Phrygians - Tocharian - Baleful signs - Ebola - The Islamic Empire - The temple of Kellis - in - The Lost City of Salt - The Udruh Project spects of globalisation Mobility, exchange and the development of multi-cultural states Most people will consider globalization as a All this, of course, is not new, and aspects of globalization Religion did not only spread through conquest and empire 20th and 21st century phenomenon. Today’s have been extensively studied. What few people realize, By looking building, but often spread – and still spreads – as a world is one of unprecedented connectivity, however, is that many of the results of globalization and consequence of trade. Part 3 includes contributions that indeed the phenomenon itself are no recent developments highlight the role of trade and trade routes in the spread trade and mobility. There is no doubt that but instead hark back to much earlier times. Economic back, we may of religions and cultures. Trading contacts were not only of globalization has made a signiicant impact crises enguling vast parts of the world, massive population pivotal importance for the spread of faiths, but often had an on contemporary society, in both positive movements resulting from and leading to social unrest and see the future, impact on their iconography and related rites. Buddhism, and negative ways. It has brought greater even state collapse, civil wars and even a sense of ‘taking for example, spread as a consequence of early trade back control’; it all happened before. Looking at the efects, or at least may routes that connected India to the Far East, but many early wealth to many countries and a far wider beneits and drawbacks of connectivity – then and now depictions of the Buddha also betray early contacts with availability of foreign goods that were – may provide us with some much needed references as the Hellenized Kingdoms of Central Asia. We see similar hitherto diicult to obtain. People have to why things happened, were we come from, and where understand patterns of cultural mingling as a result of trading contacts greater mobility and economic freedom things may be heading to. By looking back, we may see the in other regions. In collaboration with local partners, future, or at least may understand how to handle what is how to handle archaeologists from Leiden University are uncovering the than ever before, and the ability to seek out coming towards us. remains of important trading centres in Jordan and Saudi better job opportunities or living conditions Arabia, bringing to light remarkably advanced, but culturally in other parts of the world. But globalization Leiden University has an international – indeed, a global what is coming hybrid societies that thrived in seemingly uninhabitable and the increased entanglement of local – reputation for excellent research in the Humanities. In landscapes. These remote places were inhabited not this publication, some of the University’s most promising towards us. because of the local resources, but because they were economies, cultures and state institutions, scholars in the Humanities present their research into part of a wider world; they connected diferent regions and has also resulted in an increased exposure various aspects of the ‘entangled’ world. This booklet were vital conduits, not only of goods, but also of ideas and to economic woes, social troubles, or state is divided into three sections, each highlighting distinct Part 2 includes two papers that highlight how some of people. collapse elsewhere. The banking crisis, the aspects of globalization. the irst empires dealt with multiculturalism, especially how various population groups, with their own traditions, Connectivity, entangled worlds, globalization. These are current migrant crisis, a growing distrust in Papers in part 1 focus on the mobility of people and the histories, and religions could be accommodated within a buzzwords that have dominated political and academic the capacity of political leaders and state resulting spread of the most elementary identity markers single political body. One example comes from the Dakhla discourse over the past decade. But they matter, because institutions to deal with local or national of all; language and script. Even though many of us today Oasis in Egypt, where Leiden-based researchers have they provide us with a framework to better conceptualize problems, and a wide-spread sense of losing may think of our language as something that belongs ‘here’ uncovered the remains of a shrine dating to the Roman the ways in which societies are shaped, how they rise and and that helps deine who were are –Dutch, British, French, period, which incorporates Greek, Roman, and Egyptian fall, change and endure. On behalf of Leiden University and one’s cultural identity and the ensuing need German, or even ‘European’, most of the languages that architectural and pictorial elements – suggesting a lexible its Knowledge Exchange Oice, LURIS, we hope that the to ‘take back control’ (think of Brexit, or the are spoken by the majority of people in the Netherlands and inclusive approach to local faith and religion. The other studies presented in this publication may inspire the reader election of Donald Trump in the USA) are and indeed, in Europe and America, did not in fact originate case study also comes from Egypt, this time in the early to rethink aspects of our own society. Aspects that strike us all directly related to global connectivity; to in those parts, but may well have come from the Russian Arab period. By analysing numerous 7th century AD papyri, as familiar and ‘modern’, but that are as ancient as human steppe. Moreover, languages that are related to, say, this study highlights how the new Arab rulers and the local society itself. globalization. English and Dutch, were for a long time spoken in western Greco-Roman-Egyptian populations communicated and China, as well as in . How did these languages arrive (re)negotiated their respective positions within the newly here and there, where they spoken by people akin to us, formed Islamic Empire. The new overlords accommodated or adopted by local societies? Similarly, the letters that are their subjects by, e.g. using Greek alongside Arabic in the Ivo de Nooijer, used in this book, although they are frequently described administration, and by allowing many local customs and Director of Luris as the ‘Roman’ , have a far more complex and identities to endure, whilst at the same time stressing the foreign pedigree than most of their users may think. authority of the new religion (Islam) over the realm. Under Luris is the Knowledge Exchange Oice of Leiden Leiden-based research is now questioning old assumptions the Arabs, religious practice was perhaps less malleable University and Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) regarding the origin of our script, and may provide new than in previous eras, but its absorptive potential could and connects academics of both organisations with the answers to the questions how, why, when and where our (and did) serve as a unifying factor throughout the empire, market and society at large, in order to make the most of script was irst developed. But we are also investigating conferring a common identity to all believers. their scientiic knowledge. how that script is used in contemporary society, with the rise of new (social) media, such as Twitter.

Naam Achternaam wetenschapper 02 03 Mobility and language Contents

26 Petra M. 12 Sijpesteijn 32 Michaël Peyrot The success of Olaf E. Kaper

The multi-cultural state the Islamic Empire. The temple of Kellis at the Tocharian: crossroads between East and An Indo-European West in the Roman Empire. 06 language from China. Alwin Kloekhorst In the footsteps of the Phrygians. Mobility and language 40 Marike 22 van Aerde Sara Polak Buddhism in Ebola in the American Gandhara and Imagination. beyond. 46 36 Ahmad Al-Jallad Mark Driessen 18 Searching for Ancient

Willemijn Waal routes and faiths Trade Trade-routes through Arabia’s Lost City of Salt. In search of the baleful signs. the steppe.

04 05 In the footsteps of the Phrygians. Understanding migrations and cross-cultural contacts in Iron Age .

Alwin Hundreds of people are gathering at the shores of the Kloekhorst ; men, women and children alike. One by one, studied Comparative Indo-European they get on board of small boats that will bring them across Linguistics at Leiden University and the waters to the lands on the other side. Lands that they defended his PhD thesis in 2007 have never set foot on before, but which, despite their (published in 2008 as Etymological anxiety about the journey, they are determined to reach. Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon by Brill). In 2008, he was Because they know that these lands are prosperous and awarded with a VENI-grant by NWO the people living there are wealthy. And because they hope for conducting a research project on that they will be able to share in that prosperity, so that their the accent system of Hittite, resulting life there will be better than the one they had thus far. So in the 2014 monograph Accentuation in Hittite (published by Harrassowitz much better that no boundary can stop them, not even large Verlag). In 2012, Kloekhorst was stretches of waters. appointed as assistant professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at the Leiden University Centre for This scene will in most readers of Marmara and the Bosporus form Linguistics. In 2015 he received a undoubtedly bring up associations the most important natural boundary VIDI-grant from NWO for the research with recent news reports about between Europe and the Middle East, project Splitting the mother tongue: Middle Eastern refugees that try to whereas Anatolia (the Asian part of the position of Anatolian within the reach Europe by crossing in small Turkey) can be viewed as forming the Indo-European . As rubber boats the water ways that bridge between these two regions. It part of a larger research consortium, he divide the Greek islands from the has therefore always been this area was awarded, together with Alexander Turkish coasts. The scene is also where East and West collide, and Lubotsky, a HERA research grant from applicable to many other migration through which populations groups the European Research Council for waves that throughout history have had to pass in order to migrate from conducting the project The linguistic taken place across these waters, the one region into the other. landscape of North West Anatolia in however. Since times immemorial the To the modern mind it may seem pre-Roman times. Aegean Sea, the Dardanelles, the Sea obvious that these migrations would

07 Mobility and language th Phrygian in the 15 century able to conquer millennium BC alphabetic scripts are Byzantium and with it the Byzantine introduced into Anatolia. In the West Daskyleion Empire, penetrating into Europe. and South languages are written Unknown area in varieties of the It may be clear that the modern-day (Greek itself, but also Phrygian, Greek Hieroglyphic Luwian migrations from and Iraq into Lydian, Carian, Lycian, Milyan and Europe through Turkey are no isolated Sidetic), whereas in East Anatolia case, but are part of a larger pattern variants of the Lydian that has existed for millennia. This are used to write Semitic languages everlasting going back and forth of like Phoenician, Sam’alic and . diferent population groups through Around the beginning of the common Anatolia has made this area home era Latin is introduced together with Carian to intriguing places that show all its script, and a few centuries later, Lycian kinds of ethnic mixtures. In Istanbul, when the Turks arrive, the Arabic for instance, Roman, Byzantine and script is used for writing Turkish, a Pisidian Sidetic Ottoman architecture stand side by situation that lasts until the beginning side, and the city has been home to of the 20th century. All these dozens of diferent ethnic groups, documents the ethnolinguistic speaking a multitude of diferent history of Anatolia, and therefore the languages. history of the interaction between East and West. The reason that we know so much about the ethnolinguistic history of Anatolia, is the fact that already very early on in history writing was being employed by the people living there. It may be clear that the The earliest written texts from the Languages of 2nd and 1st millennium take place from the Middle East into world of that time. During the Hittite area date to ca. 2000 BCE. Ever since modern-day migrations BC Anatolia. Hatched areas indicate the Europe, but this certainly has not rule of Anatolia, there was little room that moment we have an ongoing approximate distribution of the various always been the case. In fact, at the for groups to enter Anatolia from documentation (of more than 4000 from Syria and Iraq into languages. Dots designate indspots of dawn of human civilization, it was Europe, but after the fall of the Hittite years!) on the history of Anatolia and relevant inscriptions. (modern-day Iraq) that empire around 1200 BCE, we see a the many diferent peoples that have Europe through Turkey, was the most prosperous region in the major increase of population groups dwelled there. Just like the peoples world, and therefore many population crossing the seas from West to East: whose histories these documents are no isolated case, but groups from Europe tried to reach this , Phrygians, , Celts, and describe, the texts themselves are mythically wealthy land by crossing possibly also Armenians, all migrate very diverse, being written in all kinds are part of a larger pattern the waterways that divided Europe into Anatolia in search for a better life. of diferent languages and scripts. from Anatolia. There is evidence Only when the power of Mesopotamia In the second millennium BC the that has existed for that already in the third millennium declined and larger civilizations majority of sources consist of clay BCE several population groups from arose in Europe, we see that the tablets written on in the millennia. Europe must have entered Anatolia wave of migrations started to move script, which contain texts written in in this way. One of these groups the other way around. The Persians, Old Assyrian, Hittite, Hattic, Hurrian, founded the Hittite Empire, which for instance, made an attempt at Luwian and Palaic. At the same time However, not all parts of Anatolia are during the second millennium BCE conquering Greece, being warded many rock inscriptions appeared as well covered by written documents dominated the Anatolian highlands of by the Greeks in several battles in Anatolia that were written in an as others. The biggest gap in our for centuries, and which in the 16th at sea. Later on, the Turks were indigenous hieroglyphic script and knowledge of the ethnolinguistic map century BC was even able to plunder more successful. After migrating into contain texts in the . of Anatolia is its North-Western part: , the most important city in the Anatolia from Central Asia, they were From the beginning of the irst we have hardly any sources

