Orientalist Gazes: Reception and Construction of Images of the Ancient Near East since the 17th Century 9783963272509, 9783963272516

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wEdge 3 wEdge 3 Orientalist Gazes

www.zaphon.de

Orientalist Gazes Reception and Construction of Images of the Ancient Near East since the 17th Century

Edited by

Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Agnès Garcia-Ventura, Kai Ruffing and Lorenzo Verderame

Zaphon

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11.05.2023 10:18:24

Orientalist Gazes Reception and Construction of Images of the Ancient Near East since the 17th Century

Edited by Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Agnès Garcia-Ventura, Kai Ruffing and Lorenzo Verderame

wEdge Cutting-Edge Research in Cuneiform Studies Volume 3

Editor-in-Chief: Lorenzo Verderame Editorial board: Eva von Dassow Agnès Garcia-Ventura Jean-Jacques Glassner Ann Guinan Emanuel Pfoh Jordi Vidal

Orientalist Gazes Reception and Construction of Images of the Ancient Near East since the 17th Century

Edited by Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Agnès Garcia-Ventura, Kai Ruffing and Lorenzo Verderame

Zaphon Münster 2023

Illustration on the cover: Antonio Tempesta: Muren van Babylon; Septem orbis admiranda; Antwerp 1608; etching; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.184904.

Orientalist Gazes: Reception and Construction of Images of the Ancient Near East since the 17th Century Edited by Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Agnès Garcia-Ventura, Kai Ruffing and Lorenzo Verderame wEdge 3

© 2023 Zaphon, Münster (www.zaphon.de) Printed in Germany. Printed on acid-free paper. ISBN 978-3-96327-250-9 (book) ISBN 978-3-96327-251-6 (e-book) ISSN 2698-7007

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Agnès Garcia-Ventura, Kai Ruffing & Lorenzo Verderame .................................................................... VII Thomas Coryate und sein Orientbild Christian Feser .................................................................................................... 1 Populäre Lithographien im Orientalismus des 19. Jahrhunderts – tradierte Geschlechterbilder im neuen Medium Silke Förschler ................................................................................................... 19 Joseph von Hammer-Purgstalls Fundgruben des Orients und die Entzifferung der Keilschrift Hannes D. Galter ............................................................................................... 37 The reception of the Assyrian wounded lioness in Spain – a success story Agnès Garcia-Ventura ....................................................................................... 55 Arnaldo Momigliano and his picture of the Orient – an essay Arnaldo Marcone ............................................................................................... 71 From the Bible to Nabucco – the question of the sources Davide Nadali .................................................................................................... 77 “Die Mitternacht zog näher schon. Man trinkt noch Hofbräu in Babylon … und später wird man in selbiger Nacht von seinem Knecht ins Bett gebracht!” – some insights into the guest book of the German excavations in Babylon Georg Neumann ................................................................................................. 87

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Contents

Bemerkungen zur Rolle des (Alten) Orients in den deutschsprachigen (welt-)geschichtlichen Betrachtungen des 19. Jahrhunderts Hans Neumann ................................................................................................. 115 Villains or heroes of cultural history? The Ancient Near East in German textbooks around 1900 Björn Onken ..................................................................................................... 129 Reconstruction drawings of Ancient Near Eastern architecture as inspiration for building in the 1920ies in Germany: The Einstein Tower in Potsdam and the Karstadt department store in Berlin Brigitte Pedde .................................................................................................. 139 The German novelist Karl May (1842–1912) as a multiplier of knowledge about the Ancient Near East Friedhelm Pedde .............................................................................................. 157 Fashion and the Ancient Orient Frances Pinnock .............................................................................................. 171 Carsten Niebuhr and Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy: How a keen observer and a gifted young scholar unravelled the secrets of Sasanian Naqš-e Rostam Josef Wiesehöfer & Philip Huyse .................................................................... 189

Preface and Acknowledgements Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Agnès Garcia-Ventura, Kai Ruffing & Lorenzo Verderame Studies on the reception of Antiquity are booming, and the volume you have in your hands is a proud reflection of this process. It brings together thirteen articles written by scholars working at universities and research centres in European countries: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Even though academia tends to operate in a globalised framework, local academic traditions influence the choice of the topics of study and the approaches used. Knowledge is always situated, sometimes even in spite of the people who produce it, and this is even more true in the case of reception studies. Processes of reception do not follow a stringent logic; they are subject to cultural, societal, and political contexts, as well as to the preferences of artists, authors and audiences. So they are strongly influenced by prevailing trends. A case in point is the choice of the label we use to refer to the geographical and historical areas under scrutiny in this volume. Over the decades, the discipline’s primary focus on Mesopotamia has shifted to the ancient Near East and it has thus incorporated the past of modern-day Syria and Iran, which had previously been neglected. In recent times, the suitability of the label “ancient Near East” has been questioned and a new term, “ancient Western Asia”, has begun to circulate, above all in research produced in English-speaking countries. In this book both these labels are used, along with other referential geographical terms such as “the West”, and “the Orient”, whose adequacy has also been debated. These choices mirror several academic traditions and are also used in the articles here as objects of reflection. This seems to us to be particularly important because while Greco-Roman Antiquity has already been extensively studied in the context of the formation of European identity(-ies), the ancient Near East or ancient Western Asia has received far less attention, despite the fact that this area has also played an important role in the formation of European identity(-ies), always constituted from discourses of alterity: that is, from the construction of an “other” of whatever kind. The debates on these labels also reflect these discourses. Not surprisingly, most of the contributions in this volume focus on the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th. During the 19th century, the (re)discovery through archaeology of Assyrian sites such as Nineveh triggered enormous interest among Europeans, who had previously known of these cities only through Biblical texts. The new findings challenged previous discourses about the region that were circulating in Europe at that time. However, the ancient materials were not received directly through primary sources; rather, their reception might be expanded or modified depending on the current prevailing discourse. This means that a subject can be (re)modified almost arbitrarily and interpreted for a variety of contexts. The question of interest for those working in reception studies, therefore, is not to assess whether the past is represented “correctly” (a normative approach), but rather to understand the situation in which it is received and ultimately instrumentalised (a constructivist approach). For this reason, the focus of several chapters

VIII Kerstin Droß-Krüpe, Agnès Garcia-Ventura, Kai Ruffing & Lorenzo Verderame

is placed on the discursive interplay between the (re)discovery itself and its processing in politics, architecture, and art. Moreover, even though the archaeological excavations and the shaping of Assyriology as a new academic discipline were clearly a catalyst for this reception, we contend that we need to pay attention to other chronologies that have so far been considered more peri­pheral. Therefore, the volume also includes studies dealing with sources from the 17th century onwards. The idea for the present volume took form at the international conference entitled “Europe and the Ancient Near East. Reception and Construction of Images of the Ancient Near East since the 17th Century”,1 where these different geographical, chronological, and theoretical choices were first put on the table and enthusiastically discussed. The conference, co-organised by the four editors of the current volume, was hosted by Kassel University in Germany in March 2021; it was held online, due to the travel restrictions and precautions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The book we present here brings together a selection of these papers, which explore these issues in more detail and provide a space for an interdisciplinary discussion of their contents. Scholars from various disciplines, including ancient history, archaeology, art studies, cuneiform studies, literature studies, and early modern and contemporary history, identify and discuss epoch-spanning mechanisms of the reception of the ancient Near East (or ancient Western Asia) since the 17th century. The current volume aims to break down disciplinary boundaries through academic exchange between scholars from different fields, identifying research gaps, and discussing new research perspectives. These goals were also pursued during the 2021 conference. The volume also assesses the question of whether, and if so to what extent, the identified discourses on the “Orient” determine our current view of this region of the world. Through this collaboration, new paths of knowledge acquisition, as well as entirely new research questions about the reception history of the area, are likely to emerge. We thank all the participants at the 2021 conference for their commitment to these goals and for engaging in the lively discussions during the online event. We also thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for providing financial support for the conference, and Falk Ruttloh (Kassel University, Germany) for dealing so efficiently with the technical and logistical aspects of the event. We are furthermore indebted to Savannah Crenshaw (Booneville, USA) and Michael Maudsley (Barcelona, Spain) for their valuable assistance in reviewing the language of certain contributions. Their expertise greatly enhanced the clarity of these articles. We would also like to extend our gratitude to all the authors who contributed to this volume. We appreciate your dedication and expertise and are grateful for the time you took to share your knowledge and perspectives, enriching the field with your contributions. Last but not least we express our gratitude to Bianca Baum (Ruhr University Bochum, Germany) for her work on the bibliographies of the present volume, and Kai Metzler, from the Zaphon publishing house, for hosting this book proposal. All chapters included here are presented in alphabetical order by the last name of the first author and have undergone peer review. Bochum, Barcelona, Kassel & Rome, April 2023   For the program of the conference, as well as a report of the event by Falk Ruttloh, see: https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/tagungsberichte-8927; last accessed April 2023. 1

Thomas Coryate und sein Orientbild Christian Feser

Einleitung: „The English Knight of Troy“ Im Februar 1613 wurden zwei Schafhirten in den Ruinen einer antiken Küstenstadt in der heutigen Nordwesttürkei Zeugen eines ungewöhnlichen Spektakels. Auf den Überresten einer Säule kniend und umringt von einer Gruppe von Lands­ leuten, wurde ein Engländer zum „first English Knight of Troy“ geschlagen.1 Der nunmehr „englisch-trojanische Ritter“ antwortete mit einer ausführlichen improvisierten Dankesrede, die mit folgenden warnenden Worten endete:2 Adulterie was the principall cause of the ruines of this Citie […]. I beseech the great Jehova, which is the rewarder of Chastitie, and severe punisher of Incontience, to avert the punishment from our new Troy, (for indeed, London was in former times called Troynovant) which I thinke is as much polluted and contaminated with extravagant lusts, as ever was this old Troy. Zuletzt hieß der Geehrte einige bewaffnete Begleiter ihre Musketen feuern. Diese Zeremonie, welche die anwesenden Hirten etwas ratlos zurückgelassen haben mag, ist uns in den eigenen Worten des fahrenden Ritters erhalten, der sich in Troja wähnte, sich aber tatsächlich im nahegelegenen Alexandria Troas befand. Bei dem „English Knight of Troy“ handelte es sich um Thomas Coryate (ca. 1577–1617), einem durchaus exzentrischen Reisenden.3 Als eine Art humanistischer Pilgerstätte war das vermeintliche Troja nur eines von mehreren Zwischenzielen auf Coryates großangelegter Reise von Konstantinopel nach Indien. In diesem Beitrag soll das Orientbild dieses außergewöhnlichen Autors näher untersucht werden. Dabei wird besonderes Augenmerk auf die Diskursfunktion von Ruinen in seinen Texten – als Orte von historischem Interesse, poetischer Inspiration und (literarischer) Selbstdarstellung – gelegt. Antike Ruinen werden in Coryates Reiseberichten fast ausnahmslos zusammen mit Zitaten von antiken Autoren begleitet – auch dieser narrativen Strategie wird in diesem Kapitel als Teil von Coryates Orientdarstellung nachgegangen. Dabei werden wir uns zu  Coryate 1625b: 1816.   Coryate 1625b: 1818. 3   Eine solide Einführung zu Thomas Coryate bietet Michael Strachans The Life and Adventures of Thomas Coryate (1962), die bislang einzige Monographie zu Coryate mit akademischem Charakter. Coryates Europareise ist seit Beginn des 20. Jahrhundert erst in zwei Auflagen erschienen: Im von der Hakluyt Society besorgten Nachdruck der Erstauf­ lage von 1611, Coryat’s Crudities: Hastily gobled up in Five Moneths Travells in France, Italy, &c., 2 vols. (Glasgow 1905) und in der stark gekürzten kritischen Edition von Philip Palmer (Hrsg.), Coryats Crudities: Selections (Peterborough 2017). Die erhaltenen Briefe nach England während seiner Reise in Richtung Indien wurden zuletzt im 18. Jahrhundert gesammelt gedruckt. 1 2

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nächst zurück nach England, dann wieder im vermeintlichen Troja, und zuletzt im safawidischen Iran und im Indien der Moguln bewegen. Exkurs: „Bare ruined choirs“: Coryates vor-romantische Ruinen Mit seiner spontan erdachten Dankesrede für seine Einführung in einen ebenso spontan erdachten Ritterorden vor der Kulisse einer ruinierten Stadt vollzieht sich in Coryates Troja-Szene etwas, was einer modernen Leserschaft nur schwer zugänglich ist, nämlich eine Art vormoderner, genauer gesagt vor-romantischer, Mediävalismus.4 Coryate beschreibt sich und seine Reisegesellschaft hier, wenn auch spöttelnd und selbstironisch, in der Tradition der Kreuzritter auf dem Weg ins Heilige Land. Zudem verweist er mit seiner Hervorhebung der translatio imperii Troja-Rom-London auf einen der archetypischen politisch-historiographischen Topoi des englischen Mittelalters.5 Dies ist besonders interessant, weil wir den „Mittelalter-Modus“, den Coryate hier an den Tag legt, ohne den thematischen Überbau der Romantik denken müssen, der unsere Vorstellung von Ruinen als düstere Mahnmale der Vergänglichkeit spätestens seit Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts weitestgehend prägt.6 Stattdessen können wir hier erkennen, wie die Begegnung mit Ruinen der klassischen Antike vor dem Zeitalter der Romantik in der Reiseliteratur verarbeitet wurde. Coryate ist natürlich weder der erste noch der einzige Autor der frühen Neuzeit, der sich literarisch mit Ruinen auseinandersetzt – eines der bekanntesten Beispiele dafür dürfte von einem seiner Zeitgenossen stammen: In Shakespeares Sonnet 73 (1609) werden die kahlen Äste eines Baumes im Spätherbst als „[b]are ruined choirs“7 imaginiert, also als zerstörter Chorraum. Während die Metapher im Sinnkontext des Gedichtes zur melancholischen Kontemplation des menschlichen Lebenszyklus anregt (eine Interpretation, die auch im Sinne der Romantik ist), sollten wir uns aber auch in Erinnerung rufen, dass infolge der Auflösung der englischen Klöster (zwischen 1536 und 1541 unter Heinrich VIII.) der Anblick von Überresten imposanter Sakralbauten in England nicht unbedingt nur mit einer weit entfernten Vergangenheit assoziiert war, sondern mit dem kürzlichen Sieg des Protestantismus über den Katholizismus.8 Um die Funktion antiker Ruinen im Kontext seiner späteren Asienreise besser einordnen zu können, möchte ich daher kurz den Blick auf rezente Ruinen bei Coryate legen, die während seiner Reise durch Westeuropa im Jahre 1608 einen spürbaren Eindruck hinterlassen hatten. In seinem 1611 erschienenen Reisebe  Für eine Diskussion dieses – gerade im Deutschen – wenig griffigen Terminus siehe van Nahl 2017 und Jones 2016. 5   Konkret bezieht sich Coryate auf die im elisabethanischen Zeitalter noch durchaus als historisch belegt geltende Gründungslegende Londons, die sich wiederum auf Geoffrey of Monmouths Historia Regum Britanniae (erste Hälfte des 12. Jahrhunderts) stützt. Monmouth zufolge erreichte Brutus, der Urenkel des Aeneas, die Insel Albion, benannte sie nach sich selbst und gründete am Themseufer eine Stadt mit dem Namen Troia Nova (Troynouvant). 6   Siehe, zum Beispiel, McFarland 1981: 14–16. 7   Shakespeare 2010: 257. 8   Erst mit der romantischen Rückschau in das Mittelalter ändert sich das – und nicht umsonst sind es Ruinen wie die der ebenfalls aufgelösten Tintern Abbey (gegründet 1131), die Wordsworth und andere zu Gründungswerken der Romantik inspirieren. Siehe Wang 2011: 20. 4

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richt Coryats Crudities, beschreibt er ausführlich den Anblick zerstörter Kirchen und ganzer Siedlungen insbesondere auf dem Weg durch Frankreich, Kurköln und die Niederlande. Die verheerenden Hugenottenkriege in Frankreich und der Truchsessische Krieg im Erzstift Köln waren zum Zeitpunkt von Coryates Reise zwar bereits seit mehr als einem Jahrzehnt vorüber, aber in der unmittelbaren Erfahrungswelt Coryates fortwährend spürbar. Weiter im Westen drohte gerade ein monatelanger Waffenstillstand zwischen der Republik der Vereinigten Niederlande und Spanien im Achtzigjährigen Krieg (1568–1648) gebrochen zu werden und tatsächlich bewegte Coryate sich nordwestlich von Köln ungeahnt zwischen den Fronten und wurde im zerstörten Rheinberg von spanischen Truppen kurzzeitig gefangengenommen.9 Ruinen fällt im Text eine grundlegende, identitätsstiftende Funktion zu: Wenn Coryate seine Betroffenheit ob dieser kriegszerrütteten Orte ausdrückt, leitet er solche Szenen meist mit der Beschreibung von Plätzen ein, an denen (in der Vergangenheit oder vor kurzem) öffentliche Hinrichtungen stattgefunden hatten. Ruinen führen ihn so zum Nachsinnen über Verfall, Trostlosigkeit und Desolation infolge kriegerischer Auseinandersetzungen. Besonders eindrücklich ist seine Erschütterung zu spüren beim Anblick verfallener Dörfer, geplünderter Städte und unzähliger Galgen auf der Strecke zwischen Mainz und Köln.10 Hier wird aber auch deutlich, wie Coryate Szenen von Tod und Zerstörung für seine englische Leserschaft zu instrumentalisieren weiß: rezente Ruinen sind auf seiner europäischen Reise Zeugen für und Gelegenheiten zum Diskurs über die Unterdrückung französischer Protestanten, den ehrbaren Versuch Gebhards I. von Waldburg, dem Kölner Kurfürsten und Erzbischof, nach seinem eigenen Konfessionswechsel das Erzstift zu reformieren und nicht zuletzt den protestantischen Freiheitskampf der Republik Niederlande gegen Spanien. Es ist wenig überraschend, dass der Pastorensohn Coryate die Katholiken, denen er auf seiner Reise begegnet, im besten Fall als rückständig und verblendet darstellt und die politischen Mächte der Gegenreformation als unmoralische Aggressoren gegen friedensstiftende Protestanten stilisiert. Seinen Reisebericht, die Crudities, widmete Coryate folgerichtig dem strenggläubigen Prinzen von Wales, Henry Frederick, der schon 1609, im Alter von 15 Jahren, den Wunsch geäußert hatte, im Jülich-Klevischen Erbfolgestreit eine Streitmacht gegen das katholische Lager zu führen.11 Wie sieht es jedoch mit den antiken Ruinen aus, die Coryate auf seiner Asienreise besuchte? Rose Macaulay legte bereits in den 1950ern überzeugend dar, dass antike Ruinen spätestens seit der englischen Renaissance als Orte der Zerstörung und darauf folgenden literarischen Rekonstruktion enorme Wirkmacht besaßen.12 Efterpi Mitsi unterstrich in jüngerer Zeit insbesondere für Renaissance-Reisende in Griechenland die Strahlkraft und emotionale Wirkung von Ruinen, die sie mit der gleichzeitigen Entwicklung und enormen Verbreitung des Emblems als Kunstform in Europa in Verbindung setzt. Mitsi zufolge wurden Darstellungen von Ruinen Coryate 1611: 628.   Siehe z.B. Coryate 1611: 583f.: „I observed in a great many places, on both sides of the Rhene, more gallowes and wheeles betwixt Mentz and Colen, then ever I saw in so short a space in all my life […]. I observed a towne […] called Remagan, situate [sic] neere the Rhene, which about some ten yeares since was miserably ransacked […].“ 11   O’Callaghan 2007: 87. 12   Macaulay 1953: 192f. 9

 

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(in diesem Fall materielle Hinterlassenschaften der Antike) im Emblem zu einem standardisierten Teil der Allegorie, und erlaubten so die gedankliche Verbindung von historischen Ereignissen und Orten mit moralischen Verhaltensregeln. Mit der Zeit wurden tatsächliche Ruinen damit ebenfalls als les- und interpretierbare Objekte und Repositorien von „niedergeschriebenem“ Wissen erkannt.13 Die Troja-Szene, die uns in den Aufzeichnungen Coryates überliefert ist, ist daher aus mehreren Gründen bemerkenswert: Coryate imaginiert sich selbst und seine „Commilitones“14, wie er seine Mitreisenden im Rahmen der Rede bezeichnet, von der gegenwärtigen Ruinenstadt in das dekadente mythische Troja, welches er sogleich mit London als sündigem neuen Troja verbindet. Vassiliki Markidou zufolge bieten die Ruinen des gegenwärtigen Troja also nicht nur ein Fenster in die antike Vergangenheit, sondern auch einen Blick in eine mögliche nahe Zukunft, in der auch London/Troia Nova, das „dritte“ Troja (nach Rom mit seinem trojanischen Urvater Aeneas), infolge göttlicher Bestrafung in Trümmern liegen wird.15 Mit seiner eingangs zitierten Warnung an die englische Leserschaft „to avert the punishment from our new Troy“16 scheint Coryate sich in seinem Reisebericht also auf den ersten Blick als moralistische Erzählerfigur zu positionieren. Im Kontext der gesamten Troja-Episode zeigt sich jedoch, dass die eindringliche Mahnung einen doppelten Boden hat: die Rede folgt schließlich direkt auf die satirische Überhöhung seiner Person als Ritter einer Ruinenstadt, deren verfallene Bauten als Schafställe genutzt werden. Vor dem Hintergrund dieser Kulisse vollführen Coryate und seine Mitreisenden ein gänzlich unromantisches komisches Schauspiel, das gedanklich nicht nur die zeitlich ferne antike Vergangenheit und das räumlich ferne London zusammenbringt, sondern auch althergebrachte Vorstellungen von Ritterlichkeit und nationaler Identität infrage stellt.17 Eine weitere Dimension von Coryates Umgang mit Ruinen der Antike lässt sich an der Troja-Szene ebenfalls erkennen. Nach der ausführlichen Dankesrede ob seiner Ritterschaft und einer genauen Ausführung zu den Überresten der Gebäude und Grabmäler, sieht er sich einer einzigartigen Gelegenheit gegenüber: Also we observed a very miserable rubbish of Stones that were dissipated and scattered over the face of the whole ground every where within and without the Walles, after that I went to a plot of arable Ground, where I saw a Plough-man hold the Plough, and my selfe and one Master Francis Flyer did the like one after another, that if wee live to be Old men we may say in our old age, we had once holden the Plough in the Trojane Territorie […].18 Coryate und sein Mitreisender leihen sich den Pflug eines Feldarbeiters, der in der Nähe sein Tagwerk verrichtet, damit sie, so der Autor, im hohen Alter sagen könnten, sie hätten eben dies getan. Obwohl bei seiner Leserschaft der Pflug im Kontext des trojanischen Krieges wohl eher mit Odysseus in Ithaka verortet wurde,   Mitsi 2017: 3, 90. Mitsi stützt sich hier auch auf Walter Benjamins Idee von Geschichte als Ruine: „Allegorien sind im Reiche der Gedanken was Ruinen im Reiche der Dinge.“ Siehe Benjamin 1978: 156. 14   Coryate 1625b: 1817. 15   Markidou 2018: 70. 16   Coryate, 1625b: 1818. 17   Tatsächlich hat die ganze Episode noch die zusätzliche ironische Dimension der falschen Verortung Trojas. 18   Coryate 1625b: 1819. 13

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reicht Coryate das Pflügen in Troja vollkommen aus. Heute klingt seine Aussage verblüffend nach der frühmodernen Variante dessen, was man im englischsprachigen Raum „heritage tourism“ nennt, also Reisen, um orts- oder kulturtypische Aktivitäten zu betreiben. Richmond Barbour vergleicht Coryates Besuch im vermeintlichen Troja gar mit der modernen Besichtigung einer Glasbläserei in Murano und nennt ihn „profoundly touristic“19. „Our Brittaine-Ulysses“: Odcombe-London-Venedig Über das frühe Leben von Thomas Coryate, geboren um 1577 in Odcombe, einem Dorf im südenglischen Somerset, ist nur wenig bekannt. Er war Sohn des örtlichen Geistlichen George Coryate, der zu Studienzeiten als Dichter lateinischer Panegyriken aufgefallen war.20 Thomas Phelips, das Oberhaupt der lokalen Adelsfamilie, war sein Taufpate; er genoss eine klassische Ausbildung in Gloucester Hall, Oxford (heute: Worcester College), und verließ die Universität zwar ohne Abschluss (dies war keinesfalls unüblich), aber mit exzellenten Kenntnissen des Lateinischen und Griechischen und mit offensichtlich zuträglichen Kontakten zur Aristokratie: Nur wenige Jahre später fand sich Coryate – zusammen mit Edward Phelips, dem Sohn seines adligen Taufpaten – im Dunstkreis des Hofes des jungen Prinzen von Wales, Henry Frederick (1594–1612) wieder.21 Am Hof scheint er keine feste Anstellung gehabt zu haben, sondern gelegentlich als eine Art After-Dinner-Speaker, schlagfertiger Alleinunterhalter oder raconteur vor der Hofgesellschaft aufgetreten zu sein.22 Coryate war qua Geburt kein Gentleman und daher nicht zu allen Hofanlässen willkommen, was mehrere Quellen seiner Zeitgenossen belegen. In Ben Jonsons Maskenspiel Love Restored (1612) wird auf Coryate namentlich verwiesen und auf einen Vorfall angespielt, der sich bei einer früheren „Masque“ zugetragen haben muss: Coryate, der offensichtlich zu diesen Spektakeln nicht eingeladen war, wurde in eine Truhe gesperrt und zur Erheiterung des adligen Publikums erst auf der Bühne wieder freigelassen.23 Ob wir es hier mit einem wohlüberlegten Werbegag zur Demonstration des eigenen Unterhaltungswertes, mit einem bösen Streich gegen einen eingebildeten Emporkömmling oder mit einem selbstironischen Kommentar zu seinem eigenen uneindeutigen Status innerhalb des Hofstaates zu tun haben, lässt sich in der Rückschau nicht mehr rekonstruieren – tatsächlich mag es eine Mischung aus allem gewesen sein. Klar ist, dass Coryate sich um seine Stellung bewusst war und erkannte, dass er sich, umgeben von hochrangigen Gentlemen zwar behaupten, aber nicht zu ernst nehmen konnte. Wir haben dieses Verhalten schon in der Troja-Episode kennengelernt. Während Coryate am Prinzenhof wohl eine Randfigur darstellte, spielte er eine zentrale Rolle in der sogenannten „Fraternity of Sireniacal Gentlemen“, einer legendären Trinkgesellschaft, die im späten 16. Jahrhundert unter Mitwirkung des   Barbour 2003: 135.   Strachan 1962: 2f. 21   Strachan 1962: 11–13. 22   In den Akten, die Informationen zu Pensionen und anderen Zahlungen an Höflinge enthalten, ist Coryates Name nur einmal vermerkt, nämlich als Empfänger von £10 im Jahre 1611, kurz nach der Vorstellung seiner Crudities an Prinz Henry. Siehe O’Callaghan 2007: 86. 23   „I must come in at a door, which made me once think of a trunk, but that I would not imitate so catholic a cockscomb as Coryat“, in: Jonson 1969: 189. 19 20

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Schriftstellers und Seefahrers Walter Ralegh (1554–1618) gegründet wurde.24 Die „Sirenenhaften“ trafen sich monatlich in der „Mermaid Tavern“ in der Londoner Bread Street, welche dem Club auch ihren Namen lieh. Hier wurden Geschichten erzählt, Neuigkeiten ausgetauscht, soziale Netzwerke geknüpft, gepflegt und erweitert, aber auch „flyting“ betrieben, eine Art improvisierter, poetischer Austausch von Beleidigungen. Es ging also neben dem Trinken auch um das Zelebrieren des geschickten Spiels mit der Sprache, kurz: um das, was man im Englischen als „wit“, als kombinatorische Phantasie, bezeichnet. Dies ist kaum verwunderlich, gehörten zum Kreis der Mitglieder doch neben einigen Diplomaten und Höflingen (wie dem Architekten Inigo Jones) auch die Schriftsteller Ben Jonson, John Fletcher, Francis Beaumont und John Donne sowie einige Anwälte aus den nahegelegenen Inns of Court.25 Der „Mermaid Club“ war also ein Schmelztiegel von Literaten, Höflingen, respektablen Gentlemen und solchen, die es werden wollten. Nicht nur die Gründungsfigur des Kolonialisten Ralegh, sondern auch die namentlichen Assoziationen der Sirene mit den Reisen des Odysseus und der Meerjungfrau mit den imaginierten Wundern der weiten Welt künden von einer gewissen Abenteuerlust der Mitglieder. Coryate passte als wortgewandter Geschichtenerzähler außerordentlich gut in diese Gruppe von „Wits“ – in der Tat war er in der scherzhaft überhöhten Zeremonienordnung des Mermaid Clubs kein einfaches Mitglied, sondern bekleidete das Amt des Büttels.26 Als Reisender im Quasi-Auftrag des Kronprinzen und seiner Trinkgesellschaft bereiste Coryate 1608 den Kontinent, wobei Venedig ihm als Ziel diente. Seine Reise bestritt er auf unerwartete Weise, nämlich größtenteils zu Fuß: Dies war für einen Studenten zu der Zeit die Norm, galt einem hochstrebenden „hanger-on“ am Hof aber eigentlich nicht angemessen. Hier zeigt sich, wie gern Coryate mit Konventionen und Erwartungen spielte. Genau dies tat er schließlich auch mit dem Bericht zu dieser proto-Grand Tour, veröffentlicht 1611 unter dem (auf den ersten Blick recht sperrig wirkenden) Titel Coryats Crudities. Hastily gobled up in five Moneths travells … Newly digested in the hungry aire of ODCOMBE … & now dispersed to the nourishment of the travelling Members of this Kingdome. Sein außergewöhnlich umfangreicher Reisebericht, etwa 900 Seiten stark, konstituiert Crudities (in etwa: intellektuelle Rohkost), während der fünfmonatigen Reise hastig aufgefressen, in seinem Heimatort Odcombe frisch verdaut und nun zur geistigen Nahrung der englischen Reisefreudigen verteilt. Der burleske Ton des Titels wird im Frontispiz des Buches weitergeführt, welches neben mehreren kleinen Vignetten, die verschiedene unterhaltsame Reiseanekdoten illustrieren, auch ein Portrait des Autors enthält (Abb. 1). Coryate war sich offensichtlich nicht zu schade, die titelgebende Verdauungsmetapher auch visuell aufzugreifen. Hier übergibt sich Germania auf ihn, die als Erkennungsmerkmal das Heidelberger Weinfass auf dem Kopf trägt, welches Coryate bei seinem Besuch stark beeindruckt hatte.27 Die außergewöhnlich selbstironische Aufmachung des Buches steht allerdings in gewissem Kontrast zu Coryates Selbstdarstellung im eigentlichen Reisebericht, denn in seinen Beobachtungen   Crouch 2010: 397.   O’Callaghan 2004: 41. 26   Ein lateinischer Geleitbrief für Coryate nennt ihn „Societatis nostras Bedellus“, den Büttel der Gesellschaft. Siehe Hinchcliffe 1968: 374. 27   Er setzt es unter anderem in eine Reihe mit den Weltwundern und nennt es „a kinde of monstrous miracle“, Coryate 1611: 486f. 24 25

