THE INTERNATIONAL STYLE : A POINT OF VIEW FROM THE LEVANT AND SYRIA

Ever since Helene Kantor defined,1 as Evans had done, a koin of the oriental Mediterranean in the second millennium, our knowledge has progressed and the corpus of discoveries has been enriched. Yet our means of estimation remain nearly identical and only mildly satisfying. Indeed, this koin concerns several regions which provide very different means of understanding them. The Aegean-Minoan world and Egypt have well-marked characters: the specificity of their art is obvious even to a non-professional public. The art of the Levant, on the other hand, is not as easily identifiable as that of its famous neighbors. Divided as it is in a number of realms scattered along the Syro-Palestinian coast and inner Syria, the Levant does not easily display its multiple personalities, political, cultural, and artistic. Knowledge of material is hindered by the slowness, and the dispersal of their publications in many foreign languages, which are so many obstacles to the necessary renewal of a global ref lection. The appearance and diffusion of an international style is usually attributed to a number of factors: a society intent on displaying its privileged status,2 the distribution of finished products, the diffusion of patterns, the circulation of persons such as ambassadors, merchants, princesses to be married, itinerant artists. I have made my study of two more factors: the circulation of exotic raw material and the propagation of complex technologies. Not feeling myself sufficiently able to tackle the question of style from the angle of the history of art or the analysis of form, I chose to make use of laboratory resources and of a privileged access to a number of recent excavations; I have concentrated on the objective observations of only a few instances, which I hope bring some light to the general debate on international style. Exotic raw material and their circulation As is brilliantly proven by the cargo of the ship which sunk off the coast of Uluburun,3 exchanges between the Mediterranean, Egypt and the Levant comprised important loads of raw material, precious and exotic. In the case of ivory, discoveries made in the wreck confirm observations made on the material from the Levant:4 elephant ivory is present in small quantity, with one section of tusk. Hippopotamus ivory is represented by at least a dozen canines and incisors: it is hippopotamus ivory, not elephant, which is the ordinary ivory selected by craftsmen, in the workshops of the Levantine coast, Cyprus, and Crete. Whether the raw material originated in the Nile or the swampy plains of the Syro-Palestinian coast, as I suggested, does not alter the fact that unworked hippopotamus ivory circulated by sea to Cyprus,5 the Aegean world,6 and even

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1 2 3 4 5 6 KANTOR. E.J. PELTENBURG, Greeting gifts and luxury faence: a context for orientalising trends in late Mycenaean Greece, in Bronze Age Trade, 162-79. C. PULAK, The Shipwreck at Ulu Burun, Turkey: 1992 excavation campaign, IJNA Quarterly 19 (1992) 411. A. CAUBET and F. POPLIN, Matires dures animales: tude du matriau, in M. YON (ed.), Ras Shamra Ougarit III. Le centre de la ville (1987) 273-306. M. YON and A. CAUBET, Kition Bamboula III. Bronze Rcent et Geomtrique I (1985). O. KRZYSZKOWSKA, Ivory and Related Materials. An Illustrated Guide. Classical Handbook 3, Institute of Classical Studies (1990).