Alwin Kloekhorst 08 09 Mobility and language that give us information about the summer of 2012, showed that in of 1st millennium BC North-Western peoples that lived there and the that sample at least three diferent Anatolia. Additional information, from languages they spoke in the period languages could be identiied, namely historical (2nd and 1st millennium BC) To the modern before the Roman era, i.e. in the Greek, Phrygian, and Lydian. This sources, archaeological data, and second and irst millennium BC. This indicates that in pre-Roman times historical and contact linguistics, will gap in our knowledge is unfortunate, also this area was home to a mixture be fed into this reconstruction and since it is exactly this area that forms of ethnicities, some of which at that are expected to result in a better mind it may seem the narrowest part of the Anatolian moment in time had been present in understanding of the origins of the ‘bridge’, through which all peoples Anatolia for more than two millennia (and its speakers) migrating from East to West or vice (), whereas others had and its inluence on other languages versa must have crossed. Moreover, migrated into Anatolia only relatively in the area. In this way, the project this area is home to , the famous recently (Greeks and Phrygians). aims to paint a detailed picture and obvious that these city that, according to the epics of more complete understanding of the Homer, was the scene of the Trojan With the results of this 2012 ethnolinguistic make-up of the border war. Despite its global fame, we preliminary research in hand, Lubotsky area between Europe and the Middle have no concrete evidence about and Kloekhorst joined a larger, East in pre-Roman times and its migrations would the ethnicity of the people who lived international research consortium, development through time, illing an in Troy during the times in which which in the summer of 2016 was important gap in our knowledge. Homer’s stories are set, nor about awarded by the European Research what language its inhabitants spoke. Council with a large research grant to take place from This unfortunate situation may carry out the project Multilingualism completely change, however, because and Minority Languages in Ancient of exciting new discoveries from Europe. This has allowed Lubotsky Daskyleion (30 km south of the Sea of and Kloekhorst to enlarge their the Middle East Marmara). team with PhD-student Aljoša Šorgo. Together they will conduct At the time of the Persian reign of the sub-project called The linguistic Anatolia (ca. 550-330 BC), Daskyleion landscape of North West Anatolia was the seat of the satrap (governor) in the pre-Roman period. The main into Europe, of the province Hellespontine bulk of the research will consist of that controlled the Dardanelles, producing a full description and and it therefore was then the most analysis of all the graiti that thus far important city in this region. During have been excavated at Daskyleion. this certainly has recent excavations at Daskyleion, Over the course of several seasons executed by the University of Muğla at Daskyleion, each graito will be under the direction of prof. Kaan İren, extensively studied and published, hundreds of potshards have been detailing all relevant epigraphic, not always been unearthed with graiti on them. A philological and linguistic aspects. preliminary study of a part of these This collection of graiti will then graiti, conducted by prof. Alexander serve as a basis from which to Lubotsky and dr. Alwin Kloekhorst reconstruct the nature and origins of the case. during a ield trip to the site in the the Phrygian and other languages

Alwin Kloekhorst 10 11 Mobility and language Tocharian: An Indo-European language from China.

Tocharian is a language that was spoken in the Tarim Basin in the Northwest of present-day China (Xīnjiāng region, north of Tibet). In the middle of the Tarim Basin there is a large desert, which is surrounded by several oases and enclosed by high mountain ranges. Tocharian is an Indo-European language, related to Latin, Greek, Celtic, and, among many others, English. A few examples suice to illustrate this: mātär ‘mother’; pātär ‘father’; protär ‘brother’; ñem ‘name’; kas ‘six’; keu ‘cow’.

Michaël Today, the Tocharian language is pieces of larger leaves: the number of Peyrot extinct. How is it known altogether? leaves that are completely preserved It is attested in paper manuscripts is only a couple of hundred, and these studied Comparative Indo-European that have been found on the northern are mostly just a single leaf of a larger Linguistics and Dutch Language and edge of the Tarim Basin, in the text. Literature at Leiden University, where territory of the former city-states Kuča, he also defended his PhD thesis Yānqí and Turfan. These manuscripts, In order to decipher the content of The Tocharian subjunctive in 2010 dating from 500–1000 BCE, could the fragmentary manuscripts, better- (published 2013 with Brill). From 2011 be preserved until the present day, preserved parallels in other languages to 2014, he worked at the University of thanks to the extremely arid desert are crucial. Fortunately, these do Vienna for A comprehensive edition of climate in the region. Nevertheless, in many cases exist: Tocharian Tocharian manuscripts. He then moved the pieces that survive are only literature is almost entirely Buddhist. to Berlin for his Marie Curie project fragments of a Tocharian literature Buddhism arose in what is today Niya Tocharian: language contact that must once have been quite northern India and Nepal, in the 6th and prehistory on the Silk Road substantial. The number of manuscript century BCE. When emperor Aśoka, (2014–2016) at the Berlin-Brandenburg fragments can be estimated at 9,000 who reigned over almost the entire Academy of Sciences and Humanities. for variety “B”, originally from Kuča, Indian subcontinent, made Buddhism His NWO-funded VIDI project Tracking but also found in Yānqí and Turfan, the state religion in the 3rd century the Tocharians from Europe to China: and 2,000 for variety “A”, originally BCE, it spread far beyond its place of a linguistic reconstruction at Leiden from Yānqí , but also found in Turfan. origin. From Gandhāra in present-day University runs from 2016 to 2021. However, these are mainly small northern , it then expanded

Michaël Peyrot 12 northwest into , where it With all Tocharian Buddhist literature out because they derive from an close at all to them within the Indo- that Indo-Iranian, together with other lourished in the , as set in India, it comes as no surprise archaic form of Iranian and point European language family. This is branches of Indo-European, descends well as north into the Tarim Basin, that the Tocharian language contains to contacts in the 1st millennium shown, for instance, by the word for from an Indo-European culture called from where it spread further into many words that are borrowed from BCE, long before the attestation of ‘horse’, which can be reconstructed Yamnaya, dated approximately from

central China. The fact that anything Sanskrit. Almost the entire lexicon of Tocharian. An example is Tocharian as *h1e uo- (cf. Latin equus, Greek 3500 to 2500 BCE. From the Eastern is known at all about Tocharian is due religious terms is Sanskrit, and in most B etswe ‘mule’, which has been híppos). In Indian and Iranian, which European steppe, the Indo-Iranians completely to the spread of Buddhism cases they are easily recognisable borrowed from Old Iranian *atswa- together form the Indo-Iranian moved east and then south through into the Tarim Basin. Not only can the because they contain letters that ‘horse’, the source of e.g. Avestan (the branch, the sound * is relected as present-day Turkmenistan. The texts be deciphered thanks to parallel otherwise do not occur in native language of Zaraθuštra / Zoroaster) an s-sound: Avestan aspa-, Sanskrit Indians moved southeast into India, texts in other languages, Buddhism Tocharian words, such as th, d and aspa- and Farsi asb. The Tocharian áśva-, Khotanese aśśa-. However, while the Iranians remained to their was also the reason why Tocharian dh, which must in normal spoken B word cannot be from Khotanese or in Tocharian it is relected as a k: the north and moved west and east, into and several other languages of the Tocharian all have been pronounced Tumšuqese because the Khotanese inherited word for ‘horse’ is yakwe in Iran and onto the Eurasian steppe. region were written down in the irst as t. Words of this type are e.g. word is aśśa-, whose śś could not Tocharian B. The common ancestor of Tocharian B bodhisātve ‘bodhisattva’ have given Tocharian tsw. the Indo-European languages, Proto- With Indians south of the Tarim Basin, (an enlightened being who is to Indo-European, was spoken in the Iranians in the west of the Tarim become a Buddha) and brāhma e Even though Tocharian is so heavily Eastern European steppe, probably Basin, and probably still more Iranians In order to decipher the ‘brahmin’ (a member of the class inluenced by Sanskrit, Gāndhārī, and approximately from 4500 to 3500 on the Kazakh steppe and possibly of priests). Only some of the basic several Iranian languages, it is not BCE. There is increasing consensus even north and partly east of the content of the fragmentary religious concepts are expressed with indigenous terms, such as pelaikne manuscripts, better- ‘law’ (Sanskrit dharma) and yāmor ‘act, fate’ (Sanskrit karma). Some preserved parallels in other words cannot come from Sanskrit, but point to a Gāndhārī source. languages are crucial. These were apparently borrowed before Sanskrit became dominant. B An example is amāne ‘monk’, which n Turfan r i a goes back to Gāndhārī amana, not to h a place. Initially, Buddhist literature was Sanskrit śrama a. o c Yānqí A not written in the local languages, but T Kuca n r i a only in the Middle Indian language of Before the arrival of Buddhism and m š u q e s e To c h a Gandhāra, Gāndhārī. The transmission Indian culture, Tocharian was also Tu Loulan of the texts must also, to a large part, inluenced by other languages. The Tumšuq have been oral. From the middle most important among these were Kašgar of the irst millennium onwards, Iranian. Iranian is a large language texts were written down in the local family that does not only comprise Tarim Basin vernaculars. These were Tocharian the Farsi language of Iran, but also, A and B in the northeast of the Tarim among others, Kurdish, Ossetic in the r ī Basin, the Iranian language Khotanese Caucasus, Pashto in Afghanistan and K ā h Khotan h in the southwest of the Tarim Basin, Pakistan, and smaller languages in o Niya d t a ā n and later also Tumšuqese, related Afghanistan, Tajikistan and western n e s N i y a G to Khotanese, in the northwest. China. Some of the Iranian inluence e All four languages are written in a in Tocharian can be attributed to its variety of Brāhmī, a family of Indian two Iranian neighbours in the Tarim scripts. Parallel to texts in the local Basin: Khotanese in the southwest languages, Sanskrit Buddhist texts and Tumšuqese in the northwest. were produced, as Sanskrit had However, most must derive from Languages of the Tarim Basin around replaced Gāndhārī as the language of several other Iranian varieties. Among 500 CE (@ Michaël Peyrot) Buddhism in the region. these, a small group of words stands

