Per quanto tristi i miei casi, e orrendi i fatti, aspre le lotte, dolorose le vicende: già storia, non cangiano più, non possono più cangiare, capite? Fissati per sempre: che vi ci potete adagiare, ammirando come ogni effetto segua obbediente alla sua causa, con perfetta logica, e ogni avvenimento si svolga preciso e coerente in ogni suo particolare. Il piacere, il piacere della storia, insomma, che è così grande! (Luigi Pirandello, Enrico IV)

Pour ma part, je dirai que tous les livres sur la vie pèsent moins qu’une vie d’homme. Mais, direz-vous: Quelle vie? Quel homme? La réponse est: n’importe lesquels. Dieu seul juge ses créatures en termes absolus. Nous ne possédons pas ce pouvoir. Elles ont toutes les mêmes droits. Leur existence relève du même mystère (Elie Wiesel, cited in Paul Verhaegen, Omega Minor)


Cross-cultural interaction in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Early Iron Age: A View from Seal Engraving

Paper given at the International Conference “Nostoi” - Indigenous Culture, Migration and Integration in the Aegean Islands and Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Istanbul, March 31 - April 4, 2011.

By the eighth century B.C., seal engraving was flourishing again in most cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East after the upheavals at the end of the Bronze Age. Stamp-seals, in particular, played a significant part in the exchange of symbolic practices and ideas during the Early Iron Age, but their evidence has been largely neglected. In order to demonstrate both the complexity and the importance of this evidence for our understanding of cross-cultural encounters in the early first millennium Eastern Mediterranean, the present paper focuses on the so-called Lyre-player Group of scarabs and scaraboids. The group is found widely distributed from Anatolia to Etruria, but also at high concentrations in tombs at the Euboean colony of Pithecusae on the Italian island of Ischia and in Rhodian and Cypriot sanctuaries. Its stylistic homogeneity implies a single centre of production, but Rhodes, Cilicia, south-east Anatolia, north Syria, Phoenicia proper and Cyprus have been proposed as possible places of manufacture, indicating the range of cultural traditions involved. The paper seeks to isolate these traditions analytically in order to achieve a better understanding of their cross-fertilisation and to reach a safer conclusion as to the origin of these seals.