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Cappadocia, where there is evidence for hippopotamus ivory work at Acemhyk as early as the beginning of the second millennium.7 Silver and lapis lazuli are two materials often found together: such is the case in the Tod treasure (Pl. VIIa). The caskets inscribed with the name of Amenemhat II (1929-1895 BC) were filled with silver objects and ingots as well as with lapis lazuli. The Tod treasure has fueled, since the time of its discovery in 1936, the debate concerning relations between Egypt, the Aegean, and the Syrian world. The hypothesis of the excavator, Bisson de la Roque, who understood the f luted cups to be Syro-Anatolian creations of Aegean inspiration, seems to be definitely confirmed by an archeometric examination of the silver.8 Their composition enables us to distinguish two groups: the cups on the one hand and the ingots and rings (large bracelet rings and small chain rings) on the other hand. The latter are of a composition compatible with ore originating from Thasos or the Troad. The cups of this same treasure are of an entirely different composition, compatible with that of the Ergani deposits on the upper Euphrates. This Asian origin of the ores strengthens the hypothesis of an Asian rather than Minoan manufacture of these cups. As for lapis lazuli, the Mari archives disclose surprising information. A number of references to Cretan artifacts specify that they were decorated with lapis lazuli (infra), yet we have no means to know whether this was real lapis. If it were, the circulation of both finished artifacts and raw materials must have been particularly complex: it means that the precious stones travelled from a (probable) source in Afghanistan, to be worked in the Mediterranean and then returned as a finished product to the Euphrates. Or, if this lapis ornament is an imitation, then it would be some kind of blue composition made in Crete. At this date, we can only wonder which? It cannot be the blue glass which will later become one of the specialties of Mycenaean shops of the Late Bronze Age. Alternatively, one can speculate that the lapis ornament was added in Mari to a Cretan piece. The lapis trail took us to Afghanistan, the amber trail takes us to Northern Europe. Among the amber artifacts found in the Near East, many seem to have been made from Baltic amber,9 which would have circulated via Rhenan and Danubian Europe to Mycenaean Greece.10 From there, in bead-form, they would have reached Egypt (Tutankhamen's grave) and the Levant: a number of the amber beads found in the royal palace at Ugarit (Pl. VIIb) are made of Baltic amber.11 This origin appears in all its importance if we add to it the identification of anorthosite in fragments of stone vases from Ugarit (Pl. VIIIa-c).12 Anorthosite is a hard rock occurring in Precambrian shields, in small and well identified zones, particularly in the Baltic shield: amber and anorthosite would therefore be double evidence for the circulation of precious material from the Baltic to the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age. The Circulation of Complex Technologies The existence of an international koine is linked to the circulation of complex technologies within the Aegean world, Anatolia, the Levant, and Egypt during the greater part of the second millennium. These technologies concern different areas: architecture and decoration (frescoes), metallurgy and ceramics, instruments, etc.

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7 8 9 10 11 12 A. CAUBET, Ivoire de Cappadoce, in D. CHARPIN and F. JOANNS (eds.), Marchands, diplomates et empereurs. Etudes sur la civilisation msopotamienne offertes Paul Garelli (1991) 223-25. G. PIERRAT and M. MENU, A propos de la date et de lorigine du Trsor de Td; Analyse du trsor de Td, Bulletin de la Socit Franaise dEgyptologie 130 (1994) 18-45. P.R.S. MOOREY, Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries (1994); D. GRIMALDI, Amber: window to the past (1996). C.W. BECK, The Provenience Analysis of Amber, AJA 99 (1995) 125-27. C.W. BECK, unpublished report on material in the Louvre. G. QUERR, A. BOUQUILLON, and A. LECLAIRE, Annexe III. Analyse ptrographique, within A. CAUBET, Rpertoire de la vaisselle de pierre dOugarit 1929-1988, in M. YON (ed.), Ras Shamra Ougarit VI - Arts et industries de la pierre (1991) 246-47.

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In monumental and official architecture, the use of freestone (ashlar), the presence of ramparts with corbeled vault posterns, the combination of stone and timber in the masonry, and the organisation of light and space,13 are among the characteristics of eastern Mediterranean architecture. Freestone masonry sometimes use a technical device, the dovetail clamp for assembling stone blocks, well known in New Kingdom Egypt. The impression of a dovetail clamp recently discovered at Ugarit shows that this technique was used also in the Late Bronze Age Levant.14 The painted decor of architecture is another unifying factor of the eastern Mediterranean, even if the celebrity and beauty of Aegean workshops overshadow all other centers. The discoveries at Tell el-Dabca and Tel Kabri, and the new examination of the palace of Alalah VII,15 renew the question of artistic relations between the Aegean world, Egypt, and the Levant, and bring initial apparition of the great cycles of paintings to a much earlier period. Similarity of patterns and iconographic programs are usually the prevailing factors in defining a koin for mural painting; composition schemes and the role of the painted decoration in the architectural space should also be taken into consideration. This koin expanded well beyond the coast, all the way to the Euphrates: the private apartments on the upper f loor of the palace of Mari was painted with a large figural composition (Pl. IX). Several figural registers were separated by bands of white stars on a blue background.16 The iconographic motives draw from Syro-Mesopotamian tradition, well illustrated by the cylinderseals. But the adaptation of the paintings to the volume, the light, and the architectural features of the room are strikingly similar to that of the architectural composition of the Aegean frescoes.17 The difference in material (lime versus gypsum-plaster) can be accounted for by local resources, the middle Euphrates having a long standing tradition, dating back to the seventh millennium, of the use of gypsum plaster. Survey of mural decorations in the Near East18 show that the existence of architectural paintings for f loor, dados, and walls was more frequent in the first centuries of the second millennium than the preservation of the works would allow us to believe. For the record, let us mention certain precious metallurgic techniques which were practiced sur la longue dure throughout the eastern Mediterranean. The gold or silver inlays in bronze, as shown in ceremonial axes from Byblos or Mycenae, are in fashion between the nineteenth and sixteenth century BC; granulation technique is used during the same period for jewels such as the disc-shaped pendant; the developments of polychrome faience is observed in Crete,19 Egypt,20 as well as in the Levant and Cyprus.21 Faience with a black design on a blue background, probably a style originating in Egypt, was imitated, using a local recipe, by Cypriote and Levantine workshops.22 Thus, the diffusion of sophisticated industrial techniques, applied to artwork, was part of the development of a common culture.