Michaël Peyrot 14 15 Mobility and language Tarim Basin, it is highly remarkable Chronologically, it makes perfect that Tocharian does not show any sense to connect the early Tarim closer resemblance to the Indo- Mummies with the Afanas’evo Iranian languages: all inluence, even Culture on the one hand and with though some is early, is from a later the Tocharian city-states on the date. At present, the best explanation other. However, there is no way to for this situation seems to be that be certain of the language of either the Tocharians moved east over the Afanas’evo people or the Tarim the steppe before the Indo-Iranians Mummies given the total absence started to spread. At the eastern of written sources. But we can try to end of the steppe, north of the Altai reconstruct the migration route of the mountains, an archaeological culture Tocharians in order to see whether it is found that is termed “Afanas’evo”. is possible that Tocharian was spoken This culture, close to and largely in the Tarim Basin already in the early contemporary with Yamnaya (also 2nd millennium BCE. 3500–2500 BCE), is often thought to represent a very early phase in In the NWO-funded VIDI project the development of the Tocharians. Tracking the Tocharians from Europe Assuming that the Afanas’evo people, to China such a reconstruction who have left no trace of their is carried out based on linguistic language, were early Tocharians, evidence. The many layers of contact the main problem remaining is the for which there is evidence in the enormous time gap of 3,000 years Tocharian language will be used between the end of the Afanas’evo to establish where and when the Culture and the attestation of the Tocharians have been in contact with earliest manuscripts. which other languages.

Possibly, the link between the Afanas’evo Culture and the Tarim Basin is formed by the so-called Tarim Mummies. The Tarim Mummies are not real mummies, but rather ancient The fact that anything humans that are surprisingly well preserved, due to the extremely arid and in winter very cold climate of the is known at all about Tarim Basin. They are from several sites throughout the Tarim Basin, Tocharian is due completely and from diferent periods. Most interesting are the oldest, which date to the spread of Buddhism from the early 2nd millennium BCE. They belong to the “Xiaohe Horizon”, into the Tarim Basin. which comprises the sites of G mùgōu / Qäwriġul, Xi ohé / Ördek and Ayala Mazar, all of which are today in uninhabitable parts of the desert.

Michaël Peyrot 16 17 Mobility and language In search of the baleful signs: rethinking the transmission of the alphabet to Greece.

In the second millennium BCE, several syllabic writing systems were in use in the Aegean, notably the , and , of which only the latter has been deciphered. The surviving records are mainly administrative documents on clay and painted vase Willemijn inscriptions, but there are good reasons to assume that Waal these scripts were also used on perishable materials such as wood or palm leaves. Linear B was in use till the end of the is a classicist and Hittitologist (ca. 1180 BCE) after which a ‘Dark Age’ of some working as university lecturer for the 300 years without any attested writing follows. Written texts programme Classics and ancient Civilizations at Leiden University. re-appear again around 800 BCE, when the irst alphabetic Her research interests include early inscriptions on stone and pottery turn up in Greece. It is writing systems, orality and literacy in general agreed that the Greeks took over the alphabetic the ancient world and the interaction script used by the Phoenicians. This was a consonantal between the Aegean and the Near East in the Late Bronze Age. In 2015- alphabetic of which the origins can be traced 2016, she received a research grant back to at least the beginning of the second millennium from INSTAP (Institute for Aegean BCE in Egypt. When the Greeks adopted this script, they Prehistory) for the project Bridging are thought to have made some adjustments such as the East and West: New Perspectives on the Rise of Early Writing Systems and addition of signs. Administrative Practices in the Aegean and Anatolia. This project entailed a comparative approach towards early Though the Semitic background of the Greek alphabet is undisputed, the date writing in Anatolia and the Aegean, of the transmission of the alphabet to Greece is controversial. Various proposals including the origins of the Greek have been made, ranging from the 14th to the 8th or 7th century BCE. In classical alphabet. studies the prevalent opinion is that the alphabet was introduced in, or shortly

19 Mobility and language before, the 8th century BCE. This point for the introduction of the alphabet, eventual writing direction of the Greek of view ultimately goes back to the this would mean that the alphabet alphabet (left to right) is the complete inluential article of Rhys Carpenter changed, developed and spread like opposite of that of Phoenician (right in 1933, who adduced his by now wildire throughout the Aegean at a to left). famous ‘argument from silence’: the tremendous speed, which would be fact that there are no surviving written all the more astonishing after such a sources from before 800 BCE (or, long assumed preceding ‘Dark Age’ The contemporary, independent at the time he wrote the article, not without any writing. Etruscan and Phrygian before 700 BCE) proved that writing Due to some important redatings, did not exist in Greece before that the earliest Phrygian inscriptions time. However, as has been pointed The archaic Greek writing habits in Anatolia can now be placed at The Ugaritic ‘Alphabet’. Note the (near) absence of . out by scholars such as Ullman, The writing habits of the archaic around 800 BCE, which makes them Naveh and Ruijgh, there are quite Greek alphabets are also of interest. contemporaneous with the oldest some indications that alphabetic The writing direction of the earliest Greek inscriptions. Though the including the so-called Acesander- Age was not as dark as has long introduction in the Aegean. writing was introduced to Greece Greek inscriptions is not yet ixed Phrygian alphabet is undoubtedly cup, which contains a poetic been assumed, but that – apart much earlier – but that it was in irst and the letters may be written from related to the Greek alphabet, it alphabetic inscription. This inscription from obvious decline – there was instance only written on perishable right to left, left to right, horizontally, clearly underwent some independent is very similar to that of the Nestor- a substantial amount of continuity Concluding remarks and outlook on materials. As the dominant writing vertically or (i.e. developments. Similarly, the Etruscan cup found in Pithekoussai (Ischia) and prosperity, certainly in places further research mediums for alphabetic scripts are alternating between left-to-right alphabet is also clearly related to and the Dypilon inscription from like Knossos and Lekandi. Maritime In addition to the above, there are generally ephemeral materials such and right-to-left). Only from ca. 500 the Greek alphabets, but there are Athens, which are both also dated to activity continued and there was some linguistic arguments that plead as wood, leather or papyrus, this is BCE onwards the dextroverse (i.e. obvious diferences already from the 8th century BCE. It is remarkable still exchange with the Near East. In for an earlier date of the alphabet to quite conceivable. The emergence from left to right) writing became the irst attestations onwards. These that these three inscriptions, which these conditions, the existence of Greece, as especially Cornelis Ruijgh of new data over the last decades, the norm. Further, in the early Greek dissimilarities can only be satisfactorily belong to the earliest known Greek literacy in Greece is conceivable, and has argued. All these facts combined which are hard to reconcile with the alphabet the letterforms are unstable explained as the outcomes of longer, inscriptions are of a literary nature, even likely, in view of the fact that call for a revision of the current present model, makes it worthwhile and vary greatly. This is all in sharp separate developments, implying that presenting regular hexametric verses. the region maintained contacts with paradigm. Rather than assuming to (re)explore the possibility that the contrast to the Phoenician script, the alphabet must have been in use Though this circumstance has been the (literate) Levant, and the fact that that there was a sudden ‘explosion’ alphabet was already introduced in which at least from the 9th century for quite some time. The fact that in seen by Barry Powell as evidence that writing had been in use in Greece for of writing in the 8th century after an the Aegean much earlier, around the onwards had a ixed writing direction the 8th century we see the emergence the Greeks introduced writing for the about 700 years till ca.1200 BCE. illiterate phase of three centuries, 11th century BCE. (right to left) and stabilized and of a range of alphabetic traditions that sole purpose of recording Homer, a the present constellation of our data standardized lettershapes. In these are evidently related, but also show more plausible explanation may be favours a scenario in which alphabetic respects, the archaic Greek script clear diferences from the very start that writing was already in use for Interconnectivity in the writing was already introduced The pluriformity, diversity and more resembles early West-Semitic and the fact that the Greek alphabet other, more mundane text genres, Mediterranean to Greece around the 11th century spread of the Greek alphabets inscriptions of before ca. 1050 BCE, shares some remarkable similarities such as economic and administrative Though in the early previous BCE, and initially used on no longer As soon as the irst Greek alphabetic which also do not have a ixed writing with Semitic inscriptions before ca. documents on ephemeral materials, century, when the current paradigm existing materials. A potentially earlier inscriptions appear, they turn up direction and show a great variety 1050 BCE, plead for an earlier date before the irst surviving literary was developed, there may have date of the Greek alphabet has regularly in a large area including in letterforms. In addition, the early of the transmission of the Greek inscriptions on durable materials. been doubts about the possibility important consequences for various the entire Greek mainland, the Greek inscriptions make use of the alphabet. This scenario is all the more This assumption gains strength if one of contacts between the Aegean ields of research. It opens up new Aegean islands, Italy and Sicily. These same type of word divisions (multiple compelling because of some new bears in mind that most, if not all, early and the Near East before the 8th perspectives for understanding the inscriptions show signiicant regional dots or vertical strokes) that are also discoveries and insights that have Greek inscriptions are of a private century, the now available textual Greek Dark Age, the spread of and variety; no less than 33(!) diferent attested in early West-Semitic, but been made in recent decades. nature – including vituperative graiti, and archaeological data show that relations between the early alphabets versions of the Greek alphabet can be not in later Phoenician inscriptions. It which can hardly be considered a there was an international network and the Homeric Question, as it would distinguished. Despite their obvious is remarkable that the Greeks would primary use of writing and implies of trade and diplomatic contacts allow a scenario in which the Iliad diferences, these alphabets all share have operated a less developed Discoveries of more (early) a wider (and in all likelihood earlier) across the Mediterranean from at and Odyssey are the result of a mixed certain innovations, like the presence system if they had the standardized alphabetic inscriptions usage of the script. least the 3rd millennium onwards, written/oral tradition, just like the Epic of vowel signs, which means that 9th-8th century retrograde Phoenician The corpus of early Greek inscriptions intensifying in the second millennium of Gilgamesh, to which they bear so they must ultimately go back to the example at their disposal, and that has steadily increased over the BCE. The necessary infrastructure many resemblances. same source. As already observed this system coincidentally mimicked decades. Of great signiicance are the Light in the Dark Age for a transmission of the alphabet by the Semitic epigrapher Ullman writing practices that existed much recent inds of 8th century inscribed Recent archaeological studies was already in place, long before in 1934, if one assumes a late date earlier. It is further telling that the objects in Methone (Macedonia), have shown that the Greek Dark the traditional date of its assumed