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vom Kontinent bevorzugt Coryate, bis auf wenige Ausnahmen, die Rolle eines neugierigen, polyglotten, alles niederschreibenden Gelehrten. Tatsächlich wird er in einem der Pseudo-Lobgedichte, die etwa das erste Drittel des Buches einnehmen und zum Großteil von Mitgliedern des Mermaid Clubs verfasst wurden, als „tombstone traveller“ bezeichnet, eine Bezeichnung gegen die er sich heftig wehrt.28

Abb. 1: Coryats Crudities … (1611), STC 5808, Frontispiz von William Hole, mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Folger Shakespeare Library. Unberechtigt ist diese Charakterisierung Coryates allerdings nicht: seine Städtebeschreibungen unterfüttert er generell nicht nur mit ausführlichem geschichtlichen Hintergrundwissen und architektonischen Detailbeschreibungen,29 sondern   Coryate 1611, unpaginiert, sig. b5r.   Hier zitiert, übersetzt oder kopiert er unter anderem aus Frans Schotts Itinerarium Italiae (1600) und Sebastian Münsters Cosmographia (in lateinischen bzw. englischen

28 29

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auch mit mehrseitigen Abschriften von (Grab-)Inschriften. Als integraler Bestandteil einer Authentizitäts- und Rechtfertigungsstrategie für sein Werk sammelt Coryate bevorzugt übrigens solche materiellen Hinterlassenschaften, die seine Reise und deren Vertextlichung mit antiken Schriftstellern wie Vergil, Cicero und Horaz verbinden. Die meisten Referenzen in den Crudities finden sich zum römischen Geschichtsschreiber Livius, was nicht zuletzt daran liegt, dass Coryate dessen vermeintliches Geburtshaus in Padua besuchte, um dort verloren geglaubte Werke zu entdecken.30 Er schreibt:31 [I] heare some carping criticke object unto me, that I doe in this one point play the part of a traveller, that is, I tell a lye, for how is it possible […] that Livies house should stand to this day. Coryate nimmt hier Kritik vorweg, dass seine Reisebetrachtungen erlogen oder zumindest übertrieben seien und kontert dies mit dem Argument, er habe die Authentizität des Livius-Hauses mit den Gelehrten der Universität in Padua besprochen. Zudem hätten selbst die Hunnen und Langobarden während der diversen Verwüstungen Paduas sicher Respekt vor dem Gedächtnis des großen Livius gehabt und daher sein Geburtshaus verschont.32 (In Venedig besucht er, ebenfalls als Beweis für die Authentizität seines Berichts, eine bekannte Kurtisane – damit, so Coryate, seine respektable Leserschaft dies nicht tun müsse. Das Ende dieser Zusammenkunft wird im Text nicht so drastisch dargestellt wie im oben reproduzierten Frontispiz, wo die Kurtisane Coryate mit Eiern bewirft, siehe Vignette „E“.) Wir haben es hier also mit einem Autor zu tun, der geschickt Selbstinszenierung zu betreiben wusste, auf seinen Reisen und am Hof des Kronprinzen die Rolle des Gelehrten wie auch die des Narren spielen konnte, und der nie müde wurde, auch auf seine regionale Identität zu verweisen: nämlich auf Odcombe, in dem das englische „odd“ für „komisch, seltsam“ schon im Namen mitschwingt. Elefanten und Einhörner: Coryates „Orientall India“ Im Oktober 1612, nicht ein ganzes Jahr nach der Veröffentlichung der Crudities, beschloss Coryate ein weiteres seltsames und exzentrisches Unternehmen zu wagen, nämlich London zu verlassen und nach Indien zu laufen. Sein erklärtes Ziel: Eine Rede vor dem Großmogul Jahangir zu halten und auf einem Elefanten zu reiten. Wir haben nur wenige, sehr verstreute Zeugnisse von Coryates Reise, die uns hauptsächlich einen Einblick in seine Zeit in Indien geben. Wir erfahren – abgesehen von der ausführlichen Troja-Szene – vergleichsweise wenig über seine Eindrücke des Osmanischen Reiches, von Syrien, Armenien, Afghanistan, und Persien. Wenn ich im folgenden also Coryates Orientbild beschreibe, dann wird es hauptsächlich um das Mogulreich gehen, welches er als „Orientall India“33 bezeichnet. Auf dem Weg nach Indien machte Coryate mehrere monatelange Pausen in Konstantinopel, Aleppo und Isfahan. Er konnte sich dort in den Häusern engliÜbersetzungen verfügbar seit 1550 bzw. 1553). 30   Coryate notiert beinahe alle Inschriften auf Statuen und anderen Objekten in Haus und Garten, so er sie entziffern kann. Siehe Coryate 1611: 137–142. 31   Coryate 1611: 137f. 32   Coryate 1611: 138. 33   Coryate 1616: 10.

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scher Botschafter oder Händler problemlos einnisten, denn wie schon erwähnt, war Coryate exzellent vernetzt und schien willkommen gewesen zu sein, solange er die Hausherren und deren andere Gäste gut unterhielt. Tatsächlich schreibt der englische Botschafter in Konstantinopel, Paul Pindar, in einem Brief an seinen Amtskollegen in Venedig, Dudley Carleton, er freue sich, derzeit den berühmten Ritter von Troja zu Gast haben zu dürfen – man kann also annehmen, dass Coryate überall ausgiebig von seinen Reiseerlebnissen erzählte.34 Im Juli 1615 erreichte Coryate Ajmer, wo Jahangir gerade mit seinem riesigen mobilen Hofstaat verweilte. Coryate war zu dem Zeitpunkt also bereits mehr als zweieinhalb Jahre zu Fuß unterwegs. Und auch hier musste er sich keine Sorgen um sein leibliches Wohl machen – denn wenige Jahre zuvor war es der 1600 gegründeten English East India Company erlaubt worden, eine Faktorei in Surat einzurichten. Die englischen Händler in Ajmer dürften also mehr als erfreut gewesen sein, einen skurrilen, interessanten Gast zu bewirten, der ihnen auch noch als Übersetzer hilfreich sein konnte, denn das Sprachtalent Coryate hatte auf seinem Fußmarsch nach eigenen Angaben einiges an Arabisch, Farsi und Hindustani aufgeschnappt und während seiner Zeit in Konstantinopel Italienisch und Türkisch gelernt. Und von hier, aus Ajmer, haben wir nun die ersten Briefe Coryates. Er schreibt in Ajmer und später in Agra mehrere Texte, die er Engländern, die sich von Indien aus in Richtung Heimat aufmachen, mitgeben kann. Fünf von diesen Briefen haben die Jahrhunderte überlebt.35 1616 und 1618 erscheinen zwei schmale Bände, die insgesamt fünf Briefe enthalten: zwei (verdächtig knappe) Briefe an seine Mutter, zwei Briefe an Freunde, und einen sendet der „Büttel“ an den „High Seneschall [in etwa: Truchsess] of the right Worshipfull Fraternitie of Sireniacal Gentlemen“. Die Forschung zu diesen Texten spaltet sich in zwei Lager: zum einen (vorwiegend ältere) Abhandlungen, die Coryates europäischen Reisebericht als Vorlage nehmen, um ihn als einen von Vorurteilen und kulturellen Stereotypen der Zeit losgelösten Beobachter darzustellen, der von wohlwollender Toleranz und Neugierde geprägt ist.36 Dieses Bild lässt sich nur aufrechterhalten, wenn man Coryates Beschreibungen von europäischen, genauer gesagt protestantischen, Städten liest. Das funktioniert aber schon nicht mehr, wie oben angedeutet, wenn der stramme Protestant Coryate mit Verachtung katholische Gottesdienste in Paris beschreibt, geschweige denn, wenn er mit Muslimen in Indien diskutiert.37 Das zweite Lager ist durchaus größer: Hier finden wir zum Beispiel die brillanten Untersuchungen von Richmond Barbour und Pramod Nayar. Barbour meint in den Aufzeichnungen aus Asien Coryates Grundeinstellung zu erkennen, dass das kulturelle Erbe früherer Zivilisationen durch die Nachlässigkeit und Ignoranz seiner aktuellen Verwalter bedroht sei und unter Schutzherrschaft des Westens gestellt werden müsse – eine Uridee des Orientalismus.38 Dafür exemplarisch sieht Barbour unter anderem die bereits besprochene Troja-Episode, die er als „defining   Strachan 1962: 176.   Wie viele Briefe Coryate insgesamt nach England sandte, ist unbekannt. In diesem Beitrag wurde bereits mehrfach aus einer anderen Quelle zitiert, nämlich einem Manuskript aus Aleppo, an welches Samuel Purchas auf unbekanntem Wege gelangte und das er – nach eigenen Angaben aufgrund Coryates anstrengenden Schreibstils extrem gekürzt – in eine Auflage seiner gesammelten Reiseberichte aufnahm. Siehe Coryate 1625b, 1830f. 36   Siehe, zum Beispiel, Mączak 1995: 22f. und Wilson 1946: 103f. 37   Siehe Coryate 1611: 27f. und Coryate 1618, unpaginiert, sig. D2r. 38   Barbour 2003: 133. 34 35

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European moment of rediscovery“39 bezeichnet. Nayar entwickelt eine Typologie der Indiendarstellung früher englischer Reisender, die er „colonizing aesthetics“40 nennt. Coryate und andere sind hier mehr oder weniger sinistere, aktive Wegbereiter der englischen Kolonialherrschaft. Beide Seiten greifen etwas zu kurz oder vernachlässigen zumindest die Heterogenität von Coryates Orientbild, wie im Folgenden gezeigt werden soll. Wie bereits erwähnt, beschreibt Coryate in seinen Briefen, allesamt verfasst in Indien, nur relativ kurz seine Reise nach Indien und seine Reisen durch das Mogulreich. Hier möchte ich stellvertretend zwei Stellen betrachten, die zeigen, dass Coryates Orientbeschreibungen immer auch eine Brücke in die antike Vergangenheit schlagen. Zunächst berichtet er im Rückblick von seinem Aufenthalt in der Ruinenstadt Ekbatana, die er mit dem alttestamentarischen Tabrīz/Tauris identifiziert: Ekbatana […] a City eftsoone mentioned in Scripture, now called Tauris, more wofull ruines of a City (saving that of Troy […]) never did mine eies beholde: whe[n] I seriously contemplated those ἐρείπια [Ruinen], the doleful testimonies of the Turkish devastations, I called to minde Ovids verse: Ludit in humanis divina potentia rebus.41 Coryate verleiht seiner Melancholie ob der Zerstörung der Stadt mit einem Ovid-Zitat Ausdruck – und direkt danach folgt im Text tatsächlich noch eines von Hesiod. Weiterhin verweist er darauf, dass die Stadt auch in der Bibel Erwähnung fände, und rechtfertigt damit seinen Fußmarsch gleichzeitig als erweiterte Pilgerreise. Coryate macht so außerdem klar, dass er die griechisch-römische Antike auf seinen Reisen durch den Orient stets mit-imaginiert – und ihm gleichzeitig bewusst ist, dass der antike Orient mit dem modernen stark verbunden ist. Tatsächlich lag Coryate allerdings falsch mit seiner Gleichsetzung von Tabrīz und Ekbatana. Coryate befand sich nicht in den Ruinen der antiken Mederstadt Ekbatana, die in der Bibel, bei Hesiod und Aischylos u.a. erwähnt wird, sondern im nördlich gelegenen Tabrīz in der heutigen Nordwestspitze des Irans, das erst einige Jahre zuvor von den Osmanen zerstört worden war.42 Hier, wie in „Troja“, sind es Ruinen, die Coryate eine Projektionsfläche für seine Verbindung des antiken (hier auch biblischen) Orients mit der Geschichte der Region bieten – die hier, wie Coryate klarstellt („the Turkish devastations“), die jüngere Geschichte ist. Rezente Ruinen im Orient fungieren also – ganz im Gegensatz zu den europäischen in den Crudities – als Dioramen, die die Rückschau in eine imaginierte antike Vergangenheit erlauben. Das wird umso deutlicher, wenn sich Coryate kurz darauf als auf den Spuren von Platon wandelnd beschreibt. Er erzählt von seiner Überquerung des Indus und seinem Wunsch, auch dessen Quelle einmal zu sehen: I passed the famous River Indus, which is as broad againe as our Thames in London, and hath his originall out of the Mountaine Caucasus, so much

    41   42   39 40

Barbour 2003: 135. Nayar 2008. Coryate 1616: 12f. Blair et al. 2007: 492f.

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ennobled by the ancient both Poets and Historiographers, Greeke & Latine; which Plato for curiosity sake, in his travelles of these parts, went to see.43 Coryate spielt hier auf den „Gefesselten Prometheus“ von Aischylos an, der in den Kaukasus geschleppt wird. Allerdings verliert er sich geographisch ein wenig, denn die Quelle des Indus liegt im sogenannten Indischen Kaukasus – dem Hindukusch, also ein paar tausend Kilometer östlich. Nichtsdestotrotz verbindet Coryate damit sein „Orientall India“ wieder mit den Klassikern der antiken Literatur und Philosophie, und verbindet damit ebenfalls die Kulturgeschichte Englands mit der des Orients. Auch die schiere Breite des Indus wird für die Londoner Leserschaft in der Mermaid Tavern greifbar gemacht, wenn Coryate ihn als „as broad againe“, also doppelt so breit, wie die Themse beschreibt. Man kann davon ausgehen, dass die Mitglieder der „Sireniacal Gentlemen“ für die Veröffentlichung zumindest des Briefbandes von 1616 verantwortlich waren. Dieser trägt den Titel Thomas Coriate Traveller for the English Wits: Greeting. From the Court of the Great Mogul. Coryates selbstgegebene Berufsbezeichnung ist also: Reisender für die englischen Wits, also Menschen, die Esprit und Verstand haben und die wie Coryate gut mit Sprache umgehen können. Darunter sehen wir Coryate auf einem Elefanten sitzend – grotesk groß im Vergleich zu seinem Reittier – und ausgehfertig angezogen wie ein feiner englischer Gentleman mit Schwert und Federhut. Damit erscheint er komplett deplatziert: die Sporen an seinen Stiefeln sind auf einem Elefanten unnütz, er sitzt (ohne Sattel) auch etwas schräg auf dem Tier und in der Rechten hält er ein kleines Schreibheft, das eventuell seine Reiseaufzeichnungen darstellen soll, und das auf dem Tier höchstens zur Darstellung seiner Bildung und Belesenheit nutzen dürfte. Wir wissen nicht, ob Coryate in einer dem Brief beigefügten Notiz oder in einer Zeichnung Anweisungen zur Fertigung des Holzschnitts erteilte, aber er erzählt:44 I have rid upon an elephant since I came to this Court, determining one day (by Gods leave) to have my picture expressed in my next Booke, sitting upon an Elephant. Coryate setzt sich also auf einen Elefanten, damit er später auch wahrheitsgetreu auf einem Elefanten abgebildet werden kann – genauso wie er sich im vermeintlichen Troja den Pflug leiht, um später von diesem Erlebnis erzählen zu können. In der Illustration wird außerdem Coryates Vertextlichung dieses Erlebnisses mit aufgegriffen (Abb. 2). Der Holzschnitt schien zu gefallen, denn er kommt in dem Pamphlet noch zwei weitere Male vor. Je nach Interpretation kann Coryate hier als kolonial auftretender Bezwinger eines wilden Tieres oder als Fremdling in höchst prekärer Haltung auf dem Elefanten gelesen werden: If Coryate stands in for the literate, adventuresome Englishman and the elephant stands in for an exotic and dangerous Mogul India, the image becomes one of a precarious English endeavour in an alien land. The binary of civilized and barbaric is clearly re-established […]. Reminiscent of Roman use of captured elephants, the moment is triumphant. Coryate is

43 44

  Coryate 1616: 14.   Coryate 1616: 26.

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on top. He appears to be, however awkwardly, in control and at ease on an angry elephant.45

Abb. 2: Thomas Coriate Traveller for the English Wits … (1611), STC 5811, Titelseite (Detail), mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Folger Shakespeare Library. Den weitaus größeren Teil von Coryates Indienbericht nehmen aber seine Beschreibungen des Hofstaates des Großmogul Jahangir ein. Wir lesen von den 30.000 Elefanten, die sich Jahangir zur Belustigung hält und von tausenden anderen Tieren, die er mitnimmt, wo auch immer er gerade Hof hält. Darunter seien natürlich auch zwei Einhörner, von denen eines im Holzschnitt verewigt ist.46 Dies ist insofern nicht ungewöhnlich, als dass man im frühen Reisebericht an exotischen Orten auch exotische, sagenhafte Tiere verorten konnte. Wir wissen nicht, was Coryate sah, das er als Einhorn identifizierte, oder ob er sich dachte, dass ein Reisebericht, um glaubwürdig zu wirken, eben ein Einhorn beinhalten musste, aber genauso wie das Einhorn war sicher auch die Meerjungfrau, nach der sich der Londoner Club der Wits benannte, ein Wesen, das man sich als wirklich existent vorstellte. 45 46

  Aune 2005: unpaginiert.   Coryate 1616: 24.

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Damit schafft Coryate eine weitere gedankliche Verbindung zwischen ihm am Mogulhof und seinen Trinkkumpanen in London. Doch auch abgesehen von seinen Fabelwesen ist das Mogulreich ein fantastischer Ort: it is with a great pleonasme supplied by the fertility of his soyle […], no part of the world yeelding a more fruitfull veine of ground, then all that which lieth in his [d.h. Jahangirs] Empire, saving […] where the terrestriall Paradise once stoode.47 Das Land ist so fruchtbar, dass es keinen irdischen Vergleich mehr findet, und zudem sind Jahangirs Steuereinnahmen um nochmals um einiges höher als die der Türken und Perser. Das ist der erste Schritt dessen, was Pramod Nayar als „colonizing aesthetic“ bezeichnet. Nach dieser Beschreibung des Orients als über alle Maßen fruchtbar und reich, würde man als nächsten Schritt nach Nayars Lesart erwarten, dass Coryate diese paradiesischen Zustände kontrastiert, etwa durch die Beschreibung der Einwohner als träge, arbeitsfaul und sittenlos und die des Herrschers als tyrannischen Ungläubigen.48 Das tut Coryate allerdings nicht, zumindest nicht in dem Maße, das man von einem frühneuzeitlichen Reisenden vermuten könnte. Betrachten wir eine Szene aus einem Brief an seine Mutter. Hier tadelt Coryate einen italienischsprachigen Moslem, der ihn als Giaur, also als Ungläubigen bezeichnet hatte, mit einem ganzen Redeschwall, den er, so behauptet er zumindest, extempore auf Italienisch vorträgt. Er übersetzt:49 I retort that shamefull word [Giaur] in thy throate, and tell thee plainly that I am a Musulman and thou art a Giaur. For by that Arab word Musulman thou dost understand that which cannot be properly applied to a Mahometan but onely to a Christian, so that I doe consequently inferre that there are two kindes of Muselmen, the one an Orthomusulman, that is a true Musulman which is a Christian & the other a Pseudo-musulman that is a false Musulman which is a Mahometan. Coryate konfrontiert den Andersgläubigen mit einer Logik, die ihn, Coryate, selbst zu dem eigentlich wahren Moslem werden lässt. Ein Moslem ist der Etymologie nach jemand der sich Gott unterwirft50 und das wiederum tut, so Coryate, ja nur ein Christ wirklich.51 Doch Coryate belässt es nicht dabei: „I would have thee know (thou Mahometan) that in that renouned Kingdome of England, where I was borne, learning doth so flourish, that there are many thousand boies of sixteene yeeres of age, that are able to make a more learned booke then thy Alcaron“.52 Interessanterweise wird der Koran hier nicht als fundamental falsch oder moralisch korrumpierend dargestellt, sondern „nur“ als wenig gelehrt. Außerdem ist es auffällig, dass Coryate sich hier schon nicht mehr als Engländer, sondern England als das Land seiner Geburt bezeichnet. Die ganze Rede, mit der Coryate den Moslem sprichwörtlich bombardiert, und das angeblich vor mehr als hundert Zuschauern, mag sich so zugetragen haben   Coryate 1616: 22.   Nayar 2008: 5. 49   Coryate 1618: unpaginiert, sig. D1v. 50   Pfeifer 1993: unpaginiert. 51   Mit „Orthomusulman“ und „Pseudo-musulman“ sehen wir zudem zwei Beispiele für die unzähligen Neologismen, die Coryate in seinen Texten einführt. 52   Coryate 1618: unpaginiert, sig. D2r. 47 48

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oder auch nicht. Wichtig ist, dass Coryate sich hier offensiv als Wit präsentiert. Er möchte zeigen, dass er das improvisierte Spiel mit der Sprache nicht nur auf Englisch im Londoner Mermaid-Club beherrscht, sondern flyting, das kunstvolle Beleidigen des Gesprächspartners, auch mitten im Orient und dazu noch auf Italienisch betreiben kann. Coryate nimmt in seiner Rede direkt die potentielle Frage der Londoner Leserschaft vorweg, nämlich, wie er denn vor den sicherlich höchst erzürnten Moslems geflohen sei. Ihm sei überhaupt nichts passiert, schreibt Coryate, denn unter Jahangir gelte Religionsfreiheit und Religionstoleranz. Seine Schmährede nehmen also alle relativ gelassen hin.53 Schluss: Der englische Fakir und der christliche Großmogul Von Jahangir zeigt sich Coryate stark beeindruckt. Da macht es auch nichts aus, dass Jahangir tausend Nebenfrauen hat und sich auch keiner Religion offen zugehörig zeigt, „hee himselfe beeing of none but of his owne making“54. Jahangir als orientalischer Herrscher zeichne sich vor allem durch seine Mildtätigkeit aus, die ihn von westlichen Herrschern unterscheide. Er lässt nachts Bettler in seine privaten Schlafgemächer, unterhält sich mit ihnen und macht ihnen Geschenke. An bestimmten Feiertagen kocht er außerdem für die Bedürftigen:55 kindling a fire with his owne hands […] under that immense and Heidelbergian-equipollent Brasse-pot, and made Kitcherie [Khichiri] for five thousand poore. Jahangir ist sich also nicht zu schade, für Bedürftige Reis und Bohnen zu kochen – und das tut er in einem riesigen Messingtopf, der, und hier wieder ein Neologismus, so viel fasst wie das Heidelberger Weinfass. Geschickt verweist Coryate nicht nur auf sein erstes Werk, die Crudities, in dem man mehr über das Heidelberger Weinfass erfährt, sondern stellt Jahangir ganz explizit in den Mittelpunkt des Motivs der Speisung der Fünftausend (Johannesevangelium, 6:10).56 Mit dieser Mildtätigkeit stellt Jahangir auch europäische Christen in den Schatten: „this excellent vertue upraiding the coldnesse of our Charitie […]. Cracke mee this Nut, all the Papal Charitie vaunters.“57 Die christliche Nächstenliebe ist hier „kalt“ und gerade die „papal charitie vaunters“, die „päpstlichen Nächstenliebe-Angeber“, sollen sich daran ein Beispiel nehmen. Gleichzeitig ist Jahangir kein „Oriental Other“, wie man erwarten könnte, sondern im Gegenteil: Jahangir ist nicht nur „a verie worthy person“58, sondern „of a seemelie composition of bodie, of a stature little unequall […] to mine, but much more corpulent then my selfe.“59 Jahangir sieht Coryate sehr ähnlich, ist nur korpulenter. Doch auch das ist durchaus positiv zu werten, denn schließlich lässt er sich an seinem Geburtstag gegen Gold aufwiegen, das anschließend unter den Armen verteilt wird.60 In seinem allerletzten Brief gibt Coryate stolz die Rede wieder, die er auf Farsi vor Jahangir gehalten hatte, sein großes Ziel hatte er also erreicht. Er tritt vor     55   56   57   58   59   60   53 54

Coryate 1618: unpaginiert, sig. D1r. Coryate 1625a: 601. Coryate 1625a: 601. Ich danke Mordechay Lewy ganz herzlich für diesen Hinweis. Coryate 1625a: 601. Coryate 1616: 20. Coryate 1616: 21. Coryate 1616: 21.

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Jahangir in seiner ziemlich schäbigen Alltagskleidung auf, ganz im Einklang mit seiner Selbstinszenierung als armer Pilger, und gegen den ausdrücklichen Wunsch des englischen Botschafters am Mogulhof, Sir Thomas Roe. Dieser hatte den Auftrag, den Portugiesen Handelsprivilegien abzunehmen und schlitterte in der Zeit noch von einem diplomatischen Fettnäpfchen ins andere.61 Er konnte es sich also nicht leisten, einen zerlumpten Coryate vor Jahangir vorsprechen zu lassen, insbesondere nicht in einer Sprache, die Roe selbst nicht verstand. Wie sich herausstellen sollte, interessierte sich Coryate aber herzlich wenig für die Handelsinteressen Englands und schaffte es, sich während einer Audienz Gehör zu verschaffen. Wir erfahren, dass Coryate sich als „fooker daruces“62, also als Fakir und Derwisch vorstellt, was er anschließend als „poore Traveller“63, übersetzt. Zudem erzählt er Jahangir von dem Motiv seiner jahrelangen Reise, nämlich ihn zu sehen. Zum Schluss unterhält sich der Großmogul kurz mit ihm (worüber, hält Coryate geheim) und wirft ihm 100 Rupien zu, laut Coryate etwa 10 Pfund Sterling.64 Er klingt an der Stelle etwas pikiert, er hatte sich vom großzügigen Jahangir wohl mehr erwartet – es spricht allerdings für einen authentischen Auftritt seinerseits, denn er wurde offensichtlich als Fakir wahrgenommen. Und Fakire sind immerhin Asketen, die nicht viel Geld benötigen. Coryate weiß also seine Selbststilisierung auf mehreren Ebenen transkulturell zu pflegen. Er weiß, was Fakire und Derwische sind, und dass er für Jahangir wie genauso einer wirken muss. Außerdem ist die textliche Darbietung seiner Rede höchst interessant: es erscheint nämlich erst eine Transliteration der gesamten Ansprache und danach die englische Übersetzung. Dadurch lässt er seine Leserschaft an seinem Auftritt quasi teilhaben. Die Mermaid Tavern in London, wo Coryates Briefe wohl laut vorgelesen wurden, wird damit zur Bühne für ein Schauspiel auf Farsi. In seinen letzten Briefen und in einem Bericht von Edward Terry, einem Geistlichen im Gefolge Thomas Roes, tritt Coryate immer weniger als Engländer auf – er trägt indische Kleidung, unterhält sich mit Einheimischen in den Landessprachen und verweist auf England höchstens noch als sein Geburtsland.65 Explizite Verweise auf seine nationale Identität finden wir kaum noch. Einen seiner Briefe endet er mit der Grußformel „the Hierosolymitan-Syrian-Mesopotamian-Armenian-Median-Parthian-Persian-Indian Leggestretcher [Beinstrecker] of Odcomb in Somerset, Thomas Coryate“.66 Er verweist also auf seine regionale Identität aus dem Dorf aus dem die seltsamen Leute stammen und auf seine transnationale Identität, die Einflüsse der geographischen Regionen vereinigt, die er sich als professioneller Reisender erlaufen hat. Auf einen Verweis auf England verzichtet Coryate mittlerweile. Man darf übrigens annehmen, dass Coryate etwa 5.300 Kilometer zwischen Konstantinopel und Surat zurücklegte, wo er an einer Darminfektion starb.67 In den Aufzeichnungen zu seiner Reise verwischt er die Grenzen zwischen Autor und Persona und seine Selbstinszenierung offenbart plurale und fluide Identitäten: darunter diejenige eines intoleranten Glaubenseiferers, aber auch die eines Ge    63   64   65   66   67   61 62

Für eine ausführliche Diskussion siehe Banerjee 2017. Coryate 1618: unpaginiert, sig. B2v. Coryate 1618: unpaginiert, sig. B3v. Coryate 1618: unpaginiert, sig. B4r–v. Terry 1655: 73–78. Coryate 1616: 42. Terry 1655: 76.

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lehrten, dem Auffassungen einer westlichen Überlegenheit im Orient fremd sind. Er schlägt gedankliche Brücken nicht nur zwischen London und Ajmer, sondern auch zwischen Antike und Gegenwart: er verbindet den Ursprung des Indus mit den Klassikern der römischen und griechischen Antike und legitimiert damit nicht nur seine Reise als geschichtliche Feldforschung, sondern legitimiert das Interesse am Orient als Interesse an einer Gegend, die sich mit Europa ihre kulturellen Wurzeln teilt. Als Ankerpunkt dienen ihm Ruinen, in die sich gleichermaßen seine eigenen mehrdeutigen Ideologien, seine Bestrebungen nach sozialem Aufstieg in England und seine auktoriale Selbstdarstellung einmeißeln lassen. Abbildungsverzeichnis Abb. 1: Coryate, Th. 1611: Coryats Crudities. Hastily gobled up in five Moneths …Newly digested in the hungry aire of ODCOMBE … & now dispersed to the nourishment of the travelling Members of this Kingdome. London: W. Stansby. Frontispiz von William Hole. Signatur: STC 5808. Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Folger Shakespeare Library. Abb. 2: Coryate, Th. 1616: Thomas Coriate Traveller for the English Wits: Greeting. From the Court of the Great Mogul … London: W. Jaggard and H. Fetherstone. Titelseite (Detail). Signatur: STC 5811. Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Folger Shakespeare Library. Bibliographie Aune, M. G. 2005: Elephants, Englishmen and India: Early Modern travel Writing and the Pre-Colonial Movement. Early Modern Literary Studies 11/1, http:// purl.oclc.org/emls/11-1/auneelep.htm, letzter Zugriff: 18.12.2021. Banerjee, R. 2017: Thomas Roe and the Two Courts of Emperor Jahangir and King James. Études Anglaises 70/2, 147–166. Barbour, R. 2003: Before Orientalism: London’s Theatre of the East, 1576–1626. Cambridge. Benjamin, W. 1978: Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels. Frankfurt. Blair, S. et al. 2007: Tabriz. In C. Edmund Bosworth (Hrsg.): Historic Cities of the Islamic World. Leiden and Boston, 486–498. Coryate, Th. 1611: Coryats Crudities. Hastily gobled up in five Moneths … Newly digested in the hungry aire of ODCOMBE … & now dispersed to the nourishment of the travelling Members of this Kingdome. London. Coryate, Th. 1616: Thomas Coriate Traveller for the English Wits: Greeting. From the Court of the Great Mogul … . London. Coryate, Th. 1618: Mr Thomas Coriat to his friends in England sendeth greeting: From Agra the Capitall City of the Dominion of the Great Mogoll in the Easterne India. London. Coryate, Th. 1625: Certaine Observations written by Thomas Coryat. In S. Purchas (Hrsg.): Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes, Bd. 1, Buch 4. London, 592–602. Coryate, Th. 1625: Master Thomas Coryates travels to, and Observations in Constantinople … and his Journey thence to Aleppo, Damasco and Jerusalem. In S. Purchas (Hrsg.), Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes, Bd. 2, Buch 10. London 1811–1831.