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13 14 15 O. CALLOT, Ras Shamra Ougarit X. La tranche Ville Sud (1994); C. PALYVOU, Concepts of Space in Aegean Bronze Age Art and Architecture, in Wall Paintings of Thera. Y. CALVET and B. GEYER, Barrages antiques de Syrie. CMO 21 (1990). W-D. NIEMEIER, Aegean Frescoes in Syro-Palestine: Alalakh and Kabri, in Wall Paintings of Thera; Idem, Tell Kabri. Aegean fresco paintings in a Canaanite palace, in S. GITIN (ed.), Recent excavations in Israel: A View to the West (1995) 1-15.; Idem, Minoan artisans travelling overseas: the Alalakh frescoes and the painted plaster f loor at Tel Kabri (Western Galilee), in Thalassa, 189-200. B. PIERRE-MULLER, Une peinture des appartements du palais de Mari (salles 219-220), MARI 6 (1990) 463-558. PALYVOU (supra n. 13). A. NUNN, Die Wandmalerei und der Glasierte Wandschmuck im alten Orient. Handbuch der Orientalisk VII.1 (1988); F. BLAKOLMER, The Function of Wall Painting and Other Forms of Architectural Decoration in the Aegean Bronze Age, in Wall Paintings of Thera. K. FOSTER, Aegean Faence of the Bronze Age (1979). A. KACZMARCZYK and R.E.M. HEDGES, Ancient Egyptian Faience (1983). P.R.S. MOOREY, Materials and Manufacture in Ancient Mesopotamia (1985); YON and CAUBET (supra n. 5). A. CAUBET, Les objets en matire vitreuse. Fritte, faence, verre, in M. YON (ed.), Ras Shamra Ougarit III (1987) 329-42.

16 17 18

19 20 21 22

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The appearance and diffusion of complex instruments, such as the war chariot or some musical instruments, follow the same path during the second millennium. The new light war chariot revolutionized warfare during the second millennium;23 it owed its speed to its structure and the fact that it was drawn by a real horse rather than by Equidae, donkeys or onagers, as in former chariots. Horse-drawn war chariots, probably brought from the north by Indo-European people, were adopted in continental Greece, Crete, Anatolia (particularly Cappadocia), Syria, and Egypt. Homer's horse rich Troad specialized in breeding. The major cities of the Syrian coast, benefitting from an easy access to the forests of Amanus and Mt. Lebanon, used the wood to manufacture luxury chariots trimmed with ivory and alabaster,24 destined for an elite warfaring clientele, the Maryannu. Apparently these Syrian chariots were appreciated by the Hittites and the Egyptians. In the Egyptian language, several parts of those chariots kept their western semitic (Syrian?) name, judging from a poem comparing Pharaoh to the various parts of his chariot and its equipment: the Levant seems to have been the bridge in the transmission of this new chariot technique and its nomenclature to Egypt. The arts in peacetime also benefitted from technological advances and their diffusion, as shown by the example of the diffusion of complex musical instruments: the same type of hippopotamus-ivory horn is found in Ugarit and Uluburun,25 and specific forms of harps or lyres are spread throughout the Mediterranean.26 This may be an indication of the movement of artists who played them, and contributed to the propagation of musical techniques; their craft was destined to enliven comparable lifestyles on either side of the Mediterranean. To these complex technologies, we could add the instruments of management and accounting; they were used by an administration no less centralized and finicky in Crete than in Mesopotamia, Syria or Egypt. Evidence for this koin of administrative techniques is the existence of at least one international diplomatic language Akkadian and the extended use of the cylinder-seal: besides the large number of imported oriental seals found in the Aegean world, the presence of local imitations indicates that these seals were used as administrative tools, not merely as amulets or exotic curios.27 The Spread of Luxury Objects Helene Kantors assessment of Aegean exportations to the Levant finds new arguments in new written sources. In the Mari archives, inventories of the kings belongings describe Cretan exportations to Mari or imitations:28 on his return trip from the Mediterranean and Ugarit, king Zimri-Lim (nineteenth century BC) commissioned a Cretan boat" trimmed with a sort of lapis lazuli. This attempt at imitating Cretan art and technique illustrates the ambiguity of so-called Cretan products mentioned in the Mari tablets since, as in the present case, it is obviously not an importation but an object manufactured locally in the Cretan manner. Among products indicated as being Cretan are objects of leatherwork, boots, shoes, and leather belts. Prestige metal artifacts includes a dozen luxury weapons, among which are a number in bronze, gold plated and inlaid with lapis lazuli. These artifacts raise the question of the identification of this material (supra). An important series concerns luxury vessels classified in the inventories of Mari under the GAL ideogram. Especially interesting is the

