the neo-Assyrian and neo-Babylonian empires were not particularly smaller nor decentralized. And, agreed, after 800 BCE you have a motley collection of Neo-Hittite/Aramaic, Anatolian, Hebrew, Phoenician and Greek states and city-states, but even in the 2nd millennium BCE you already had a fair number of those. If there is one major novelty then it is the equally motley collection of colonies (mainly of Phoenician and Greek origin), spread over the very large area from the Western Mediterranean to the Black Sea. And – related to that – there was a much greater interaction and interconnection, than before, enhancing complexity. The compilers rightly write: “The transmission of images, ideas, and technologies across millennia, even in the wake of societal collapse, is testimony to the resilience of cultural processes. Their dissemination through cross-cultural encounters in lands extending from Assyria to the farthest reaches of the Mediterranean Sea during the Iron Age — an era of conquest, remarkable commercial expansion, migration, and colonization — testifies to an unprecedented complexity of interaction in societies that developed beyond the shores and on the islands of this inland sea. Along with traveling or immigrant specialists and imported elite objects, a profusion of works integrated Near Eastern elements into local traditions.”

This book explores many facets of this interconnectivity, and above all visually illustrates them aptly (magnificent what the publishers of the MET here have achieved once again). In this context, I personally found the chapters on what is called the “Orientalizing Style” very interesting. This refers to the phenomenon that, especially in the Aegean area (Cyprus and the early Greek city-states) in the 8th and 7th centuries, many cultural elements emerged that were clearly borrowed from the Near East: sculptures and pottery in Egyptian or Neo-Assyrian style, for example, with griffins and sphinxes. It immediately made me think of the craze for Chinoiseries in Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. This went so far that in China (more specifically in Canton) there were huge factories that produced porcelain objects with iconographic representations that were thought to be typically Chinese (but that was only partly true). And the best of it all: apparently this was already happening on a more modest scale in antiquity, particularly in Egyptian and Levantine workshops that produced for the “Greek market”. Moral: you can’t imagine anything in history that didn’t really happen.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-developed collection of articles by specialists on the wider Mediterranean area and the Near East, in the period between 1200 and 500 BCE. This volume contains both synthetic overviews and detailed articles, very solid and impressively illustrated. Every now and then some outdated views are discussed, and there is not such a good editorial streamlining, but this book can really be called a treasure trove, at least for a period in which we are mostly groping in the dark due to a lack of sources. Only that title again, "the dawn", that term bathes in a Spenglerian, cyclical view of history that suggests that what follows is a peak of humanity, and we really need to get rid of this kind of looking at the past. You can find a more extensive discussion in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....