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Crouch, P. 2010: Patronage and Competing Visions of Virginia in George Chapman’s ‚The Memorable Masque‘ (1613). English Literary Renaissance 40/3, 393–426. Edward, T. 1655: A Voyage to East-India … . London. Hinchcliffe, E. 1968: Thomae Coriati Testimonium. Notes and Queries 15/10, 370–375. Jones, M. R. 2016: Early modern medievalism. In L. D’Arcens (Hrsg.), The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism. Cambridge, 89–102. Jonson, B. 1969: Selected Masques, hrsg. v. St. Orgel, New Haven and London. Macaulay, R. 1953: Pleasure of Ruins. New York. Mączak, A. (transl. U. Phillips) 1995: Travel in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge. Markidou, V. 2018: Performing Identity: Early Seventeenth-Century Travelers to the Ruins of Troy. Journeys 19/2, 67–81. McFarland, Th. 1981: Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin: Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Modalities of Fragmentation. Princeton, NJ. Mitsi, E. 2017: Greece in Early English Travel Writing, 1596–1682. Cham. Nayar, P. 2008: English Writing and India, 1600–1920: Colonizing Aesthetics. London and New York. O’Callaghan, M. 2004: Tavern Societies, the Inns of Court, and the Culture of Conviviality in Early Seventeenth-Century London. In A. Smyth (Hrsg.): A Pleasing Sinne: Drink and Conviviality in Seventeenth-century England. Cambridge, 37–51. O’Callaghan, M. 2007: Coryats Crudities (1611) and Travel Writing as the ‚Eyes‘ of the Prince. In T. Wilks (Hrsg.): Prince Henry Revived: Image and Exemplarity in Early Modern England. London, 85–103. Pfeifer, W. et al. 1993: Muslim. In Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, digitalisiert und überarbeitet in: Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, https://www.dwds.de/wb/etymwb/Muslim, letzter Zugriff: 13.11.2021. Shakespeare, W. 2010: Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, hrsg. v. K. Duncan-Jones. London. Strachan, M. 1962: The Life and Adventures of Thomas Coryate. London and New York. van Nahl, A. 2017: Zur produktiven Unschärfe des Mediävalismus: Richard Utz’ Plädoyer für eine undisziplinierte Mediävistik. Literaturkritik.de 7, https://literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=23441, letzter Zugriff: 21.12.2021. Wang, O. N. C. 2011: Romantic Sobriety: Sensation, Revolution, Commodification, History. Baltimore. Wilson, E. C. 1946: Prince Henry and English Literature. Ithaca, NY.

Populäre Lithographien im Orientalismus des 19. Jahrhunderts – tradierte Geschlechterbilder im neuen Medium Silke Förschler Mit dem Aufkommen des Steindrucks geht die beschleunigte Bildproduktion und die schnellere Zirkulation von Motiven einher. Einzelne Bildmotive standen als Lithografien nicht nur einem großen Rezipientinnen- und Rezipientenkreis zur Verfügung, mit der neuen Herstellungstechnik wurden auch neue Darstellungen des Orients kreiert. Das von Alois Senefelder um 1800 in München erfunde Flachdruckverfahren ermöglichte es später auch höhere Auflagen in Farbe zu drucken. Auf eine geschliffene Steinplatte wurde das Motiv seitenverkehrt mit Fettkreide oder einer speziellen Tinte aus Wachs, Fett, Seife und Ruß gezeichnet. Die anschließend aufgetragene Flüssigkeit füllte die restlichen Steinflächen, so dass die Druckerschwärze lediglich an den gezeichneten Linien und Flächen haften bleibt. Von der Steinplatte konnten nun beliebig viele Abzüge auf Papier erfolgen. Ob die neue Technik auch ein neues Verständnis des kulturell Anderen, insbesondere orientalisierter Motivtraditionen unterstützte oder ob es tradierte Bilder reproduzierte, möchte folgender Beitrag darlegen. Eine neue Herstellungstechnik und ihre Rezeption Die Spezifika und Vorteile des neuen Mediums Lithographie wurden Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts vielfach diskutiert. In seinem Buch Lehrbuch der Steindruckerey von 1818 beschreibt Aloys Senefelder das Verfahren als sehr einfach, da es ausschließlich mit Wasser und Fett auskommt. Charakteristisch für die neue Technik sei eine schnelle Vervielfältigung, eine perfekte Angleichung an die Originalvorlagen und geringe Kosten. Im Bericht der Jury für industrielle französische Produkte heißt es 1819, dass die Lithografie in Frankreich weit verbreitet sei und ausschließlich Vorteile biete. Das neue Verfahren sei schnell, günstig und erleichtere Situationen, in denen die Zeichnung zwar notwendig sei, aber keine große Präzision erfordere.1 Für eine schnelle Verbreitung der Motive sorgt zusätzlich der Umstand, dass Lithografien desselben Motivs im 19. Jahrhundert gleichzeitig in Druckereien an Orten wie Paris, London, Berlin und New York hergestellt werden. Die Druckereien sowie die Städte sind häufig unter den Abbildungen vermerkt und vermitteln derart die umfassende Verfügbarkeit derselben gleich mit. Motive, die im 19. Jahrhundert als Lithografien massenhaft reproduziert werden, zeigen emotionalisierende Themen wie Patriotismus, Frömmigkeit, Erotik sowie Gewalt und Abenteuer. Sie finden in Form von Bilderbögen, illustrierten Broschüren,   „L’art lithographique s’est établi en France et s’est développé au point où nous le voyons aujourd’hui depuis la dernièr exposition. En multipliant avec une grand rapidité et à bas prix les copies du dessin, il peut etre très-utile pour faciliter les descriptions des procédés des arts à l’intelligence desquels le dessin est nécessaire, toutes les fois que ce dessin ne demander pas une grande précision.“ Costaz 1819: 332f. 1

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Wandschmuck, Kalendern und Ansichtskarten eine weite Verbreitung.2 Beliebt ist die Anordnung der Motive als Serien zu Themen wie Länder der Erde, Sitten und Gebräuche oder Liebende unterschiedlicher Nationen. Für die östlichen und nordafrikanischen Liebenden ist der Harem der beliebteste Schauplatz, er dient als Ort, an dem starke Emotionen wie Liebe, Gewalt und Eifersucht illustriert werden. Ein Großteil der Blätter zeigt Liebe und Erotik als unschuldige und natürliche Phänomene sowie als Teil des Alltags im Orient. Im Jahr 1817 sind Lithografien zum ersten Mal im Salon ausgestellt. In einer Salonkritik führt François Miel aus, dass die Lithografie keinerlei künstlerisches Vermögen habe. Er betont aber auch, dass es in der neuen Technik eine Ehrlichkeit gebe, die das Gefühl der Farbe und den monochromen Wert der Töne bewahren. So bräuchte das Gemälde, um Farbe, Licht und Schatten gut herausarbeiten zu können, die Grafik zum Vergleich: „Pour donner une idée du coloris, de la lumière, du clair obscur, de l’harmonie générale, le peintre aura toujours besoin du graveur.“3 In einem Artikel von 1837 beklagt der anonyme Autor die Vorurteile der Künstler gegenüber der Lithografie, die dieses Medium nicht für seriös und dauerhaft hielten. Ihr Einwand laute, dass ihre Kompositionen nun von Druckern und Verlegern abhängig sei; ohne sie seien ihre Werke schnell aus dem öffentlichen Gedächtnis gelöscht. Dennoch seien sie überzeugt, dass das Verfahren der Kunst einen großen Dienst erweise und für einen neuen Aufschwung und eine Weiterentwicklung der Grafik sorge.4 Die Einschätzungen des neuen Mediums von den Zeitgenossen betreffen sowohl die Bewertung des Verhältnisses zur Malerei als auch die Vor- und Nachteile einer schnellen Reproduzierbarkeit. Im Zuge der massenhaften Verbreitung der Lithografien kommt es zu Debatten über ihren ästhetischen Wert, über Zensur und über die Verantwortung der Lithografen gegenüber den Betrachtern. Joseph Félon fordert in seiner Schrift Du progrès de l’art industriel von 1861 für literarische ebenso wie für künstlerische Publikationen, die Erziehung des Publikumsgeschmacks durch Drucke als Ziel im Auge zu behalten. Die Bilder würden sich in das Bewusstsein der Betrachtenden eingravieren und lange im Gedächtnis bleiben. In der schnellen Reproduzierbarkeit der Drucke und im Verkaufsinteresse zeige sich geradezu etwas Böses und Unmoralisches. Félon begrüßt staatliche Zensur von zu sinnlichen oder obszönen Akten, da zu viele dieser Bilder in Umlauf seien. Aus Schamgefühl und um des guten Geschmacks willen müsse man diese Bilder verurteilen. Zudem sei das künstlerische Können vieler Lithografen nicht sehr hoch. Félon schlägt vor, dass das löbliche Anliegen der Zensur auch für künstlerische Aspekte der

  Rebel 2003: 92–103.   „La Lithographie a pour vocation de favoriser l’improvisation graphique et de rendre littéralement de dessin. Mais le dessin ne pouvent pas reproduire la peinture, la Lithographie n’a plus de pouvoir. C’est la veriété des traveaux qui conserve le sentiment de la couleur et la valeur respective des tons dans cette imitation monochrome.“ Miel 1817: 420f. 4   „Or chez nous, un fameux préjugé règne parmi nos artistes qui leur fait regarder une Lithographie comme une reproduction incomplète, peu sérieuse et peu durable. Il n’en est pas un qui n’ambitionne les honneurs de la gravure, et comme les graveurs et les éditeurs sont rares, il arrive que leurs compositions sont bien vite effacées de la mémoire du public. Quand donc ils se seront bien persuadés que le plus ou moins de difficulté du procédé qui a rendu des services immenses à l’art […] alors la Lithographie prendra un nouvel essor, et recevra un développement qui la rendra aussi nécessaire que la gravure elle-même.“ Anonym 1837: 15f. 2 3

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Werke gelten soll. 5 In Félons Kommentar lassen sich zwei Zuschreibungen an das neue Massenmedium ablesen. Erstens wird die Art und Weise der Herstellung, also das schnelle, maschinelle Produktionsverfahren für das Aufkommen pornografischer Bilder und deren weite Verbreitung verantwortlich gemacht. Zweitens befriedigt die künstlerische Qualität vieler Drucke nicht. Es geht in der Rezeption also auch um die künstlerische Vergleichbarkeit der Lithographie mit den Bilden der Malerei.6 Orientalismus und Bild In den Diskursen des Orientalismus sind Bilder von Ethnizität und Geschlecht eng miteinander verbunden. Edward Said analysiert in seiner 1978 vorgelegten Studie Orientalism die Geschichte und Wirkmacht des westlichen Orientbildes. Für die postkoloniale Theorie bilden Saids Ausführungen ein Schlüsselkonzept, denn sie beschreiben, wie dominante Kulturen durch die Repräsentation anderer Kulturen diese als subalterne erst erschaffen. Mit Michel Foucaults methodischem Ansatz der Diskursanalyse geht Said dem Zusammenspiel unterschiedlicher Redeweisen und kultureller Praktiken nach, die für die Konstruktion eines einheitlichen Bildes vom Orient und die damit einhergehende koloniale Eroberung auf der Ebene von Vorstellungsbildern und Diskursen wesentlich sind. Zentral in Saids Analyse sind die Verbindungslinien zwischen Wissensproduktion, kulturellen Artefakten und europäischem Imperialismus. Said macht den Beginn der Diskursproduktion des Orients in derjenigen Literatur und Malerei aus, die als Handlungsanweisung für Reisen und Eroberungspläne genutzt wurden und die Orientwissenschaft Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts begründeten. Ein wichtiges Fundament für die Konstruktion des orientalischen ‚Anderen‘ bilden binäre Unterscheidungen zwischen dem Orient und dem Okzident, zwischen Islam und Christentum, zwischen despotisch und demokratisch, barbarisch und zivilisiert, rückständig und modern, lasziv und sittlich. Teil der Dichotomien ist die Codierung des Orients als weiblicher, sinnlicher, formbarer Raum, den der männliche, westlich-europäische Geist mit Eroberungen und wissenschaftlichen Kategorisierungen durchdringen muss. Dabei ist der Orient kein klar definierter geografischer Raum, sondern ein im Westen zur Abgrenzung verwendetes Bild des Anderen. So bedeutend Saids Ausführungen für nachfolgende Studien zum Orientalismus und zu Konstruktionen des Anderen sind, gibt es an ihnen auch grundlegende Kritik. Auf einige seiner Kritikerinnen und Kritiker geht der Autor selbst in seinen späteren Schriften ein. Eine häufige Beanstandung ist die Konstruktion eines westlichen Orientdiskurses von Aischylos bis Kissinger, der einem ebenso ahi  „Si nous avons signalé les publications littéraires et artistiques qui nous semblent aptes à former le gout du public, nous ne devons pas oublier celle des Estampes, si propre, elle aussi, a développer ce goût. En effet, l’image formulée pour les yeux se grave plus profondement dans l’esprit, et chacun de nous peut se rappeler les estampes plus ou moins bonnes qui décoraient les murs où s’écoulèrentse premières années. Malheuresement, dans le comerce de l’estampe, plus que dans les autres peut-être, se montre le mauvais et souvent l’immoral. L’état a bien une censure pour les estampes obscènes ou les nudités trop sensuelles, mais combien d’images dont les personnages en partie couverts échappent à la censure et que pourtant, la pudeur et de bon gout réprouvent également; car le talent de l’artiste est au niveau de sujet qu’il a traité! Pourquoi cette censure instituée dans un but louable ne s’exercerait-elle pas aussi sous le point de vue artistique de l’œuvre?“ Felon 1861: 7. 6   Zu den Anfänge künstlerischer Lithografie in Frankreich siehe Lebeau 1952: 250–257. 5

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storischen Essentialismus folge wie Said ihn seinerseits kritisiert.7 Obwohl Saids Versuch anerkannt wird, Foucaults Diskursanalyse auf kulturelle Artefakte anzuwenden, wird sein Verständnis der archäologischen Methode kritisiert, denn Said setzt die untersuchten Texte nicht in Beziehung zu einem synchronen epistemologischen Feld. Stattdessen dienen, so der Vorwurf, seine Lektüreerlebnisse dazu, retrospektiv eine Kontinuität orientalistischer Stereotype aufzuzeigen und sie damit in eine bruchlose Genealogie zu stellen. Darüber hinaus vermische Said in seinen Ausführungen oftmals Autorsubjekt und Diskurs, sodass es zu Psychologisierungen statt zu Verknüpfungen von Aussagen komme.8 Ein weiterer Kritikpunkt ist, dass sich das westliche Interesse am arabisch-islamischen Raum nicht auf die Zeit des europäischen Kolonialismus beschränken lässt. Das Interesse schwanke zudem zwischen einer ernsthaften Auseinandersetzung und einem flüchtigen Romantizismus. Zudem ist angemerkt worden, dass es bei einem westlichen Überlegenheitsgefühl nicht nur um Araber und Muslime gehe, sondern um Fragen, die den eigenen, westlich-europäischen Zustand betreffen und keine Verbindung zur arabischen oder islamischen Geschichte haben.9 In diesem Sinne ist außerdem vehement Saids Annahme eines realen Orients infrage gestellt worden, welchen Said dem durch die Orientalisten konstruierten entgegen hält.10 Allen Kritiken an Said ist gemeinsam, dass sie nicht von einer klaren Hierarchie zwischen Herrscher und Beherrschtem ausgeht, sondern von sich gegenseitig bedingenden, hybriden Subjekten. Das Stereotyp eines ohnmächtigen, abwesenden kolonialen Opfers soll durch die Analyse von Handlungsfähigkeit der nicht-westlichen Subjekte in Interaktionen mit kolonialen Autoritäten ersetzt werden.11 Eine Erweiterung findet sich ebenfalls im Hinblick auf das „vergeschlechtlichte subalterne Subjekt“.12 Said hat selbst eingeräumt, dass sein frühes Orientalismus-Modell darunter leidet, Elemente des Austauschs und Verschränkungen von Kulturen innerhalb kolonialer Beziehungen nicht zu beachten, da Macht in der kolonialen Situation nicht nur auf einer Seite zu finden ist, nicht nur im Besitz der Kolonisierenden.13 Die referierten Kritiken an Said nimmt der Artikel auf, indem nicht allein orientalische Stereotype aufgezeigt, sondern auch mediale Zuschreibungen an die Lithographie berücksichtigt werden. Dabei geht es um das Eigene, das im Anderen konstruiert und gespiegelt wird. Also konktet um heterosexuelle Genderkonstruktionen, die in einen fiktionalen Orient verlagert werden und Aussagen über populärkulturelle Vorstellungen im 19. Jahrhundert machen. Mit dem Anspruch, machtpolitische Aspekte für die Analyse von Kunstwerken zu beachten, findet sich in der frühen kunsthistorischen Orientalismusforschung die Forderung, sowohl Form als auch Inhalt von Gemälden in den Blick zu nehmen und deren Funktion für die Konstruktion von kultureller Differenz zu analysieren. So wirft Linda Nochlin der Forschung bereits 1983 vor, nur die Form zu beurteilen und den kolonialpolitischen Inhalt von Gemälden außer Acht zu lassen.14 Auch Roger Benjamin kritisiert, dass Gemälde und Künstler nur danach   Scheffler 1995: 105–111.   Zu den genannten Kritikpunkten vgl. insbesonder Clifford 1980: 204–223. 9   Al-Da’mi 1998. 10   Young 2004: 168f. 11   Fanon [1961] 1981; Bhabha [1994] 2000: 71. 12   Spivak [1988] 1994: 104. 13   Said 1993, Kapitel 3: 191–281. 14   Nochlin 1983. 7 8

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bewertet werden, wie modern und avantgardistisch sie sind.15 Viktoria SchmidtLinsenhoff greift in ihren Arbeiten Nochlins Anregungen auf und plädiert für eine Erweiterung des Ansatzes der Autorin, da sich ihre inhaltlichen Analysen auf feministische Kritik an der Orientmalerei beschränken und die Darstellung des Anderen außer Acht ließen.16 Die von Schmidt-Linsenhoff vorgeschlagene Erweiterung um Fragestellungen der postkolonialen Theorie fokussiert Prozesse der Entortung und Mischung von in sich heterogenen Kulturen und Subjekten.17 Ein Effekt eines solchen Ansatzes ist, den Anderen nicht erneut als stummes Objekt der Repräsentation zu fixieren, sondern als kulturellen Akteur anzuerkennen, der den eurozentrischen Entdeckerblick schon immer erwidert und modelliert hat.18 Neues Medium – alte Stereotype Mit dem neuen Reproduktionsverfahren der Lithografie kommen Darstellungen des Geschlechterverhältnisses im Orient auf, die sich von denen der frühen Grafik und der Malerei unterscheiden. Generell ist die Darstellung von Liebespaaren auf den Lithografien ein beliebtes Thema. Der Zeichner und Lithograf Achille Devéria fertigt in den 1830er Jahren eine Länderserie, die die jeweils ländertypischen Arten zu lieben vorführt. Je nach Bildtitel sollen die Motive eine exotische Erotik oder das national spezifische Verhalten von Liebenden veranschaulichen. Ein Beispiel hierfür ist das Blatt Smirne, es zeigt die Flucht eines Paares bei Nacht (Abb. 1). Die Palastarchitektur im Hintergrund macht die weibliche Figur zu einer Haremssklavin des Sultans, die von ihrem Geliebten per Boot aus dem Harem befreit wird. Ängstlich blickt sie zurück, während er sie mit schmachtendem Blick in sein Boot zieht. Repräsentiert hier die monogame und heterosexuelle Liebe, gezeichnet von Abenteuer und Gefahr, die Stadt Smirne, finden sich auch Szenen im Haremsinterieur unter den Drucken der Serie. Auf der Lithografie Turcs steht das hierarchische Verhältnis zwischen dem Herrscher und einer seiner Sklavinnen für die türkische Art zu lieben (Abb. 2). In der einen Hand hält der prächtig gekleidete Herrscher eine Pfeife, während er mit der anderen das Haar seiner Sklavin, deren Oberkörper unbekleidet ist, prüfend fasst. Gegenübergestellt sind die prächtige Bekleidung der männlichen Figur und die nur mit einem Tuch bedeckte weibliche. Formal bildet der Herrscher das Bildzentrum, dem die Sklavin auch in der Bildordnung untergeordnet ist. Ihre Körper- und Haarlinien sind den ausliegenden weichen Kissen und fallenden Stoffe ähnlich, unterscheiden sich also kaum von der Dekoration des Interieurs. Sowohl durch die Darstellung der Figuren, als auch durch deren formale Anordnung ist das Geschlechterverhältnis im Orient durch Machtasymmetrien gekennzeichnet. Diese Geschlechterkonstellation funktioniert über die eindeutige Verteilung von Macht und Ohnmacht zwischen Mann und Frau und nicht über eine Vielzahl von Frauen, die sonst Kennzeichen des Harems sind. Auch in der Darstellung mit dem Titel Tunis (Abb. 3) ist die spezifisch orientalische Art zu lieben über eine monogame Liebesbeziehung veranschaulicht. Ein Liebespaar wird von einem Dritten überrascht, der ihre geheime Liebe entdeckt. Die dramatische Spannung dieses Moments funktioniert über die Blickachse zwischen dem Eintretenden und den sich versteckt geglaubten Liebenden. Emotional     17   18   15 16

Benjamin 1990: 156–164, 211, 213. Schmidt-Linsenhoff 2004: 37–53. Schmidt-Linsenhoff 2002a: 61–72. Schmidt-Linsenhoff 2002b: 11.

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aufgeladen ist die Szene durch das Wissen, dass im Harem nur der Herrscher über seine Sklavinnen verfügen kann, ausschließlich Eunuchen den Harem betreten dürfen und den Sklavinnen Liebesgefühle zu anderen nicht gestattet sind.

Abb. 1: Achille Devéria, Smirne, 1830er Jahre, Lithografie, Paris und New York, 31,5 × 24 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

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Abb. 2: Achille Devéria, Turcs-Adoree aujourd’hui et demain délaissée, 1830er Jahre, Lithografie, Printer: Lemercier, Distributor: Ve. Turgis, Paris, New York und London, 24 × 31,5 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Mit diesem Wissen knüpfen die Drucke der Liebenden unterschiedlicher Länder zwar an bekannte Topoi aus den Haremsberichten an, beispielsweise die Eifersucht des Herrschers, die Hierarchie unter den Dienerinnen oder die Differenz zwischen Sklavin und Herr.19 Im Unterschied zu den Berichten jedoch steht auf den Lithografien immer ein Liebespaar im Zentrum. Damit sind die eigenen Vorstellungen von heterosexueller, monogamer Liebe und über Geschlechterpositionen innerhalb von Paarbeziehungen ablesbar. Diese populären Annahmen über die Abläufe im Harem bilden die Folie für Konstrukte romantischer Liebe. Rezipiert werden Devérias Lithografien von den Zeitgenossen vor allem hinsichtlich der besonderen Effekte, die er mit den medienspezifischen Mitteln zu er­ zeugen vermag. Diese zeigen sich in der Detailgenauigkeit der Kostüme und der Architektur sowie in der Varianz der Linien.20 Die Illustration kultureller Unterschiede verläuft in den Lithografien des 19. Jahrhundert vor allem über die Darstellung des Interieurs. Der Druck Le Divan von Louis Bardel zeigt in einem filigran gestalteten Innenraum einen Mann und eine Frau auf Sitzkissen und eine Tänzerin vor dem Hintergrund einer Palastar  Um nur einige prominente Beispiele für Reise- und Hofberichte zu nennen: Charles de Montesquieu: Lettres persanes, Paris 1721; Mary Wortley Montagu: Letters of the right honourable Lady M-y W-y M-e: Written during her Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa, to Persons of Distinction, Berlin 1790; Paul Rycaut: Histoire de l’Etat présent de l’Empire ottoman, contenant les maximes politiques des turcs, les principaux points de la religion mahometane, les sectes, Paris 1670; Recueil de cent estampes representant differentes Nations du Levant, Paris 1715. 20   Vgl. Gautier 1925: 81. 19

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chitektur (Abb. 4). Die Anordnung dieses müßigen Zeitvertreibs erinnert an eine Bühnensituation inmitten von Kulissen.

Abb. 3: Achille Devéria, Tunis, 1830er Jahre, Lithografie, P: Lemercier, D: Bulla, Paris und New York, 31,5 × 24 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

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Abb. 4: Louis Bardel, Le Divan, 1842, Lithografie, P: Lemercier, D: Farine, 42,2 × 50,8 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. In den Szenen von Devéria und Bardel repräsentiert die Interaktion von hetero­ sexuellen Paaren das Geschehen im Harem. Damit unterscheiden sich die Litho­grafien von den gemalten Haremsmotiven. Auf den bekannten Haremsgemälden des 19. Jahrhunderts, wie beispielsweise Ingres’ Großer Odalikse oder Dela­croix’ Frauen von Algier fehlt meist der Sultan, sodass seine Machtposition als Betrachterposition imaginiert werden kann. Der illustrierende Charakter der Lithografien stellt die Ähnlichkeit der Verbindung zwischen dem Sultan und einer Sklavin zu den eigenen Vorstellungen und Praktiken von heterosexueller Liebe heraus. Auch zu den Grafiken der Reiseberichte besteht ein wesentlicher Unterschied. Hier geht es um die Vermittlung ethnografischen Wissens von Kostümen und Gebrauchsgegenständen sowie um die hierarchische Rangfolge unter den Sklavinnen. In den Lithografien hingegen werden die eigenen Vorstellungen von Geschlechterordnung auf Personen im orientalisierten Interieur projiziert. Wie eng die Konstruktion einer orientalischen Erotik mit den Vorstellungen von östlichen Städten verbunden sind, zeigen nicht nur die Darstellungen von Paaren sondern auch die von Orientalinnen. Auf der Farblithografie Constantinople von Armand Régnier ist eine weibliche Liegende inmitten einer Landschaft zu sehen (Abb. 5). Unter einem Baum stützt sie sich auf ein Kissen. Umgeben ist sie von einer Wasserpfeife, einem Tischchen, einigen Kissen und einem Pan-

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therfell. Ihre Erotik, durch die urwüchsige und wilde Natur charakterisiert, steht stellvertretend für die Metropole. Die Pose der Figur und die Umhüllung aus weich fallenden Stoffen repräsentieren den lasziven und freimütigen Charakter der Großstadt. Jedoch gibt es auch Bestrebungen die jeweilige Charakteristik der Städte des Orients zu erfassen. So ist 1850 in der Zeitschrift L’Artiste von Clément de Ris eine Publikation mit dem Titel L’Orient angekündigt. Herausgegeben von Mouilleron, sollten darin Lithografien mit Ansichten des Orients von Grenada bis Babylon von den Künstlern Mailhat, Decamps, Delacroix und Gautier versammelt werden.21 Das Werk ist heute leider nicht mehr auffindbar. In seiner Ankündigung ist jedoch bereits das Bestreben zu erkennen, einen Überblick über alle Städte des Orients zu geben und eine Verbindung zwischen ihnen zu ziehen. Damit sollen die Künstlerlithografien den Orient als geografisch konkreten und kulturell einheitlichen Raum definieren. Auch zur Erinnerung gefertigte Reisealben beinhalten Illustrationen, die Geschlechterverhältnisse auf orientalische Liebe und Gewalt reduzieren. Alexandre-Evariste Fragonard fertigt einige Abbildungen für die Publikation Voyage pittoresques et romantiques du Baron Taylor. Die Abbildung La Vengeance von 1829 zeigt eine Racheszene (Abb. 6). Eine Turban tragende Figur mit einem langen Messer in der Hand steht am rechten Bildrand, während über die Bildbreite des Vordergrunds eine hellhäutige weibliche Leiche liegt. Im Hintergrund ist ein Kampf zu erkennen. Die Vorhänge rechts und links versetzen das Geschehen auf eine Bühne, deren dramatischer Höhepunkt jedoch schon überschritten ist. Zum Ort eines vergangenen Kampfgeschehens wird der Harem auch auf dem Blatt La Musulman imprudent von Fragonard aus dem Jahre 1830 (Abb. 7). Ein französischer Soldat ist mit einem weiblichen Akt in seinem Schoß und erhobenem Weinkelch in einem Interieur platziert. Der Text unter der Abbildung macht deutlich, dass es sich um einen Sieg der Franzosen über die Mamelucken in Ägypten handelt. Der Harem ist erobert, den Siegern steht es jetzt zu, mit den Haremssklavinnen Alkohol zu trinken und das islamische Alkoholverbot zu missachten. Kontrastiert werden hier in eurozentrischer Weise kulturspezifische Vorstellungen von Genuss: Selbst im Harem, der für orientalische Sinnesfreuden schlechthin steht, wird nach dem Sieg das französische Maß für Sinnesfreude und Müßiggang, der Wein, eingeführt. Den Platz des Sultans nimmt nun ein französischer Soldat ein. Das Haremsinterieur wird zur Illustration der eigenen Eroberungsphantasien genutzt. Die Eroberung des Landes ist mit der Einnahme der Frauen im Harem gleichgesetzt.   „Nous venons de voir la première livraison d’un ouvrage intitulé l’Orient publié par M. Mouilleron et une réunion de lithographes sous sa direction. La beauté des planches, l’adresse du crayon, dépassent, s’il se peut, les tours de force des Artistes anciens et modernes. Dans cette collection paraitront successivement des vues de toute cette contrée poetique et lumineuse qui s’étend depuis Grenade jusqu’à Babylone, et vers laquelle se tournent, depuis trois mille ans les reves des poetes et les regards des artistes. Les dessins seront empruntés aux cartons de Mailhat, de Decamps, de Delacroix, de Prisse d’Avesnes, de Théophile Gautier, d’Hédouin, de Leleux, de Saltzmann, de Dabbodie, qui ont mis avec empressement tous leurs croquis à la disposition de M. Mouilleron. La première livraison se compose de trois Vues d’Egypte, par M. Prisse d’Avesnes, qui a passé huit ans dans ce pays, d’une Vue d’Alger, par M. Tesson, et d’un Jouerud e flute de Marilhat. Oui je me trompe fort ou cette publication est destinée à un grand et légitime succès.“ De Ris 1850: 155f.