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23 24 25 26 27 M.A. LITTAUER and J.H. CROUWEL, Wheeled Vehicles and Ridden Animals in the Ancient Near East. Handbuch der Orientalisk 7 (1979). A. CAUBET, Notes sur les chars dOugarit, in Hommage Maurice Sznycer, Semitica 38 (1990) 81-85. A. CAUBET, La musique Ougarit, nouveaux tmoignages matriels, in N. WYATT, W.G.E. WATSON and J.B. LLOYD (eds.), Ugarit, Religion and Culture. Ugaritisch-Biblische Literatur, Band 12 (1996) 9-31. B. LAWERGREN, Lyres ... ca 2000 to 400 BC, Opuscula Romana XIX (1993) 6, 55-75. B. SALJE, Sceaux-cylindres proche-orientaux du Bronze rcent trouvs dans laire genne, in A. CAUBET (ed.), De Chypre la Bactriane, Les sceaux du Proche-Orient ancien (1997) 249-67; J. ARUZ, Cypriot and CyproAegean seals, in CAUBET (supra) 269-80. M. GUICHARD, Les mentions de la Crte Mari, in A. CAUBET (ed.), Actes du colloque 'Lacrobate au taureau (in press); cf. also SWDS, 126-28 nos. D3-D12.

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mention of a set of four silver Cretan (vessels?) which comes up on several occasions in the successive inventories after the return of king Zimri-Lim from his trip to Ugarit. Later in his reign, records mention a set of three silver Cretan (vessels?) and six gold vases, all posterior to the Ugarit trip. There are also other precious vases, including two luxury Cretan vases with inlaid patterns, handleless and one luxury Cretan vase with a papparitum pattern in the middle, of 20 shekels, handleless, which were brought back from the trip to Aleppo in the year 10 of Zimri-Lim. The term papparitum is an hapax. Lastly, an inventory dating to the end of his reign mentions one Cretan vase with gold bird design, weighing 13 1/2 shekels. Ugarit and Aleppo are shown as relays in the redistribution of luxury products from oversea workshops to the inner country. Egyptian artifacts and particularly Pharaonic gifts inscribed with a hieroglyph cartouche are the easiest exports to be recognized in excavations. To the well known lists of these works found in Greece and the islands, Byblos, etc, we must add the Egyptian inscribed artifacts from Ebla,29 and the Egyptian vessels and instruments in alabaster from Ugarit.30 One of the Ugarit vases was probably manufactured especially for the wedding of an anonymous king of Ugarit to an Egyptian princess. It represents the royal couple sitting under a canopy ornamented with divine symbols. It is only partly preserved but enough so that we can see that the king is represented as an Asiatic with closed-cropped hair. We have yet to discover if such direct exchanges are the reason why so many Asian works end up in Egypt (as is the case for the lapis lazuli necklace registered in the name of a Medio-Assyrian dignitary, found in the grave of Psusenes in Tanis), or in Greece (like the lapis lazuli cylinder seals in the name of Kassite kings of Babylon found at the Thebes palace).31 Not all luxury artifacts circulating throughout the eastern Mediterranean were royal gifts. Faience vases decorated with the head of a woman or an animal, such as those from the Uluburun wreck,32 have also been found in private graves at Enkomi in Cyprus, at Assur, Tell Abu Hawam, and Ugarit. Duck-shaped cosmetic boxes carved out of hippopotamus ivory are found on a large area extending from the Levant (Atchana, Ugarit, Kamid el Loz, Megiddo, Acco) to inner Syria (Tell Brak, Emar) and Greece (Rhodes, Mycenae, Tiryns).33 With the exception of the royal treasury at Kamid el Loz,34 these charming pieces, probably manufactured in Levantine workshops and inspired by the duck-shaped Egyptian box, are generally to be found in private graves and houses. An International Iconography As shown by Helene Kantor, international style owes a lot to the recurrent use of identical decorative patterns, spirals, interlocked patterns, meanders, guilloches, etc. They serve as background for the human, animal, and fantastic figures which appear in figural arts: heroes fighting monsters, lions, sphinxes, griffins, the so-called minoan genie occur throughout the Mediterranean.35 They may be observed in monumental art (frescoes) as well as in small artifacts and minor arts: ivory caskets, cylinder seals, jewelry, textiles, faience and metal vessels. Evidence from minor arts should be taken into account for a real understanding of the role played by Asiatic workshops in the elaboration of the great iconographic cycles of

