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Mesopotamian bronzes from Greek sites: the workshops of origin1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

John Curtis
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Extract

It is well-known that close contacts between Greece and the Near East were already being forged in the Geometric Period (c. 1100–750 BC) and this resulted in objects of Near Eastern origin being imported into Greece well before the mid-8th century, for example ivories and metal bowls. It is assumed these Oriental goods and influences were transmitted to Greece and the islands via the Phoenician ports on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and to a lesser extent overland through Anatolia. In the subsequent Archaic Period (c. 750–500 BC), particularly in the so-called Early Orientalizing Period, these contacts were intensified and the importation of Near Eastern luxury goods is attested by the presence of ivory plaques for furniture, bowls, cauldrons, weapons and jewellery. In this period, too, Oriental forms and motifs were copied or adapted to produce objects in a so-called Orientalizing style. The problem is therefore twofold. The first difficulty is to distinguish between objects imported from the Near East and those produced locally but deriving their inspiration from the Near East (Oriental versus Orientalizing). The second problem is to decide, if an object is Oriental, which part of the Near East it comes from. It is clear that many different cultures are represented: as well as Assyrian and Babylonian, there are also Phoenician, Syrian, Neo-Hittite, Urartian, Phrygian, Iranian, Caucasian and Egyptian. It is often difficult to distinguish between the products of these cultures, even when the material is found in the Near East where there was considerable interchange of goods particularly in the early 1st millennium BC, and it is even more difficult when it is found in Greece. Pierre Demargne took a particularly pessimistic view. He wrote:

“It is hard to classify the Oriental objects found in Greece. Our knowledge of them is still too meagre for us to distinguish with any certainty between ‘Oriental’ or ‘Orientalizing’ or to plot out a chronological and geographical distribution of objects according to their more or less Orientalizing nature. Nor have we any reliable means of tracing these objects to specific workshops in the East. We can only assume that the art centres whence they came were numerous” (Demargne 1964, p. 329).

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 56 , 1994 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1994 

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Footnotes

1

This paper was delivered at a colloquium on “Greece and the Near East: 1100–600 BC.” held on 28th December 1991 during the 93rd Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America. I am most grateful to Dr Eleanor Guralnick who organised the colloquium, for the invitation to participate, and to her and Professor Robert Biggs, both of the Chicago branch of the AIA, for securing for me an AIA award and thus making my visit to the USA possible.

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