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Abb. 5: Armand Régnier, Constantinople, 1855–1856, Farblithografie, P: Becquet frères, D: Desmaisons-Cabasson, 30,5 × 40 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

Abb. 6: Alexandre-Evariste Fragonard, La Vengeance, 1829, Lithografie, P: Villain, D: Ostervald, Ainé, Ritter, 45 × 58 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

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Abb. 7: Alexandre-Evariste Fragonard, La Musulmane imprudente/Aprés la défaite des Mamelucks en Égypte, le harem de Mourad-bey fut enfahi par les Français, 1830, Lithografie, P: Villain, D: Ostervald, Ainé, Ritter, 45 × 59 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Die Mehrzahl der Lithografien bringt die vermeintlichen Sitten und Gebräuche des Orients in Zusammenhang mit Erotik. Eugène-Charles-François Guérard stellt in einer Serie mit dem Titel La vie au Serail aus dem Jahre 1853 jeweils zwei weibliche Akte an unterschiedlichen Orten dar. Den Zeitvertreib der Sklavinnen zeigt eine Szene im Zelt (Abb. 8). Eine Tänzerin bewegt sich so rauschhaft zur Musik eines schwarzen Spielers, dass ihr Rock herabfällt und ihr Schleier weht. In dieser Serie ist der Orient ganz allgemein ein Ort stereotyper Vorstellungen über die sprühende Erotik hellhäutiger Sklavinnen. Die Auffassung, dass diese orientalische Erotik nicht nur in den verborgenen Räumen des Harems zu finden ist, sondern auch in der Natur, zeigen auch die Drucke von Joseph Félon, die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts entstehen. So stellt die Lithographie Le Soir (Abb. 9) beispielsweise zwei hellhäutige weibliche Akte am Nilufer dar. Die Haltung der im Vordergrund stehenden erinnert an den Schamgestus der Venus pudica oder an das alttestamentliche Sujet der Susanne im Bade. Anhand ihres Blicks aus dem Bild, der von einer weiteren im Hintergrund liegenden Figur aufgenommen wird, ist der Betrachterblick Teil der Szene. Damit wird die Unschuld des Badens in einer mit Palmen bewachsenen Landschaft zu einer Inszenierung für den vo­ yeuristischen Betrachterblick. Auch in der Serie Le Paradis de Mohamet von Nicolas-Eustache Maurin aus dem Jahre 1851 ist das orientalische Liebesleben im Serail in Verbindung mit Blickhierarchien dargestellt. Die für Haremsdarstellungen tradierte charakter­

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istische Blickführung, die die Betrachtenden über ihren Blick auf das Verbotene zu Komplizen macht und den Blick in das eigentlich unzugängliche Rauminnere erotisch auflädt, ist in Zulime (Abb. 10) thematisiert und verkehrt. Über die ganze Breite des Bildes räkelt sich ein Akt im Vordergrund auf den ein bärtiger Mann mit geschmücktem Turban im Hintergrund blickt. Damit ist die Erotik des Aktes, der den Konventionen der europäischen Darstellung entspricht, zwar einerseits für den Betrachterblick arrangiert, andererseits ist damit auch eine orientalische Männlichkeit dargestellt, die zwar lüstern ist, über den Akt aber nicht einfach verfügt, wie dies in einer Haremssituation üblich ist, sondern eine Betrachterposition einnimmt in der er gezwungen ist, den Blick auf den weiblichen Akt zu teilen.

Abb. 8: Eugène-Charles-François Guérard, La vie au Serail, 1853, Lithografie, Paris – Berlin – London, 32 × 40,5 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

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Abb. 9: Joseph Félon, Le Soir, 1850, Lithografie, London/Paris, 32 × 22 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

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Abb. 10: Nicolas-Eustache Maurin, Zulime, 1851, Lithografie, I: Villain, 33,5 × 46,5 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

Resümee Da die Lithografie nicht uneingeschränkt als künstlerisches Medium anerkannt ist, sind die orientalisierten, weiblichen Aktdarstellungen weniger an die Ikonographie der Haremsgemälde gebunden. Um dem Dekorum der Salonmalerei des 19. Jahrhundert zu entsprechen, wurden weibliche Aktdarstellungen im Harem meist antikisiert. Eine Orientalisierung der weiblichen Akte erfolgte dann durch Accessoires und mit Hilfe der Hautfarbenkontraste. So sind auf Ingres’ Bade- und Interieurbildern hellhäutige weibliche Akte mit Fächern und kostbaren Stoffen ausgestattet und von dunkelhäutigen Dienerinnen und Dienern umgeben. Der gemalte Innenraum bietet einen verbotenen Blick in den eigentlich geschlossenen Harem. Auf den Lithografien hingegen werden die Akte oft im Freien gezeigt. Neben den hellhäutigen Akten sind drastische Eifersuchtsszenen und heterosexuelle, monogame Beziehungen charakteristisch für die orientalisierten Motive der Populärgraphik. In den Illustrationen der mädchenhaften, hellhäutigen Akte inmitten einer exotischen Vegetation oder orientalischer Accessoires, wird die Universalität ihrer Erotik betont, die sowohl dem Maßstab des Harems entspricht als auch einem europäisch-heterosexuellen voyeuristischen Blick Genuss verschaffen soll. Die Orientalin erscheint als deviant, aber auch als begehrt und heimlich bewundert. Zwar lassen sich in den Lithographien Abweichungen von zentralen Bildern der französischen Salonmalerei aufweisen, die im 19. Jahrhundert Geschlecht und Orient verhandeln. Jedoch geht damit keine Veränderung einer heterosexu-

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ellen Geschlechterhierarchie einher, sondern bekannte Strukturen monogamer, heterosexueller Beziehungen werden nun in orientalische Interieurs versetzt und erscheinen für einen fiktionalisierten Orient universell gültig. Eine Fiktionalisierung erfolgt derart auf zweierlei Ebenen: Der Orient wird geographisch fixiert und der Ort des Harems als Folie monogamer Liebeskonzepte herangezogen. Derart ist der Orient in der Populärgraphik Projektionsfläche und Verstärker der abendländischen Geschlechterverhältnisse. In der historisch-zeitgenössischen Debatte um die Qualität der Lithographie findet eine Abwertung aufgrund ihres zügigen Herstellungsverfahrens und ihrer raschen Verbreitung statt. Diese Zuschreibung mangelhafter künstlerischer Qualität dient als Legitimation, bestehende Hierarchien der abendländischen Geschlechterordnung ins Bild zu setzen und den Orient damit abzuwerten. Orientalismus in populären Lithographien des 19. Jahrhunderts besteht in der Reduktion von Genderpositionen auf die Positionen im Harem und die dort vermeintlich omnipräsente Erotik. Auch wenn diese spezifische Erotik dem westlichen Betrachter gerne in den Drucken offenbart wird, sind die eigenen monogamen Liebeskonzepte in Abgrenzung zur orientalischen Polygamie als umso romantischer inszeniert. Literaturverzeichnis Al-Da’mi, M. 1998: Orientalism and arab-islamic history: an inquiry into the orientalists’ motives and compulsions. Arab Studies 20/4, 1–11. Anonym 1837: De la Lithografie. L’Artiste 13, 15–19. Benjamin, R. 1990: Matisse in Morocco: A Colonizing Esthetic? Art in America 11, 156–164, 211, 213. Bhabha, H. K. [1994] 2000: Die Verortung der Kultur. Tübingen. Costaz, M. L. 1819: Rapport du Jury central sur les produits de l’Industrie Française. Paris. Clifford, J. 1980: Orientalism. History and Theory 19/2, 204–223. Fanon, F. [1961] 1981: Die Verdammten dieser Erde. Frankfurt am Main. Felon, J. 1861: Du Progrès de l’art industriel. Paris. Gautier, M. 1925: Achille et Eugène Devéri. Paris. Lebeau, E. 1952: Les débuts ignorés de l’imprimerie lithographique, Paris 1802– 1806. Bulletin de la Société Le Vieux Papier 1/7, 250–257. Miel, F. 1817: Essai sur le Salon de 1817, ou Examen critique des principaux ouvrages dont l’exposition se compose. Paris. Nochlin, L. 1983: The imaginary Orient. Art in America 71/5, 118–131 & 186–191. Rebel, E. 2003: Druckgrafik. Geschichte, Fachbegriffe. Stuttgart. De Ris, C. 1850: Mouvement des arts. L’artiste 15/12, 155–161. Said, E. 1978: Orientalism. New York. Said, E. 1994: Culture and Imperialism. New York. Scheffler, Th. 1995: Exotismus und Orientalismus. kultuRRevolution 32/33, 105–111. Schmidt-Linsenhoff, V. 2002a: Postkolonialismus. Kunsthistorische Arbeitsblätter 7/8, 61–72. Schmidt-Linsenhoff, V. 2002b: Kunst und kulturelle Differenz oder: Warum hat die kritische Kunstgeschichte in Deutschland den postcolonial turn ausgelassen?. In V. Schmidt-Linsenhoff (Hrsg.): Postkolonialismus. Kunst und Politik. Jahrbuch der Guernica-Gesellschaft 4. Osnabrück, 7–16.

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Schmidt-Linsenhoff, V. 2004: Sklavenmarkt in K. Zur Verkörperung verleugneter Erinnerung in der Malerei des Orientalismus. In V. Schmidt-Linsenhoff / K. Hölz / H. Uerlings (Hrsg.): Weiße Blicke – Geschlechtermythen des Kolonialismus. Marburg, 37–53. Senefelder, A. 1818: Lehrbuch der Steindruckerey. München und Wien. Spivak, G. Ch. [1988] 1994: Can the Subaltern Speak?. In P. Williams / L. Chrisman (Hrsg.): Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theor., Hemstead, 66–111. Young, R. 2004: White Mythologies – Writing History and the West. London und New York.

Joseph von Hammer-Purgstalls Fundgruben des Orients und die Entzifferung der Keilschrift Hannes D. Galter Über Jahrhunderte hinweg war Mesopotamien für die Europäer eine ferne, sagenumwobene Region, die nur im Spiegel der Bibel bzw. der antiken Autoren betrachtet wurde. Dies änderte sich mit den ersten archäologischen Funden, die aus Babylon nach Europa kamen. Claudius James Rich (1786–1821), der 1808 mit 21 Jahren zum britischen Residenten in Bagdad ernannt wurde, war einer der ersten Europäer, die ernsthafte archäologische Forschungen in Mesopotamien unternahmen. Neben seiner diplomatischen Tätigkeit begann er, die Geographie, Geschichte und Altertümer Mesopotamiens zu erforschen. Im Dezember 1811 führte Rich zehn Tage lang Vermessungen und Grabungen in Babylon und Umgebung durch. Dadurch rückte nicht nur Mesopotamien in das Zentrum europäischen Kulturinteresses, sondern die Wissenschaft erhielt zum ersten Mal auch eine Vielzahl autochthoner Schriftzeugnisse des Alten Orients, die unter anderem zur Entzifferung der mesopotamischen Keilschrift führten.1 Claudius James Rich und Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall Im Juni 1814 kam Claudius James Rich nach Wien. Er hatte zweieinhalb Jahre zuvor den Bericht über die ersten systematischen Untersuchungen der Ruinenstätte von Babylon an den österreichischen Orientalisten Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1774–1856) geschickt, der ihn in seiner neu gegründeten Zeitschrift Fundgruben des Orients veröffentlichte.2 Der Bericht, der im Mai 1812 in Bagdad verfasst wurde, erschien bereits im Sommer 1813 im Druck, was damals einer kleinen Sensation gleichkam.3 Die Publikation erregte großes Interesse unter den europäischen Gelehrten. Aus diesem Grund und wegen der zahlreichen Recht­ schreibfehler, die die schnelle Drucklegung produziert hatte, ließ Rich den Bericht 1815 in London ein zweites Mal herausgeben.4 In demselben Jahr 1813, in dem der Bericht über Babylon in den Fundgruben des Orients erschien, erhielt Rich Sonderurlaub, um seine angegriffene Gesundheit zu stärken. Er reiste mit seiner Frau Mary über Konstantinopel nach Wien, wo er am 11. Juni 1814 eintraf. Das Ehepaar Rich verbrachte den Sommer in Wien und Baden. Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall – damals noch Joseph von Hammer – begleitete das Ehepaar, mit dem er freundschaftlich verbunden war, durch das gesellschaftliche Leben Wiens, das bereits ganz im Vorzeichen des Wiener Kongresses stand, und stellte Kontakte zu verschiedenen Persönlichkeiten her.5 Unter     3   4   5   1 2

Liverani 2005; Matthews 2003; Galter 2013 & 2014. Rich 1813. Galter 2008: 94–106. Rich 1815. Hammer-Purgstall 2018: 1077–1082; Galter 2013.

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diesen befand sich neben Graf Wenzel Rzewuski (1765–1831), dem Geldgeber der Fundgruben, auch Erzherzog Johann von Österreich (1782–1859), der Bruder des österreichischen Kaisers, und Gründer des Joanneums (heute Universalmuseum Joanneum) in Graz, wie dieser in einem Brief vom 25. Juni 1814 mitteilt.6 Zusammen mit den Manuskripten für die Fundgruben hatte Rich 72 babylonische und sassanidische Roll- und Stempelsiegel, vier Inschriftenziegel Nebukadnezars II. sowie andere Antiquitäten übersandt, die im Umfeld der Zusammentreffen in Wien an Hammer, Graf Rzewuski, Erzherzog Johann und andere verteilt wurden.7 Die meisten davon befinden sich heute im British Museum, im Kunsthistorischen Museum in Wien und im Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz,8 der Rest gilt als verschollen. Hammer begann, diese in den Fundgruben zu publizieren, und trat mit Georg Friedrich Grotefend in Verbindung, von dem er wusste, dass er sich mit der Entzifferung der Keilschrift befasste. Die Entzifferung der Keilschrift Die Keilschrift war noch gründlicher in Vergessenheit geraten als die ägyptischen Hieroglyphen. Erste Nachrichten über sie brachte Pietro della Valle 1621 nach Europa. Carsten Niebuhr veröffentlichte 1778 eine Reihe von Abschriften altpersischer Trilinguen und Friedrich Münter – Bischof auf Seeland und späterer Mitautor der Fundgruben – deutete 1802 die Sprache dieser Inschriften richtig als eine Form des Persischen. Der große Durchbruch bei der Entzifferung der altpersischen Keilschrift gelang dann dem Göttinger Gymnasiallehrer und Altphilologen Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775–1853),9 als er am 4. September 1802 mit 27 Jahren als Ergebnis einer Wette und nach wenigen Wochen Vorarbeit der Göttinger Gelehrten Gesellschaft durch einen Freund die Übersetzung zweier kurzer altpersischer Inschriften vorlegte.10 Weitere Berichte Grotefends, insgesamt waren es vier lateinische Aufsätze, folgten am 2. Oktober 1802, am 13. November 1802 und am 20. Mai 1803.11 Grotefend kannte die von Carsten Niebuhr gelieferten Schriftproben. Er identifizierte sie als Alphabetschrift und versuchte sie durch logisches Kombinieren zu entziffern. Es gelang ihm, die Lautwerte von 11 der 37 Zeichen der altpersischen Keilschrift richtig zu bestimmen.12 Die Göttinger Universität zögerte jedoch, Grotefends Berichte zu veröffentlichen, da er nicht den eigentlichen Universitätskreisen angehörte. Man entschied sich lediglich dafür, Auszüge aus diesen Berichten durch Thomas Christian Tychsen in den Göttingischen Gelehrten Anzeigen mitzuteilen.13 Erst drei Jahre später, 1805, konnte Grotefend im Anhang einer allgemeinen althistorischen Abhandlung über seine Entdeckungen berichten.14 Seine   Schlossar 1878: 122, Nr. XLI.   Galter 2013: 864–866. 8   Unger 1966; Bleibtreu 1976; Galter im Druck. 9   Für eine biographische Skizze siehe Bretthauer / Röhrbein 1975. 10   Borger 1975a & 1975b; vgl. Doblhofer 1993: 101–143 und Oelsner 2003. 11   Borger 1975a: 157. 12   Hinz 1975; vgl. Pellerey 2020. 13   Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen Nr. 149 vom 18.9.1802: 1481–1487; Nr. 178 vom 6.11.1802: 1769–1772; Nr. 60 vom 14.4.1803: 593–595 und Nr.117 vom 23.7.1803: 1161– 1164. 14   Grotefend 1805. 6 7

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originalen Abhandlungen wurden überhaupt erst 1893, vierzig Jahre nach dem Tod Grotefends, von Wilhelm Meyer veröffentlicht.15 Die Entzifferung der babylonischen Keilschrift erwies sich als weit schwieriger.16 Auch hier stammen erste Vorarbeiten von Grotefend, die er ab 1814 in den Fundgruben des Orients veröffentlichte.17 Schon davor hatten Pierre-Joseph de Beauchamp (1752–1801) und Friedrich Münter (1761–1830) Ähnlichkeiten zwischen den Ziegeln aus Babylon und den babylonischen Teilen der PersepolisInschriften erkannt,18 doch nach 1800 war das bekannte Keilschriftmaterial durch Schenkungen deutlich angewachsen. 1801 überließ Sir Harford Jones Bridges, der damalige Resident in Bagdad, dem Museum der East India Company eine perfekt erhaltene Steintafel aus Babylon mit einer Inschrift Nebukadnezars II. Sie wurde 1803 erstmals veröffentlicht und ist als East India House Inschrift bekannt geworden. Seit 1938 befindet sie sich im British Museum (BM 129397).19 11 Jahre später entfachten die Geschenke und Publikationen Claudius James Richs neuerlich das Interesse an Babylon und der Keilschrift.20 Der Briefwechsel zwischen Grotefend und Hammer-Purgstall Die Veröffentlichung der Arbeiten Grotefends wurde durch einen über sechs Jahre (1814–1821) gehenden Briefwechsel zwischen ihm und Hammer begleitet. 31 Briefe Grotefends haben sich im Schlossarchiv von Hainfeld in der Südoststeiermark, dem Sommersitz Hammers ab 1836, erhalten. Sie liegen heute im Steiermärkischen Landesarchiv in Graz und wurden von Walter Höflechner in seiner Digitaledition der Materialien zu Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall herausgegeben.21 Drei „schwer lesbare“22 Briefe Hammers an Grotefend befinden sich im Nachlass Grotefends in der Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen,23 und vier Briefe Hammers an Grotefend fanden ihren Weg in die Autographensammlung Kestner der Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig.24   Meyer 1893.   Vgl. Doblhofer 1993: 144–183. 17   Grotefend 1814b; 1816 & 1818; vgl. Galter 2008: 93–94. 18   Pallis 1956: 132–133. 19   Langdon 1912: 120–140, Nr. 15; Pallis 1956: 45. 20   Vgl. Galter 2014. 21   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2, die Nummern 1342, 1354, 1382, 1491, 1640, 1648, 1653, 1672, 1680, 1729, 1732, 1771, 1790, 1835, 1851, 1933, 1966, 2025, 2032, 2089, 2121, 2141, 2150, 2157, 2180, 2186, 2191, 2222, 2301, 2341 und 2358. 22   Flemming 1890: 82. 23   Signatur: 2 Cod.Ms.hist.nat.37a: XII, Nrn. 16–18 (http://kalliope-verbund.info/DE611-HS-3459504) aus den Jahren 1820–1821; vgl. Flemming 1890. Ein herzliches Dankeschön geht an Rolf B. Röper von der Abteilung Digitale Bibliothek der Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen für die Bereitstellung von Scans der Briefe. Im selben Konvolut befinden sich auch neun Briefe von Karl Bellino (Nrn. 1-9), die Grotefend selbst in Ausschnitten in den Fundgruben oder anderswo veröffentlicht hat, sowie ein Brief von Claudius James Rich an Hammer, den dieser in deutscher Übersetzung an Grotefend weiterleitete (Nr. 27/27a); siehe Flemming 1890: 84–85. 24   Signatur: Slg. Kestner/II/A/IV/788/Nrn.1,2,4 & 6 (http://kalliope-verbund.info/DE611-HS-2877104, http://kalliope-verbund.info/DE-611-HS-2877108, http://kalliope-verbund.info/DE-611-HS-2877213 und http://kalliope-verbund.info/DE-611-HS-2877253). Sie datieren in die Jahre 1819 und 1820 und behandeln keine Keilschriftthemen. Ein herz15 16

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Ein erster Brief stammt wahrscheinlich vom 10. August 1814.25 Hammer lag damals mit Beinbruch im Krankenbett. Er hatte sich am 31. Juli auf dem Heimweg mit dem Ehepaar Rich von Beethovens Fidelio und einer Soirée im Hause des Prinzen De Ligne das linke Wadenbein gebrochen26 und musste den Brief diktieren. Er bat Grotefend, die zur Veröffentlichung vorgesehenen Stiche der Ziegel aus Babylon mit einem Beitrag zur Keilschrift zu begleiten. Grotefend antwortete am 20. August 1814 lange und ausführlich.27 Er verwies darauf, dass die Inschriften größtenteils bekannt seien, kritisiert die schlechte Qualität der Kupferstiche in den Fundgruben im Vergleich mit Hagers Dissertation28 und Millins Monumens antiques29 und legte eigene Umzeichnungen bei. Er bot Hammer an, für die Fundgruben eine partiturartige Vergleichstafel aller bisher bekannten Inschriften anzufertigen. Abschließend erkundigte er sich, ob er in Deutsch oder „zur leichteren Verständlichkeit für alle europäischen Gelehrten“ in Latein schreiben solle. Die von Grotefend angekündigte Vergleichungstafel verzögerte sich jedoch, da er sich nach Erhalt des dritten Bandes der Fundgruben zusätzlich mit den darin publizierten Amuletten und Rollsiegeln beschäftigte.30 Hammer veröffentlichte stattdessen Teile des Briefes vom 20. September 1814, in dem Grotefend ausführlich darlegt, warum er den Rollsiegeln – er deutet sie als beschriftete Talismane – für die Entzifferung der babylonischen Keilschrift keinerlei Bedeutung beimisst.31 Er hielt sie, genauso wie die Hieroglyphen, für magische Zeichenspiele, die keinen Schriftcharakter besäßen. Im Oktober 1814 übersandte er endlich die Vergleichstafel und einen Monat später den begleitenden lateinische Aufsatz. Grotefend datierte ihn auf den 7. November 1814: Scripsi d[ie] 7. Novembris a[nno] 1814. Francofurti ad Moenum. Der Beitrag wurde noch im selben Jahr in den Fundgruben abgedruckt.32 Er enthält Erläuterungen in Tabellenform, die alle acht damals bekannte Ziegelinschriften aus Babylon mit den Zeichen der 1803 in London publizierten East India House-Inschrift verglichen. In einer Nachschrift (epimetrum) bespricht er auch jüngste Inschriftenfunde. Ihm fällt dabei auf, dass Teile der ersten Kolumne der East India House Inschrift (= Titulatur und Genealogie) dem Text der Ziegelinschriften entsprechen. Die tabula ist extra am Ende des Bandes angefügt (Abb. 1):

liches Dankeschön geht an Susanne Dietel vom Bereich Sondersammlungen der Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig für die Bereitstellung von Scans der Briefe. 25   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1169, Nr. 1338. Dieser Brief ist erschlossen aus Nr. 1342. 26   Hammer-Purgstall 2018: 1077–1078. 27   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1172–1175, Nr. 1342. 28   Hager 1801. 29   Millin 1806. 30   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1184–1190, Nr. 1354. 31   Grotefend 1814a. 32   Grotefend 1814b; vgl. die Besprechung in der Leipziger Literatur-Zeitung vom 1. November 1816, Nr. 272: 2173–2174.

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Abb. 1: Grotefends Vergleichstafel in Fundgruben des Orients 4 (1814), letztes Blatt. Durch den Inschriftenvergleich konnte er Texte zusammenführen und ergänzen. Dabei verband er kopierte Zeichen mit erschlossenen: „Das Schwarzausgefüllte ist von den Ziegelfragmenten selbst kopiert, das übrige von mir durch Vergleichung anderer Inschriften gleicher Art ausgefüllt.“33 Er ging von neun Inschriftentypen aus, drei-, sechs- oder siebenzeilig, die nur in einzelnen Worten voneinander abweichen. Er interpretierte die Unterschiede im Schlussteil des Königsnamens Nebukadnezars II. richtig als graphische Varianten: „Merkwürdig ist es, daß das zweite Zeichen der dritten Reihe (von der Linken zur Rechten gelesen) in allen drei Kopien von Millin, Münter und mir verschieden ist. Da nur der Ziegel des Herrn Grafen Rzewuski dieses Zeichen gerade so schreibt, wie Millins Kupferstich zeigt, die anderen beiden Ziegel aber, gleich der englischen sechszeiligen Inschrift, eine vierte Schreibart desselben enthalten, so scheint es, als hätte dieses Zeichen, ohne die Bedeutung zu ändern, eine verschiedene Orthographie gehabt, wie es auch mit den nächstfolgenden Zeichen der Fall ist, wenn Sie sowohl Ihre Kupferstiche als meine Beilagen dieses Briefes miteinander vergleichen wollen.“34 Die Wiederholung des Inschriftenbeginns mit leichten Abänderungen, deutete er zurecht als Titulatur des Vaters, die Schrift erkannte er als von links nach rechts laufende Silbenschrift. Er bestimmte Keil und Winkelhaken als Grundelemente und deutete die Sprache richtig als eine Form des Semitischen. Davon sollte er später allerdings wieder abweichen. Gegen Ende des Briefes vom 20. August fasst Grotefend seine Ergebnisse folgendermaßen zusammen: „Alle bis jetzt bekanntgewordenen Inschriften babylonischer Ziegel enthalten neunerlei, nur in einzelnen Worten voneinander 33 34

  Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1173, Nr. 1342.   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1173, Nr. 1342.

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abweichende Inschriften, welches Sie leicht bemerken werden, wenn Sie Ihre Kupferstiche mit meinen Beilagen oben von der Linken zur Rechten anfangend, vergleichen. In jeder der neunerlei Inschriften, sei sie drei-, sechs- oder siebenzeilig, wird der Anfang zu Ende wiederholt, mit einer allen Inschriften gemeinsamen Abänderung der ersten zwei oder drei Zeichen umfassenden Worte, worin ich den persepolitanischen Inschriften analog die Flexion des Königstitels des Vaters des zu Anfang genannten Königs ahnde. Eben weil jedes Wort mehrere, aber nur wenige Zeichen mit verschiedener Orthographie einzelner Zeichen umfaßt, so halte ich die babylonische Schrift für eine Art von Silbenschrift, in welcher der Konsonant, der tibetanischen und amjarischen Schrift analog, nach der Verschiedenheit des innewohnenden Vokals eine etwas veränderte Gestalt erhält.“35 In einem Schreiben vom 3. Dezember 1815 kündigt er Hammer eine Zusammenstellung aller babylonischen Keilschriftzeichen für die Fundgruben an, die der Tafel im 4. Band entsprechen würde.36 Eine ähnliche Vergleichungstafel für die altpersische Keilschrift habe er der neuen Ausgabe von Heerens Ideen über Politik, Handel und Verkehr der vornehmsten Völker der alten Welt geliefert.37 Grotefend, Hammer-Purgstall und Carl Bellino In der Zwischenzeit waren die Richs nach Paris weitergereist, wo sie mit Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1836) zusammentrafen.38 Am 28. Juli 1815 schifften sie sich in Triest ein und kehrten über Konstantinopel, Anatolien und Mosul wieder nach Bagdad zurück, wo sie am 28 April 1816 eintrafen.39 In ihrer Begleitung befand sich Carl Bellino, ein Protegé Hammers und wie er Absolvent der von Maria Theresia 1754 gegründeten Orientalischen Akademie in Wien. Rich hatte in Wien den Wunsch nach einem Privatsekretär geäußert und Hammer vermittelte ihm daraufhin Carl Bellino, der am 15. Juli 1814 seinen Dienst antrat.40 Dies erwies sich als außergewöhnlicher Glücksgriff für die Anfänge der Keilschriftforschung. Bellino besaß ein erstaunliches grafisches Talent und fertigte zahlreiche Kopien von Keilschrifttexten an, die Rich gefunden oder erworben hatte. Er zeichnete sich dabei durch besondere Genauigkeit aus.41 Aus seiner Feder stammt ein Großteil der von Rich, Grotefend und anderen veröffentlichten Kopien keilschriftlicher Originale.42 Im Lauf der nächsten Jahre begleitete er Rich auf mehreren Reisen und besuchte auch mit anderen Engländern, 1816 mit James Silk Buckingham und 1818 mit Robert Ker Porter, die Ruinen von Babylon. Bellino stand in regelmäßigem Briefkontakt mit Hammer in Wien und mit Grotefend in Frankfurt. Seine in Göttingen befindlichen Briefe wurden von Wolfgang Schramm 1974 veröffentlicht,43 die Schreiben in Graz finden sich in   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1174, Nr. 1342.   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1316–1317, Nr. 1491. 37   Grotefend 1815. 38   Alexander 1928: 173–181; vgl. den Brief de Sacys an Hammer vom 21. März 1815: Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1234–1238, Nr. 1405. 39   Vgl. den Brief Bellinos an Hammer vom 16. Mai 1816: Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1364–1369, Nr. 1543, teilweise abgedruckt in Fundgruben des Orients 5 (1816): 45–48. 40   Siehe Barnett 1974. 41   Barnett 1974: 26–28; Pallis 1956: 80–87. 42   Barnett 1974: 12–13. 43   Schramm 1974. 35 36

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Walter Höflechners Online-Edition der Korrespondenz Hammers.44 Dieses Dreieck zwischen Feldforschung, philologischer Gelehrsamkeit und Publikationstätigkeit erwies sich als äußerst fruchtbar. Bellino versorgte Hammer und Grotefend per Brief mit immer neuen Abschriften von Keilinschriften.45 Grotefend sollte sie mit Kommentaren versehen und für eine Veröffentlichung in den Fundgruben vorbereiten,46 danach sollte Hammer sie publizieren. Dieser fungierte auch als Mittelsmann zwischen Bellino und Rich im Irak und Grotefend und anderen, z.B. Münter, in Europa, in dem er Briefe weiterleitete und auch kleinere Fundstücke – Rollsiegel, Ziegel, Statuetten – die per Schiff über Triest in Wien ankamen, weiterverteilte.47 Im Herbst 1816 legte Grotefend einen weiteren längeren Artikel in den Fundgruben vor, der Anfang 1817 erschien.48 Darin stellte er eine nach formalen Kriterien geordnete Liste aller bekannten Keilzeichen vor (Abb. 2). Wir sind noch heute gewohnt, die Zeichen nach einem ähnlichen, von Friedrich Delitzsch 1876 entworfenen, System zu ordnen.49 Grotefend hatte seine Zusammenstellung schon Jahre davor begonnen, aber von einer Veröffentlichung abgesehen, da Thomas Fisher 1807 eine ähnliche Liste in London publiziert hatte.50 Aufgrund der zahlreichen neuen Keilschriftfunde durch Rich und Sir Gore Ousely, allen voran Inschriftenziegel und Rollsiegel, die in Europa bekannt wurden und sich teilweise in Privatbesitz befanden, musste er sie, wie er schreibt, wohl zwölfmal von neuem entwerfen, ehe er mit ihr halbwegs zufrieden war und sie Anfang 1817 nach Wien schickte.51 In einem früheren Brief vom 31. Dezember 1814 hatte er sich bereits bei Hammer für die Zusendung von drei Gipsabdrücken von Ziegelinschriften aus Privatbesitz bedankt, mit deren Hilfe er neue Erkenntnisse gewonnen habe. Die Abdrücke seien trotz mangelhafter Qualität um vieles aussagekräftiger als die Kopien: „Die Zeichnung eines Kupferstiches sei noch so treu und genau, wie es die Abbildungen in den Fundgruben wirklich sind; so kann sie doch für den Entzifferer einer noch durchaus unbekannten Schrift einen Gipsabdruck, welcher jeden Strich in gleicher Größe und Lage und jeden Zwischenraum in gleichem Abstand, wie das Original, darstellt, nicht ganz ersetzen; (…)“.52 Er sei nun überzeugt, schreibt er weiter, dass die Inschriften auf den beiden Ziegeln nicht nur gleichen Inhalts wären, „sondern von einer gemeinschaftlichen Form in den Ton abgedruckt“. 44   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2, die Nummern 1543, 1659, 1719, 1778, 1852, 1897, 1917, 1937, 2027, 2108 und 2188. 45   Siehe den Brief Grotefends an Hammer vom 17. Mai 1817: Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1465–1467, Nr. 1672 und den Brief Bellinos an Hammer vom 19. April 1819: Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1809–1813, Nr. 2027. 46   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1501–1509, Nr. 1719. 47   Vgl. Höflechner et al. 2018: Band 1, 93–97. 48   Grotefend 1816. Die Seite 225 ist im Zeitschriftenband irrig als 125 paginiert und dem entsprechend auch im Inhaltsverzeichnis falsch angeführt. Die angesprochene Liste findet sich auf den Seiten 229 und 230. Vgl. die Besprechung in der Leipziger Literatur-Zeitung vom 30. Januar 1818, Nr. 27: 209–211. 49   Delitzsch 1876: 3–14. 50   Fisher 1807; wiedergegeben in Daniels 2020: 10–11, fig. 1.3. 51   Siehe seinen Brief an Hammer vom 24. Januar 1817: Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1429–1431, Nr. 1640. 52   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1210–1212, Nr. 1382.