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29 30 31 32 33 34 35 G. SCANDONE-MATTHIAE, I vasi egiziani in petra dal palazzo reale G, Studi Eblaiti IV (1988) 99-127. A. CAUBET, Rpertoire de la vaisselle de pierre dOugarit 1929-1988, in M. YON (ed.), Ras Shamra Ougarit VI - Arts et industries de la pierre (1991) 205-264. E. PORADA, The cylinder seals found at Thebes in Boeotia, AfO 28 (1981) 1-78; cf. SWDS, 154-60 nos. 185-218, esp. 157 no. 203. PULAK (supra n. 3). CAUBET and POPLIN (supra n. 4); W. ADLER, Die Sptbronzezeitlichen Pyxiden in Gestalt von Wasservgeln, in R. HACHMANN (ed.), Kamid el Loz 16. Schatzhaus Studien (1996) 27-117. ADLER (supra n. 33). C. BAURAIN, Pour une interprtation des gnies minoens, in P. DARCQUE and J.-C. POURSAT (eds.), Liconographie minoenne. BCH Supp. 11 (1985) 95-118; O. KEEL, Hyksos horses or hippopotamus deities?, Levant 25 (1993) 208-212.

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the Mediterranean koin. Human figures share certain common characteristics: narrow waist, freedom of movement, nimble limbs.36 They share details of dress or hairstyle, such as hair locks, girdles or f lounced skirts. Attitudes and movements are similar, such as the famous f lying gallop, to which one may add the motif of the charging bull shown with lowered head, as seen on the ivory box in Enkomi, the gold cup of Ugarit, and the Tell Dabca frescoes. Beyond formal similarities and mere questions of style, the ideology incarnated in these different patterns may or may not have been modified in the course of their diffusion throughout the Mediterranean. The lion, the griffin, the sphinx, all royal symbols in Egypt, probably retained their meaning in the Levant, but what of the Aegean world? What spiritual link is there between the Minoan genie,37 the pregnant hippopotamus goddess of Egypt, and the composite monster of the Levantine version,38 all of whom, it appears, descend from the same model? The ideology behind this bizarre creature escapes us. Things get a little clearer with the bull and the acrobat. The revolution of symbols of the Mediterranean Neolithic39 has led to a multiplication of images showing man and a dominating bull figure, as embodiment of masculine strength, wild nature and fertility. The confrontation between man and bull, as much a ritual as a sport, has survived to this day in Spain and Southern France. The dangerous acrobatic feats carried out by young people are the most famous form of these rituals immortalized in the frescoes of Crete and Tell el-Dabca,40 or in the Syrian glyptic.41 Other acrobatics and sporting games, without the bull, are mentioned in cuneiform sources from Mari and Hattusas:42 musicians, jesters, mimes, wrestlers and acrobats enlivened various ceremonies as early as the nineteenth century. Some of them appear on the Inandik vase43 and on Syrian cylindrical seals.44 These recurrent patterns, pregnant with ritual and social significations which in part escape us, cannot be solely accounted for by export goods, migrating artists, and professionals. These motifs must be a ref lection of similar lifestyles, social practices, and rituals. Their profound meaning had to be understandable by the local clientele to whom they were destined: royal families, courtiers, higher officials, the warring aristocracy, etc. United in the same way of life and line of thoughts, they expected them to take shape through an imagery of international significance. Materials, techniques, artifacts, artists, professionals, and thoughts circulated throughout the second millennium in an area which encompasses not only the Aegean, the Syro-Anatolian world, and Egypt, but also the Euphrates area all the way to Mari.45 Egypt, comfortable in its cultural identity, offered a greater resistence to international culture; the kingdoms of inner Syria seem to have been more open to the outer world, more avid for exotic style, more anxious to show their superiority by a display of cosmopolitanism while contributing their share of ideology and technology to the Mediterranean koin. Annie CAUBET