Willemijn Waal 20 21 Mobility and language Ebola in the American Imagination. Contagious Metaphors and Narratives on Twitter.

Since 2009 Donald Trump has been a fervent user of the social medium Twitter, well before he became president- elect or was even running for the presidency. Through Twitter users can publish (‘tweet’) and relay (‘retweet’) very short messages – with a maximum length of 140 characters. The wealthy businessman and reality television star was already using Twitter for political purposes. The best-known instance is his role as leader of the – online loudly present – ‘birther movement’, which falsely claimed that president Sara Polak Barack Obama was born outside of the United States. is assistant professor in American Studies at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. As part of her Another phenomenon that was very one of a few hundred tweets Trump NWO Rubicon project at the Graduate visible on Twitter – and in which posted about Ebola patients, whom Center for the Study of Culture in Trump was also highly involved – he claimed were streaming into the Giessen, she investigates US American revolved around the Ebola epidemic country via a “highway” from Africa, imaginations and cultural memories in West Africa, and the ensuing ‘Ebola and were actively invited by the sparked by the 2013-2015 Ebola scare’ in the United States between Obama administration. epidemic on Twitter. While her previous 2013 and 2015. When a Liberian man research was in the area of American who carried the virus, but was not The way in which Trump attributed cultural memory, this is the irst time yet experiencing symptoms, entered agency and malign intentions to the she focuses on memory as mediated the United States in the fall of 2014, Ebola patient – who, did not at the through a digital social medium. Trump tweeted: ‘The Ebola patient time of travel know he was infected Polak also regularly writes about who came into our country knew – its seamlessly into a pre-existing American politics, culture and history exactly what he was doing. Came into tradition of what Priscilla Wald has in a range of Dutch local newspapers, contact with over 100 people. Here termed ‘outbreak narratives’. Trump’s and teaches American literature and we go – I told you so!’ (3 October suggestion that Ebola patient ‘knew culture. 2014, @realdonaldtrump). This is just exactly what he was doing’ imagines a

Sara Polak 22 Trump’s suggestion ‘Patient Zero’, who is not a victim, but For instance, an often retweeted ‘joke’ the question whether such a thing appropriate older cultural memories a criminal who deliberately brought that Ebola patient – ”What did your last slave die of? exists, Twitter is also a medium that, and metaphors. However wrong or his own deadly virus to the Unites Ebola.” – creates a baling connection like other media, inluences what is ofensive Trump’s and others’ tweets States. Pinpointing a Patient Zero between two seemingly completely communicated through it. It invites may be, they represent a force in creates a reproachable guilty other, ‘knew exactly diferent issues. It suggests that particular observations or jokes more current-day society that is extremely and constructs a narrative within Ebola speciically targets Black West than others, and its elusive algorithms powerful, and needs desperately to which that person owes their social Africans, as did transatlantic slavery steer what is seen most often. While be better understood. exclusion to their own behavior. what he was doing’ centuries ago. Most enslaved African it is called a ‘social’ medium, it really Once you believe there is a culpable Americans in the United States had is – like other supposedly social Patient Zero, it is no longer morally originally been captured or bought media – a commercial medium with its problematic to exclude, isolate, or imagines a ‘Patient in West Africa, where the Ebola own commercial, and as part of that deport that person. Trump cast the epidemic occurred in 2013-15, but hidden, logic. man he referred to as a criminal or, there is obviously a massive time even, as a zombie-like igure. Zero’... gap between the abolition of slavery However, in the now emerging Trump in 1863 and the Ebola epidemic. era, it is crucial both to understand Striking about many American tweets The seemingly illogical association Twitter as a medium, and to grasp and other social media messages between dying of Ebola and dying the ways in which it relects, and about the Ebola epidemic – not with cultural images and narratives they are nonetheless very powerful. as a slave is only legible if we accept perhaps generates, cultural narratives only from Donald Trump – is that that were not directly connected The same mechanism is visible in the notion that, like slavery, Ebola around events in the present that re- they mostly employ conceptual to Ebola, but which the news of social media discourses elsewhere, can only alict West Africans. This metaphors, which activate a network the outbreak did trigger. Some – for instance with regard to the current frame implies that the white Twitter of cultural narratives and associations. obviously manipulated – images of refugee crisis in Europe. Expressions user, who is posing in the tweet as The Trump tweet quoted here, for Ebola patients supposedly arisen like ‘a tsunami of refugees’ and other a slave owner, is protected against instance, about the patient who came from the dead ‘went viral’ on social lood metaphors suggest that the the disease by their whiteness. Other into contact with as many people media, to such an extent that they refugee situation is like a natural tweets that refer to slavery go even ... as he could so as to infect them, its seemed more contagious than the disaster, in which Europeans are at further, suggesting for example that into a far broader discourse, in which virus itself. That says something about risk of drowning. Such images, and the threat of an Ebola epidemic is a Ebola patients are likened to zombies. the cultural context in which the news the narratives based on the frame form of revenge from West Africans who is not a Undead creatures, whose purpose it of the epidemic was received, but it suggested by the metaphor, have real to punish the United States for its is to spread their own abject disease, also says something more general political implications for the way in slavery history. Or they urge African victim, but a and thereby to produce more copies about how events in the world ind a which individuals, institutions, and the Americans to be grateful for their of themselves. The zombie metaphor place within the fabric of pre-existing international community respond to transatlantic slavery past, because has very little to do with Ebola, but narratives, and how those events in events in the present. they would otherwise have contracted criminal who understanding Ebola as a zombie turn can bring particular, previously Ebola. threat neatly its into a pre-existing dormant discourses back to the The NWO Rubicon project, which I am American cultural fascination and forefront. currently conducting at the University While I am sure such tweets – deliberately anxiety. There are many even more of Giessen, maps these Ebola especially if they have had a wide outrageous examples of conceptual Although intertextuality – the metaphors and narratives on Twitter, reach – are telling about what could metaphors engaged in tweets that ‘conversation’ between older and and igures out how they work. I be termed the cultural imagination brought his own use the word Ebola or the hashtag newer literary works – has been irst aggregate tweets that mention of particular groups and networks in #Ebola. Ebola patients, in American studied extensively, the process ‘Ebola’, from the period that the Ebola the United States, it is hard to assess tweets from late 2014 or early 2015, of how events in the present can scare in the US peaked and then let precisely how to weigh them and how deadly virus to are often compared to vermin, revive discourses and narratives a computer sort these tweets based to understand Twitter expressions in criminals and slaves. from the past has not been studied a on the other words in the tweet. general. It is tempting to see Twitter great deal. Particularly in the ield of This shows what the most prevalent as a giant repository of often crude, the Unites States. Apparently the epidemic in West social media historical analogies and combinations are, and many of these of-the-cuf thoughts and comments, Africa sparked associations among metaphors that crop up often seem are indeed metaphors that contribute allowing a peek into the collective groups of American Twitter users very far-fetched, or even random, but to particular narrative frameworks. unconscious. But even leaving aside

Sara Polak 24 25 Mobility and language The success of the Islamic Empire.

The Middle East is the cradle of human civilisation. It’s also home to one of mankind’s most ambitious and maligned forms of mass organisation, the empire. In 5,000 years the region has seen what must be a record number come and go, from the Akkadians, Babylonians, Neo-Assyrians, , and Persians to the Seleucids, Parthians, and Byzantines, not to mention frequent irruptions by other people’s empires, including Romans, Mongolians and Ottomans, all the way up to the British and French. All applied their own formula to the complex and bloody task of melding disparate populations into a coherent political whole; all have joined, with Nineveh and Tyre, Kipling’s vanished “pomp of yesterday”.