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Abb. 2: Grotefends Zeichenliste in Fundgruben des Orients 5 (1816): 229–230.

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In diesem Artikel konnte Grotefend den Beweis erbringen, dass die Zeichen auf den babylonischen Ziegeln mit jenen der dritten Keilschrift aus Persepolis – von der wir heute wissen, dass sie die babylonische Version darstellt – übereinstimm­ ten. Erneut betont er, dass Keil und Winkelhaken die grundlegenden Elemente der Keilschrift seien, aus der alle zusammengesetzten Zeichen bestünden. Diese würden sowohl für Buchstaben als auch für Silben verwendet und seien von links nach rechts, also vom Keilkopf weg, zu lesen. Die Erfindung der Keilschrift schrieb er den Medern zu, da deren Sprache den obersten Platz bei den Inschriften in Persepolis einnahm. Grotefend bestand Zeit seines Lebens auf der irrigen Annahme, dass diese Sprache, das Elamische, ein Vorläufer des Zend, also des Avestischen, sei. Die zweite Keilschrift sei persisch und die dritte babylonisch(es Persisch). Von der babylonischen Variante unterschied er die Keilschrift der Magier (= Kursive?) durch Gebrauch und jene der Amulette (= Rollsiegel) durch „magische Veränderung“. Ein Problem blieb für Grotefend immer die Sprache. Er sah in ihr mittlerweile eine ältere nichtsemitische Sprache der Chaldäer und Assyrer, einen Vorläufer des Pahlevi. Dazu legte er verschiedene Argumente vor, z.B. Monatsnamen, Zahlwörter oder Eigennamen. Jede persische Provinz habe ihre eigene Schriftart: Medien die älteste, die Persis die zweite und Babylonien die vierte und fünfte. Die dritte ordnete er fragend der Provinz Susana zu. Sie bilde den Übergang von der persischen zur babylonischen Keilschrift.53 Kritik an Grotefends Arbeiten Die Teilnahme am wissenschaftlichen Korrespondenz-Netzwerk jener Tage verschaffte dem Außenseiter Grotefend Zugang zu Informationen und Meinungen aus erster Hand. Diese waren allerdings nicht immer positiv. Schon im Juni 1803 hatte Silvestre de Sacy in Paris die Entzifferungsarbeiten Grotefends in einem Brief an Hammer kommentiert.54 Er sei einen klugen und methodischen Weg gegangen, habe aber das meiste Münter zu verdanken. In einem Brief vom 20. September 1816 äußerte er sich noch abfälliger über ihn: „Son premier essai m’avoit fait concevoir quelques espérances: tout ce qu’il a fait depuis, n’a aucune valeur. D’ailleurs il manque, je crois, des connoissances nécessaires pour de telles recherches.“ 55 In ähnlicher Weise kritisierte auch de Sacys Schüler Gottfried Kosegarten die mangelnde sprachliche Ausbildung Grotefends.56 Grotefend hat mehrfach zu dieser Kritik Stellung genommen. In einem Brief vom 19. Februar 181757 betont er nachdrücklich seine Ausbildung als Altphilologe und seine Unkenntnis der morgenländischen Sprachen. Einen Monat später schreibt er: „Wenn er sich von meinen Versuchen nicht viel verspricht, weil es mir an der erforderlichen Kenntnis der orientalischen Sprachen fehlt, so habe ich nichts dagegen zu erinnern, als dass ich von Anfange an nicht für einen Erklärer der Inschriften, sondern nur für einen Entzifferer der unbekannten Zeichen   Brief Grotefends an Hammer am 27. März 1817: Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1442–1445, Nr. 1653. 54   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 277, Nr. 287 vom 22. Juni 1803. 55   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1403, Nr. 1590. 56   Vgl. den Brief Grotefends an Hammer vom 27. März 1817: Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1442–1445, Nr. 1653. 57   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1438–1440, Nr. 1648. 53

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habe angesehen sein wollen“.58 Die Übersetzung der Inschriften obliege den Orientalisten. Hammer hatte ihn offenbar auf die Kritik de Sacys und seine mangelnden Sprachkenntnisse angesprochen. Er wird das offene Bekenntnis Grotefends am Jahresende in sein Tagebuch schreiben und es später auch in seine Memoiren aufnehmen: „Die deutschen Orientalisten, mit denen ich als Mitarbeitern der Fundgruben häufig Briefe wechselte, waren Eichhorn, Ideler, Kosegarten, Wahl, über die babylonischen & persepolitanischen Keilschriften mit Grotefend, welcher in einem seiner Briefe frei bekannte, daß er von den orientalischen Sprachen gar nichts verstehe.“59 Grotefend hingegen war gekränkt. Er polemisiert in dem genannten Brief gegen die Orientalisten. Alle Versuche de Sacys und anderer seien misslungen. In den knapp zwanzig Jahren seit der Entzifferung wäre niemand im Stande gewesen, seinen Erkenntnissen auch nur das Mindeste entgegenzusetzen. Den im letzten Briefe versprochenen Aufsatz liefere er nur dann, wenn Hammer die von Gore Ouseley eingesandten Inschriften in neuen Kopien veröffentlichen wolle, „denn so, wie sie Herr Gore Ouseley gezeichnet hat, leisten sie wenig Nutzen“.60 Grotefends dritter Beitrag in den Fundgruben des Orients Ende 1818 veröffentlichte Grotefend seinen dritten Beitrag zur Keilschrift in den Fundgruben, diesmal auf Deutsch: „Beweis, dass alle babylonische Keilschrift, soweit sie bis jetzt bekannt geworden, ungeachtet aller Verschiedenheiten in der Schreibweise, zu einerlei Schriftgattung und Sprache gehöre“.61 Zu diesem Zeitpunkt wollte er anscheinend eine größere Breitenwirkung auch außerhalb gelehrter Kreise erzielen. Den Anstoß dazu gab ein Brief Bellinos mit zahlreichen Kopien, die für Grotefend auch die komplexeren Inschriften wie die East India House-Inschrift, die er als 5. Schriftart bezeichnete, als ebenfalls babylonisch und alphabetisch erkennen ließen. Grotefend sah in diesen neuen Kopien große Ähnlichkeiten mit den Inschriften der Talismane, Ziegeln, Tongefäße, Gemmen und Rollsiegel und wies sie einer Schrift und Sprache zu: „(…) um fürs Erste zu erweisen, dass alle babylonische Keilschrift, soweit sie mir bekannt geworden, auch die zusammengesetzteste von allen, einerlei syllabisch-alphabetische Schriftgattung, wenn gleich urkundlich verschieden ist.“62 Aus dieser Erkenntnis heraus fühlte er sich auch in der Lage, abgebrochene Teile zu ergänzen. Die Omnipräsenz einer Zeichenfolge am Zeilenbeginn, die Grotefend als Präfix deutete, die aber mittlerweile als Präposition i-na erkannt worden ist, hatte ihn ursprünglich an eine semitische Sprache denken lassen. Er ließ den Gedanken aber nach einem Widerspruch Bellinos fallen.63 Wie wir noch sehen werden, änderte Bellino seine Meinung kurze Zeit später.

  Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1443–1444, Nr. 1653 vom 27. März 1817; vgl. auch die Briefe Nr. 1672 vom 17. Mai 1817 und Nr. 1680 vom 16. Juni 1817. 59   Hammer-Purgstall 2018: 1246. 60   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1444. 61   Grotefend 1818; vgl. Pallis 1956: 99–126. 62   Grotefend 1818: 144. 63   Grotefend 1818: 156–157. 58

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In einem Brief vom 1. November 1818 entschuldigte sich Grotefend für die Verzögerung des Beitrags mit der Begründung, dass die zahlreichen neuen Kopien Bellinos eine völlige Überarbeitung seiner Vergleichstafel erfordert hätten. 64 Dem Beitrag fügte er mehrere dieser Kopien bei (Abb. 3) und zitiert lange Passagen aus Bellinos Schreiben. Von bleibendem Interesse ist dabei Bellinos Beschreibung seiner Kopiermethode: „Um die Inschriften so getreu als mir möglich zu geben, zeichnete ich jede derselben zuerst mit Bleystift, und dann, jedoch immer das Original vor Augen, mit Feder und Dinte, wobei ich nicht selten kleine Keile und Striche bemerkte, die ich in der ersten Zeichnung mit Bleistift übersehen hatte, besonders in der Zusammenstellung mehrerer, wo die kleinern Keile oft kaum ausnehmbar sind.“65 Danach diskutiert Bellino das Problem, Winkelhaken von schrägen Keilen zu unterscheiden, da beide oft eher unbestimmte Formen aufweisen.66 Er erkannte, dass verschiedene Zeichen auf unterschiedliche Arten geschrieben werden konnten67 und dass immer wieder Fehler verbessert wurden.68

Abb. 3: Die Kopien in Fundgruben des Orients 6 (1818), Tafel vor S. 143. Zum Schluss fasst Grotefend seine Erkenntnisse zusammen: Es gäbe zwei Hauptklassen der Keilschrift, eine persische und eine babylonische. Der zweite Keilschrifttypus aus Persepolis, den wir heute als Elamisch kennen, stehe quasi in der Mitte. Aus Babylon stammten drei graphische Untergruppen derselben Sprache: Texte in einfacher älterer Keilschrift, solche in einfacher jüngerer     66   67   68   64 65

Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1706–1709, Nr. 1933. Grotefend 1818: 146. Grotefend 1818: 147 und 155. Grotefend 1818: 153. Grotefend 1818: 145.

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Keilschrift und solche in komplexerer Keilschrift.69 Alle Keilschrift sei alphabetisch, die babylonische aber auch syllabisch, indem sie Konsonanten je nach vokalischer Begleitung unterschiedlich schreibe. Sie werde von links nach rechts geschrieben und sei auf den (Siegel)-Zylindern spiegelverkehrt angebracht. Grotefend erkennt die Grenzen seiner Recherche ohne philologische Kenntnisse und hofft, dass andere weiterkommen.70 In dem genannten Brief vom 1. November 1818 spricht Grotefend allerdings auch über neue wichtige Entdeckungen seinerseits, die er den zahlreichen und genauen Kopien Bellinos verdanke, und ist bereit, weitere Vergleichstafeln zu liefern. Der „Bellino-Zylinder“ Im folgenden Jahr entstand die wohl bedeutendste Kopie Carl Bellinos. Rich hatte von seinem Agenten in Mosul einen Keilschriftzylinder Sanheribs erhalten. Er teilte den Fund Hammer in einem Brief vom 5. April 1819 mit: „The most curious article I have as yet found is a small earthen vase, covered with cuneiform writing.“71 Der Zylinder befindet sich heute im British Museum (BM 22502) und hat als „Bellino-Zylinder“ Berühmtheit erlangt. Bellino fertigte eine Kopie des Textes samt Kommentar an, die er am 19. April 1819 über Hammer an Grotefend nach Frankfurt sandte (Abb. 4).72 Dieser sollte die Kopie mit einem eigenen Kommentar versehen und in den Fundgruben publizieren. Grotefend vergleicht die Inschrift mit den bekannten Zylindern aus Babylon, findet aber keine Ähnlichkeiten, da sie nicht in Kolumnen abgefasst ist und er keinen Königsnamen identifizieren kann.73 Zu diesem Zeitpunkt existierten die Fundgruben aber nicht mehr. Graf Rzewuski war bereits 1814 in seine polnische – heute ukrainische – Heimat gereist, um seine Besitzungen in Ordnung zu bringen. Damit hatte Hammer den Mäzen und Förderer seiner Zeitschrift verloren. Er konnte noch zwei Bände, Band 5 (1816) und Band 6 (1818), finanzieren, dann musste er die Zeitschrift aus Geldmangel einstellen. 1823 unternahm er einen Versuch, die Fortsetzung durch staatliche Förderungen zu ermöglichen, was aber 1827 endgültig abgelehnt wurde.74 Grotefend veröffentlichte Bellinos Kopie erst Jahre später (1850) in einem Beitrag zu den Abhandlungen der Göttinger Akademie.75 Die exakte Wiedergabe der Schriftzeichen durch Bellino wurde zu einem wesentlichen Hilfsmittel bei der weiteren Entzifferung der mesopotamischen Keilschrift. Bellino machte auch selbst Entzifferungsversuche der Keilschrift. Er erkannte das Zeichen für „Sohn“ und deutete das Datum am Ende der Inschriften richtig. In einem Vortrag vor der Literary Society of Bombay am 30. Juni 1818 erwog er ei-

  Grotefend 1818: 160–161.   Grotefend 1818: 157–158. 71   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1794, Nr. 2020; vgl. Barnett 1974: 16, Fn. 60 und 21–22. 72   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1812–1813, Nr. 2027; vgl. Schramm 1974: 274, Nr. 6. 73   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1860–1862, 2089. 74   Hammer 2018: 1570. 75   Grotefend 1850; die Kopien Bellinos befinden sich am Ende des Bandes. Siehe auch Borger et. al. 1975: 51–52, Nr. 47 und Pallis 1956: 81. 69 70

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nen aramäischen Ursprung der babylonischen Keilschrift.76 Claudius James Rich übernahm Bellinos Erkenntnisse im Appendix zu seinem „Second Memoir“.77

Abb. 4: Bellinos Kopie (Ausschnitt) nach Barnett 1974, Pl. II b.

Das Ende der Zusammenarbeit von Bellino, Hammer und Grotefend Mit dem frühen Tod Carl Bellinos – er starb am 13. November 1820 in Mosul am Gallenfieber, das er sich in Hamadan eingefangen hatte, und wurde auf dem katholischen Friedhof in Mosul beigesetzt – und mit dem Tod Claudius James Richs nur elf Monate später – er starb am 5. Oktober 1821 in Schiras an der Cholera und wurde in der armenischen Kirche von Dscholfa in Isfahan beigesetzt – brach das wissenschaftliche Dreieck auseinander. Es kamen keine neuen Inschriften und Erkenntnisse mehr aus dem Vorderen Orient zu den Schreibtischgelehrten nach Wien und Frankfurt. Es dürfte kein Zufall sein, dass wir aus der Zeit danach keine Anzeichen einer Korrespondenz zwischen Grotefend und Hammer mehr haben. Rich hatte Hammer noch in einem Brief über Bellinos Tod in Kenntnis gesetzt. Hammer übersetzte den englischen Brief ins deutsche und schickte diese Übersetzung an Grotefend weiter. Sie befindet sich heute in der Universitätsbibliothek in Göttingen.78 Hammer selbst schrieb einen kurzen Nekrolog auf Carl Bellino, der im Conversationsblatt 3. Jahrgang, Nr. 32 vom 21. April 1821 veröffentlicht wurde. Darin hebt er dessen Verdienste für die Erforschung der Keilschrift „durch ge  Bellino 1820: 190; vgl. Pallis 1956: 82.   Rich 1818: 50–51. 78   Flemming 1890: 84–85. Vgl. Hammers Eintrag in seinen „Erinnerungen“: Hammer 2008: 1346. 76 77

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treue Abzeichnung, genaue Vergleichung und unermüdliche Aufsuchung solcher Monumente“ hervor und gibt den übersetzten Brief Richs in Auszügen wieder.79 Damit hatte die Entzifferung der mesopotamischen Keilschrift einen toten Punkt erreicht. Die Möglichkeiten des vorhandenen Materials waren ausgeschöpft. Grotefends Festhalten an der „medischen“ (= avestischen) Sprache verhinderte einen weiteren Fortschritt.80 Er wandte sich anderen Gebieten, z.B. den Rollsiegeln, zu81 und kehrte erst Jahre später, 1837, zur Keilschrift zurück. Um 1820 ist auch eine gewisse Entfremdung zwischen Grotefend und Hammer festzustellen. Dieser hatte an einigen von Grotefends Theorien, z.B. zum Grabmal des Kyros oder zu seinen Rollsiegel-Deutungen,82 gezweifelt und Grotefend reagierte erneut gekränkt.83 Man tauschte weiter Literatur und Drucke aus,84 es kam aber zu keiner neuerlichen Zusammenarbeit. Auf der anderen Seite hatten die Veröffentlichungen der babylonischen Funde Richs einen Boom in Europa ausgelöst. Mit Paul Émile Botta, Austen Henry Layard und Henry C. Rawlinson kam eine neue Generation von Forschern in den Orient. Das von ihnen zur Verfügung gestellte umfangreichere Textmaterial und die Erkenntnis, dass es sich bei den Inschriften aus Babylon und Ninive um eine semitische Sprache handelt, die Edward Hincks 1846 erstmals formulierte, brachten den entscheidenden Durchbruch, der zur endgültigen Entzifferung der mesopotamischen Keilschrift führte. Hincks betonte allerdings 1846: „I should begin with stating that, in this field of discovery, I have no predecessor who has published anything to the purpose, except the venerable Professor G. F. Grotefend, who, very early in the present century, made a commencement in the deciphering of all the three kinds of Persepolitan writing.“85 Bibliographie Alexander, C. M. 1928: Baghdad in bygone days. From the journals and correspondence of Claudius Rich, traveller, artist, linguist, antiquary, and British resident at Baghdad, 1808–1821. London. Barnett, R. D. 1974: Charles Bellino and the Beginnings of Assyriology. Iraq 36, 5–28. Bellino. C. 1820: Account of the Progress Made in Deciphering Cuneiform Inscriptions. Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay 2, 170–193. Bleibtreu, E. 1976: Mesopotamische Rollsiegel und sāsānidische Stempelsiegel im Joanneum, Graz. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 68,   Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 3: 1882–1886.   Pallis 1956: 139–140; vgl. Grotefend 1840: 57, wo er Nebukadnezars Ziegelinschrift als Anrufung Mithras übersetzt. 81   Siehe seinen Brief an Hammer vom 21. April 1820: Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1990–1991, Nr. 2191. 82   Vgl. den Brief Bellinos an Hammer vom 15. April 1820: Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1985–1989, Nr. 2188, sowie den Brief Karl August Böttigers an Hammer vom 7. September 1820: Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 2048–2050, Nr. 2256. 83   Vgl. den Brief Friedrich Wilhelm Carl Umbreits aus Göttingen an Hammer vom 10. Juni 1820: Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 1998–2000, Nr. 2207. 84   Siehe die Briefe Höflechner et al. 2018, Band 2: 2018, Nr. 2222 und 2089–2091, Nr. 2301 sowie die Briefe Nr. 17 und 18 in Göttingen und Nr. 4 in Leipzig (siehe oben Anm. 23 und 24). 85   Cathcart 2007: 242; zu Hincks eigenen Beiträgen siehe jetzt Cathcart 2011. 79 80

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105–130. Borger, R. 1975a: Grotefends erste Praevia. In R. Borger et. al. (Hrsg.): Die Welt des Alten Orients. Keilschrift – Grabungen – Gelehrte. Zum 200. Geburtstag Georg Friedrich Grotefends, 9. Juni 1775 – 15. Dezember 1853. Handbuch und Katalog zur Ausstellung. Göttingen, 57–168. –– 1975b: Vorläufiger Bericht über Lesung und Erklärung der sogenannten Keil­ inschriften von Persepolis. Von Georg Friedrich Grotefend, Collaborator am Göttinger Gymnasium Göttingen den 4. September 1802, ediert und kommentiert von R. Borger. In R. Borger et. al. (Hrsg.): Die Welt des Alten Orients. Keilschrift – Grabungen – Gelehrte. Zum 200. Geburtstag Georg Friedrich Grotefends, 9. Juni 1775 – 15. Dezember 1853. Handbuch und Katalog zur Ausstellung. Göttingen, 169–178. –– 1975c: Grotefend spätere orientalistische Arbeiten. In R. Borger et. al. (Hrsg.): Die Welt des Alten Orients. Keilschrift – Grabungen – Gelehrte. Zum 200. Geburtstag Georg Friedrich Grotefends, 9. Juni 1775 – 15. Dezember 1853. Handbuch und Katalog zur Ausstellung. Göttingen, 178-184. Brethauer, K. / Röhrbein, W. R. 1975: Georg Friedrich Grotefend. Eine bio­ graphische Skizze, in: R. Borger et. al. (Hrsg.), Die Welt des Alten Orients. Keilschrift – Grabungen – Gelehrte. Zum 200. Geburtstag Georg Friedrich Grotefends, 9. Juni 1775 – 15. Dezember 1853. Handbuch und Katalog zur Ausstellung, Göttingen, 9–14. Daniels, P. T. 2020: The Decipherment of Ancient Near Eastern Languages. In R. Hasselbach-Andee (Hrsg.): A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages. Hoboken, 3–25. Cathcart, K. J. (Hrsg.) 2007: The Correspondence of Edward Hincks, Vol. I (1818–1849). Dublin. –– 2011: The Earliest Contributions to the Decipherment of Sumerian and Akkadian Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2011/1, http://www.cdli.ucla.edu/ pubs/cdlj/2011/cdlj2011_001.html, letzter Zugriff: 07.10.2021. Delitzsch, F. 1876: Assyrische Lesestücke. Nach den Originalen theils revidirt theils zum ersten Male herausgegeben und durch Schrifttafeln eingeleitet. Leipzig. Doblhofer, E. 1993: Die Entzifferung alter Schriften und Sprachen,. Stuttgart. Fisher, T. 1807: A Collection of all the Characters simple and compound with their Modifications, which appear in the Inscription of a Stone found among the Ruins of Ancient Babylon now deposited in the East India Company’s Library in Londenhall Street, London. London. Flemming, J. 1890: Der literarische Nachlass Grotefends. Beiträge zur Assyriologie und vergleichenden semitischen Sprachwissenschaft 1, 80–93. Galter, H. D. 2008: Fundgruben des Orients. Die Anfänge der Orientforschung in Österreich. In H. D. Galter / S. Haas (Hrsg.): Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall. Grenzgänger zwischen Orient und Okzident. Graz, 87–102. –– 2013: Am Anfang stand Babylon. Claudius James Rich und die Anfänge altorientalischer Sammlungen. In P. Mauritsch / C. Ulf (Hrsg.): Kultur(en). Formen des Alltäglichen in der Antike. Festschrift für Ingomar Weiler zum 75. Geburtstag. Nummi et Litterae 7. Graz, 853–871. –– 2014: „Von den Ufern des Euphrats an die der Mur“. Wie Mesopotamien nach Europa kam. In I. Fischer (Hrsg.): Bibel- und Antikenrezeption – Eine interdisziplinäre Annäherung. Exegese in unserer Zeit 23. Wien, 378–397.

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–– im Druck: Die Stempelsiegel der Sammlung Rich im Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz. In G. Selz / K. Wagensonner (Hrsg.): Festschrift für Erika Bleibtreu. Wien. Grotefend, G. F. 1805: Ueber die Erklärung der Keilschriften, und besonders der Inschriften von Persepolis. In A. H .L. Heeren (Hrsg.): Ideen über die Politik, den Verkehr und den Handel, der vornehmsten Völker der alten Welt. 2., sehr vermehrte und verbesserte Auflage I,1, Beylage 1. Göttingen, 931–960. –– 1814a: Entzifferung eines hieratischen Alphabets von Herrn Professor Grotefend in einem Briefe desselben an Herrn v. Hammer, Frankfurt am Mayn den 20. September 1814. Fundgruben des Orients 4, 240–245. –– 1814b: Explicatio tabulae, qua inscriptiones laterum coctilium in veteris Babylonis loco repertorum omnium, qui adhuc innotuerunt, cum magnae inscriptionis ibidem repertae et Anno 1803 Londini vulgatae versibus similibus conferuntur. Fundgruben des Orients 4, 331–338. –– 1815: Ueber die Erklärung der Keilschriften, und besonders der Inschriften von Persepolis. In A.H.L. Heeren (Hrsg.): Ideen über die Politik, den Verkehr und den Handel, der vornehmsten Völker der alten Welt. 3., vermehrte und verbesserte Auflage I,1, Beylage 1. Göttingen, 563–609. –– 1816: Explicatio tabulae, charakteres cuneiformes ex tertia quartaque scriptura recentis. Fundgruben des Orients 5, 255–230. –– 1818: Beweis, dass alle babylonische Keilschrift, soweit sie bis jetzt bekannt geworden, ungeachtet aller Verschiedenheiten in der Schreibweise, zu einerlei Schriftgattung und Sprache gehöre. Fundgruben des Orients 6, 143–162. –– 1840: Neue Beiträge zur Erläuterung der Babylonischen Keilschrift. Hannover. –– 1850: Bemerkungen zur Inschrift eines Thongefässes mit ninivitischer Keilschrift. Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 4, Abhandlungen der historisch-philologischen Classe, 175–193. Hager, J. 1801: A Dissertation on the Newly Discovered Babylonian Inscriptions. London. Hammer-Purgstall, J. v. 2018: Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben. Das Bachofen­ Echtsche Typoskript. In W. Höflechner / A. Wagner / G. Koitz-Arko (Hrsg.): Erinnerungen, Briefe, Materialien. Publikationen aus dem Archiv der Universität Graz 46. Graz, http://gams.uni-graz.at/archive/objects/o:hpe.band3.25.1.1.2/datastreams/PID/content, letzter Zugriff: 07.10.2021. Hinz, W. 1975: Grotefend genialer Entzifferungsversuch. In R. Borger et al. (Hrsg.): Die Welt des Alten Orients. Keilschrift – Grabungen – Gelehrte. Zum 200. Geburtstag Georg Friedrich Grotefends, 9. Juni 1775–15. Dezember 1853. Handbuch und Katalog zur Ausstellung. Göttingen, 15–18. Höflechner, W. et al. (Hrsg.) 2018: Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall. Erinnerungen, Briefe, Materialien. Version 2, 3 Bde. Publikationen aus dem Archiv der Universität Graz 46. Graz, https://gams.uni-graz.at/context:hp, letzter Zugriff: 07.10.2021. Langdon, S. H. 1912: Die neubabylonischen Königsinschriften. Vorderasiatische Bibliothek 4. Leipzig. Liverani, M. 2005: Imperialism. In: S. Pollock / R. Bernbeck (Hrsg.): Archaeologies of the Middle East: Critical Perspectives. Oxford, 223–243. Matthews, R. 2003: The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Theories and Approaches. New York and London. Meyer, W. 1893: G. Fr. Grotefends erste Nachricht von seiner Entzifferung der

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Keilschrift. Zum Abdruck gebracht von W. Meyer. Nachrichten von der König­ lichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften und der Georg-Augusts-Universität zu Göttingen 14, 573–616. Millin, A. L. 1806: Monumens antiques, inédits ou nouvellement expliqués: Collection de statues, bas-reliefs, bustes, peintures, mosiques, gravures, vases, inscriptions, médailles, et instrumens tirés des collections nationales et parti­ culières, et accompagnés d’un texte explicative, tome Second. Paris. Oelsner, J. 2003: Zur Erinnerung: Georg Friedrich Grotefend und die Entzifferung der Keilschrift. Alter Orient Aktuell 4, 19–20. Pallis, S. A. 1956: The Antiquity of Iraq: A Handbook of Assyriology. Copenhagen. Pellerey, R. 2020: Dispositivi grafici e spaziali nella decifrazione di scritture antiche: la scrittura cuneiforme. E|C Rivista dell’Associazione Italiana di Studi Semiotici 14/30, 395–404. Rich, C. J. 1813: Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon. Fundgruben des Orients 3, 129–162 & 197–200. –– 1815: Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon. London. –– 1818: Second Memoir of Babylon: containing an inquiry into the correspondence between the ancient description of Babylon and the remains still visible on the site: suggested by the „Remarks“ of Major Rennel published in the Archaeologia. London. Schlossar, A. 1878: Johann von Österreich und sein Einfluß auf das Culturleben der Steiermark. Originalbriefe des Erzherzogs aus den Jahren 1810–1825 an Ritter von Kalchberg, Kurator des Joanneums,.Wien. Schramm, W. 1974: Carl Bellino an G. Fr. Grotefend. Briefe und Inschriften. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie 64, 250–290. Unger, E. 1966: Der Beginn der altmesopotamischen Siegelbildforschung. Eine Leistung der österreichischen Orientalistik. Sitzungsberichte der Öster­ reichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Phil.-hist. Klasse 250/2. Wien.