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36 H. KYRIELEIS, Eine Mykenische Elfenbeinefigur aus dem Heraion von Samos, in Festschrift N. Himmelmann: Beitrge zur Ikonographie und Hermeneutik. Beihefte der Bonner Jahrbcher 47 (1989) 12-21; D. COLLON, Syrian Glyptic and the Thera Wall-Paintings, in Wall Paintings of Thera; Eadem, The seal impressions from Tell Atchana/Alalakh. Alter Orient und Altes testament 17 (1975). BAURAIN (supra n. 35). KEEL (supra n. 35). J. CAUVIN (ed.), Naissance des divinits, naissance de lagriculture: la rvolution des symboles au Nolithique. CNRS (1994). M. BIETAK, Die Wandmalerei aus Tell el-Dabca, gypten und Levante IV (1994) 44-58. D. COLLON, Bull-leaping in Syria, gypten und Levante IV (1994) 81-85. S. DE MARTINO, Music, Dance, and Processions in Hittite Anatolia, in J. SASSON (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (1995) 2661-69. T. ZG, Inandiktepe: An Important Cult Center in the Old Hittite Period (1988). CAUBET (supra n. 25); COLLON (supra n. 36). J.M. DURAND, Les rgions occidentales du Proche-Orient daprs les textes de Mari, in A. CAUBET (ed.), Actes du colloque 'Lacrobate au taureau (in press).

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Pl. Pl. Pl. Pl. VIIa VIIb VIIIa-c IX

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The Middle Kingdom Tod treasure, Egypt. Louvre Museum, Paris. Amber beads from the Late Bronze Age palace at Ugarit, Syria. Louvre Museum, Paris. Anorthosite vase fragments from the Late Bronze Age palace at Ugarit, Syria. Louvre Museum, Paris. Wall painting from the Middle Bronze Age palace at Mari, Syria. After Pierre-Muller (supra n. 16).

112 Discussion following A. Caubets paper:

Annie CAUBET

Unidentified: You related the International Style to the elites on the different sides of the Mediterranean. Several of the objects you showed, from Ras Shamra especially, have not been found in elite contexts. Would you say this International Style also came down to levels lower than the elite? A. Caubet: Most of the luxury goods from Ras Shamra do come from elite contexts. The town itself was the town of the Kings Men. Villages, we dont know about. But concerning the rich tombs from Ugarit, when we have texts, we can connect these people with a name and a status. For instance, the recent texts from the House of Urtenu show that he belonged to the royal family and that he acted as an agent. His tomb, of course, has been looted. But no more than ca. 15 luxury tombs have been found in Ugarit. So there is a lot of elite material from Ugarit connected with the royal family or with people very closely connected to power. Unidentified: So youve noticed that it trickles-down to lower levels? A. Caubet: It does. J.L. Crowley: Thank you very much for your lovely slides. I was particularly interested in your detail of the movement of these craftsmen, these specialist people. Could I ask, in the archives, if you have any [people] that are named for places that are further away than the Euphrates? Do you have any named for [distant] places, such as weavers who come from an Aegean [place]name? A. Caubet: The geography of the names in the tablets extends from Elam to Kaptara (Crete). J.L. Crowley: Are any named for places that could be identified as Aegean places? A. Caubet: Well, there are Alashiya and Kaptara, which we assume to be Cyprus and Crete. There are also many names which are to be identified with coastal Anatolia. C.W. Shelmerdine: Your abstract mentioned the banquet as well as the lion hunt as an example of an elite practice that is represented in the International Style or at least internationally. Could you comment a little further about that? A. Caubet: We have both images and texts, although the text related to banquets mentioned [only] banquets of the gods. So we tend to extrapolate between the banquets of the gods and the banquets of the kings, although thats methodologically not quite clean. C.W. Shelmerdine: That would be an interesting parallel for Aegean banquets, which Ill say a little about on Sunday. A. Caubet: I look forward to it. G. Kopcke: My question is about the use of the term International Style. What I do see is a mixture of things accumulating in different places, especially, of course, in a commercial center such as Ugarit. I do not see so much style as a ref lection of availability and an awareness sympathetic awareness of production from far away as well as from close by. Is there a good reason to continue using the term International Style? A. Caubet: I dont like it. I dont use it. Id rather speak about a way of life. We are obviously at the end of the Bronze Age, dealing with a kind of jet-set society using the same kind of artifacts, possibly the same rituals social rituals perhaps, rather than religious rituals and luxury goods. E.S. Sherratt: I wonder if youd like to say a little bit more about the anorthosite vases that come from Ras Shamra? A. Caubet: They have been published in Ras Shamra/Ugarit VII. There is a strong indication that the stone comes from the Baltic. E.S. Sherratt: And do you think that the stone, then, is coming in blocks and being made into objects in the Near East?

