Day 155 - Phoenician-Iberian necklace
May 17, 2019
Galley 406, the last of the Near Eastern galleries, seems a bit incoherent to me, with objects from all over the area and dating from the second millennium B.C.E. to the Sasanian period. But one thing the exhibits make clear is the mix and overlap of cultural influences. The distinctive head of the Egyptian goddess Hathor decorates fragments of ceramics from Mesopotamia and central Anatolia. A wall sign states that Dura-Europos was home to a synagogue, pagan temples, and a house converted into a Christian place of worship. While I have always thought of Aramaic as the vernacular of Palestinian Jews and of early Christians, I'm surprised to see Aramaic texts inscribed in incantation bowls from Sasanian Mesopotamia with images of demons in their interiors. And I am stunned to learn that, according to two recently discovered inscriptions, some Israelites regarded Asherah, the wife of El, the chief Canaanite god, as the consort of Yahweh.
Oasis Biblical Tours is in this gallery as well. One group stops at a portion of the Ishtar Gate from Babylon, and the leader remarks that the prophet Daniel would have passed the gate often. Yes, I feel like saying, he would have, if he had existed. The leader also elicits from the group the story of Esther, and he tells them that Ahasuerus was none other than Xerxes II. Hmm- I need to check this out. He does not draw the group's attention to a fragment of a tablet that recounts the beginning and end of the Babylonian version of the Great Flood story. In that story, the main god sends a flood to punish the earth's people for disturbing the gods with their noise; Atrahasis, the Babylonian Noah, survived by building a large boat. I suppose that the existence of this version of the story would undercut belief in the Bible as literal truth uniquely revealed to the Israelites and their Christian successors.
I chose today's object -- a four-strand gold necklace with pendants -- mostly for its sheer beauty, but also because it reveals the far-reaching influence of the Phoenicians. It was found in Iberia and dates from the 5th-4th century B.C.E. A placard explains that the art of the Phoenicians is known largely from objects discovered in areas to the east, west, and south of the Levant, places where the Phoenicians came as colonists, traders, and craftsmen. The pendants on the necklace are delicately wrought and depict urns, women's heads, flowers, and other forms, symmetrically arranged around discs at the center of each strand; it appears that some of the pendants were inlaid. I wonder who would have owned this exquisite piece, and how often and for what occasions she would have worn it. (Actually, there's another multi-strand necklace nearby that's even more elaborate, but I prefer this one for its simplicity. Relative simplicity, anyway.)
Oasis Biblical Tours is in this gallery as well. One group stops at a portion of the Ishtar Gate from Babylon, and the leader remarks that the prophet Daniel would have passed the gate often. Yes, I feel like saying, he would have, if he had existed. The leader also elicits from the group the story of Esther, and he tells them that Ahasuerus was none other than Xerxes II. Hmm- I need to check this out. He does not draw the group's attention to a fragment of a tablet that recounts the beginning and end of the Babylonian version of the Great Flood story. In that story, the main god sends a flood to punish the earth's people for disturbing the gods with their noise; Atrahasis, the Babylonian Noah, survived by building a large boat. I suppose that the existence of this version of the story would undercut belief in the Bible as literal truth uniquely revealed to the Israelites and their Christian successors.
I chose today's object -- a four-strand gold necklace with pendants -- mostly for its sheer beauty, but also because it reveals the far-reaching influence of the Phoenicians. It was found in Iberia and dates from the 5th-4th century B.C.E. A placard explains that the art of the Phoenicians is known largely from objects discovered in areas to the east, west, and south of the Levant, places where the Phoenicians came as colonists, traders, and craftsmen. The pendants on the necklace are delicately wrought and depict urns, women's heads, flowers, and other forms, symmetrically arranged around discs at the center of each strand; it appears that some of the pendants were inlaid. I wonder who would have owned this exquisite piece, and how often and for what occasions she would have worn it. (Actually, there's another multi-strand necklace nearby that's even more elaborate, but I prefer this one for its simplicity. Relative simplicity, anyway.)
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