The reception of the Assyrian wounded lioness in Spain – a success story1 Agnès Garcia-Ventura In December 1853, the British Vice Consul in Mosul Hormuzd Rassam (1826– 1910) was in charge of the excavations that would bring to light Assurbanipal’s (668–630 BCE) North Palace at Nineveh in modern-day Iraq.2 Among the first reliefs unearthed were those of the royal lion hunt, distributed among several rooms of the palace. The ones in room C, with vivid depictions of several wounded lions pierced by arrows, are among the most widely debated by scholars.3 To quote Davide Nadali, “the sculptures of room C actually represent the most complete synthesis of the Assyrian art, showing the re-elaboration and transformation of previous compositional schemes”.4 As early as the mid-19th century the knowledge and appreciation of these reliefs transcended the strictly academic field of research in the ancient Near East. For such images to reach a wide public they had to be exhibited, and in fact they were put on display at the British Museum as early as 1860.5 In another significant move, some of the reliefs were chosen for the production of plaster casts which were then distributed throughout Europe and the US, where they were bought by universities and art schools and by cast museums, which were becoming immensely popular at that time.6 In this paper I focus on the circulation of one of these plaster casts of the scenes of the royal lion hunt, in the time span between 1888 and 2015, in a particular country, Spain, taken here as case study for the reception of these reliefs. More specifically, I concentrate on the circulation of the “wounded lioness” (or “dying   This paper was written as part of the research project PID2020-114676GB-I00, awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation during a “Ramón y Cajal” contract (RYC2019–027460–I) awarded by the same institution. 2   For a brief biographical profile of Rassam, see Reade 2006–2008. On Rassam’s excavations in 1853, also inside the broader framework of the archaeological campaigns carried out in the North Palace, see Barnett 1976: 9–12; Kertai 2015: 167–168; Curtis 2017. See also Larsen 1996: 311–332, for a thorough analysis of the personal relationships between the different people involved in the direction of the excavations, as well as for the reasons for Rassam’s subsequent erasure of a large part of the contemporary accounts of several finds, including the reliefs of the royal lion hunt. For a critical approach to the customary narrative of the 19th century “discovery” of the ancient Near Eastern past, see Bahrani 2011. 3   For a summary and state of the art of previous research on the royal lion hunt, see N’Shea 2022: 119–121. 4   Nadali 2018: 212. 5   Collins 2017: 299. For an overview of the early stages in the exhibition of Assyrian pieces in the British Museum, see Collins 2017. For the views of the people in charge of the first exhibitions, and also the reactions of the audience, see Bohrer 2003: 105–131. 6   On the rise of plaster cast museums at the end of the 19th century and their role in the creation and maintenance of international relations, see, among others, Dyson 2006: 167–171; Nichols 2006; Schreiter 2014; Mendonça 2016. 1

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lioness”), one of the figures on slab 26, room C, of the North Palace of Assurbanipal (museum number: BM 124856). Doing so will help us reflect the prominent role of cast collections in spreading archaeological and historical knowledge in general, and, in particular, of the role of this specific piece, the wounded lioness, in bringing Spanish audiences into contact with the ancient Near East. This chapter is structured in two parts. First, I present an overview of the acquisition and display of copies of the wounded lioness in Spain in the late 19th/ early 20th century. In this first part, I focus on two different settings for the collection and exhibition of these pieces: the plaster cast museums, and the plaster cast collections of universities. We will see that whereas the museums commissioned the plaster casts from London, the universities bought them from the workshop of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. In both cases, the choice of source is significant, as I will discuss below. In the second part of this chapter, which also includes some concluding remarks, I offer some insights into why it was precisely the copy of this relief, rather than any other, that circulated so widely among Spanish collections for a time span of more than 100 years. I pay special attention to certain logistical issues and also to the extremely positive reception of scenes with animals in Assyrian art in the late 19th/early 20th century. The wide geographical and chronological circulation of the Assyrian wounded lioness in Spain: Madrid, Bilbao, Valladolid and Seville (1888–2015) Museo de Reproducciones Artísticas de Madrid: the port of entry In the 1870s, and mirroring a practice that was already well established elsewhere in Europe, a project was set up in Spain for the creation of a cast museum.7 The project was launched in 1877 by Juan Facundo Riaño (1829–1901), a Spanish historian, writer, bibliophile and Arabist, who remained director of this museum until his death in 1901. Riaño performed a variety of duties, such as choosing the pieces, ordering the casts, and managing the budget.8 The kernel of the museum, then installed in the building of the Casón del Buen Retiro (Madrid), was a collection consisting of 156 pieces, most of them copies of Greek and Roman sculptures and of sculptures from the Italian Renaissance. However, from the very beginning Riaño planned to include copies of pieces from chronologies and geographies which were not traditionally considered to be part of the canon, and commissioned copies of ancient Near Eastern sculptures and reliefs from the Louvre in Paris and from the British Museum. As a result, the Sala de Arte Oriental y Griego Arcaico was opened in 1897, with a special emphasis on what was then termed Chaldean and Assyrian art.9 One of the copies of ancient Near Eastern pieces commissioned from the British Museum was the piece known as the wounded lioness. In the most recent catalogue published in 2005, the entry date of the cast, with inventory number 758,   On the Spanish project and its aims in this international framework, see: Díaz-Andreu 2004: LXVI–LXVIII; Casado Rigalt 2006: 128–130; Bolaños 2013. 8   On Riaño, see Muñoz 2016, with previous references. 9   On the announcement of the opening of this new room, see Guillén Robles 1897: 414; cf. Bolaños 2013. For an overview of the ancient Near Eastern collection of the Museo de Reproducciones de Madrid, see Garcia-Ventura 2020: 362–363, with previous references. 7

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appears as 1888;10 however, in the first catalogue of the Madrid museum in which the piece was included, that is, the one published in 1908, it appears as 1889.11 In any case, and whether we take 1888 or 1889 as the entry year, it is clear that this is the first copy of the wounded lioness to reach the country. The piece was described in the following terms in the 1908 catalogue of the museum: “No puede imaginarse figura más expresiva. Aun hoy, es la admiración de los escultores. No llegaron á tanta altura los asirios en los relieves que representan al hombre”.12 We see, then, that the wounded lioness was considered to be outstanding and unique by those in charge of its first “Spanish home”. The commission of this first plaster cast was given to the workshop of Domenico Brucciani (1815–1880). Brucciani was one of the leading formatori of his time, the owner of a plaster cast workshop in London that enjoyed notable fame in that city. For some decades after Domenico’s death, the workshop produced the casts of pieces owned and displayed by museums in London, including the British Museum.13 The archive of the extinct Museo de Reproducciones Artísticas de Madrid, now hosted by the Museo Nacional de Escultura in Valladolid, preserves some letters sent from Brucciani’s workshop to Riaño. Thanks to these documents it is possible to trace (albeit in a rather fragmented way14) the management of several orders placed by the Spanish plaster cast museum with Brucciani’s workshop.15 In one handwritten letter dated 21 November 1888 and addressed to Riaño, the workshop informs him that “we have today forwarded through our agent eight cases containing the casts ordered, and we trust all will arrive in good order as we have taken great care with the packing”.16 Even though we do not have the list of the casts ordered, the date, November 1888, allows us to hypothesize that the wounded lioness was included in this shipment. If this is so, this date would also explain why we have differing entry dates, 1888 or 1889, for the piece in the museum catalogues mentioned above. Shipments took weeks, sometimes months, to reach the destination after crossing several borders and customs controls. As a result, these slight date discrepancies for pieces sent at the end of the year are   Almagro Gorbea 2005: 144–145, no. 29.   Mélida et al. 1908: 39, no. 19. 12   Mélida et al. 1908: 39. “A more expressive figure cannot be imagined. Even today, it is the admiration of sculptors. The Assyrians did not reach such heights in their reliefs representing humans” (my translation). 13   On Brucciani and his workshop in London, see the recent monograph by Rebecca Wade (2018), with previous references. 14   The fragmentary nature of the messages that these letters contain shows that these are just some of the communications between Brucciani’s workshop and the Madrid museum. Moreover, the letters that circulated in the opposite direction, sent by Riaño to the London workshop, have not been found. As a result, the picture we have now is only partial. 15   I thank the staff of the Museo Nacional de Escultura for their help when I was consulting the documents currently kept in Valladolid. In particular, I would like to thank Alberto Campano, Ana Pérez and Mónica Cerrejón who made it possible for me to access these materials with their kind and efficient virtual or face-to-face attention. The files from this archive are referred to as AMNE-SR = Archivo Museo Nacional de Escultura-Sección Reproducciones. 16   AMNE-SR, 42-02, sne, 147. It is not possible to identify the sender, as all letters sent to Riaño from Brucciani’s workshop were just signed as “D. Brucciani & Co.”, and did not include the name of the person in charge of managing these orders. However, the handwriting suggests that it was always the same person. 10 11

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quite common: while some files register the date of the order, and then of the pay­ ment, others might register the date of the piece’s arrival. Museo de Reproducciones de Bilbao: ex Britannia lux? In the first decades of the 20th century, the upper middle classes of Bilbao, an industrial city in northern Spain, launched a number of cultural projects. One of them was the plan for the Museo de Reproducciones de Bilbao. The Board of Trustees of the new museum was constituted in 1927 and in the following years, especially between 1930 and 1936, the pieces that were to form the kernel of its collection were acquired. As happened with the Madrid museum described above, although the main focus was the canonical art of Classical Antiquity, space was also made available for reproductions of works from ancient Mesopotamia. In fact, eleven copies of sculptures and reliefs were commissioned, also as in the case of Madrid, from the British Museum (via Brucciani’s workshop, as seen above) and the Louvre, the leading institutions in the field.17 Four of these eleven pieces were from the royal lion hunt of the North Palace of Assurbanipal at Nineveh. The first three were sold separately, but together they had made up a joint scene found on slab 11, room S of the palace (museum number: BM 124877), while the fourth one was the wounded lioness that is the subject of this paper (fig. 1). The archival documents preserved at the Bilbao museum show that the orders of these royal lion hunt pieces were managed between 1934 and 1935.18 After an exchange of correspondence, the wounded lioness plaster cast was sent to Bilbao in case number 5 of the shipment dated 8 January, 1935.19 From the very beginning it was considered one of the outstanding pieces in the collection. Clear proof of this is that, in the description of the Bilbao museum published in the 1955 edition of the volume Historia y guía de los museos de España, 29 of the 200 or so pieces in the collection were highlighted, and of these, three were plaster casts from the ancient Near Eastern section: the statue of Gudea, the stele of the Hammurabi Code, and the wounded lioness.20 When the Museo de Reproducciones de Bilbao decided to order the wounded lioness plaster cast (museum number: MRB 89), like the Madrid museum a few decades earlier they commissioned the work from the London workshop that was the heir to what had been Domenico Brucciani’s successful firm. On Brucciani’s death in 1880, the firm D. Brucciani and Company Limited was set up in order to maintain the brand name. This operation was interesting from the point of view of the marketing of quality plaster casts, as it represented the inheritance of a well-established brand. The company was in business until 1922; then, after two attempted bailouts, the workshop was taken over by the Victoria and AlOn the launch of this museum in its social and cultural context, with previous references, and for a catalogue of its collection of casts of ancient Near Eastern pieces, see Garcia-Ventura 2022. 18 I would like to thank Itziar Martija for her warm welcome and her generosity which made it possible for me to consult the archive of the Museo de Reproducciones de Bilbao, to access the part of the collection not currently open to the public, and to check the databases and unpublished works preserved in the museum’s library. 19 AMRB 232/003/020. See also AMRB 232/003/027, dated 26 June 1935, for an overview of the shipments of order 42, detailing dates and boxes. 20 Gaya Nuño 1955: 171. 17

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bert Museum and renamed the Department for the Sale of Casts.21 To ensure the department’s economic viability at a time when the demand for plaster casts was falling, several changes were made in the following years. As part of one of these changes, implemented in 1933, the British Museum would manage the production and supply of the plaster casts of pieces in their collections. As a result, the Bilbao museum managed the order directly with the Trustees of the British Museum, even though the order was placed with the firm that was heir to Brucciani’s workshop, namely D. Brucciani and Company Limited. Granting the commission of the plaster cast of the wounded lioness to a London workshop was a significant decision in the 1930s. In Spain at that time a faster and cheaper option was available: the workshop of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (RABASF, from now on), based in Madrid. At least two reasons, complementary to each other, may explain the Bilbao museum’s choice. First, one of its priorities was that the pieces purchased be of the highest possible quality and always the same scale as the originals, as stated in the meetings of the Boards of Trustees.22 Second, the museum was not interested in acquiring a copy of a copy, which was what, as we will see below, the RABASF was able to offer in the case of the wounded lioness.

Fig. 1: Plaster cast of the Assyrian “wounded lioness” at the Museo de Reproducciones de Bilbao (inventory number: MRB 89).23 Photograph: courtesy of the Museo de Reproducciones Artísticas de Bilbao.   Centurione 2012: 44–46; Wade 2018: 133–155. See also Rionnet (1996: 71) for a brief presentation of Brucciani’s business and its link with the state, compared with the situation in several other European countries. 22   AMRB 234/002/013. 23   Notice the number 39 in the top corner. This was the number of the piece in Brucciani’s workshop catalogue of casts for sale. 21

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Fig. 2: Plaster cast of the Assyrian “wounded lioness” (in the foreground), currently on display at the Faculty of Geography and History, University of Seville (inventory number: 2477-ESC). Photograph: Agnès Garcia-Ventura.

Fig. 3: Detail of the cast mark in the lower right corner of the Assyrian “wounded lioness” at the Faculty of Geography and History, University of Seville (inventory number: 2477-ESC). It reads: “REAL ACADEMIA DE BELLAS ARTES – TALLER DE REPRODUCCIONES MADRID”. This is the current cast mark used by the RABASF on the plaster casts they sell. Photograph: Agnès Garcia-Ventura.

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The plaster cast collections at Spanish universities: the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando as supplier For plaster cast museums like the ones described above, the concern with quality was high. For them, it was preferable to order fewer pieces if there were budget constraints, rather than to sacrifice quality. However, the approach of educational institutions such as universities was slightly different. Their primary goal was educational, and for this reason their collections had to be as complete and as representative as possible of the key materials for students of fine arts, and useful as well for those dealing with art and history. One of the purposes of the plaster cast workshop of the RABASF since its foundation had been to supply pieces to these institutions. It offered a good price-quality balance, and at the same time spared Spanish educational institutions the long waiting times and customs formalities that plagued the placing of orders abroad. The RABASF had been putting together a plaster cast collection since its foundation in the mid-18th century. It was also at that time that the institution employed a formatore, that is, a craftsman specialized in making moulds and plaster casts, to maintain their ever-growing collection and to produce new copies for supply to other Spanish institutions.24 This is the background to the RABASF’s involvement with the Museo de Reproducciones Artísticas de Madrid when the latter opened its doors at the end of the 19th century, and the exchanges between the two institutions. One of these swaps allowed the RABASF to make a copy of Brucciani’s plaster cast of the wounded lioness, bought by the Madrid museum, as outlined above. As a result, the RABASF was able to include the wounded lioness in its catalogue of copies for sale at the beginning of the 20th century. It happened at least from 1916, the year when is attested the first sale in the register of rights of sell of the casts.25 Since then, the RABASF has been producing plaster casts of the wounded lioness, and even today it accepts orders for plaster casts of this piece.26 Two of the Spanish institutions which commissioned plaster casts of the wounded lioness from the RABASF were the University of Valladolid and the University of Seville.27 In Valladolid the first plaster casts for the university collection were commissioned in the 1920s. The wounded lioness, now lost, reached the collection in November 1944, together with ten more pieces, all of them produced in the workshop of the RABASF.28 The eleven pieces that made up this order were for the art and archaeology seminar and comprising an eclectic ensemble in which the wounded lioness was the oldest piece and the only one from ancient Mesopo  For an overview of the history of the plaster cast collection and plaster cast workshop of the RABASF, see Azcue Brea 1991. 25   RABASF, Archivo-Biblioteca, leg. 3–64, fol. 47. I am grateful to the RABASF archive and library staff, particularly to Victoria Durá, who kindly helped me to identify potentially interesting files for research. 26   For a brief presentation of the piece in the online catalogue of the workshop, see https://www.academiacolecciones.com/vaciados/inventario.php?id=V-902 [accessed 1 March 2022]. 27   I present these two examples here because, so far, these are the only two university collections which are known to have owned copies of the wounded lioness commissioned from the RABASF. This list is likely to be expanded with future research. 28   For an overview of the plaster cast collection of the University of Valladolid, see Rebollar Antúnez 2020. For the wounded lioness, see especially p. 57. 24

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tamia – not only in this order, but in the whole collection of about 100 plaster casts owned by the University of Valladolid.29 For its part, the University of Seville hosted a collection of almost 900 plaster casts, produced since the 18th century.30 In this huge collection, the wounded lioness was the only piece representing the ancient Near East, even though in this case the university owned two copies of it. One is preserved at the Faculty of Geography and History (inventory number: 2477-ESC; see figs. 2 & 3), while the other is owned by the Faculty of Fine Arts (inventory number: 0516M1-01-05ESC). The on-line catalogue of the historical and artistic heritage of the university suggested that the former was acquired from the RABASF in 2015, but does not provide information on the acquisition of the latter.31 However, it seems likely that it was also commissioned from the RABASF, given the Madrid institution’s long-standing relationship with several artistic and educational centres in Seville dating back as far as the 18th century, when, as discussed above, the RABASF employed a formatore.32 The success of the plaster cast of the wounded lioness in Spain and beyond From the end of the 19th century onwards, the plaster casts of the wounded lioness in Madrid, Bilbao, Valladolid and Seville provided some of the few opportunities that Spanish audiences had to have direct contact with a three-dimensional representation of the art of ancient Mesopotamia. This artistic heritage was virtually unknown to the general public in a country where the presence of the ancient Near East both in museums and in academia was extremely limited,33 and so the fact that this piece was chosen deserves our admiration. At this point one might wonder why this particular image from ancient Mesopotamia appeared in several Spanish plaster cast collections for more than 100 years. There are several possible reasons. Some are linked to the idiosyncrasy of the circulation of this plaster cast in Spain, while others should be understood in a broader geographical and cultural framework. Some of them are outlined below. The port of entry to Spain of the Assyrian wounded lioness was the Museo de Reproducciones Artísticas de Madrid, at the end of the 19th century. This was so, to some extent at least, because the director of the museum at that time, Riaño, acted as a mediator between the British and Spanish scholarly communities. In 1870, he had been appointed a referee to the South Kensington Museum in London, a task which helped him to build solid academic contacts with the United Kingdom. When he was appointed director of the Madrid museum in 1877, he took advantage of these contacts to process the first orders. Therefore, it is no surprise to learn that a good number of the orders of plaster casts for the Madrid   This is the number proposed by Rebollar Antúnez (2020, 52), based on her research with archival materials. As she points out, today only around 30 of these 100 or so pieces can be located. 30   Franco Rufino 2012: 830–831. Beltrán and Méndez 2015. 31   For 2477-ESC, see: http://www.patrimonioartistico.us.es/objeto.jsp?id=2807&tipo=v&elto=1&buscando=true&repetir=true; see also VVAA 2015: 77, catalogue number 1. For 0516M1-01-05-ESC, see: http://www.patrimonioartistico.us.es/objeto.jsp?id=519&tipo=v&elto=0&buscando=true&repetir=true [both links accessed 1 March 2022]. 32   Beltrán and Méndez 2015: 45–56; Morón de Castro 2018. 33   Vidal 2015: 32–33. 29

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museum, particularly in the first years, were placed with British suppliers. This is largely why the wounded lioness was chosen for the 1888–1889 order.34 The next plaster cast of the wounded lioness attested in Spain is the one which reached the Museo de Reproducciones de Bilbao in 1935. The Bilbao museum was the second (and last) major plaster cast museum launched in Spain. Although the museum’s board of trustees made their own decisions regarding acquisitions, they always took into account the collections of the Madrid museum as a first reference; this is why some of the pieces coincide. Moreover, the Bilbao museum also used the British Museum and the Louvre as suppliers of plaster casts of ancient Near Eastern pieces. Sharing suppliers made it easier to share orders as well. As for the plaster cast collections of universities such as Valladolid and Seville, both these institutions commissioned the wounded lioness after the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). At that time (particularly in the 1940s, when Valladolid commissioned its copy) it was extremely difficult for Spanish institutions to order copies abroad due to the scarcity of foreign currency, and also due to the international isolation of the country in the post-war context. These factors, together with the reasons mentioned above regarding the long-standing relationships of the RABASF with educational institutions in Spain, might explain the choice of the RABASF as supplier for the Valladolid wounded lioness. Moreover, this is the only plaster cast of an ancient Near Eastern piece supplied by the RABASF workshop. Consequently, if the intention, both in Valladolid and in Seville, was to order a Mesopotamian piece from the RABASF, this piece would inevitably be the wounded lioness. So far I have outlined some of the reasons linked to the Spanish context for each of the orders of the wounded lioness. However, to understand the success of the reproduction of this image, we also need to take into account other features which transcend the situation in Spain. In fact, this image was repeatedly chosen to represent the ancient Near Eastern art in plaster cast collections and exhibitions. An example of this is its appearance in international exhibitions of plaster casts, such as the one held in Paris in 1929.35 From the 398 casts exhibited, only five were of ancient Near Eastern pieces, and one is our Assyrian wounded lioness.36 In an analysis of how Assyrian art progressively overcame academic resistance to become included in the artistic canon at the end of the 19th century, Paul Collins describes some of the strategies which established these reliefs in the permanent display at the British Museum: “the museum had wanted only carved slabs with unique scenes. The panels with repetitive imagery (for example, winged supernatural figures and ‘sacred trees’) were either reburied or distributed by Layard to individuals and other institutions around the world; singularity and originality   For case studies based on archival documentation of the creation and cultivation of these academic networks through the circulation of plaster casts, in which Riaño played a key part, see Garcia-Ventura / Vidal 2020; Garcia-Ventura (2023, in press). 35   The international cooperation through the exchange of plaster casts, as well as through these international exhibitions, was formalized as early as 1867 with the signature of the “Paris 1867 Convention for Promoting Universally Reproductions of Works of Art for the Benefit of Museums of All Countries” (Rionnet 1996: 71–72; Nichols 2006: 117–118). The 1929 exhibition referred to here is an example of one of these projects (see the preface of the catalogue by Jules Destrée in VVAA 1929: v–vii). Moreover, as the chronology shows, the aims of the Paris Convention remained alive some 60 years later, even though at that time the heyday of the plaster cast collections had passed (Nichols 2006: 118–119). 36   VVAA 1929: 4, n. 20. 34

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were esteemed in an age of increasing mass production”.37 The wounded lioness fitted this requirement, and its isolation from the full scene of the royal lion hunt for the purpose of reproduction in postcards, plates in books or plaster casts, was just another step in this strategy of highlighting “unique scenes”. This selection of a particular scene breaks up what Chikako E. Watanabe calls the “continuous style” of the Assurbanipal reliefs, in which each scene shows us a sequence of action.38 However, changing the original format of the wounded lioness as part of a choral story to transform it into a unique and isolated image helped to assimilate the Assyrian relief to narrative models closer to the standards of the Western artistic canon. This was perceived as a priority at the end of the 19th century and, indeed, it proved to be an effective strategy for the purposes of marketing the image. So at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century these images were making their mark in several European museums. Nevertheless, the academic discourse of the time, which took Greek classicism as its reference, continued to reaffirm the pre-eminence of the canon of Classical Antiquity and, therefore, the inferior quality of the recently discovered Mesopotamian works. For example, although the human figures in the Assyrian reliefs were included in museums and in art history publications, they were often described as expressionless, hieratic, and ill-proportioned.39 In contrast, the depictions of animals in the Assyrian reliefs were held in higher esteem, and regarded to be of a quality that brought them closer to the manifestations of Greek art – the benchmark against which artistic productions were measured. One of the earliest comparisons between human and animal figures in Assyrian art (which praised the latter) was made by William T. Brigham (1841– 1926), and published as early as 1874: “The animal figures are very spirited, and some of the dying lions far surpass the human subjects in truth and expression”.40 Along similar lines, Allan Marquand (1853–1924), curator of the museum of Princeton University, had this to say in his seminal History of Sculpture (1896): There was a sympathy with animal life that went far to redeem the hardness and rigidity of the style. The lions and lionesses, in repose and action, pounding to the attack or in their last agonies; the fleeing, prancing, kicking wild asses, the horses stretching themselves in fleet course, with quivering nostrils – are given with wonderful naturalness and artistic sense: they are full of life and of true plastic simplicity.41 Interestingly, more than 100 years later, these first comments on the expressiveness of the animals in the lion hunts are echoed by studies such as the one by Karen Sonik published in 2017 on the theme of emotions, a flourishing topic of research in ancient Near Eastern studies since the beginning of the 21st century.42   Collins 2020: 234.   Watanabe 2004. 39   For some examples of this consideration, both published at the beginning of the 20th century, see Hamy 1907: 116; Marquand / Frothingham 1911: 4243. On this paradox in the reception of Assyrian art, which had supporters and detractors from the very beginning, see the case study linked to the Catalan painter Enric Monserdà (1850–1926) by Vidal 2021. 40   Brigham 1874: 4. 41   Marquand and Frothingham 1911: 41. 42   See for instance Hsu and Llop Raduà 2021, with previous references. 37 38

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When discussing the royal lion hunt, Sonik suggests “at least the possibility that a physical or bodily resonance with Ashurbanipal’s twisted, agonized, and broken lions might have precipitated, for the ancient viewer as well as for the modern one, a degree of emotional empathy”.43 So “truth and expression” in Brigham’s terms, or “emotional empathy” in Sonik’s, might also be considered as features underlying the success of the exhibition, reproduction, and circulation of the Assyrian images of the royal lion hunt. The views expressed in the world of academia regarding the animals of the Assyrian reliefs have often focused on the lions, as can be seen in the excerpts quoted above. The fact that the lions stood out above other animals is no accident, and must be explained not only in the light of the secondary sources, but also due to their overwhelming presence in the primary ones. In fact, lions are ubiquitous in a myriad of ancient geographies and chronologies, and are often linked to royalty.44 Chikako E. Watanabe stressed the paradox embedded in this link in the Assyrian reliefs: the king is identified with the lion but, at the same time, he is portrayed as killing lions in the scenes of the royal lion hunt.45 Pauline Albenda interpreted this paradox as one built on the contrast between the attitude and the image of kings and lions. In her words, “Their pitiful images [referring to the lions] contrast with the serene and elegant portrait of Ashurbanipal, the heroic hunter”.46 In any case, probably due to the combination of the ubiquity of lions and other animals in primary sources and of the esteem in which these images are held in the history of art, at the end of the 19th century both the British Museum and the Louvre chose numerous scenes with animals to make their casts of Assyrian reliefs. Among them, particular attention was paid to the lion hunts in which these animals were shown in various positions, pierced by arrows, jumping and running, and making grimaces that seemed to convey pain and therefore made them more expressive.47 From these hunting scenes, the wounded lioness, whose plaster cast was sold under the auspices of the British Museum and produced by Brucciani’s workshop, emerged as one of the most discussed and praised, in Spanish academic circles as well, as shown by the following excerpt of the seminal volume Arqueología

  Sonik 2017: 244.   The bibliography on lions in the ancient world in general, and in the ancient Near East in particular, is huge. Here I highlight three references which might be useful starting points for further research. First, see Lewis / Llewellyn-Jones (2018: 322–338) for an overview of the polyhedral dimension of the lion in several ancient sources (covering written sources and visual and material culture). Second, see Watanabe 2021 (with previous references) for an overview of ancient Near Eastern sources dealing with lions. Third, see Thomason 2019 for an approach to animals in Assyrian reliefs, with rich previous references on the study of animals in ancient Near Eastern studies, lions among them (see particularly Thomason 2019: 295–296), and a focus on the Assyrian sensory interaction with nature. 45   Watanabe 2021: 113. 46   Albenda 2007: 200. For further research on the “elegance” noted by Albenda, see N’Shea 2019, with a detailed analysis of the implications of the dress of king Assurbanipal in the scenes of the royal lion hunt. 47   Casts BM 1905: 5–9; Moulages Louvre 1932: 8–10. 43 44

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Clásica written in 1933 by the archaeologist and historian José Ramón Mélida Alinari (1856–1933):48 Las cacerías de leones, asunto en que se ejercitaron los escultores, marcan, sobre todo en las de Assurbanipal, el punto culminante de la perfección y la belleza alcanzada por el arte asirio. Si la figura del rey es convencional, las de los leones sorprendidos en el natural, sin prejuicios, en su fiera acometida o heridos, sobre todo la leona moribunda, constituyen la producción más valiosa del antiguo arte asiático.49 Mélida’s claim that the dying lioness is “the most valuable production of ancient Asian art” sounds anachronistic to us today. However, it is true that for several generations this piece was the only reference image of ancient Near Eastern art in Spain. As a result, despite the need to relocate this image in its choral context, and not in isolation, it seems inevitable that the wounded lioness, or dying lioness, will continue to be the protagonist in her own right of many stories written now and in the future, both inside and outside academia. Abbreviations AMNE-SR = Archivo Museo Nacional de Escultura-Sección Reproducciones. ARMB = Archivo del Museo de Reproducciones de Bilbao. BM = British Museum. Casts BM 1905 = List of Casts from Sculptures in the Departments of Antiquities sold by Messrs. Brucciani & Co. London. Moulages Louvre 1932 = J. Lefèvre / P.-J. Angoulevent, Catalogue des moulages en vente au Musée de Sculpture Comparée. Paris. MRB = Museo de Reproducciones de Bilbao. RABASF = Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. RABASF, Archivo-Biblioteca = Archivo-Biblioteca de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Madrid. Bibliography Albenda, P. 2017: Ashurbanipal and the Lion Hunt Reliefs. In L. P. Petit / D. Morandi Bonacossi (eds.): Nineveh, the Great City. Symbol of Beauty and Power. Leiden, 198–200. Almagro Gorbea, M. J. 2005: Catálogo del Arte Egipcio y Caldeo-Asirio. Madrid. Azcue Brea, L. 1991: Los vaciados en la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, la Dinastía Pagniucci. Boletín de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando 73, 399–421. Bahrani, Z. 2011: Untold Tales of Mesopotamian Discovery. In Z. Bahrani / Z. Çelik / E. Eldem (eds.): Scramble for the Past. A Story of Archaeology in the   For an intellectual biography of Mélida, see Díaz-Andreu 2004. For an analysis of his Arqueología Clásica, from the point of view of the interest of this work for the introduction and reception of ancient Near Eastern studies in Spain, see Vidal 2013. 49   Mélida 1933: 111. “The lion hunts, a subject in which the sculptors trained themselves, mark, especially those of Assurbanipal, the culminating point of perfection and beauty reached by Assyrian art. If the figure of the king is conventional, those of the lions surprised in life, without prejudice, either in fierce attack or wounded, especially the dying lioness, constitute the most valuable production of ancient Asian art” (my translation). 48

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Ottoman Empire, 1753–1914. Istanbul, 125–155. Barnett, R. D. 1976: Scultptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668–627 B.C.). London. Beltrán Fortes, J. / Méndez Rodríguez, L. 2015: Los vaciados de yesos en Sevilla. Un recorrido histórico. In VVAA (ed.): Yesos. Gipsoteca de la Universidad de Sevilla. Recuperación de la colección de vaciados. Antigua Fábrica de Tabaco. Sevilla, 39–71. Bohrer, F. N. 2003: Orientalism and Visual Culture. Imagining Mesopotamia in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Cambridge and New York 2003. Bolaños, M. 2013: Bellezas prestadas: La colección nacional de reproducciones artísticas. Culture & History Digital Journal 2/2, http://dx.doi.org/10.3989/ chdj.2013.025, last accessed 1 March 2022. Bolaños, M. / Campano, A., 2013: Casa del Sol: Museo Nacional de Escultura. Madrid. Brigham, W. T. 1874: Cast Catalogue of Antique Sculpture with an Introduction to the Study of Ornament. Boston Casado Rigalt, D. 2006: José Ramón Mélida (1856–1933) y la arqueología española. Antiquaria Hispanica 13. Madrid. Centurione Scotto Boschieri, F. 2012: Italiani a Londra, da Cesare a Forte. Lucca. Collins, P. 2017: Nineveh in the United Kingdom. In L. P. Petit / D. Morandi Bonacossi (eds.): Nineveh, the Great City. Symbol of Beauty and Power. Leiden, 298–302. –– 2020: Museums as Vehicles for Defining Artistic Canons. The Case of the Ancient Near East in the British Museum. In A. R. Gansell / A. Schafer (eds.): Testing the canon of ancient Near Eastern art and archaeology. New York, 232–252. Curtis, J. 2017: The British Museum Excavations at Nineveh. In: L. P. Petit / D. Morandi Bonacossi (eds.): Nineveh, the Great City. Symbol of Beauty and Power. Leiden, 69-73. Díaz-Andreu, M. 2004: Mélida: génesis, pensamiento y obra de un maestro. In Margarita Díaz-Andreu (ed.): ‘Arqueología española’ de José Ramón Mélida y Alinari. Pamplona, IX–CXCIX. Dyson, St. L. 2006: In pursuit of ancient pasts: a history of classical archaeology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. New Haven. Franco Rufino, M. P. 2012: La restauración de la colección de esculturas vaciadas en yeso de la Universidad de Sevilla. In Á. Peinado Herreros (ed.): I Congreso Internacional “El Patrimonio cultural y natural como motor de desarrollo: investigación e innovación”. Sevilla, 830–840. Garcia-Ventura, A. 2020: Tres relieves de Khorsabad, Nimrud y Nínive o de donaciones y desideratas: una aproximación a las relaciones entre el Louvre y el Museo de Reproducciones Artísticas de Madrid (1896–1900). Complutum 31/2; 361–377. –– 2022, La antigua Mesopotamia en el Museo de Reproducciones de Bilbao: una aproximación historiográfica. Aula Orientalis 40/1, 43–70. –– 2023 (in press), Museos de reproducciones, difusión arqueológica y relaciones internacionales: una aproximación a partir de la correspondencia entre Juan Facundo Riaño y Emil Hübner. Madrider Mitteilungen 64. Garcia-Ventura, A. / Vidal, J., International networks and the shaping of nineteenth-century Spanish collections: A glance at the correspondence of Juan