All except one: the Islamic Empire. resonating in movements as diverse Petra M. As a political unit – in terms of both as pan-Arabism and extremist caliphal Sijpesteijn its geographical extent and duration revivalism. As a political ideal and – the success of the Islamic Empire locus of identity, it continues with Petra Sijpesteijn is professor of Arabic was remarkable enough. Even astonishing vibrancy to this day. language and culture. Her research more remarkably, while the political concentrates on recovering the structures that bound the Islamic What was it that made the Islamic experience of Muslims and non- Empire together have long since Empire so uniquely resilient and Muslims living under Islamic rule, using unravelled, the language, religion and successful? How did the Muslims the vast stores of radically under-used culture that the empire left behind forge a disparate mosaic of conquest documents surviving from the early continue to deine the region in every societies into a coherent and durable Islamic world. She is currently heading conceivable way. It is one of the very Muslim polity? What accounts for a large research project that aims to few empires – perhaps the only one the Islamic Empire’s success, where explain the success and cohesion – for which there exists widespread so many before it had failed? The of the Islamic Empire, which is made nostalgia, and it remains the mystery only deepens when one possible through an ERC Consolidator prevailing organisational benchmark considers Islam’s origins. The world Grant. in the Middle East today, its memory of the Arabian peninsula from

Petra M. Sijpesteijn 26 Age of the Caliphs agglomeration, where imperialists of much necessity. Numerically a minority, the Arabs were longer standing had failed? Or, put more faced with a wide variety of potential challengers precisely, if no empire can survive without the to their power from both within and without. The support, or at least acquiescence, of its subjects, lack of outright superiority militarily, culturally Frankish Kingdom how did the Islamic empire win that support and and numerically, during and directly after the convince its inhabitants that being part of the conquest periods, meant other methods of Caspian Black Sea Sea empire was more advantageous than not being asserting control had to be applied. This does Byzantine part of it – and how did they do so in a way that not mean that the conquests were not violent, Empire still speaks to Muslims today? or that no battles were fought, or that the Arabs didn’t resort to violence when they needed to. e This is the subject of the ERC project, Mediterranean Sea t a ‘Embedding Conquest: Naturalising Muslim p h Rule in the Early Islamic Empire (600-1000),’ a l i which seeks to understand what the Islamic I s c C Empire did – and did diferently – to ‘bed’ itself l a m i in so efectively. It’s a story that unfolds less on The mystery the empire’s battleields and in its corridors of power, than in the day-to-day interactions of Arabian Sea its inhabitants. Rather than chart the cut and only deepens Expansion under the Prophet Mohammed, 622-632 Red thrust of the empire’s high politics, ‘Embedding Sea Additions during the Patriarchal Caliphate, 632-661 Kingdom Conquest’ looks at how the empire was of Dongola when one Additions during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661-750 experienced on the ground. Scholarship to date has overwhelmingly relied on ‘literary’ sources in Arabic (e.g. chronicles, legal treatises, considers theological tracts), composed centuries after the Map showing the various stages of expansion of the Arab Empire conquests and shaped by court politics at their time of writing. This has created the impression Islam’s origins. that the embedding of Muslim rule was a which Islam sprung, although less weakness and long-term decay. But than not, fell apart as soon as the top-down process, directed from the centre, of an isolated backwater than once it’s a remarkable fact that every one charismatic conquering ruler had built on military coercion and control through thought, was a loose confederation of the countries now comprising that died. Islam’s generals, by contrast – administrative systems. ‘Embedding Conquest’ Rather it is this reliance on negotiation, on of trading posts organised around expanse remains Muslim, and – with Abu Bakr, Khalid ibn al-Walid, ‘Amr focuses instead on ‘documentary’ sources in introducing new things within a framework of kinship and tribe, with little to no the exception of Iran and Central Asia ibn al-‘As – are barely known outside multiple languages on papyrus, leather and continuity, which by necessity became the Arabs’ experience of bureaucratic structures, – Arabic-speaking. specialist circles. The Islamic empire paper from all over the empire (e.g. letters, trademark. It is also in this way of working, of complex diversiication or large-scale transcended the force of personality. contracts, iscal accounts, petitions, decrees, thinking, that we should look for roots of the mobilisation. The apparatus of empire While the astounding speed of these Its appeal was based on something work permits). With their minutiae of daily life success of the early Islamic Empire. ‘Embedding had to improvise. conquests has inspired a stream of deeper and more enduring, and documents ofer a unique bottom-up perspective Conquest’ explores the complex system of scholarly studies, the much more resonated with a broad and diverse onto the empire in which they were produced. negotiation, compromise and improvisation, It had to be improvised at speed, complicated question of how the Arab array of peoples. Muslim territories It is at this ground roots level that we can start by which central authorities interacted with because the Islamic Empire was not conquerors managed to transform encompassed not just a multitude of to understand how the inhabitants of the Islamic provincial interests to maintain compliance and centuries in the making. Its core lands these victories into a lasting political ethnic groups and religions, but also Empire became part of it, how they participated consent amongst their subject populations, how in the Middle East were assembled empire, has not received similar a bewildering variety of languages, in it shaping it through interacting at all levels. these patterns of negotiation and reciprocity in a mere twenty years. Eighty years attention. And yet this is the real including Greek, Persian, Berber, Three elements seem to be crucial. were replicated and adapted throughout the after the prophet Mu ammad’s death story. Rapid conquests, even within Coptic, Aramaic, Syriac and Armenian, web of social interactions, and how they worked (632 CE) its territories stretched from one ruler’s lifetime (Alexander the to name just the most prominent. First, the Muslim Empire, from the very to create a sense of shared investment that held the Atlantic seaboard to the Indus. Great, Genghis Khan), have occurred So how did the Arabs pull it of? beginning, showed a remarkable need to the fabric of Muslim society together. Such rapid expansion might suggest before, but the empires thus created How did they manage to unite explain, and to ix agreements in writing. This overreach – a recipe for structural were charismatic, and more often and administer such a sprawling emphasis on negotiation was born out of

Petra M. Sijpesteijn 28 29 The multi-cultural state Next, attention must be paid to the cohering Finally, the project examines how power force of Islam. The momentum which carried relations and networks between individuals Islamic imperialism forward was vested in the worked to create social cohesion across the special qualities of Islam itself, particularly empire. Personal power in the early Islamic the Muslim community’s ease of entry and empire preceded positional status and absorptive potential, conferring an identity institutional authority. Especially important is that augmented rather than superseded local the web of personal associations through which identities, and providing a universalist context Islamic rule was propagated, in messages It’s a story that that served to unify and empower. More broadcast from the centre that reverberated practically, Islam created a uniform language of throughout the empire’s constituent populations, behaviour, values and expectations that helped only to be transmitted back in a continuous to structure interactions at all levels, providing dialogue on the nature and limits of power. unfolds less on a platform for exchange and negotiation that These ramiied networks functioned as agents could be used – like a common coinage – even of central authority but also, in times of stress, as by the empire’s many non-believers. ‘Embedding motors of resistance and dissent, as likely to edit Conquest’ examines how Islam functioned and adapt the caliphal narrative, as they were to in the empire, less as a series of normative propagate it. the empire’s prescriptions than as an evolving platform for the negotiation of power, reciprocity and In one of the two earliest dated Arabic dependency, and a medium through which to documents to have survived, an Arab army understand rulership, patronage and statecraft. commander in Egypt acknowledges receipt of In doing so, the project aims signiicantly to 65 sheep requisitioned from the local Middle battleields and advance our understanding of the Islamic model Egyptian villagers to be slaughtered for the Arab of statehood and power, how it built upon and troops. Packed into this prosaic little scrap of text reacted against local traditions, and how it was is the image of an entire system. The conquest in its corridors negotiated in practice. of Egypt was not even over and the Arabs can be seen already laying in the machinery of bureaucratic accounting and record-keeping. Equally remarkable is the impulse to justify, of power, than in to explain, and – albeit hardly in a spirit of complete equality – to negotiate, with the text The use of Islam meticulously drafted in Greek as well as Arabic. Implicit too, is the authority of the new religion, to structure planted irmly in the introduction with Islam’s the day-to-day formulary signature, “In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.” The use of Islam to and guarantee structure and guarantee agreements is there at the very beginning. As is the appeal to personal interactions of its agreements is standing of the unit’s captain, ‘Abd Allah b. Jabir. We begin to see, beyond the wild-eyed desert there at the very horsemen that the conquests stereotypically conjure, how the Islamic empire was inhabitants. beginning. really won.

Petra M. Sijpesteijn 30 31 The multi-cultural state The temple of Kellis at the crossroads between East and West in the Roman Empire.

In 1991 an astonishing discovery was made in the Dakhla Oasis, Egypt. In this region, far removed from the Nile Valley, expectations were not the highest. But when the excavations started in the location where we expected to ind the temple of the village of Kellis, we made a discovery that turned our view of Roman Egypt on its head. Next to the temple was a shrine, which I could later identify as the mammisi or birth temple, where the rejuvenation of the god was enacted, and this building showed a unique kind of decoration. The Olaf E. building was built of unbaked mud bricks, and it was entirely Kaper covered in painted plaster. As the only temple known from Egypt, it combines the traditional Egyptian style of temple is Professor of Egyptology at Leiden decoration, with hieroglyphs and images of deities, with University. He is the guest curator Roman style panel painting. Such a mixture of styles is for the exhibition Queens of the Nile, unknown in other Egyptian temples. Based on the style of currently running at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. Since the paintings, a date in the irst half of the second century 1988 he has carried out ieldwork in CE has been determined for the structure. Dakhla Oasis, Egypt. Work at the Kellis mammisi in Dakhla was funded notably by the Australian Research Council, The temple was dedicated to the temple, including the large mammisi. the Egypt Exploration Society and gods Tutu, Neith and the local The latter is the best-preserved The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In goddess Tapsais. The stone temple building in the complex, even though 2017 he will spend three months at the itself survived only in its lower it had collapsed in antiquity. It consists Getty Villa, Los Angeles, as a Research courses because the building had of a single room preceded by a Scholar within the programme The been quarried. There were, however, courtyard. The room measures 12 x Classical World in Context: Egypt. several mudbrick shrines around the 4.80 m and it originally had a vaulted

