Joan Aruz, Kim Benzel & Jean M. Evans (ed.). Beyond Babylon: art, trade, and diplomacy in the second millennium BC.

Joan Aruz, Kim Benzel & Jean M. Evans (ed.). Beyond Babylon: art, trade, and diplomacy in the second millennium BC. JOAN ARUZ, KIM BENZEL & JEAN M. EVANS (ed.). Beyond Babylon:art, trade, and diplomacy in the second millennium BC. xxiv+524 pages,460 b&w & colour illustrations. 2008. New Haven & London:Yale University Press & New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art;978-0-300-14143-6 hardback 45 [pounds sterling]. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This book was published to accompany the exhibition 'BeyondBabylon: art, trade, and diplomacy in the second millennium BC'held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from 18 November 2008to 15 March 2009. In fact the richly illustrated volume also containsartefacts which were not included in the exhibition: the planned loansfrom Syria had to be omitted through fear of litigation. This arose outof the uncertainty surrounding the fate of the tablets from thePersepolis Fortification Archive which are housed at the OrientalInstitute of the University of Chicago on loan from Iran. In 2004 anaction was begun to seize the tablets as Iranian assets and have themsold in order to satisfy a judgment which awarded the victims of a 1997bombing in Jerusalem over $250 million in their suit against Hamas andthe Republic of Iran (details can be found at:http://persepolistablets.blogspot.com). Although the Met sought immunityfor all loans from abroad, in the end it was considered too risky toinclude the Syrian loan. Visitors to the exhibition would therefore havemissed the chance to view, among others, some splendid items from therecently excavated royal tombs at Qama (pp. 214-34). To quote from the book's cover: 'Beyond Babylon ...brings into focus the cultural enrichment shared by civilisations fromwestern Asia to Egypt and the Aegean more than three thousand years ago. . . With the formation of powerful kingdoms and large territorialstates, rising social elites created a demand for precious metals andobjects ... that reflected contacts with foreign lands'. BeyondBabylon's subject matter is the interchange of materials,artefacts, artistic styles, ideas, and, not least, people across thisvast area. It covers the entire second millennium BC, namely, the MiddleBronze Age (2000-1600 BC) and the Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC). Themain focus is naturally on the latter, the international era ofdiplomacy and trade best exemplified by the Amarna letters and theUluburun shipwreck, though the Middle Bronze Age precursors of thesedevelopments are also amply explored. It is worth noting at this pointthe discoveries made very recently by the Austrian excavators of Avaris(Tell el-Dab'a), the Hyksos capital, which hint at connectionsbetween Egypt and Babylonia already during the Old Babylonian era(1894-1595 BC), thus predating the lively diplomatic interchange of theAmarna era. These finds comprise a Babylonian sealing and a fragment ofa cuneiform tablet, the earliest discovered n Egypt so far (Universityof Vienna press release, 17 November 2009:http://public.univie.ac.at/index. php? id=6576&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews [tt_news] =13389&tx_tmews[backPid]=6088&cHash=93b0854ca5). The core of thebook is divided into six major sections: The Middle Bronze Age; Texts,trade and travellers; The Late Bronze Age: materials and mechanisms oftrade and cultural exchange; The Uluburun shipwreck and Late Bronze Agetrade; The art of exchange; and Legacy. Each of these sections beginswith a keynote article which places in context both the specialistcontributions and the illustrated items with their accompanyingcatalogue entries. In all, eighty-two specialists contributed to thevolume. M. Liverani (pp. 161-8) disentangles the subtleties of diplomaticgift exchange as revealed by a dose reading of the Amarna letters. Forexample, since kings strove to maintain an image of self-sufficiency, agift might be associated with a specific occasion, such as the buildingof a new palace, so as to avoid giving offence by implying that therecipient king was deficient in resources of his own. This interchangeinvolved not only the exchange of commodities and precious artefacts,but also of people: as well as diplomats and royal daughters destinedfor marriage to a distant ruler, specialists such as doctors, exorcistsand artists could also be sent to serve at a foreign court. Liveranialso stresses the importance of exchanging not only gifts and women butalso the intangible, in the form of messages; simply keeping in touchseems to have been an end in itself. Ceremonial gift exchange was onlythe tip of the iceberg of mercantile activity but, as C. Pulak pointsout (p. 298), even apparently private interregional trading enterpriseswould have had some palatial connection. Not surprisingly, the exhibited artefacts are overwhelminglyassociated with the elite in one way or another, but occasionally wecatch a glimpse of the lower orders. M.T. Larsen, writing of the MiddleBronze Age kingdom of Mari (pp. 14-15), reminds us that great distanceswere also covered by ordinary soldiers, as in the large armies of theBabylonian king Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC). He paints a picture ofwell-travelled peoples who had 'a mental map of the entireregion' (which incidentally raises interesting questions about themechanisms for acquiring and transmitting geographical knowledge). C.Pulak's discussion of the crew on board the Uluburun ship, based onthe artefacts believed to represent personal possessions rather thancargo, is fascinating, especially with regard to a possible'mercenary' from the Balkan region (pp. 300-302; 372-3). Thevarious reconstructions accompanying his article (pp. 290-3; Figures91-4) vividly depict how the ship might have looked with its cargo inplace, and how the wreck and its contents were distributed along thesloping seabed. The illustration of the model of the Mari palace (p. 28,Figure 12) is less felicitous as the various rooms are marked by numberswhile the accompanying caption uses letters, making it difficult toidentify the different palace sectors. It is difficult in a brief review to do justice to a book of thissize and scope. The articles are generally authoritative and engaging,and the volume is a useful and attractive resource for anyone interestedin the history and archaeology of the ancient Near East and the easternMediterranean in the second millennium BC. HEATHER D. BAKER Institut fur Orientalistik, University of Vienna, Austria (Email: heather.baker@univie.ac.at)