This volume contains the proceedings of an international symposium held at the University of Southern Denmark in October 2012 on the topic of ‘Space, Place and Identity in Northern Anatolia’. The theme of identity in particular has dominated the field of ancient history and archaeology over the past decade, and this study is one in a plethora of publications to appear. It offers a regional perspective by tracing the development of distinctive identities of cities and regions in northern Anatolia between the Hellenistic and Mid-Byzantine periods, and how these found expression in material and immaterial culture (coinage, architecture, cults and myths).
Until recently, northern Anatolia was somewhat neglected compared with the well-studied regions of the west and south coast. Thanks to the Black Sea Studies published by the homonymous Danish centre, and recent work in Paphlagonia (R. Matthews and C. Gatz, At Empire's Edge [2012]), and at Pontic cities (e.g. D. Kassab Tezgör, Sinope [2011]) this gap is gradually being closed. It is one of the merits of the present volume to contribute to this catch-up.
In his introduction the editor presents a group of shared themes that are addressed in the different contributions, in order to provide some level of synthesis, instead of an overarching conclusion. Although he underlines that this publication represents a conference volume and not a handbook, a presentation of the key concepts of space, place and identity is lacking, especially as none of the contributions discusses them in any detail.
In the first contribution on the cultural identity of the Mithradatid kingdom of Pontus, situated on the interface between the macro-regions of Persia and Greece, B. McGing rightly stresses the different aspects of Pontic identity: Anatolian, Persian, Greek. Less convincing is his use of the ‘multiple identity’ of the Pontic kings, Mithradates VI in particular, as a proxy for the multiple identities of the region. Even if he was the champion of the Greeks, Mithradates was still very much Persian, as McGing demonstrates, leaving the Anatolian strand of identity represented by the majority of the population largely out of scope.
The next contribution by E. Olshausen is essentially a non-committal geographical description of the region on the basis of Strabo.
‘Ponticness’ is the central concept of the article by M. Vitale. Although they were distributed over different Roman provinces, many cities in the Black Sea area claimed a collective belonging, revealing a sense of Pontic consciousness. While Vitale convincingly demonstrates that this ‘Ponticness’ was not a matter of administrative belonging, as the many communities claiming to be Ponticus were not administratively connected, he does not elaborate on how it can be understood.
B.-N. investigates the identity of the city of Neapolis created by Pompey at the site of Phazemon as a Paphlagonian or Pontic community. Traditionally – following Cumont – Phazemonitis is seen as part of Paphlagonia, extending east of the Halys. B.-N. challenges this on the basis of the testimony of Strabo, who identified the Halys as a politico-administrative border. The presentation of other (numismatic, epigraphic) evidence pertaining to the identity of the population of Neapolis could have made a stronger case.
J. Majbom Madsen asks how the newly founded Pontic cities were perceived by contemporary commentators like Strabo: as Greek or Roman? According to Majbom Madsen, Strabo paid little attention to their Greek political and cultural institutions because he saw identity as inbred instead of acquired, which is why he was explicit about Pompey's role as the founder, and thus about the cities’ Roman origin. Although the ancient author is a privileged witness there is an over reliance on this single source to determine the identity of these communities. The very fact that cities assumed all the Greek traits indicates that these were considered fundamental for their communal identity.
In her stimulating paper, L. Revell places civic identity in a wider imperial context. Building on the situation in the western part of the Roman Empire, she relates the multi-layered meanings embedded in the urban landscape to the changing nature of civic identities which were continuously being reformulated and reasserted. It was through the repeated use of urban buildings and the adherence to the urban statutes that the civic community not only reproduced local society but also large-scale processes like Roman imperialism on a local level.
Like Revell, A. Zuiderhoek uses the monumental urban fabric as a point of departure. Throughout his paper, Zuiderhoek underlines the perceived paradox between the oligarchic elite and the object of their munificence, what he calls the collectivist public architecture of the Greek city. But just as he rightly characterises the traditional oligarchic interpretation of post-classical polis politics as too simplistic, to reduce the public nature of these buildings to collectivist ideology also seems somewhat naive. What may originally have been buildings with a collectivist message had acquired new layers of meaning by the Roman Imperial period.
V. Sauer does not really discuss the process of transforming space into place, as claimed, but rather illustrates it on the basis of Pontic coin types, listing explicit and implicit references to space. The latter references are sometimes very speculative, as Sauer admits.
In her detailed overview of Pontic civic coinage, J. Dalaison demonstrates how coins, by virtue of their titles and imagery, provide a good indicator of local identity within the context of the Roman empire.
N. Zwingmann soundly approaches a less tangible element in the discussion of place and identity, namely myth. She demonstrates how the Phrygian city of Kelainai-Apameia Kibotos was influenced by the culture of its various population groups, not only appropriating pagan myth (the duel between Apollo and Marsyas) but also Judeo-Christian narrative (the landing place of Noah's ark) as part of its civic identity. The myths were depicted on civic coinage and the key events situated at places in its territory. Myth thus became embedded in the physical landscape and gave it a commemorative value. The case study illustrates how the concept of identity was multi-layered, the result of the integration of distinct but compatible cultural traditions which contributed to the identity formation of different groups of people.
C. Williamson applies the successful methods used in her research of Carian sanctuaries on the mountain shrine of Zeus Stratios at Yassıçal near Amaseia. The ‘catchment area’ of the sanctuary determined by visibility analysis corresponds well with the territory of Amaseia, corroborating epigraphic and numismatic evidence for the site as a unifying and identity forming element for an extensive landscape of scattered communities.
L. Summerer also combines cult and landscape in her overview of sanctuaries in northern Anatolia, but her efforts are limited to a general description. The attempts at interpretation are few but the reading of Attic vases beside local pottery in a votive deposit near the coastal city of Amisus as an indication for multi-ethnic groups among the votaries, is very hypothetical to say the least. While such a presence is certainly not impossible, simple trade connections would already go far to explain the occurrence of imported pottery at the site.
The evidence presented in the final contribution by D.B. Erciyas on the Mid-Byzantine citadel of Komana Pontike indicates that the traditional view of Mid-Byzantine abandonment of low-lying settlements in favour of more easily defendable hill-side locations can no longer be maintained. Instead, there was a continuing occupation of the low-lying site into the eleventh century, with a change of function and identity rather than outright abandonment.
The book is well edited, the errors are few and the indexes rich, but due to its focus on traditional sources of historical research (literary sources, inscriptions and coins) to approach the key concepts of space, place and identity, it only partly succeeds in providing ‘a deeper understanding of a landscape, of the ways in which time and space intermesh in human life, defining places and creating identities’.
