This volume covers the period between the Achaemenids and Hellenistic times in Cilicia, Cyprus and the Levant. As part of the Achaemenid empire, these areas acquired some common cultural traits. Conquest by Alexander and the Successors brought change that made this area part of the Hellenistic cultural koine, although the archaeological record shows that this change was not clear-cut. Divided into five parts (‘Regions and Settlements’, ‘Coins’, ‘Tombs’, ‘Architecture’ and ‘Paradeisoi’), the volume consists of sixteen essays, originally presented at a symposium held at Philipps-Universität Marburg in 2017. A foreword and introduction set up the questions to be answered and provide abstracts.
In the first chapter N. Shalom and O. Lipschits use archaeological data as well as biblical and historical sources concerning political and administrative developments to examine changes in settlements in Judaea and conclude that most regions display continuity. It is also clear that decisions by the central administration affected settlement patterns and determined the prosperity or otherwise of an area.
M. Grawehr employs archaeology and historical toponymy to show that the Middle Orontes region, an impoverished rural region under the Achaemenids, became an urbanised and wealthy region during Hellenistic times. The Seleucids brought colonists who formed an elite that imported new traditions and material culture and, in some cases, marginalised the original population and local tradition.
H.H. Curvers investigates changes and continuity in Umm el-Marra, in the Jabbul plain of northern Syria, and Berytos (Beirut). Over the third to second millenniums Umm el-Marra was a city, but gradually declined and was abandoned in the early Iron Age. During the Achaemenid period burials indicate that it was a centre of mortuary rituals. The use of the site resumed in Hellenistic times with slight changes in cultural tradition. In Berytos, a coastal and flourishing centre in the eastern Mediterranean, change is reflected mainly in material culture and in the layout of the city. The change is clearer and perhaps greater in Berytos than it was inland at Umm el-Marra.
In his study of the area of the Roman hippodrome in Berytos J. Wangen states that archaeological finds, stratigraphy and building phases reveal that there is at least partial continuity in the use of this area until the early Hellenistic period, followed by the decline and gradual abandonment of the area in the second century bce, when it became a necropolis.
At Kɪnɪk Höyük, in Cappadocia, A. Trameri and L. d'Alfonso show the type of change that occurred in both the residential and the sacred area of the city during the transition from the Achaemenid to the Hellenistic period. The residential area undergoes decline, probably triggered by socio-economic change, but the sacred area, with a long pre-Hellenistic tradition behind it and a prominent local role, functioned uninterrupted until the late first century bce. The sacred area displays this continuity because the sanctuary was important in local religious tradition, had a close relationship with the local elite and benefited from Cappadocian royal policies. Hellenisation here becomes clear after the second century bce.
E. Strothenke-Koch examines the sanctuary of Iuppiter Dolichenus at Doliche. In use from the Iron Age and dedicated to Tešup/Hadad, in the Hellenistic period the shrine displays new construction that replaced older buildings. In the mid-first century bce the kingdom of Commagene annexed the shrine, and during the Roman period the sanctuary was enlarged and dedicated to Iuppiter Dolichenus. Despite political change, material culture here demonstrates clear continuity.
J. Nurpetlian opens Part 2 with a study of coins from four Phoenician cities from Persian to Hellenistic times. Political developments brought changes in coin iconography and in the messages transmitted, as coins were a tool for promoting the royal image and ideology. There is a clear break in material culture between Persian and Hellenistic times and between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid periods, but not in the cultural identity of Phoenicians and in their urban relations.
A. Balakhvantsev examines the early-Hellenistic Andragoras tetradrachms from Bactria and, on the basis of their iconography, monograms and weights, detects similarities with and influence from fourth-century bce Cypriot coinage. Balakhvantsev suggests that Andragoras was the youngest son of Androkles, king of Cypriot Amathous, who took part in the siege of Tyre. He also suggests that Androkles succeeded Stasanor, a Cypriot from Soloi, as satrap of the eastern Satrapies. Balakhvantsev also argues that two portrait heads found in the early Hellenistic Oxus temple at Taht-i Sangin depict two Seleucid officials and employ a clay technique similar to that used in Cyprus. Thus, the Cypriot clay technique apparently continues to be used for depictions associated with royalty.
D. Regev, who opens Part 3, examines a tomb located at Zaʻaquqa, near ancient Idumean Marisa, the regional capital in the fourth century bce. After conquest by Alexander, mainly Greeks settled the area, thus giving rise to a local early Hellenistic mixture of Greek and local culture. The rock-cut tomb with loculi and its finds belongs to Greek settlers. Architecture, burial practices and other finds show that Greek inhabitants of Judaea adopted a mixture of Greek and eastern cultural elements.
L. Summerer and H. Kaba examine Cypriot tombs and grave finds from the fourth and third centuries bce. Hegemonic change and the arrival of foreign ethnic groups on Cyprus influenced burial practices. The burial practices display continuity during the Achaemenid period. In Hellenistic times the Alexandrian type hypogea was complemented with traditional Cypriot rock-cut tombs. The arrival of the Ptolemies brought social and economic change that influenced religious and burial practices, including changes in grave goods. The Cypriot elite adopted the burial wreath, this being connected with ‘Hellenic-oriented ideological and ritualistic core’. Thus, the political developments brought about gradual change in local sepulchral tradition and the adaptation of new foreign cultural forms and practices.