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Facundo Riaño. Journal of the History of Collections 32/3, 481–490, https:// doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhz029, last accessed 1 March 2022. Gaya Nuño, J. A. 1955: Historia y guía de los museos de España. Madrid 1955. Guillén Robles, F. 1897: Museo de reproducciones artísticas – La sala oriental y arcaica. Revista de archivos, bibliotecas y museos Tercera época 1/8–9, 414–415. Hamy, E.-Th. 1907: La figure humaine dans les Monuments chaldéens, babyloniens et assyriens. Bulletins et Mémoirs de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris V serie 8, 116–132. Hsu, S.-W. / Llop Raduà, J. 2021: The Expression of Emotions in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Leiden and Boston. Kertai, D., 2015: The Architecture of Late Assyrian Royal Palaces. Oxford. Larsen, M. T. 1996: The conquest of Assyria: excavations in an antique land, 1840–1860. London. Lewis, S. / Llewellyn-Jones, L. 2018: The Culture of Animals in Antiquity. A Sourcebook with Commentaries. London and New York. Marquand, A. / Frothingham, A. L. 1911: History of Sculpture. London et al. Mélida, J. R. 1933: Arqueología clásica. Barcelona. Mélida, J. R. et al. 1908: Catálogo del Museo de Reproducciones Artísticas. Primera Parte: Arte Oriental y Arte Griego. Madrid. Mendonça, R. 2016: Plaster Cast Workshops. Their Importance for the Emergence of an International Network for the Exchange of Reproductions of Art. In Chr. Haak / M. Helfrich Casting (eds.): A way to embrace the digital age in analogue fashion? A symposium on the Gipsformerei of the Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin. Heidelberg, 95–105, https://doi.org/10.11588/arthistoricum.95.114, last accessed 1 March 2022, Morón de Castro, M. F. 2018: Las colecciones artísticas como recurso educativo y de investigación El caso del patrimonio histórico artístico de la Universidad de Sevilla. Cabás 20, 104–124. British Museum, List of Casts from Sculptures in the Departments of Antiquities sold by Messrs. Brucciani & Co. London. Nadali, D. 2018: Timing Space / Spacing Time. Narrative Principles in Assurbanipal Hunt Reliefs of Room C in the North Palace of Nineveh. In F. Pedde / N. Shelley (eds.): Assyromania and more. In memory of Samuel M. Paley. marru 4. Münster, 211–225. Nichols, M. F. 2006: Plaster Cast Sculpture: A History of Touch. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 21/2, 114–130. N’Shea, O. 2019: Dressed to dazzle, dressed to kill: staging Assurbanipal in the royal lion hunt reliefs from Nineveh. In M. Cifarelli (ed.): Fashioned Selves. Dress and Identity in Antiquity. Oxford and Philadephia, 175–184. –– 2022: Masculinity and the Hunt in the State Arts of the Assyrian Empire. In D. Nadali / L. Nigro / Frances Pinnock (eds.): Moving from Ebla, I crossed the Euphrates: An Assyrian Day in Honour of Paolo Matthiae. Oxford, 119–151. Reade, J. E. 2006–2008: Rassam, Hormuzd. In Reallexikon der Assyriologie. Berlin and New York, 262–263. Rebollar Antúnez, A. 2020: La colección de vaciados de la Universidad. In J. Urrea Fernández (ed.): Historia y patrimonio de la Universidad de Valladolid. Valladolid, 51–60. Schreiter, Ch. 2014: Competition, Exchange, Comparison. Nineteenth-Century

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Cast Museums in Transnational Perspective. In: A. Meyer / B. Savoy (eds.): The Museum is Open. Towards a Transnational History of Museums 1750– 1940. Berlin and Boston, 31–43. Sonik, K. 2017: Emotion and the Ancient Arts: Visualizing, Materializing, and Producing States of Being. In: S. Kipfer (ed.): Visualizing Emotions in the Ancient Near East. OBO 285. Fribourg – Göttingen, 219–261. Thomason, A. K. 2019: Sensing nature in the Neo-assyrian world. In A. Schellenberg / Th. Krüger (eds.): Sounding sensory profiles in the Ancient Near East. Atlanta, 293–310. Vidal, J. 2013: José Ramón Mélida y el Próximo Oriente Antiguo en España. Pyrenae 44/1, 157–171. –– 2015, Reflexiones historiográficas sobre el Orientalismo Antiguo. In R. Da Riva / J. Vidal (eds.): Descubriendo el Antiguo Oriente. Pioneros y arqueólogos de Mesopotamia y Egipto a finales del s. XIX y principios del s. XX. Barcelona, 25–36. –– 2021: Enric Monserdà i l’art assiri. Faventia 43, 71–89. VVAA 1929: Exposition Internationale de Moulages. Athènes, Berlin, Bruxelles, Florence, Londres, Paris. Paris and Bruxelles. VVAA, 2015: Yesos. Gipsoteca de la Universidad de Sevilla. Recuperación de la colección de vaciados – Antigua Fábrica de Tabaco. Sevilla. Watanabe, Ch. E. 2004: The ‘Continuous Style’ in the Narrative Scheme of Assurbanipal’s Reliefs. Iraq 66, 103–114. –– 2021: The king as a fierce lion and a lion hunter: the ambivalent relationship between the king and the lion in Mesopotamia. In L. Recht / Chr. Tsouparopoulou (eds.): Fierce lions, angry mice and fat-tailed sheep. Animal encounters in the ancient Near East. Cambridge, 113–121.

Arnaldo Momigliano and his picture of the Orient – an essay Arnaldo Marcone Arnaldo Momigliano’s (1908–1987) idea of the ancient Orient emerges in a particularly evident way in some of his essays on the history of historiography and more notably in Alien Wisdom: the Limits of Hellenization, one of his most successful publications.1 This book brings together a series of lectures (particularly the Trevelyan Lectures of 1973), including a revised version of the A. Flexner Lectures he held at Bryn Mawr College in February and March 1974. Another highly significant work is “The Fault of the Greeks”, originally published in the journal Daedalus in 1975, and later featured as an appendix in the Italian translation of his 1979 book. Particularly noteworthy is the opening of this important contribution:2 Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Isaiah, Heraclitus or Aeschylus. The list would probably have puzzled my grandfather and his generation. It makes sense now; it symbolizes the change in our historical perspective. I wonder whether this text may have inspired Gore Vidal’s (1925–2012) philosophical novel Creation, which was published a few years later, in l981, as a kind of broad tapestry encompassing Greek poleis, Persia, the Indus River civilisations, and the states of pre-unification China. In his description of the conflicts between the Greeks and the Persians, Vidal writes from the latter’s perspective. The fictional narrator, Cyrus Spitama, is Zoroaster’s grandson. I wish to emphasise that Momigliano’s book has recently been published in a new Italian edition by Einaudi, with an introduction by Francesca Gazzano.3 Momigliano’s aim was to assess how the Greeks came to learn about ethnic groups outside their own civilisation, and how they regarded them. In his view, the Greeks are responsible for the preconceptions that for a long time limited the importance of Egypt, while excluding the Persians, Indians, and – even more so (at any rate from a geographical perspective) – the Chinese. Almost fifty years after its publication, Alien Wisdom still constitutes an opportunity to rethink the world through the eyes of leading figures of the past, by analysing the cultural connections and mutual engagement between Greeks, Romans, Celts, Hebrews, and Iranians in the Hellenistic Age. Momigliano chose not to take the Egyptians into account, on the one hand because the Greeks had shown an interest in their civilisation right from the start and, on the other, because no radical change occurred in the Greeks’ opinion of the Egyptians in the Hellenistic Age.4     3   4   1 2

Momigliano 1975a. Momigliano 1975b: 9. Momigliano 2019. See already the remarks in Will 1977.

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The question addressed by Momigliano is a crucial yet often underestimated one: how were Greece and its cultural expansion (which does not coincide with its political-military expansion) perceived in other Mediterranean areas? However, Momigliano also tackles the opposite problem: how Greece perceived other cultures. This is a tale of misunderstanding, idealisation, mutual osmosis, contrasts, and fascination typical of the first great process of European-Asiatic ‘globalisation’, namely Hellenism. The time frame is clearly defined: the period between the 4th century BC and the 1st century AD. As Momigliano explicitly notes, the image of a homogeneous Hellenism suggested by Johann Gustav Droysen (1808–1884; who coined the term ‘Hellenism’) must be debunked. Momigliano systematically explains its complex dynamics, by illustrating the interweaving of philosophy, culture, and socio-political events between rulers and subjects. In his brief preface he outlines the purpose of his research, namely “to stimulate discussion on an important subject without indulging in speculations”.5 Through this work, therefore, the author seeks to grasp, on the one hand, the Greeks’ attitude in their encounter with four specific civilisations (Celts, Hebrews, Romans, and Iranians) at the very moment of their political decline; and, on the other, the cultural acquisitions brought about during these three centuries under the influence of Roman power, which inherited ‘Greek wisdom’ after having initially opposed it. Momigliano emphasises how, from a geographical and ethnographic standpoint, the Greeks actually possessed the intellectual resources and inquisitiveness required to analyse foreign civilisations. Indeed, they stand out in Antiquity in terms of their capacity to collect information and to describe and investigate foreign peoples’ customs. The Greeks had considerable experience in the field of geographical exploration and discovery, and were able to examine the institutions, religious beliefs, everyday habits, and even diets of foreign peoples. The Romans drew upon Greek ethnography and geography for their own political purposes, particularly to get to know – and learn how to negotiate with – other peoples and to settle conquered lands. They made use of Greek experts and sources (historians and geographers famed for their exploration of barbarian territories and their capacity to present these to civilised peoples); and they compelled these experts to explore, learn about, interpret, and systematically describe foreign lands and religions – including through the production of maps – for the benefit of Rome. However, while gradually acquiring an interest in ethnography and geography as cultural pursuits, the Romans never perfected the Greek methods, if not to a limited extent. They employed and systematised such methods without making any radical innovations. Momigliano states:6 Hellenistic civilization remained Greek in language, customs and above-all in self-consciousness. The tacit assumption in Alexandria and Antioch, just as much as in Athens, was the superiority of Greek language and manners. In this respect, it is significant that Eratosthenes regarded the Carthaginians, Romans, Persians, and Indians as the barbarian nations that had come closest to matching the level of Greek civilisation. He also stressed that the Carthaginian and Roman nations were the best governed (Strab. 1.4.9). 5 6

  Momigliano 1975a: viii.   Momigliano 1975a: 7.

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Momigliano further emphasises:7 The Romans never took their intellectual relations with Hellenism so seriously. They acted from a position of power and effortlessly preserved a strong feeling of their own identity and superiority. They paid the Greeks to teach them their wisdom and often did not even have to pay because they were their slaves. The “co-operation of Greek intellectuals with Italian politicians and writers”8 thus gave rise to “a new bilingual culture which gave sense to life under Roman rule.”9 This constitutes the basis of that idea of an Empire greco-romain popularised by Paul Veyne’s brilliant book in 2005.10 Momigliano stresses once more that the Hellenistic civilisation was essentially Greek in its language and customs. Greek was the dominant language of the Hellenistic world, the language which other peoples were required to learn in order to make it out of their isolation and into „haute society“. By contrast, the Greeks made no such effort with respect to other cultures: they were never tempted to accept them in all their specific traits, nor did they ever desire to acquire specific knowledge about them. Rather, the Greek observed these cultures from the outside, based on a strong Hellenocentrism. In this respect, it is hardly surprising that the dialogue between the Greeks and other peoples only occurred because the latter sought to engage with the former. These peoples’ cultural influence was only perceived in the Hellenistic world insofar as they were able to express themselves in Greek, thereby providing information and contributions according to the methods, models, and categories of Greek ethnography. All this, of course, hardly made for genuine understanding or earnest enquiry. Arguably, it is precisely these reflections that best reveal the contemporary relevance of Momigliano’s book. They provide an essential key to analyse and interpret Hellenistic sources, by highlighting what risks are entailed in the adoption of an external perspective on other cultures: the very risks we ourselves run when analysing past civilisations. Momigliano’s interest in Hellenism was already evident in his previous works. He traced its dynamics, identifying the connections between philosophy, culture, and socio-political events, as well as between rulers and subjects. His aim – as expressly stated in the premise – “was to stimulate discussion on an important subject without indulging in speculations.”11 Hence his choice to reconstruct, on the one hand, the Greeks’ attitude in their encounter with four specific civilisations (Celts, Hebrews, Romans, and Iranians) at the very moment of their political decline; and, on the other, the cultural acquisitions brought about by these three centuries under the influence of Roman power, which inherited ‘Greek wisdom’ after having initially opposed it. The ‘limits’ of Greek culture stemmed from certain attitudes, some of which long-standing. Although they settled in Marseilles for centuries, the Greeks never sought to acquire – and certainly never transmitted – much information about the Celts who lived further inland. It was only with Hellenism that ethnographers,   Momigliano 1975a: 10–11.   Momigliano 1975a: 1. 9   Momigliano 1975a: 1. 10   Veyne 2005. 11   Momigliano 1975a: viii. 7 8

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possibly driven by the Romans, sought to understand how Gaulish society worked. Yet, by that time, migrating Celtic tribes had already made their appearance in Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. In other cases, there was a change of attitude. When it comes to Iranian culture, the Greeks’ ‘fault’ was to lead their intellectuals to lose their initial interest in Persia, giving way to stereotypical and limited discourses which were not conducive to any real understanding of the dynamics at work in the area. Certainly, when the Persians first reached the Mediterranean and conquered Lydia, the Greeks became involved in this process of expansion, and such events “must have filled the mind of any Greek of Asia Minor,”12 as Momigliano pithily puts it. In Momigliano’s writing I detect an essentially pessimistic note with regard to the ideal of a universal Hellenic culture. In his lucid analysis of how the Greeks engaged with Persian culture – and with a state that was fully organised on the political and religious levels – what emerges is that no real, sophisticated engagement ever took place. Ultimately, Momigliano was interested in bringing into focus what may be regarded as a full understanding of an alien culture: precisely something that the Greeks and their Hellenistic associates never succeeded in attaining, despite the assimilation of specific techniques and notions. Essentially, the Greeks lacked adequate linguistic expertise to bring other cultures effectively into focus. When it comes to Rome, the Greeks’ limited openness to West-Mediterranean cultures engendered some significant misperceptions, which endured up until the period of the Roman conquest, and even beyond. Despite being in touch with the most prominent personalities in Roman society and politics, Polybius never truly understood the latter’s dynamics; Poseidonius, arguably the most open Greek interpreter of ‘different’ worlds, did not make much of the Greek influence on Rome. Only in a few cases is it possible to trace an opposite course of development. Apart from the Romans – and, in a different way, the Hebrews – we do not know what other cultures, such as the Carthaginian or Celtic, thought about the Greeks. The significance of Hellenistic Judaism in relation to this topic is all too obvious. Yet every aspect in this field is controversial and hotly debated: a challenge that Momigliano consciously takes up in his book. Did the Maccabean Revolt stem from ‘excess Hellenisation’ and the rejection of the Jewish precepts this entailed? Was the Hebrews’ relationship with the Greeks a cultural or political problem? And what would their correct stance vis-à-vis the Roman government have been? Rereading Alien Wisdom a few decades on also helps assess its ‘reception’. Alien Wisdom thus paints a broad historical and cultural picture of an age such as the Hellenistic one, which in a way foreshadowed the ‘global society’ that was to arise only a few years after Momigliano’s death in 1987.13 Much like the present day, those centuries of Antiquity that followed Alexander the Great’s conquests, and the defensive and later expansive drive of the Roman Republic, were marked by complex tensions and dynamics involving surrounding or faraway peoples: peoples who also boasted ancient civilisations or followed a recent expansionist drive – such as the Hebrews and Iranians to the east, and the Celts to the north. According to Momigliano, in the Hellenistic period it is possible to identify an ‘imprinting’ that was to condition the European outlook, and even more so 12 13

  Momigliano 1975a: 124.   Marcone 2017–2018: 163–165 = Marcone 2021: 10–11.

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the European attitude towards ancient civilisations, which are never approached in their own terms. While it is true that Hellenism ensured the international circulation of certain conceptions, at the same time it reduced their revolutionary impact.14 On the other hand, Hellenism “still affects our attitude towards ancient civilizations”15 and continues to condition European man. “The triangle GreeceRome-Judea is still at the centre and is likely to stay at the centre as long as Christianity”16 – which combines and rests on all three these components – remains a point of reference, at any rate for the West. Bibliography Marcone, A. 2017–2018: Momigliano: Radici ebraiche, identità italiana, cultura anglosassone. Atti e Memorie Accad. Toscana Scienze e Lettere La Colombaria 82, 155–170 = Marcone, A. 2021: Sul mondo antico: Altri scritti vari di storia della storiografia moderna. Milano, 3–15. Momigliano, A. 1975a: Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization. Cambridge. –– 1975b: The Fault of the Greeks. Daedalus 104/2, 9–19. –– 2019: Saggezza straniera: l’Ellenismo e le altre culture, prefazione di Francesca Gazzano Einaudi. Torino. Veyne, P. 2005: L’Empire gréco-romain. Paris. Will, E. 1977: Review of A. Momigliano, Alien Wisdom, the Limits of Hellenization. Classical Philology 72/3, 261–264.

  Momigliano 1975a: 10.   Momigliano 1975a: 11. 16   Momigliano 1975a: 11. 14 15

From the Bible to Nabucco – the question of the sources Davide Nadali Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi’s (1813–1901) third opera, Nabucco, was first staged at Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 9 March 1842,1 immediately receiving great approval from the public.2 The Italian poet Temistocle Solera (1815–1878) wrote the libretto and his main sources have been the French tragedy Nabuchodonosor by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornu (Paris 1836) and the Bible,3 probably with some additional references to Greek historians, in particular concerning the confusion and exchange between Babylon/Assyria and Babylonians/ Assyrians.4 The biblical emphasis is explicit not only in the direct quotations of biblical passages from the Book of Jeramiah at the beginning of each Act, but also in the plot and story: the opera tells the conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (586 BC) and the consequent deportation of the Jews to Babylon. Biblical references and atmosphere of Solera’s libretto have been further augmented by anecdotes of Verdi’s life: Arthur Pougin, in his anecdotic history of the life of Giuseppe Verdi,5 reports an event related to the genesis of Nabucco. When Verdi received the libretto from the hands of the impresario Morelli he refused to set it to music, not because of the inadequacy of the libretto, but because he was very demoralised after the failure of his second opera Un giorno di regno. However, as Pougin relates, Verdi was immediately fascinated by the content and Solera’s verses:   On the coincidence of Nabucco’s premiere and the beginning of archaeological explorations in Iraq in the same year and how this affected later staging of the opera concerning the design of the scenography (in particular for the explicit references to the Assyrian sculptures brought to London and Paris), see Nadali 2010–2011; 2013a; 2015. 2   Interestingly enough, as will be clear later, the claim of the success of the first representation of Nabucco has been immediately linked to the chorus “Va’, pensiero”, when the public unanimously and surprisingly asked for an encore (as often still happens in today’s representations of the opera). The news is reported in the Gazzetta privilegiata di Milano (10 March 1842) in Angelo Lambertini’s review, which says that the encore surely was “[una] rara testimonianza di lode data al maestro Verdi” (“[a] rare testimony of praise given to maestro Verdi”), but he also explains that this happened for the extraordinary chorus when “tutti i personaggi del dramma prendono parte […] e fanno del concetto musicale un insieme nuovo e meraviglioso” (“all the characters of the drama take part […] and make the musical concept a new and wonderful whole”). It seems thus clear that this specification implies that the encore did not concern the chorus “Va’, pensiero” (that is sung by the Jews only who are the unique protagonists on the stage), but rather the final chorus “Immenso Jehovha” with the presence of all the characters. See Parker 1997a: 33–34. 3   The same French tragedy had already been used as inspiration for the ballet Nabuccodonosor by Antonio Cortesi, performed at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1838, four years before Verdi’s opera (Rossi 1986–1987; Nadali 2013b: 14). 4   Nadali 2013b: 22–24. 5   Pougin 1886. 1

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Je rentre chez moi et, d’un geste presque violent, je jette le manuscrit sur ma table, et je reste tout debout devant lui. En tombant sur la table, il s’était ouvert tout seul; sans savoir comment, mes yeux se fixèrent sur la page qui était devant moi et précisément sur ce vers: Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate. Je parcours les vers suivants et j’en reçois une grande impression, d’autant plus qu’ils formaient presque une paraphrase de la Bible, dont la lecture m’était toujours chère.6 In Pougin’s reconstruction, Verdi not only recognised that Solera’s libretto was indeed almost a “paraphrase of the Bible”, but he also added that the Bible was indeed one of his favourite reads. Moreover, quite surprisingly, the first verses Verdi read are those of the chorus of “Va’, pensiero”, thus again generating and increasing the halo of myth around it. The same event and Verdi’s interest in the Bible are also reported by Michele Lessona: Giunto tardi a casa, ed acceso il lume, il Verdi aperse così alla sbadata quei fogli, e caddegli l’occhio sul coro del terzo atto degli Ebrei in ischiavitù «Va’, pensiero, sull’ ali dorate». Egli vi sentì subito il biblico Super flumina Babylonis, gittò là il manoscritto, si mise a letto, ma non dormì tutta notte pensando e ripensando a quel coro. La mattina dopo lesse tutto il dramma, e sollevandosi colla mente oltre i versi e il libretto, vide, egli appassionato lettore della Bibbia, tutto ciò che era di grandioso in quel concetto.7 As both Pougin and Lessona report, notwithstanding the fascination for the story rich in Biblical references and quotations, Verdi refuses to set Solera’s libretto to music, changing his mind after five months when, reading the last scene of the opera, he sat down at the piano.8 Beyond the anecdotes which can be taken into account with certain reservations, particularly because they reconstruct and refer to distant facts that already convey mythologising and idealisation,9 how can the use of the Bible in Solera’s libretto be judged? Is the Bible the only source? As previously mentioned, the plot of Verdi’s Nabucco is taken from the French tragedy of Anicet-Bourgeois and Cornu and we cannot exclude that Greek sources for the history of ancient oriental pre-classical empires (Assyria and Babylonia) could have been used by Solera; the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, was already well known in 19th century   Pougin 1886: 63. “I went into my room, and with an impatient gesture I threw the manuscript on the table, and remained standing before it. In falling on the table, it had opened by itself; without knowing how, my eyes fixed on the page which was before me, and on this verse: Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate. I ran through the following verses, and was much impressed by them, the more so that they formed almost a paraphrase of the Bible, the reading of which was always dear to me” (Pougin 1887: 61–62). 7   Lessona 1870: 297. “Arriving late at home and turning the lamp on, Verdi thus carelessly opened those sheets, and his eye fell on the chorus of the third act of the Hebrews in slavery “Va’, Pensiero, sull’ali dorate”. He immediately recognised the biblical Super flumina Babylonis, threw down the manuscript, went to bed, but did not sleep all night thinking and thinking about that chorus. The day after he read the whole play, and going beyond the verses and the libretto, he saw, being a passionate reader of the Bible, all that was great in that concept” (my translation). 8   Lessona 1870: 298. In Lessona’s version, it is interesting to point out that not the chorus of “Va’, pensiero,” but the finale was the real motivation. See n. 2. 9   Stefani 2014: 121–122 n. 4. 6

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Europe as the main protagonist of plays and tragedies,10 although it seems that these works did not influence Solera.11 Concerning the Bible, is the text appropriately quoted? Indeed, when one carefully reads the libretto of the opera, on one hand one can perceive a biblical atmosphere, the same that positively impressed Verdi himself, and a fictitious and reinvented biblical influence, on the other. Looking at the setting, the events of the opera start in Jerusalem, in the temple of Solomon, while the rest of the story pursues and ends in the royal palace and hanging gardens of Babylon: however, while this is clear from the indications given at the beginning of each Act and scene and from some representations for the stage scenography,12 the libretto is inconsistent because it mostly refers to Assyrians, as people, and Assyria, as region, instead of Babylonians and Babylon.13 Nabucco is called king of the Assyrians, his daughter Abigaille is queen of Assyria, and this title is even acknowledged by Nabucco himself and the High Priest of the Babylonian god Bel.14 This inconsistency is not present in the Bible nor in the tragedy of Anicet-Bourgeois and Cornu, so one wonders where Solera took inspiration for this change that seems to reflect an attitude of orientalism, if one takes into account the severe representations and moral judgements of the despotism and bad reputation of the Assyrians that are mirrored here and embodied by the cruelty, perfidy, and tyranny of Nabucco and Abigaille against the Jews. In this respect, the comparison between the description of Nabucco in the third scene of the first part and the incipit of the Byron’s poem The Destruction of Sennacherib (1815) is indeed illuminating on the reciprocity that, as it occurred in the Greek sources,15 favoured and fostered the exchange and confusion:

  Ley 2010. To the historical figure of Nebuchadnezzar, moreover, or to the event of the conquest of Jerusalem and the fall of Babylon, other librettos and operas were produced before Verdi’s Nabucco, since the 16th century (Vitali 2015). 11   Stefani 2014: 125. 12   As, for example, for the representations of the Temple of Solomon and the Euphrates banks during the chorus “Va’, pensiero.” On the scenography for Nabucco, see Nadali 2010–2011; 2013a: 397–401; 2015: 39–43. 13   Nadali 2013b: 20–24. 14   The definition and characterisation of Abigaille as the queen of Assyria are in fact instrumental in pointing out and defining the behaviour and feelings of Nabucco’s daughter: in this sense, her attitude recalls the figure of the Assyrian queen Semiramis or, better to say, that figure of Semiramis that has been artificially and expressly built and conveyed in Western image. Semiramis is the archetype of all immoral perversions and deviations of the Orient from the Western perspective: she is the femme fatale, she acts via betrayals and tricks, she is used to incestuous relationships (Dante puts the Assyrian queen in the second circle of the Inferno, among the lustful), she rules by committing murders, and finally she commits suicide. This escalation of vices can be perfectly traced in the life of Abigaille: from the condition of slave, she seizes the throne of Nabucco, she plans to murder the rival sister Fenena, the sole and legitimate heir to the throne of Babylon, but guilty of rejecting the Babylonian god Bel for the God of Israel as well as a love rival. On the construction and moral and political implications and interpretations of the myth of Semiramis in Europe, see Asher-Greve 2007; on the figure of Semiramis in melodramas in Europe since 16th century see Ranzini 2012 and Droß-Krüpe 2020; on the figure of Abigaille as Semiramis see Seymour 2013: 16–17; see also Pinnock 2006: 233–248. 15   Rollinger 2008; Seymour 2008; Lanfranchi 2010; 2011. 10

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Nabucco

Byron’s poem

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee

Furibondo dell’Assiria il re s’avanza; par ch’ei sfidi intero il mondo nella fiera sua baldanza! (Part I, third scene)

At the same time, even when the biblical atmosphere is clearly recalled and referenced with, as Verdi said, nearly-exact paraphrases of the Bible, events and quotations are inaccurate and mistaken: the references of the quotations at the beginning of each part of the opera are not correct and they reveal, if not an improvisation, at least a free use of the Bible.16 Nabucco

Part I – Gerusalemme

Part II – L’empio

Part III – La profezia

Part IV – L’idolo infranto

Così ha detto il signore: ‘Ecco, io do questa città in mano del re di Babilonia; egli l’arderà col fuoco’. (Geremia XXXII) Ecco!… il turbo del signore è uscito fuori, cadrà sul capo dell’empio. (Geremia XXX) Le fiere dei deserti avranno in Babilonia la loro stanza insieme coi gufi, e l’ulule vi dimoreranno. (Geremia LI) Bel è confuso: i suoi idoli sono rotti in pezzi. (Geremia XLVIII)

Bible Jeremiah 32,3; 34,2

Jeremiah 30,23

Jeremiah 50,39

Jeremiah 50,2

Quotations from the libretto of Solera compared with the exact biblical references.

On the other hand, the use of the Books of the Bible (Books of the Kings, the Psalms, the Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel)17 can be easily identified in the passages of the libretto, the invention and modelling of the characters, and their behaviours and the destiny of the protagonists: the figure of the prophet Zaccaria mirrors the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, particularly in the words of invective against the enemies of Yahweh and Israel; the final conversion of Nabucco to the   Stefani 2014. See also Vitali 2015: 182–183.   Stefani 2014; Vitali 2015.