33 The multi-cultural state ceiling of c. 5 m in height. After the chapel had tradition. These playful exchanges seem to be taken some bold steps. It seems to be highly been abandoned in the second half of the fourth signiicant, because they show that the two signiicant that this temple lies some 350 km century CE, the ceiling collapsed and was covered artistic styles were not made by diferent artists away of the Nile Valley, in a region in which the by wind-blown sand. In this state it survived, and working in isolation, but that they worked in Saharan trade routes to other parts of North our excavations have enabled us to retrieve the close cooperation, if they were indeed diferent Africa, to the Mediterranean world and to the full extent of the painted decoration, albeit mostly artists at all. Meroitic kingdom in the south come together, Mediterranean Sea in small fragments. and these have created a more open attitude By the Roman Period, the Egypt of the Pharaonic towards Egyptian traditional forms. Seen in Alexandria We have managed to reconstruct the images, past had been transformed into a largely this light, the Kellis mammisi is an illustration inscriptions and the original layout of nearly Hellenized society, with a culture in tune with of a globalised society that is in the process all the scenes. Only parts of the west and east the rest of the Mediterranean world. Hellenistic of transformation. In this provincial temple walls were too heavily damaged as a result of culture pervaded all parts of daily life, but the of Roman Egypt, the old traditions in art and their collapsed state. A series of large paintings changes seemed to have little impact upon the iconography were still essential for depicting Giza Cairo has also been physically reconstructed with the most conservative sector of Egyptian society: the ancient gods, but it was combined with Memphis original fragments, with an eye to their future its temples. The priesthood managed to resist more contemporary imagery, while omitting Faiyum exhibition in a museum, and possibly in a travelling foreign inluence as late as the second century all reference to the political ruler. It seems that exhibition. In the centre of the rear wall was a CE, and, in some places, even longer. Temples the smaller provincial temples could serve as relatively small and shallow niche, set in the continued to be built and there is very little in an experimental testing ground because they wall at about two meters height. This was the their appearance that betrays their late date of possessed more freedom to adapt. focus of the shrine, intended for the display of a manufacture. The name of the Roman emperor cultic statue. The rounded top inside this niche of the day was inscribed on the temple walls The Dakhla Oasis functioned as a regular contained a white plaster shell motif known from in hieroglyphs, in a script that was no longer Egyptian province, but because it was classical architecture. Beneath the niche was a known outside of the small group of the priestly geographically far removed from the rest of platform upon which the statue or statues could elite. This is why the Kellis ind overturned our the country, serving as a hub on several trade Asyut be placed. The front of this platform was painted perceptions, because here – for the irst time – routes, it assumed a distinct cultural identity with a symmetrical design of acanthus leaves, two was an Egyptian temple in which contemporary and it claimed more freedom to seek out new lotus lowers, and two Eros igures. This essentially art forms were introduced. artistic forms in temple decoration. An indication classical architectural element was surrounded of the intercultural inspiration of these changes by images of Egyptian deities and texts written in Apart from the exceptional mixture of styles, the is the omission of the igure of the Pharaoh in Dakhleh Oasis hieroglyphs. most important feature of the shrine in Kellis is the paintings, which may well be connected to Luxor the omission of images of the ruler. Whereas the same feature in the temples of the Isis cult The only comparable painted plaster decoration in traditional temple decoration the Pharaoh around the Mediterranean. Kharga Oasis with juxtaposed classical and Pharaonic styles is is absolutely essential, in the Kellis mammisi found in some tomb chapels of Roman Egypt. It he has been omitted. The Pharaoh was the My current research therefore focuses on the is possible that the two styles in the Kellis temple crucial intermediary between heaven and earth, difusion and reception of ideas between the were painted by the same artist or group of artists, between the realms of gods and men, and for Egyptian realm and other parts of the Roman Aswan because the classical style painter incorporated this reason even the Roman emperors allowed Empire, exploring how the classical world some Pharaonic style elements in his work and themselves to be depicted in this role in the interacted with Egypt, and how the archaeology vice versa. There are some Egyptian lotus and temples, dressed as a Pharaoh. The Egyptian of religion in the Egyptian Western Desert papyrus lowers included in the classical paintings, paintings at Kellis depict an astonishing number relects processes of fundamental cultural and the vaulted ceiling includes a large panel of of over 400 images of gods. They contain all the change. In addition, my study bears on the classical design with a roundel that is held up by known gods of the Dakhla Oasis itself, as well as relation between ancient religions, iconography Map of Egypt showing the position of the Dakhla Oasis. four goddesses represented in Pharaonic style, the principal gods of all the provinces of Egypt and material culture. One of my aims for the which is a visual reference to the four supports of and then some more. But there is no Pharaoh coming years is writing a monograph and heaven in the Egyptian tradition. The Pharaonic depicted, nor a Roman emperor in that role. assembling an exhibition in which the material style painter incorporated a classical style loral from Dakhla Oasis is presented as a case study spray in the decoration of a doorway that is The importance of the Kellis mammisi lies in of cultural change at the crossroads of East and otherwise entirely in accordance with the Egyptian its appearance, in which the decorators had West in the Roman Empire.

Olaf E. Kaper 34 35 The multi-cultural state Trade-routes through the steppe: Introducing the Udruh Archaeological Project.

….’After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came….and they bowed down and worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh’…

These magi and their precious gifts the Nabataeans resulted in an Mark from these excerpts of Matthew’s agricultural intensiication of Petra’s Driessen Gospel (2: 2, 12) most probably hinterland, this has hardly been of relate to the Nabataean people. interest for archaeological research is a lecturer at Leiden University’s The Nabataeans developed from a for a long time. The hinterland of Faculty of Archaeology. Supported nomadic tribe living on the desert important centres like Petra can by the Stichting Van Moorsel en fringes of present-day Jordan, to an provide however pivotal information Reinierse and the Dutch Ministry of independent state in the last centuries contributing to the understanding of Economic Afairs, and in collaboration before our Common Era. The basis of their rise, expansion and decline. with Jordanian academics, he is their economic, political and military currently excavating the site of Udruh; dominion, which covered large parts The Udhruh Archaeological Project an important 2nd century BC site in of the current Middle East, lay in their (UAP), a joint venture between Jordan, which served as a transit for involvement in the long-distance Leiden University and the local Al trade routes to the major city of Petra. trade of myrrh and frankincense from Hussein Bin Talal University, aims South Arabia, the processing of these to initiate the irst in-depth research aromatics and their expertise in water into the development of a complete management. The famous rose-red region in the hinterland of Petra. This city of Petra – the Nabataean capital project, which is headed by Leiden – was established at a strategically archaeologist Mark Driessen and situated node of caravan routes, his Jordanian colleague Dr. Fawzi and is renowned for its monumental Abudanah, started with large-scale buildings. Archaeological research in ield surveys, small-scale excavations the Petra area focused for a long time and diverse GIS-related and on its urbanity and monumentality. subsurface detection techniques. Although the sedentarisation of After ive years of predominantly

Mark Driessen 36 crowdfunded and self-funded campaigns we have been probably an active Roman occupancy of the settlement we realised that the region has great potential for Access to water is one of the greatest challenges mankind able to reconstruct a signiicant part of the 48 km² Udhruh throughout the second half of the third century, and a archaeology. Next to the already mentioned security and has to face in the 21st century. Scholars from diferent ields region. We can state that the region around Udhruh, complete building inscription makes clear that the fort communication system, it became very obvious that the of research around the world are dealing with the ever- 12 km east of Petra, was actively exploited in antiquity. was rebuilt in 303/4 CE. This was carried out by the Legio landscape, with the most southern occurrence of fertile growing demand for water. Ancient societies dealt with Ingenious and elaborate investments were made on the VI Ferrata, for which a large area northeast of Udhruh yellow Mediterranean soils, was selected for an active similar problems, as can be seen for the Udhruh region ields of agriculture, water management, caravan and trade was quarried. Large rectangular coquina blocks – some agricultural use. After ive years of archaeological ield where innovative investments in agricultural and water services, military dominion, communication and security measuring around 2 kubic metres– were used to construct work, we can conclude that the research area around resource management led to a massive transformation of networks. the curtain wall. the town of Udhruh is one of the most complete and best the landscape and turning parts of the desert into green preserved ield ‘laboratories’ in Jordan to study the long- oases. For the Udhruh Archaeological Project we have The current village of Udruh is dominated by, and centred In Byzantine times Adroh (Udhruh) is mentioned in term development of innovative water management and gathered an international and interdisciplinary research around, the still standing remains of a Roman legionary antiques sources as a large and important town, and was agricultural systems throughout the Nabataean, Roman, team of scholars that will examine, in close cooperation fortress. This 4.7 hectare Roman military town was partly prestigiously renamed as Augustopolis. In the 5th and 6th Byzantine and early Islamic periods (2nd century BCE – 10th with the local communities, what the key to this water built over a smaller Nabataean trade or caravanserai post. centuries bishops of Udhruh are mentioned along bishops century CE). management and agricultural success was in ancient times. The spring of Udhruh was most certainly an important of Petra. These indicate that Udhruh had a bishop of its criterion for the choice of location for this post. own, and a sign that Petra experienced a gradual process Three diferent antique agro-hydrological systems can The strategically position of the southwestern part of these of decline in the 6th and 7th centuries, paralleled by a be distinguished in the Udhruh region. The already settlements is another apparent reason for starting these growth in importance of Udhruh. One of these sources mentioned perennial source in Udhruh was used to irrigate on this location. This naturally elevated corner tower of – the Petra papyri – show that, on the basis of the place a patchwork of small ields, which were laid out eastward It became the fortress connects visually to all parts of a regional names, the region was in a process of Arabization well of the village. Retrieved ceramics date the ields from the communication and security network. During our before the conquest by the Muslims. This might be due to Nabataean period and onwards. clear that the surveys we encountered a chain of watchtowers and the presence of the Ghassanids/Jafnids as clients of the fortlets laid out on several hills in the vicinity. Byzantine state. Archaeological research by means of trial In the hilly area northwest of Udhruh a combination of long sustaining The visibility from these hilltops struck us immediately, trenches in the fortress underline these transformations in ancient rainwater-catchment and loodwater-harvesting reaching sometimes an unblocked and clear view of post-Roman periods. techniques is observed. These terraced ields cover a vast more than 40 kilometres. These intervisibly connected area of several square kilometres and provided surface Udhruh qanat watchtowers were constructed along the north-south An extra-mural Byzantine church next to the southwestern inds dating from predominantly Nabataean and Byzantine trade and caravan route, but also next to the road to corner tower was ‘cleared’ and ‘restored’ by local times. and field Petra. Together with the presence of Nabataean pottery authorities for tourism purposes in the early 2000’s. This at all of them, this resulted in our hypothesis that these clearance was not carried out along the standards we Southeast of Udhruh an impressive network of well- watchtowers were part of a security network guarding and would expect today, with important information having preserved ancient subterranean and surface-water systems are controlling the antique caravan routes through which the been lost. However, it produced some very interesting conservation measures and connected irrigated ields fabled treasures were transported. Christian inscription in Greek and Arabic. The 12th and – a qanat-system – was recorded in a large lood plain perfectly 13th century Christian-Arabic inscriptions are quite unique largely covered by alluvial deposits. The basis of these This chain of communication was reused in Roman and and show that an Arab-Christian community still existed qanats consist of four aquifers or water levels, tapped by and quite later periods for military and other purposes/means. in Udhruh, many centuries after the Muslim conquest. subterranean canals which are constructed and maintained The Roman authorities decided upon constructing a This summer we were able – with inancial support of the through more than 200 vertical qanat-shafts, hacked legionary fortress in the place that was also known by the ‘Stichting Van Moorsel en Reinierse’ – to further investigate out of the limestone bedrock over an overall distance completely same name in antiquity. Measuring and reconstructing the this church, its layout, continuity and the religious of more than 8.5 km. The surface transport of the water visible parts of the curtain wall of these castra – which at transformation of this special community. A community that is through more than 2000 m³ of solidly built channels conserved. some points still stand about 6 metres above the current was also chosen to host an important arbitration ceremony and aqueducts. It accumulates in large reservoirs, with ground level – is also part of our archaeological ield work. between competing Muslim parties of the battle of Siin, capacities of millions of litres of water, constructed to The layout and realization of these defensive works and which resulted in the establishment of the Umayyad state irrigate an extended agricultural ield system with at the retrieved architectural elements, which most probably in 660 CE. least 35 hectares of tilled land. It became clear through Additionally, we hope that the acquired knowledge of belonged to its headquarter, make clear that the legionary observations in erosion gullies, small-scale excavations the ancient agro-hydrological systems can contribute to base of Udhruh was deinitely of more monumental stature Although the above makes clear that archaeological and a combination of non-destructive geophysical ground- sustainable agricultural and water management solutions than its counterparts along the limes Arabicus. Functioning research on the site itself is very diverse and stimulating, based and airborne exploration methods, that the long for the future. So a future gospel will say that the Magi from as a desert gateway to Petra was most probably one of we put most emphasis on the hinterland during the irst sustaining Udhruh qanat and ield systems are perfectly the east brought a treasure many people can beneit from; the reasons for this monumental refurbishment. Collected years of the project. Already after our irst surveys, and and quite completely conserved. the liquid gold: WATER. pottery and stray ind coins show that there was most considering the previous work done by Fawzi Abudanah,

