Ägäisches Design in orientalischen Palästen - Transmediterrane Wissensverbreitung im 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr.
Ägyptische und Vorderasiatische Altertumswissenschaften
Klassische, Provinzialrömische, Christliche und Islamische Archäologie
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
The project ‘Aegean Design’ aimed to investigate an innovation in the interior design of the Levant and the Nile delta of the second Millennium B.C.E., during which the paintings of several palaces were executed on wet lime plaster with a colour and motif repertoire known from the contemporary Aegean. This phenomenon raised several research question related to the forms of knowledge involved in their manufacture and their possible transmission across the Mediterranean, the possible technical and iconographical adoptions and the perception of this imagery in the local architecture and cultural context. These questions were pursued by different case studies, by the help of scientific analysis and in connection with theoretical approaches from sociology of knowledge and anthropology. In the course of the project, the current political situation unluckily hampered the access to certain sites in Syria, Turkey and Egypt. The more recent findings from Qatna, for instance, were due to the still continuing civil war in Syria completely inaccessible. Moreover, two study seasons in Tell el-Dabca had to be postponed due to the political upheavals in Egypt. Nonetheless, most of the case studies were successfully completed and in some cases alternative sources could be accessed thanks to older findings in Museum collections (e.g. Ashmoleon Museum). As it is the largest corpus of paintings, several case studies concentrated on the material from Tell el-Dabca. Within the frame of his PhD-project, Johannes Becker studied the large-scale landscape paintings (including a griffin), whose features show strong ties with the Aegean image repertory. Extremely interesting are his technical results, which brought to light the identification of the use of ‘giornate’ during the painting process, showing the importance of the painting’s execution on wet plaster and the carbonation of lime to fix the pigments. Directly related to this material is a collective study focused on a scene of a bull attacked by a lion from ‘Palace F’. Here, the preliminary drawings reveal important insights into the conceptual process of the craftsperson’s work flow, which can be compared to former studies of Aegean paintings by Mark Cameron. The study of the architectural simulations from ‘Palace G’ (PhD-project, Johannes Jungfleisch) enabled the identification of various topics which range from different veined stone dadoes via ashlar masonry to wooden frameworks and beam end representations. Regarding adaptions, it is of great importance that despite the fact that the single motifs find close parallels in Aegean wall paintings, their combinations to larger mural segments appear to be rather uncommon. The latter possibly speaks for a specific adaption process in the local Egyptian architecture, where the architectural simulations with their depictions of lavish building materials might have formed an appropriate palatial subject in the local cultural setting. The comparative study of the stucco-reliefs from Tell el-Dabca and Crete also showed that the craftspersons of both places shared an intimate technical knowledge, involving to a large extent embodied processes. This either speaks for an intensive and long-lasting interaction between the craftspersons (and thus a common community of practice in both regions) or similarities due to an already longer lasting common tradition. In this regard it is highly interesting that this is nonetheless not a closed circle. The scientific talc analysis shows that the manner of using the talc in the painting process follows an Aegean tradition, but its provenance can be located in the Eastern Desert in Egypt. Hence, the supply with these raw materials must have been not only a cross-craft cooperation, but possibly also a cooperation between craftspeople trained in the tradition of different parts of the Mediterranean. More difficult to evaluate is the case of the so-called ‘labyrinth floor’. Its repetitive pattern has similarities to Aegean motifs, but cannot be exactly compared with them. In contrast, it is of special interest that the exact pattern is also characteristic for braiding in two directions, which has been often preserved as mat impressions in Egyptian excavations and might hint to another hybrid pattern in the furnishing of the palace. Its extensive technical study revealed many aspects of its complex manufacture, but due to the lack of similar detailed studies in the Aegean these processes cannot be correlated. The re-studies of the material in Alalakh and Hattusha clearly showed that the ambiguity of this material permits many different interpretations, largely depending on the author’s education, aim and the then current zeitgeist, oscillating between Orientalism and the search of an European identity. This has often led to a neglect of other influences and the local aspects of the paintings, as for instance the obvious inner Syrian tradition of tripartite bands or the display of typical local architecture. Similarly, the less known painted plaster fragments from Hattusha possess an interesting intermediate position between the different painting techniques of the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean and may also be easily connected to the local iconography of their Hittite context. Altogether, the project has surely widened the perspective to the different local implementation of this innovation in the Eastern Mediterranean. This alone clearly speaks against the former narrative of a rather homogeneous wave of Aegean artists who visited the different courts and furnished their interior. It further incorporated the important impact of the local architecture, its cultural contexts and the specific choices of the regional populations. Moreover, the technical differences in several details and the use of local resources especially in the Levant and Anatolia, but to a certain degree also in Egypt, show the variability in the knowledge transfer across the Mediterranean and also temporally through time.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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Beyond the East-West Dichotomy in Syrian and Levantine Wall Paintings, in: B. Brown – M. Feldman (eds.), Critical Approaches to Near Eastern Art (Berlin 2013) 55–78
von Rüden, Constance
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Incorporating the Other. A Transcultural Perspective on Some Wall Painting Fragments from Hattusha, in: A. Schachner (ed.), Innovation versus Beharrung. Was macht den Unterschied des hethitischen Reichs im Anatolien des 2. Jahrtausends v. Chr.? Internationaler Workshop zu Ehren von Jürgen Seeher, Istanbul 23.–24. Mai 2014, Byzas 23 (Istanbul 2017) 61–83
C. von Rüden – J. Jungfleisch
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The Large-Scale Landscape Paintings of Tell el-Dabca/Egypt, in: R. Stucky – O. Kaelin – H.- P. Mathys (eds.), Proceedings of the 9th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Basel, June 9th–13th 2014, University of Basel, Switzerland Vol. II (Wiesbaden 2016) 23–35
J. Becker
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When Aegean Wall Paintings Meet Egyptian Architecture. Simulations of architecture from ‹Palace G› at Tell el-Dabca/Egypt, in: R. Stucky – O. Kaelin – H.-P. Mathys (eds.), Proceedings of the 9th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Basel, June 9 th–13th 2014, University of Basel, Switzerland Vol. II (Wiesbaden 2016) 37–50
J. Jungfleisch
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Producing Aegeaness. An Innovation and Its Impact in Middle and Late Bronze Age Syria/Northern Levant, in: S. Burmeister – R. Bernbeck (eds.), The Interplay of People and Technologies. Archaeological Case Studies on Innovations (Berlin 2017) 225–249
C. von Rüden
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Tracing Technoscapes. The Production of Bronze Age wall Paintings in the Eastern Mediterranean (Leiden 2018). 297 S.
J. Becker – J. Jungfleisch – C. von Rüden (eds.)
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Reconsidering the Alalakh Frescoes Within Their Levantine Context, in: A. Yener – M. Horowitz – G. Dardemiz (eds.), Alalakh and its Neighbours: Proceedings of the 15th Anniversary Symposium at the New Hatay Archaeology Museum, 10-12 June 2015, Ancient Nea
VON RÜDEN, Constance