In Part 4 N. Kaye and N.K. Rauh examine defence fortifications on the coast of eastern Rough Cilicia. The five rather simple fortification walls lacking towers that protected the maritime frontier of Pirindu and its garrison during the Achaemenid period underwent change during the Seleucid period. The Teucrids of the temple-state of Olba, who ruled the area in collaboration with the Seleucids, erected new fortifications involving towers that employed polygonal masonry. Moreover, the early Hellenistic fortifications at Cilician Aphrodisias (Ovacik), which are connected both with Aphrodisias and with Seleukeia on the Kalykadnos, show how important fortifications were in frontier areas and as a projection of royal power, a message reinforced, in the view of the authors, by the use of polygonal masonry throughout eastern Rough Cilicia.
L. Fuduli, in his study of architectural orders from Nea Paphos, the Hellenistic capital of Cyprus, analyses architectural fragments found in the area known as the ‘Garrison's Camp’. Despite the problematic nature of the data, Fuduli reaches important conclusions. In pre-Hellenistic times the prevalent architectural order was Ionic, because of the relations of Cyprus with the East and ancient Attic tradition. After the arrival of the Ptolemies Doric, brought in from Alexandria and hitherto almost unknown on Cyprus, became the order employed in official architecture, such as public buildings and monumental tombs. Corinthian was less common. Moreover, the architectural fragments from the Garrison's Camp show that craftsmen from Egypt came to Cyprus to train local workers. Thus, Nea Paphos attracted Cypriot craftsmen who wished to be trained in the new architectural orders.
S. Karampekos deals with Hellenistic residential architecture in Mesopotamia and in particular with that of Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris, to arrive at a better understanding of domestic architecture in the Hellenistic world. Karampekos argues that a hybrid architectural form developed in the Middle East that combined traditional design prototypes, building techniques and the functionality of Neo-Babylonian residential architecture. Moreover, it was also influenced by Achaemenid architecture and Graeco-Macedonian domestic building and urban planning, which included porticoes with side rooms, colonnaded or open exedras with side rooms, Greek-style simas and antefixes, wall paintings and the organisation of houses in blocks.
B. Morstadt and S. Riedel open Part 5 with the story of Abdalonymus, mentioned by Diodorus among others. After Alexander has arrived in Sidon and the previous king been dethroned, Abdalonymus, a poor gardener of royal descent, becomes king of Sidon. Using this story as a point of departure, the authors examine the role of paradeisoi (‘gardens’) and gardening as an integral part of royal ideology and self-representation. They consider the role of the Achaemenid paradeisoi as revealed in literary sources. Royal gardens were both a part of palace architecture and a means for the king to demonstrate his power. The king was a gardener and through his domination of nature, for example, through irrigation systems, brought fertility to the land and prosperity to his kingdom. Although in the Greek world the concept of gardening as part of royal ideology was absent, the Seleucids and Ptolemies used existing gardens or created new ones adopting eastern practices.
Held suggests that the Achaemenid paradeisos of Sidon is the model behind two finds, one from Marisa in Idumaia and one from Jericho. The early Hellenistic wall painting of a hunting scene set in a paradeisos found in a tomb of Sidonian settlers in Marisa and the paradeisos in the pavilion at Jericho were associated with the paradeisos of the Achaemenid satrap court art. The hunter depicted at Marisa is closely related to representations of hunting on Sidonian royal sarcophagi. Perhaps the Sidonians prided themselves on the ancestry of their royal family and their connections with the paradeisos and so depicted it on a wall painting. In the case of the Hasmonean pavilion at Jericho, Sidon was the only plausible place in the Levant where an Achaemenid palace similar to that at Pasargadai could have existed that the Hasmoneans were subsequently able to use as a model. In this case, the garden indicates the high status of the Hasmoneans and symbolised their rule. When the Hasmoneans split from the Seleucids, they wanted to present themselves as Hellenistic rulers. Thus, in these two cases the paradeisos, having been a part of Achaemenid royal ideology, became a symbol of elite status.
J. Hertzer offers a new reconstruction of architectural elements from the Hasmonean pavilion in Jericho and especially of its Doric order and porticoes. Hertzer examines the influence from Achaemenid pavilion architecture and finds from surviving monuments in the Hellenistic East.
This volume makes it clear that many parameters contributed to the process of transition and that both cultural interruption and continuity depend on several factors, such as the location of a region, whether it is urban or rural in character, on decisions of central administration, on local socio-cultural traditions and practices, on local dynasts and on the cultural and political relations that they have with the central administration, on socio-economic change, on the role of the native social strata and on temporal and local conditions. The variety of evidence and conclusions offered by the papers make it obvious how difficult it is to draw general conclusions about the ethnically and culturally heterogeneous Hellenistic East. Nevertheless, each of the papers analyses key topics that have often been neglected. This volume is an important step towards a better understanding of the transitional period from Achaemenid rule to the Hellenistic period and provides evidence and material that will substantially aid further research.