Mark Driessen 38 39 Trade routes and faiths Buddhism in Gandhara and beyond: Cultural interaction between ancient East and West.

Buddhism is one of the oldest religions in the world, and deeply connected with East and South Asian culture. The man who was to become the Buddha was born as Siddhartha Gautama, the son of a warrior king, in the foothills of the Himalaya in ca. 563 BCE. Buddhism draws on the life and experiences of the Buddha, whose teachings Marike (known as dharma) present a model for life towards van Aerde enlightenment and freedom from earthly sufering. Some of the earliest Buddhist texts, in the form of the Jataka studied Archaeology and Classics at tales, date from 300-400 BCE, while the earliest known full the Radboud University Nijmegen and account of the life of the Buddha – the Buddha Charita – University College London (UCL), and completed her PhD (2015) as part of was written by the Indian poet-monk Ashvaghosha in the the VIDI project ‘Cultural innovation 2nd-1st century BCE. in a globalising society: Egypt in the Roman world’ supervised by Miguel John Versluys at Leiden University. Buddhism began as a religion of from modern-day East Afghanistan She investigated cultural interaction monks and monasteries, founded to Northwest Pakistan, saw a between Rome and Egypt, and takes by the Buddha’s original followers. remarkable rise in Buddhist learning a similar approach in her Postdoc But as the teachings of the dharma and philosophy, which reached on Hellenistic and Buddhist culture spread, the amount of Buddhist beyond the monasteries and began to in the archaeology of Gandhara. So monuments and places of worship inluence both public and political life. far, she has been supported by the – usually in the form of burial At that time, the Gandhara region was Catherine van Tussenbroek Fund mounds and Bodhi trees – increased part of the . Emperor and collaborated with the Leiden across the area of modern-day North Ashoka the Great (who reigned Archaeology Faculty, the British India and Pakistan. So did Buddhist from 268-232 BCE) became the irst Museum, and UCL’s Institute of scholarship. Especially the region political patron of Buddhism, which Archaeology in London. known as Gandhara, which spread signiicantly increased the religion’s

Marike van Aerde 40 was ‘Greco-Buddhist’, whereas the from the Mediterranean, based Nimogram Udegram Panr Butkara spread of Buddhist material culture on style and general appearance Gumbatuna Andan Dheri Saidu Sharif beyond the region was deemed of only. Even when these objects Shnaisha Chatpat Barikat lesser quality (and therefore of lesser were originally excavated as part of Gumbat Loriyan Tangai interest) because it could no longer Buddhist architecture, such as stupa Jalalabad Palai Sanghao be regarded as Greek craftsmanship. monuments. However, modern-day Nathu Kashmir Smats Zar Dheri Ahin Posh Tareli As a result, Greco-Buddhist art has analyses of material properties have Sikri long been (and often still is) seen as demonstrated that most of these Takht-i-Bahi Mekhasanda Mohammed Nari Chanaka Dheri an isolated category that was unique ‘imports’ were in fact made locally in Sahri Bahlol Shaikan Dheri to Gandhara, because of the presence Gandhara, from local stone or bronze. Bala Hisar Afghanistan of the Indo-Greek kingdoms. But the The sites of , one of the central Ali Masjid Gandhara actual archaeological data suggest cities of Buddhist scholarship under Jamrud Shah-ji-ki Dheri something quite diferent. Ashoka the Great, and the great stupa Bhamala monument at Butkara I provide a The distinct naturalistic style and variety of interesting examples. Taxila Islamabad certain material techniques of many Pakistan Rawalpindi of the Buddhist sculptures and reliefs from the Gandhara region, Manikyala can indeed be recognised as part of the wider material culture repertoire of the Hellenistic world from the The increasingly wide Map of Gandhara with its major sites. 2nd-1st century BCE. At the same time, many details (even in the form variety of Buddhist of distinct facial features), attributes and subject-matters of these objects culture across Asia seems match descriptions and traditions from Buddhist scholarship and scriptures originally rooted in the very closely, and cannot be found spread throughout the Maurya Buddha emerge from the archaeology sculptures and reliefs, in order anywhere else in the Hellenistic world. Empire and beyond. Nowadays, of this region speciically, and can to demonstrate that the arrival of Moreover, most examples of so-called Gandhara region. Buddhists are a minority in India and be dated roughly from the time of Hellenistic settlers in Gandhara, in the Greco-Buddhist art in Gandhara are Pakistan, but the religion became Ashoka’s reign onwards. Something form of the Indo-Greek kingdoms (2nd- integral parts of speciic Buddhist predominant in both Far East Asia quite remarkable seems at work 1st century BCE), became a ‘superior architecture and monuments, More than anything, such new (via China, the Korean peninsula, here: these irst statues of the ilter’ for the existing local Buddhist as evident from most surviving analyses point towards a process of and Japan) and South Asia (via Sri Buddha, as a human igure, have culture, which became known as excavation reports of Gandharan interaction on quite a global scale; Lanka, Cambodia, and Thailand). This so far been widely recognised for Greco-Buddhist art. In the West, sites. The evidence clearly shows the opposite of ethnic categorisation spread has signiicantly inluenced their ‘Greek’ or ‘Hellenistic’ style, Buddhism was seen as a ‘negative’ that these sculptures and reliefs were and cultural containers. The the material culture of these regions, ever since they were excavated in culture, while the superiority of not isolated objects in a Hellenistic/ archaeological sources show diferent as archaeological sources from the late 19th to early 20th century. Greek art was considered irrefutable Indo-Greek environment, even and often highly lexible layers of as early as the 2th-1st century BCE Virtually all archaeological campaigns at that time. This led to many though most 19th century Western material choices, technical skill, already show. But this increasingly in the region were undertaken by misinterpretations and wrong datings scholars did choose to interpret subject matter, and (local) contexts wide variety of Buddhist culture British and French colonial scholars of especially Buddhist archaeology them in that way, as a result of their that emerged in Gandhara during this across Asia – possibly the reason at that time – and their records from Gandhara, and the prevalence own predetermined perspectives of time. And this, in turn, points towards for its widespread ‘success’ – seems and interpretations still make up of so-called cultural containers, where both Greek and Buddhist culture. In an ongoing process of interaction originally rooted in the Gandhara the majority of the (predominantly ‘Greek’ and ‘Buddhist’ elements are addition, objects from Gandhara that and exchange that seems incited by region. Western) understanding of these regarded as signs of separate ethnic seemed to lack Buddhist attributes cultural contact and trade networks archaeological sources today. These categories. Briely put, Buddhist or subject matter were deemed ‘fully throughout the ancient East and Some of the irst known scholars focused deliberately on the material culture from Gandhara Greek’ (e.g., igures of Herakles or West; again, the opposite of cultural anthropomorphic depictions of the ‘Greek’ aspects of these Buddhist was considered superior because it Medusa) and labelled as imports isolation and categories according

Marike van Aerde 42 43 Trade routes and faiths to so-called culture styles. By asking ‘What is and transmission – and certainly not one of Greek about Buddhist material culture from speciic cultural ‘iltering’. More than anything, Gandhara?’ from the onset, we already put the archaeology of Gandhara suggests that categories in place before examining the actual Buddhist material culture was inherently layered, data. More relevant (and interesting) is the lexible, and interactive from its very start. question ‘How did the lexible interplay work Perhaps that original characteristic enabled, of Buddhist elements and Greek naturalistic or at least encouraged, its large-scale spread techniques that the archaeological data from and appropriation throughout the very diverse In the West, Gandhara show?’ Contrary to studying Greco- cultures of South and Far East Asia. Buddhist art from Gandhara as an isolated (and predominantly Greek) phenomenon, this Re-examining Gandharan sites and objects makes us think about the wider scope of cultural can give us new insights into speciic case Buddhism was interaction, trade, and exchange networks studies from the archaeological data – but it throughout Eurasia. On a practical level, what also reminds us of the potential inluence of routes, connections, and processes enabled our own perspectives as scholars. By trying to look beyond the notion of culture containers and ethnic categories, we will be able to seen as a ‘negative’ look beyond Gandhara, as well. In that way, Such new singular sites and even individual objects can become valuable sources about the widespread interactive networks that seemed culture, while analyses to prevail throughout ancient Eurasia and that seem to have convened, possibly in multiple point towards a ways, in the Gandhara region from the 2nd-1st century BCE onwards. On a practical level, the superiority this requires a substantial re-examination process of of archaeological data from both Gandhara and beyond. The often scattered locations of interaction on artefacts and incomplete records can provide of Greek art some challenges, but initial results have already shown that the interaction between Hellenistic quite a global and Buddhist elements in Gandhara can be seen as part of a much larger material culture scale. process, which was marked by diversity and was considered lexibility. Subject matter, techniques, material choices, and physical contexts were apparently this kind of interaction in the irst place? And interchangeably available, depending on the why did it become so successful for Buddhism speciic requirements for the artefacts and/ irrefutable at in Gandhara speciically? That subsequently or architecture in question. Based on these leads to the question how elements from indings, the continuing study of cultural Gandharan Buddhist material culture spread interaction between ancient East and West beyond that region, and how they contributed promises to yield yet many more insights. And, that time. to the large-scale spread of Buddhist culture in particular, will expand our understanding of throughout Asia. Buddhism indeed continued the spread of Buddhist culture beyond cultural to spread far, towards both East and South, categorisation, as well as beyond Gandhara. but at its origin it also met and interacted with the West. This process certainly does not appear to have been a clear-cut case of origin

Marike van Aerde 44 45 Trade routes and faiths Searching for Ancient Arabia’s Lost City of Salt. The Thaj Archaeological Project.