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A. Caubet: I suspect it came to Egypt, where it was worked and re-exported to Ugarit, because the shape is obviously Egyptian. E.S. Sherratt: So its coming in blocks to Egypt and being made into vases? A. Caubet: Its coming in unworked and was shaped in Egypt. I havent had much time to look at the unworked pieces I havent found anything in Egypt, but I havent found unfinished or unworked pieces in Ugarit either. E.S. Sherratt: So how many are there? A. Caubet: Only two. But, its no less than the famous Kamares vases from Ugarit of which there are also only two. E.S. Sherratt: And its absolutely certain that theres nowhere else [for the stone to come]? A. Caubet: Im not a geologist, so I have to take their word. G.F. Bass: I have a comment and then a question. When you were talking about the Baltic amber and comparing the stone, I was reminded that we have to be careful to remember that it doesnt necessarily have to come from the Baltic. Baltic amber comes in a swathe all the way from Belgium down to the Black Sea, so it could have been from Romania, or ... A. Caubet: Of course. G.F. Bass: I just wanted to make sure everybody in the audience knows that Baltic amber, when you say it came from the Baltic, it doesnt necessarily mean that it comes from the Baltic. (Laughter). The other thing is: were you speaking of Cyprus as part of the Aegean? I almost got that impression when you talk about this international f lavor. For example, the faience rhyta, the womens heads that are usually found with five of the rams heads I dont think they really go any farther west than Cyprus . And the trumpet you mentioned. In that sentence you used the word International Style, and as far as I know those trumpets dont come any farther west. For example, the musical instruments we found on the Uluburun shipwreck none are found in the Aegean during the Bronze Age. A. Caubet: Not this type. But we do have the ivory horn from Mycenae. G.F. Bass: Right. But I almost gathered from when you were talking, that you were talking about Cyprus as though its part of the Aegean. A. Caubet: Lets take the duck box carved out of hippo canine. This has been found all over the Eastern Mediterranean: from Rhodes, of course, Tiryns, Mycenae, and, on the other side, Tell Brak, Acco, Hazor, all over the place. So that, I think, it has been produced possibly by Near Eastern workshops, but they have been exported to the Aegean and mainland Greece. G.F. Bass: Yes, even those are exported. That word International Style that you obviously dont like, it bothers me too. Because I use china from China in my house doesnt mean its International Style; its just Chinese, it just came from China. So I just saw a great distinction of the things you were showing as being very Near Eastern, and Cypriot. I put these two together. A. Caubet: That may be an unhappy choice of my slides. Some of the artifacts and the high technology, such as the encrusted bronze with the faience and the glass, are to be found on both sides of the Mediterranean; Cyprus being again in between. J. Aruz: I think there is one corpus of material for which one can use the term, if not International, then Intercultural Style, and that is the corpus of seals. What one finds, I think, in perhaps the 17th century BC, is a juxtaposition of motifs from the Aegean and the Near East, or at least an Aegean f lavor to some of the Near Eastern imagery. But what one finds later on is a nearly complete integration of some of these features in the work of a single craftsman. I think that in these cases, when you have great difficulty in distinguishing what is Aegean and what is Near Eastern, that one can speak of an Intercultural Style. They are so intertwined stylistically and in composition and iconography. I think one wonders then about the patron, and the craftsman, the relationship of art and ethnicity, and all of these questions become quite interesting to consider.

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Annie CAUBET