Ancient Greek and Latin writers speak of a wealthy and powerful trading kingdom in Pre-Islamic East Arabia called Gerrha. Its capital city was said to be ive miles in circumference and its inhabitants, who Ahmad were said to be Chaldean refugees, dwelt Al-Jallad in houses of salt. According to Artimedoros, specializes in the early history of the Gerrhaeans became the richest of all the Arabic and North Arabian. He has tribes and possess great quantity of wrought done research on Arabic from articles in gold and silver. Gerrha would the pre-Islamic period based on have been a major hub of international documentary sources, the Graeco- Arabica (Arabic in Greek transcription trade between South Arabia, Mesopotamia, from the pre-Islamic period), language the Mediterranean and India following the classiication, North Arabian and Arabic conquests of Alexander the Great, perhaps epigraphy, and historical Semitic as grand as Palmyra or Petra. A major linguistics. His notable decipherments include a zodiac star calendar used diference, however, exists between Gerrha in the Safaitic inscriptions (Arabian and the other major trading hubs of the Archaeology and Epigraphy, 2014), the – its location is unknown. oldest Arabic poem yet discovered The largest kingdom in East Arabia in the (Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religion, 2015), and the decipherment Classical period has somehow disappeared of the oldest, fully vocalized Arabic under the sands of the vast eastern desert. text, written in Greek letters (Arabian The Thaj Archaeological Project (TAP) aims Epigraphic Notes, 2015). He is the to bring into the light of history the pre- founding director of the Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Arabia, and co- Islamic heritage of East Arabia and ind the directs the Thaj Archaeological Project. location of the mythical city of Gerrha.

47 Trade routes and faiths Thaj is the name of the largest archaeological Gerrha – the team employed a combination site in East Arabia, located some 90km east of of traditional archaeological methods and the the port city Jubayl on the Arabian Gulf. The latest, cutting-edge non-invasive techniques. signiicance of the site was irst recognized in early aerial photographs, where patterns in vegetation growth patterns, along with ruins Areal Photography and a Geophysical Survey visible from the surface, revealed a formidable From the ground Thaj is incredible, but one city wall enclosing an area of 40 hectares. needs to see it from the sky to truly appreciate From the Another 40 hectares of inhabited area exist its scale. In order to gain a better understanding outside the wall, and a large, mostly undisturbed, of the outline of the ancient city, including necropolis (burial grounds) awaits study. In 1998, residential areas, streets, marketplaces, etc., Saudi archaeologists excavated one of these the team contracted the company FalconViz to ground Thaj undisturbed burial mounds and found a irst carry out a global aerial photographic coverage century CE tomb of a young royal girl, containing and 3D scanning of the site. At a resolution burial oferings of gold, pearls and precious of as high as 1cm per pixel, the outline of the stones, including a Hellenistic gold funerary structure of the ancient city as seen from the is incredible, mask. The combination of the site’s size, as well surface has never been clearer. The team did as its apparent wealth, have led many scholars not stop here. Given Thaj’s size, the choice of to consider this the best candidate for the capital where to dig is critical, as resources and time city of Gerrha. are limited. To enhance the aerial photography, Dr. Rozan al-Khatib and Paul Calou from the but one Institut de Physique du Globe of Strasbourg (France) carried out a geophysical survey using One of these hidden a machine that measures magnetic anomalies. Their work revealed a network of streets and needs to see structures not visible from the surface. For the stones may hold the irst time, we can see what the ancient city at the it from the key to the mystery site of Thaj looked like in detail, and it is grand. The Excavations of Arabia’s lost city Based on the aerial photographs, the team opened two areas for excavation, one at an sky to truly of salt. opening in the city wall – thought to be gate – and the second in a densely built area outside of the walled city. The anomalous break in TAP is a major international archaeological construction in the irst area was conirmed to efort, initiated by Ahmad Al-Jallad (Leiden be a gate to the city, but the excavation revealed appreciate its University), and led by him and Jérôme Rohmer another feature – a large protruding defensive (CNRS, ) in a partnership with the Saudi tower, unique in its design so far. The extramural Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, area required a diferent approach. The aerial headed by Mahmoud al-Hajiri. The irst season photography revealed a massive, densely built scale. of the mission stretched from October 25th to block. In order to further narrow down the area November 30th, 2016, and four more seasons to dig, the irst two weeks were devoted to are scheduled. In order to properly understand a wide horizontal exposure of an area of 600 sq. site of this size and its relationship to other major m, corresponding to the half of an ancient city archaeological sites in the region – some of block. Two soundings uncovered a kiln and what which perhaps belonged to the realm of ancient might be a textile manufacturing area – the team

Ahmad Al-Jallad 48 49 Trade routes and faiths had discovered the ancient city’s industrial zone! The study is the major mountain to the north, called Jebel Quwaydiyat Credits of the pottery from the site revealed several local varieties by locals. The mountain contains the ruins of a fortiication as well as imports from Mesopotamia and from as far away along its middle terrace, and some cairns, possibly graves, as India. Finally, the construction of the buildings made use lie on its summit. Pottery similar to that found at Thaj is of gypsum, a whitish-gray mineral related to salt. abundant at the site. 40 km northwest of Thaj, two more fortiied mountains, one with clear ruins of structures, were New research in the humanities discovered. The relationship between these ‘high’ places Leiden university The language of ancient Thaj and its inscriptions and the site of Thaj is not yet understood and will be a goal Several inscriptions in a local variety of the Ancient South of subsequent seasons. Arabian alphabet – termed Hasaitic by scholars – have Edited by been discovered at Thaj. All of these so far have been J. M. Kelder, S.P.L de Jong, A. Mouret gravestones, containing the names and lineages of the Moving forward city’s elite. The language of the ancient city remains TAP’s irst season reveals a site remarkably similar to Photography: a mystery, as the short texts are rather formulaic and descriptions of Gerrha – the ancient city of Thaj was a Rob Overmeer contain few examples of grammar. Nevertheless, clear large and wealthy metropolis involved in international evidence of Aramaic inluence can be seen and in fact a trade. It had a sizable residential area within the defensive Design: few bilingual Hasaitic - Aramaic inscriptions have been perimeter and an industrial zone outside it. Its wealth Just, Leiden discovered, agreeing with the claim that Gerrha was settled is demonstrated not only by its size and its impressive by Chaldaean refugees, who may have brought Aramaic construction but also in the burial oferings discovered Print: with them. The team this year excavated a well containing by the Saudi excavation of a tomb. Its inscriptions Puntgaaf drukwerk, Leiden one such inscription. The text was badly damaged, having reveal a meeting point between Mesopotamian and spent so much time under water, but what can be clearly Arabian inluences, perhaps alluding to a Mesopotamian A Luris publication. made out are the lines containing the date, which reads: component in the population. Its buildings made use of Leiden 2017. year one of ??? the king and may he persist. Was this a gypsum, a whitish-gray mineral very similar in appearance local king of Gerrha? Only future discoveries will tell. The to salt. presence of a local writing tradition must have been used Copyright illustration p. 16: "Binghua Wang: more widely than just for gravestones. We expect to ind in All of this evidence strongly qualiies Thaj as the lost capital "The ancient corpses of Xinjiang. The peoples of future excavations texts commemorating the construction of Gerrha, but conclusive proof remains elusive. In the ancient Xinjiang and their cvlture". Xinjiang 1999. of buildings, votive, religious inscriptions, and if we are truly next season, the team will excavate a massive structure Copyright illustration of Papyrus G39726 (page 31) lucky, the city’s archive. revealed by the geophysical survey in the centre of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. ancient city. This may very well be the main temple of the The copyright of all other illustrations and texts rests site, which may contain inscriptions indicating the name of with the various authors. Surrounding sites the town. We also plan to excavate a tomb, which will shed The Publisher has endeavoured to settle image rights The team surveyed surrounding sites as far away as more light on the identity of the city’s ancient inhabitants. in accordance with leagal requirements. Any party 40 km to the north and south in an efort to understand Finally, the well containing the bilingual Hasaitic - Aramaic who nevertheless deems they have claim to certain the relationship of the hinterland to the ancient city. About inscription is constructed from inely hewn stones, the rights may apply to the Publisher. ten kilometres to the south of the site are three mountains types usually employed for the carving of inscriptions, and stretching north to south called the Battils. The northern may have been constructed at a later period from the ruins The editors wish to thank Dr. C. Kreuszaler for her and southern mountains are relatively bare, containing a of ancient Thaj. We plan therefore to dismantle the well to kind help and the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek few prehistoric burial mounds, tumuli, and modern Arabic see if the hidden faces of these rocks bear writing. One of for permission to reproduce the illustration of Papyrus graiti. The middle Battil was quite diferent. On its summit these hidden stones may hold the key to the mystery of G39726. was a great concentration of pottery sherds, numerous as Arabia’s lost city of salt. sand, as well as a few burial tumuli. The pottery is identical to that of Thaj and suggests a connection between the two. High places such as these are commonly used for religious rituals in the ancient Near East, and it is possible that the middle Battil was the location of some religions signiicance to the inhabitants of ancient Thaj. Perhaps more enigmatic

Ahmad Al-Jallad 50 51 Mobility and language