16 17

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God of Israel and his recovery from madness is taken from the Book of Daniel (chapter 2). Having verified Solera’s knowledge of the Bible and Verdi’s great interest in reading it, it is at this point interesting to verify and investigate the role and function of the Bible in Italy during the 19th century. Despite several references to episodes and characters in Italian literature taken from and inspired by the Bible,18 the political influence and implications of the Bible are important and fundamental, particularly when settled in the time of Solera and Verdi, the period of Risorgimento with all movements and political organisations claiming the independency and unity of Italy;19 the effect of the Bible on political thought is even more interesting if one takes into consideration the predominant Catholic religious education and tradition.The political essay Dell’Italia, a work in five volumes by Niccolò Tommaseo, is indeed a deep analysis of the 19th century Italian and European political situation, combining both political and religious considerations and thoughts.20 The work of Tommaseo is indeed the history of Italy and presents the programme of Republican Italy based on social Christianism with several quotations from the Bible: in particular the author points out the conditions of Italians as being similar to the Jews under the yoke of the Egyptians and the Babylonians, and the slavery and exile of Jews in Babylon are taken as symbols for the conquest of a homeland of all European peoples who are not free but subjugated to foreign powers and countries.21 In this respect, the Bible is the reference point for the rights of people, on one hand, and the crimes of princes, on the other: in fact Tommaseo refers to the Books of Kings to make examples of those rulers who are condemned by God when they transgress the principles of Justice.22 Risorgimento and the Bible seem thus to be strictly bound together: not only are the Bible and the biblical figures used in the political discourse, but some events (for example the exile of the Jews and the claim for a homeland) are particularly exploited because they are felt to be the perfect representation of the conditions of Italians and Italy at that time. In this respect, the political figure of Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872), who not-casually has been labelled as the ‘Moses of united Italy’,23 made wide use of the Bible in his works and in fact took inspiration from the Bible for his political thought and risorgimental reading and interpretation of the Bible arriving at his slogan of “Dio e Popolo” (“God and People”).24 The figure of Moses is explicitly referred to by Mazzini in his letter Alla gioventù italiana (To the Italian youth) when he incites young Italians to be and act as “i Mosé che guidino la Nazione nella Terra promessa” (“the Moses that lead the Nation to the Promised Land”).   See the series of volumes La Bibbia nella letteratura italiana edited by Gibellini et al. (2009a; 2009b; 2011; 2013; 2016; 2017). 19   On Risorgimento, see Banti 2011; 2020. 20   Tommaseo wrote his work in 1833, but the volumes were finally published in 1835 in Paris where Tommaseo went into voluntary exile. The books were then reprinted in 1920–1921. See Versace 2009. 21   The theme of the exile was largely common in 19th century Italian literature (Langella 2014). Moreover, references to the exile of the Jews in Babylon are already quoted by Verdi in his two works of the first period: I delirî di Saul and Le lamentazioni di Geremia (1828–1831). 22   Versace 2009: 274–281. See also Stedman Jones 2012. 23   Capuzzo 2012: 30. See also Sofia 2014. 24   Capuzzo 2004. 18

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Moses has always been seen as a charismatic leader for freedom and independence and, in this respect, it is not casual that the prophet Zaccaria in Verdi’s Nabucco is based on the figure of Moses in Rossini’s opera Moïse et Pharaon, staged at the Opéra de Paris in 1827.25 Vincenzo Gioberti (1801–1852), another eminent figure of the Italian Risorgimento, stressed in his writing, particularly in the Primato morale e civile degli italiani, the parallelism and even the overlapping of biblical events and representation of Israel with Italy as the chosen people in search for a homeland.26 In his Il gesuita moderno, Gioberti made clear references and comparisons, on both the religious and political level, between Italy and Israel and their special inspired relationship with God.27 Niccolò Tommaseo, as already mentioned, made large use of the Bible and the parallelism between Italians and Jews. The issue of the promised land is not only central in the time of Risorgimento, but it is even more significant in the acknowledgment of the role of the Italian Jews in the process of unifying Italy: he thus exalts the very first attachment and participation of the Italian Jews to the values and principles of Risorgimento as a kind of derivation of the special link between the Jewish people and the Land, as is clearly stated in the Bible.28 From this use of the Bible, we can speak of not only a strict bond between the sacred text and Risorgimento, but of a concrete political (and therefore religious) bond between Risorgimento and the Italian Jews who actively took part in the political movement for the unification of Italy: indeed, the common theme and destiny emphasised not only the reciprocity of intent but, to a certain extent, created the natural conditions for the parallelism and the common feelings towards the Bible that was seen as a fundamental text for inspiration and persuasion.29 How can we place Verdi’s Nabucco within this political and cultural context? Around Verdi himself and the opera Nabucco, particularly because of the emphasis given to the chorus “Va’, pensiero”, the mythologisation of his figure and Nabucco as symbol of the Risorgimento has been purposely created:30 the opera was staged in 1842 and the myth of the “Va’, pensiero” as hymn of the Risorgimento has been indeed created after the unity of Italy; even the direct involvement of Verdi in the political movements before 1848 (at the eve of the First War of Independence) is not certain. These reconstructions answer the needs for the creation of charismatic figures and intellectuals with whom the people can identify and mirror, receiving inspiration, persuasion, and comfort.31 Can the choice for a biblical-based subject be a (in)direct reference to the political use of the Bible in the intellectual of the Risorgimento, as we have seen? Actually, it might be totally casual: Nabucco was staged in the time of Lent and since the 1780s in Naples it became usual to stage an opera based on an Old Testament topic during the time   Indeed, the entire construction of Verdi’s Nabucco is affected by Rossini’s Moïse et Pharaon (Petrobelli 1998). For the libretto of Rossini’s opera and the biblical background, see also Quazzolo 2011. 26   On the figure of Gioberti and his political and religious thought, in particular concerning the use of biblical sources, see Sofia 2004. 27   Sofia 2014: 39–40. 28   Tommaseo 1975; Di Porto 1969; Bacchin 2013. 29   Toscano 1998; Capuzzo 1999; 2004; 2012; Sofia 2010; Bacchin 2013; Di Porto 2013. 30   See the critical discussion of Parker 1997b for the reappraisal of this tradition. 31   On this see Stedman Jones 2012. 25

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of Lent (this in fact also happened for Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto, first staged in Naples in 1818 during Lent).32 Notwithstanding the link between Verdi’s Nabucco and Risorgimento will be still referred to and further increased, notwithstanding the impossibility of clearly ascribing the use of the Bible by Solera to the same cultural and political milieu of Mazzini, Gioberti and Tommaseo among others, I believe it is noteworthy to single out a parallelism between Verdi’s Nabucco and Tommaseo’s thought on the role of God as the punisher of unjust rulers and, at the same time, as the guardian of those who act with justice. In the last scene of the opera, immediately after the chorus “Immenso Jehovha”, while Abigaille is dying after having voluntarily ingested poison, trying in her last words to ask for God’s mercy, Zaccaria foretells the future of Nabucco who, having on the contrary recognised the mighty and power of Yahweh, will be the king of kings. Tommaseo recalls that God overthrows the rulers who humiliate and subjugate their people, renouncing God. This is exactly what happens in the end, not casually the part of the opera that, according to a recent reconstruction of the first representation in 1842, positively impressed the public, who asked for an encore of the chorus “Immenso Jehovha”, and impressed Verdi himself if one believes Lessona’s tale.33 Nabucco

ABIGAILLE: Ah! … tu dicesti … o popolo… «Solleva … iddio … l’afflitto!…» Te chiamo … o dio … te … venero! … non ma … le … di … re a me! … […] ZACCARIA: Servendo a Jehovha, sarai de’ regi il re.

Tommaseo (Dell’Italia)

“La potenza vostra sopra loro è data per difendere il giusto, contr’esso è fango. Umiliatevi dunque a’ sudditi vostri; e dignità riavrete. I potenti che lui abbandonano, Iddio depone dal seggio. Fatevi uomini non più sopra la legge ma secondo la legge”34

(Part IV, last scene)

  Piperno 2018.   See n. 8. 34   Tommaseo 1920–1921: 4 (the quotation is taken from Book IV, vol. II). “Your power over people is given to defend the honest person, against him is otherwise mud. Therefore, be humble to your subjects; and you will get dignity back. The powerful person who abandons God, God puts down from the seat. Be men no longer above the law but according to the law” (my translation). 32 33

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Bibliography Asher-Greve, J. M. 2007: From ‘Semiramis of Babylon’ to ‘Semiramis of Hammersmith’. In S. W. Holloway (ed.): Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible. Sheffield, 322–373. Bacchin, E. 2013: Per i diritti degli ebrei: percorsi dell’emancipazione a Venezia nel 1848. Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Lettere e Filosofia 5/1, 91–128. Banti, A. M. 2011: Il Risorgimento italiano. Roma and Bari. –– 2020: The Nation of the Risorgimento: Kinship, Sanctity, and Honour in the Origins of Unified Italy. London. Capuzzo, E. 1999: Gli ebrei nella società italiana: comunità e istituzioni tra Ottocento e Novecento. Roma. –– 2004: Gli ebrei italiani dal Risorgimento alla scelta sionista. Firenze. –– 2012: Alcune riflessioni su sionismo e risorgimento italiano. Eunomia 1/2, 29–48. Di Porto, B. 1969: Niccolò Tommaseo e gli ebrei: una meditata simpatia. La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 35/11, 505–514. –– 2013: Ebrei italiani dell’Ottocento tra politica e cultura, tra italianità ed ebraismo. In M. Beer / A. Foa (eds.): Ebrei, minoranze, Risorgimento: storia, cultura, letteratura. Roma, 37–63. Droß-Krüpe, K. 2020: Semiramis, de qua innumerabilia narrantur. Rezeption und Verargumentierung der Königin von Babylon von der Antike bis in die opera seria des Barock. Classica et Orientalia 25. Wiesbaden. Gibellini, P. / Bertazzoli R. / Longhi S. (eds.) 2011: La Bibbia nella letteratura italiana III. Antico Testamento. Brescia. –– (eds.) 2016: La Bibbia nella letteratura italiana IV. Nuovo Testamento. Brescia. Gibellini, P. / Di Nino N. (eds.) 2009a: La Bibbia nella letteratura italiana I. Dall’Illuminismo al Decadentismo. Brescia. –– (eds.) 2009b: La Bibbia nella letteratura italiana II. L’età contemporanea. Brescia. Gibellini, P. / Melli, G. / Sipione, M. L. (eds.) 2013: La Bibbia nella letteratura italiana V. Dal Medioevo al Rinascimento. Brescia. Gibellini, P. / Piras T. / Belponer, M. (eds.) 2017: La Bibbia nella letteratura italiana VI. Dalla Controriforma all’età napoleonica. Brescia. Lanfranchi, G. B. 2010: Greek Historians and the Memory of the Assyrian Court. In B. Jacobs / R. Rollinger (eds.): Der Achämenidenhof / The Achaemenid Court. Akten des 2. Internationalen Kolloquiums zum Thema ‚Vorderasien im Spannungsfeldklassischer und altorientalischer Überlieferungen‘ Landgut Castelen bei Basel, 23.–25. Mai 2007. Wiesbaden, 39–65. –– 2011: Gli AΣΣΥΡIAKÀ di Ctesia e la documentazione assira. In J. Wiesehöfer / R. Rollinger / G. B. Lanfranchi (eds.): Ktesias’ Welt / Ctesias’ World. Wiesbaden, 175–223. Langella, G. 2014: Il tema dell’esilio della terra promessa nella letteratura italiana dell’Ottocento. In P. Stefani (ed.): Dalla Bibbia al Nabucco. Brescia, 41–75. Lessona, M. 1870: Volere è potere. Firenze. Ley, K. 2010: Latentes Agitieren: »Nabucco«, 1816–1842. Zu Giuseppe Verdis früher Erfolgsoper, ihren Prätexten, ihrem Modellcharakter. Heidelberg.

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Nadali, D. 2010–2011: L’archeologia di Nabucco: l’Oriente antico in scena. Studi Verdiani 22, 73–88. –– 2013a: Invented Space: Discovering Near Eastern Architecture through Imaginary Representations and Constructions. In: L. Feliu et al. (eds.): Time and History in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the 56th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Barcelona 26–30 July 2010. Winona Lake, 391–404. –– 2013b: Nebuchadnezzar, King of Assyria. Rewriting Ancient Mesopotamian History in Fiction. Res antiquitatis 4, 11–28. –– 2015: Looking at music: The representation of ancient Near East between fiction and reality in the age of orientalism. In P. Gancarczyk / D. Grabiec (eds.): Music, Politics and Ideology in the Visual Arts. Warszawa, 35–43. Parker, R. 1997a: Leonora’s Last Act. Essay in Verdian Discourse. Princeton. –– 1997b: “Arpa d’or dei fatidici vati”: The Verdian Patriotic Chorus in the 1840s. Parma. Petrobelli, P. 1998: Dal “Mosè” di Rossini al “Nabucco” di Verdi. In P. Petrobelli (ed.): La musica nel teatro. Saggi su Verdi e altri compositori. Torino, 7–33. Pinnock, F. 2006: Semiramide e le sue sorelle: Immagini di donne nell’antica Mesopotamia. Milano. Piperno, F. 2018: La Bibbia all’opera: Drammi sacri in Italia dal tardo Settecento al Nabucco. Roma. Pougin, A. 1886: Verdi: Histoire anecdotique de sa vie et ses œuvres. Paris. –– 1887: Verdi: an anecdotic history of his life and works. London. Quazzolo, P. 2011: I libretti per il “Mosè” di Rossini: dal racconto biblico al palcoscenico musicale. In T. Piras (ed.): Gli scrittori italiani e la Bibbia. Atti del convegno di Portogruaro 21–22 ottobre 2009. Trieste, 93–104. Ranzini, P. 2012: Fantômes sur la scène. Horreur vs merveilleux, tragédie vs opéra. In C. Faverzani (ed.): L’Opéra ou Triomphe des Reines. Tragédie et Opéra. Travaux et Documents 53. Paris, 97–122. Rollinger, R. 2008: L’image et la postérité de Babylone dans les sources classiques. In B. André-Salvini (ed.): Babylone. Paris, 374–377. Rossi, L. 1986–1987: “Nabuccodonosor”: il balletto. Gazzetta del Museo del Teatro alla Scala 5/2, 8–11. Seymour J. M. 2008: Classical Accounts. In I. L. Finkel / J. M. Seymour (eds.): Babylon. Myth and Reality. London, 104–109. –– 2013: Power and Seduction in Babylon: Verdi’s Nabucco. In S. Knippschild / M. García Morcillo (eds.): Seduction and Power: Antiquity in the Visual and Performing Arts. London, 9–10. Sofia, S. 2004: Le fonti bibliche nel primato italiano di Vincenzo Gioberti. Storia e società 106, 747–762. –– 2010: La nazione degli ebrei risorgimentali. La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 76, 95–112. –– 2014: L’identificazione dell’Italia oppressa con l’oppresso Israele. In P. Stefani (ed.): Dalla Bibbia al Nabucco. Brescia, 9–40. Stedman Jones, G. 2012: Religion and liberty in European political thought 1800– 1860 ca. Journal of Modern Italian Studies 17/5, 587–592. Stefani, P. 2014: L’esilio babilonese nella Bibbia e nel Nabucco. In P. Stefani (ed.) Dalla Bibbia al Nabucco. Brescia, 115–143. Tommaseo, N. 1920–1921: Dell’Italia, libri cinque. Torino.

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–– 1975: Diritti degli Israeliti alla civile eguaglianza «DISCORSO DI NICCOLO’ TOMMASEO». La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 41: 274–278. Toscano, M. 1998: Risorgimento ed ebrei: alcune riflessioni sulla “nazionalizzazione parallela”. La Rassegna Mensile di Israel 64/1, 59–70. Versace, M. 2009: La Bibbia e la politica: i libri «Dell’Italia» di Niccolò Tommaseo. In P. Gibellini / N. Di Nino (eds.): La Bibbia nella letteratura italiana I. Dall’Illuminismo al Decadentismo. Brescia, 271–298. Vitali, C. 2015: Gli dèi sono tornati a Babilonia. In A. Conforti / F. Fornoni (eds.): Verdi, Nabucco. Milano, 150–204.

“Die Mitternacht zog näher schon. Man trinkt noch Hofbräu in Babylon … und später wird man in selbiger Nacht von seinem Knecht ins Bett gebracht!” – some insights into the guest book of the German excavations in Babylon1 Georg Neumann Babylon has always been considered something mystical and an allegory of scholarship. It was home to some of the largest and most impressive buildings of the ancient Near East. This city inspired wonder and admiration on the one hand, and on the other hand it often arouse a certain uneasiness because of its supernatural greatness and magnificence. Described by Herodotus in his Histories (1.178.2–199) as the most beautiful and wondrous city in the world,2 and characterized by the Bible (e.g. Jes 13–14, 21; Jer 25, 50–51; Offb 17–19) as a city full of decadence and sin,3 Babylon became the symbol of a culture that ruled over much of the Ancient World for thousands of years. For all its power and glory, it was lost in the mists of history. The German excavations in Babylon, that began more than a hundred years ago, are a milestone in the study of the ancient Near East as in excavation techniques. They have provided us with outstanding information about this city. The excavations are inextricably linked to Robert Koldewey (1855–1925), who held the position as field director from March 1899 until the end in March 1917.4 During this entire time he only visited Germany three times, in 1904, 1910, and 1914.5 Sven Hedin (1865–1952), the Swedish geographer and author, put it quite neatly when he stated that “Babylon became the great love of his life”.6 It should be noted that Koldewey, when he died on February 4, 1925 in Berlin, was unmarried, had no children, and lived in the home of his younger sister, Louise, who looked after him.7 One of his assistants was Walter Andrae (1875–1956), who later directed the excavations in the Assyrian capital of Ashur from 1903 to 1914.8   This project received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 101001619, Governance in Babylon [GoviB]). The guest book will be published by Hans Neumann and myself on behalf of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (DOG). We would like to express our gratitude to the board of the DOG for the opportunity to quote the relevant content here and for permission to publish the images from the guest book. I sincerely thank Jessica Baldwin, M.A. for correcting my English. 2   Cf. Henkelmann et al. 2011: 449. For the Babylonian Logos of Herodotos cf. ibid. 3   Cf. García Recio 2008. 4   Cf. Seymour 2008. According to the excavation documentation, the team left Babylon on March 7, 1917. 5   Cf. Marzahn 2008: 10. 6   “Babylon ist die große Liebe seines Lebens geworden” (Hedin 1918: 229). 7   Cf. Marzahn 2008: 11. 8   Cf. Andrae und Boehmer 1989: 17–25 (in German) and 106–114 (in English). 1

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Robert Koldewey But who was Robert Koldewey? Born on September 10, 1855 in Blankenburg in the Harz Mountains as the son of a customs officer, he studied architecture, art history, and archaeology in Berlin, Vienna, and Munich. Since the 1880s he participated in excavations of classical sites such as Assos (1882–1883) on the southern Troad coast and on the island of Lesbos (1885–1886). There he also worked at the sites of Mytilene, Methymna, and Eresos.9 At the time, it was not possible to study Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology at German universities, and thus much of the archaeological training focused on Greek and Roman culture. In 1886 Koldewey travelled to Mesopotamia for the first time to excavate at Surghul and al-Hiba, ancient Lagash.10 Three years later, the ethnologist and physician Felix von Luschan (1854–1924)11 asked him to work at Zincirli, ancient Sam’al, in what is now southeastern Turkey. This project was the first large-scale German excavation in the Middle East. Koldewey himself worked at this site in the years 1890, 1891, and 1894.12 By recording the excavated building structures phase by phase, he laid the foundation for the following excavations in Babylon, Ashur, and Uruk. This technique was adopted by his colleagues and students. For the next three years, after his work at Zincirli was temporarily halted in 1894, Koldewey taught architectural history in Görlitz13 and simultaneously worked on the final publication of the Assos excavations in Boston.14 In 1897 he travelled to Mesopotamia, together with Eduard Sachau (1845–1930),15 professor and director of the “Seminar für Orientalische Sprachen” at the University of Berlin, and Walter Andrae (1875–1956). Their mission, funded by James Simon (1851–1932)16 on behalf of the “Königliche Kommission für die wissenschaftliche Erforschung der Euphrat- und Tigrisländer”,17 consisted of exploring sites suitable for large-scale excavations. The group of the so-called “Vorexpedition ins Zweistromland” visited sites such as Telloh, ancient Girsu, Warka, ancient Uruk, and Fara, ancient Shuruppak.18 But only one site was of particular interest to Koldewey. It was a site where he could still see the remains of bluish-glazed brick buildings. Those were the ruins of Babylon. In 1898 Koldewey’s proposal to work at ancient Babylon was accepted by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft and its advisory board, despite opposition from Eduard Sachau, who wanted to start excavations at Qalat al-Sherqat, the ancient As  Cf. Marzahn 2008: 11–16; Rheidt 2018.   Cf. Hansen 1970: 244 with n. 5 and Huh 2008: 745–832 (= Appendix 4: Die Ausgrabungen Robert Koldeweys 1886/1887 in Surġul und el-Hibā, den Ruinen von NINĀ und LAGAŠ. Bearbeitet von Arndt Haller. Mit einem Beitrag von B. Kienast). 11   Cf. Wartke 2005: 53–56 with n. 59 (with further literature). 12   Cf. Wartke 2008. 13   On Koldewey’s stay in Görlitz cf. Olbrich 2018. 14   Cf. Quatember and Bankel 2018: 167, n. 17. 15   Koldewey mentions the planned journey in a letter to Otto Puchstein (10/02/1987, cf. Quatember and Bankel 2018: 179–180) and describes it in several letters from November 16, 1897 to March 10, 1898 (cf. Quatember and Bankel 2018: 181–184). 16   Cf. Salje 2008: 126 and Matthes 2000: 207. 17   This commission, made up of members of the Academy of Sciences and the Royal Museums of Berlin, was founded in 1897 on behalf of the Prussian Minister of Education; on the commission cf. Althoff / Matthes 1998. 18   Cf. Andrae 1952: 82–87 and Kohlmeyer et al. 1991: 19–23. 9

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syrian capital of Ashur.19 The excavations at Babylon were largely funded by the German Emperor Wilhelm II, who acted as a patron of archaeological sciences and considered himself a kind of scientist. As a result of his self-assessment, money was donated to fund excavations and expeditions, particularly after the founding of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (DOG) in Berlin in 1898.20 His enthusiasm for the history of the ancient Middle East was so great that he initiated a re-make of his grandfather Wilhelm I’s favorite ballet, Sardanapalus, as a “historic pantomime”.21 For this he engaged, e.g., the assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch (1850–1922). Even the props were made with the help of Delitzsch (figs. 1–2) and with full bodily engagement of his assistant, Leopold Messerschmidt (1870–1911), an assyriologist and later copyist of cuneiform texts from Ashur (fig. 3).22 The stage sets were drawn by Walter Andrae.23 The performance itself was characterized by the wife of Bruno Güterbock (1858–1940), the former treasurer of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, Grete Auer (1871–1940) in her memoirs as follows:24 Es wurde ein Ballettabend, der für Wissenschaftler gewiß seinen großen Reiz hatte, aber dem großen Publikum nur langweilig erschien, trotz der lehrreichen Erklärungen auf dem Theaterzettel. Die Handlung war allzu dürftig, und Kulthandlungen wie Aufzüge nahmen einen allzubreiten Raum ein. Die Aufführung musste auf Wunsch des Kaisers mehrere Male wiederholt werden und ergab jedesmal ein leeres Haus. (G. Auer, Wenn ich mein Leben betrachte … [1995] 274).

Figs. 1–2: Furniture for Sardanapalus designed by F. Delitzsch. The furniture was made by the carpenter E. Quaglio (1857–1942) in Berlin; Delitzsch 1909: figs. 13f.   For the decision to excavate in Babylon with Koldewey as director, cf. Matthes 2000: 229–232. 20   The Prussian House of Representatives funded the excavations of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft on the initiative of Wilhelm II with about 1,843,800 Mark (1900–1916) (cf. Matthes 2000: 222–223), and even the Emperor himself donated 415,000 Mark from his private purse (ibid.: 226). See also Matthes 1996: 181–182 with n. 29. 21   Cf. Delitzsch 1908. On Sardanapalus and Wilhelm II cf. Kohlmeyer et al. 1991: 13– 19; Freydank 2011 and Hartmann 2020. 22   Cf. Salonen 1963: 21 n. 1 and Delitzsch 1909: 28–30, figs. 13–15. 23   Cf. Freydank 2011: 150 with figs. 6–7 and Andrae / Boehmer 1989: 21 with figs. 132–133. 24   On the premiere (September 1, 1908) and the reactions of the press cf. Andrae / Boehmer 1989: 21 with n. 34. 19

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Fig. 3: Messerschmidt wearing the “uniform” of an Assyrian Soldier; Wilhelm 1998: 6, fig. 3a–b.

The beginnings of the excavations in Babylon The excavations began on March 26, 1899.25 However, only a small part of the Babylonian capital could be excavated considering that the inner city area of Ba­ bylon measured more than 3.2 km². But the results were overwhelming, consisting of gigantic palaces decorated with colored tiles, the Processional Way, and the monumental structures of the Ishtar Gate. In addition, Koldewey could provide evidence of the Tower of Babel.26 Thus has – as Joachim Marzahn remarked – “Das mythische Babylon (…) durch Koldewey seinen Weg zurück in die historische Realität gefunden”,27 and he goes on to write, that “[e]ine Arbeitspause war nicht vorgesehen, Urlaub gab es gar nicht oder selten, Frauen waren auf der Grabung verpönt (“mulier taceat in excavationibus”) – Gäste dagegen sah man gern”.28 A guest book from the excavations in Babylon provides rich testimony of these guests. The book – now owned by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft in Berlin – comprises more than 270 pages with entries from 1899 to 1917. It provides a unique insight into the eventful history of the Middle East in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The entries in the guest book itself are as varied and diverse as the people who visited Babylon.     27   28   25 26

Cf. Marzahn 2008: 19. Cf. Schmid 1995: 28. Marzahn 2008: 20. Marzahn 2008: 19.

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Fig. 4: First page of the guest book with drawings by Walter Andrae and text by Carl Richarz.

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The document consists of loose sheets of paper, partially bound with twine into individual volumes, each covering about a year’s time span. Furthermore, it contains entries in French, English, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew, Ancient Greek, Hungarian, and German. Even some notes written in cuneiform can be found. Almost every visitor to the ruins of Babylon either wrote a multi-page, partially rhyming entry or simply left his signature, the visitors’ presence confirmed by the excavation diary of Babylon. In addition to the texts, many drawings and watercolors are preserved in the guest book, either as multi-page comic strips or as illustrations for the entries. Two pages with drawings by Walter Andrae, who was Koldewey’s assistant from 1899 to 190329 and later head of the excavations in Ashur from 1904 to 1914,30 serve as an example of the sometimes very humorous pictures. The texts are by Carl Richarz, who was the German Consul in Baghdad from 1894 to 1907.31 The following is written on the first page of the guest book (fig. 4): Die Mitternacht zog näher schon, Man trinkt noch Hofbräu in Babylon … Und später wird man in selbiger Nacht von seinen Knechten ins Bett gebracht!32 Am frühen Morgen und nach dem Vorabend der Abreise. 26.10.99 Richarz This humorous passage is illustrated by an ink drawing by Walter Andrae, which shows men celebrating on the left, drinking a, probably, goodly amount of German beer, the so-called “Hofbräu”. After this event – illustrated on the right – these men had to be carried to bed by their servants as they could no longer walk on their own. The second example belongs to an entry by Richarz, again combined with an ink drawing by Walter Andrae, dated to November 15, 1900, commenting on the discovery of clay cylinders (fig. 5): Fremdling, der Du, nach Ost gewandt, Durch Tempel- und Palast-Ruinen Hierher ziehst ins Zweiströmeland, Lass dies zum guten Rath Dir dienen: Fehlt Dir ein Sonntagshut, so wandre Nach Babylon zum Koldewey Der dort Cylinder gräbt mit Andrae; – Vivant et crescant alle zwei! – The illustration showing Koldewey and Andrae during the excavation unearthing cylindrical clay objects was also drawn by Walter Andrae. Koldewey wrote about him in a letter from Baalbek in January 1899, that this 24-year-old man was excellent at watercolors and illustrations, while unable to recognize a mortise and had never seen a wolf before.33 In his defense it is worth noting that when Andrae   Cf. Andrae / Boehmer 1989: 6–17 (in German) and 95–106 (in English).   Cf. Andrae / Boehmer 1989: 27–25 (in German) and 106–114 (in English). 31   Cf. Neumann 2010: 5. 32   Loosely based on the first two lines of Heinrich Heine’s famous poem Belsazar from 1820: “Die Mitternacht zog näher schon / In stummer Ruh lag Babylon”; cf. Heine 1827: 71–73. 33   “Wie unverdorben dieser sonst sehr nette und offenbar gute 24jährige Jüngling [W. Andrae] ist, magst Du daraus ersehen, dass er keine Ahnung davon hatte, was Stemmloch ist! Auch den Wolf kannte er nur vom Hörensagen! Aquarelliren und Zeichnen thut er 29 30

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joined the excavation team in 1899, he had almost no experience or education in archaeology. These cylindrical objects, distributed to the elegant gentlemen by Koldewey and Andrae, are, from an Assyriological point of view, clay cylinders with cuneiform writing, but by using a play on words Richarz references the German term “Zylinder” meaning top-hat, which was usually worn on Sundays in Germany at the time. The person with the spade is Andrae.

Fig. 5: Guest book entry by C. Richarz with a drawing by Walter Andrae. Guest book p. 11. An entry dated to June 2, 1902, which tells the story of three men on the way to Oheimir, the ancient city of Kish, also shows that there was no lack of humor during the excavation or in the evening after work (figs. 6–7): Es zogen drei Reiter zum Thore hinaus, Sie wollten besiegen der Wüste Graus Der erste war stolz auf seinen Teint famos.” (Letter to Otto Puchstein from Baalbek 5th or 6th January 1899), cf. Quatember and Bankel 2018: 202.

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Der zweite auf seiner Beine Läng Der dritte auf seinen Sonnenhut So ritten sie in der Sonnenglut Und kam ein wässriges Hindernis Sie nahmen es kühn mit Schneid und Schmiss Der erste sprang, weil das Pferd es kunnt Der zweite hieb ihm die Weichen wund Der dritte liess es in Kummer und Gram Allein, weil’s so besser herüberkam, In einer Wirtschaft kehrten sie ein Sie lag im lieblichen Sonnenschein Nach Kühlung lechzte der hitzige Sinn Da streckten sie sich auf den Boden hin Den ersten beschattet ein Weizenhalm Den zweiten sein Cigarettenqualm Der dritte stand sich selbst im Licht War also im Schatten und schwitzte nicht Zur Forschung treibt sie Wissensdurst Der Sonnenschein ist ihnen Wurst Der erste nimmt sich Ziegel mit Der zweite sammelt Koprolith Der dritte stand hinterm Berg allein Und versenkte den Sinn in die Flasche hinein (page 2) Die Sonne brennt, die Luft riecht heiss Sie denken heimatwärts im Schweiss ‚Jetzt so’ne Weisse!‘ der erste ruft Der zweite: „Dazu etwas Lindenduft!“ der dritte hingegen sanft-zärtlich schreit, „Nu bloss noch die Hebe im reinlichen Kleid!“ Die Weisse, die Linde, die Kellnerin Die blieben in und bei Berlin. Doch am Kanal der erste nippt Der zweite grosse Becher kippt der dritte „trinkt“, o Schreck u. Graus Das Wasser auf dem Bauche aus. Und als sie kamen nach Haus zurück Da hatt‘ sie verändert der Sonnenblick. Dem ersten glänzte die Nase fein beim zweiten stellten sich Streifen ein Beim dritten war der Schaden groß: Der ganze Kopf ein Sonnenspross. Ritt nach Oheimir, 2. Juni 1902. The three people pictured here are – from left to right – Walter Andrae himself and two young men who joined the excavation in 1902, Hermann Baumgarten and Arnold Nöldeke (1875–1964).34   On Nöldeke and his life cf. Weber-Nöldeke / Nöldeke 2003. For his stay in Babylon ibid.: 37–73. For the guest book entry cf. Kohlmeyer et al. 1991: 36–37. H. Baumgarten, 34

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Fig. 6: Guest book entry by Walter Andrae. Guest book p. 36. an architect from Dresden (Germany), worked in Babylon and Fara from 1902 to 1903. On March 26, 1903, he had to leave the excavation due to an illness; cf. excavation diary entry of March 26, 1903 and Anonymous 1902–1903: 2.

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Fig. 7: Guest book entry by Walter Andrae. Guest book p. 37.

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But not only the consul in Baghdad or Walter Andrae left entries in the guest book. Among the visitors to the site were also other archaeologists, such as Jacques de Morgan (1857–1924),35 a trained mining engineer and prehistorian, who, from 1897 to 1907, undertook excavations in Susa, the former capital of the Ancient Elamite Empire. He expressed his gratitude, wished good luck for the ongoing excavations, and expressed his desire for a cordial relationship between the French and German excavation teams (fig. 8): J’espère que les bonnes et Cordiales relations qui naissent aujourd’hui entre la Mission Allemande et la Délégation française ne cesseront qu’avec les Travaux archeologiques dont nous sommes chargés pour plus d’ années que nous n’en vivions tous. Babylone le 16 Nov. 1899. J. de. Morgan In addition to the visitors mentioned above, laypeople with an interest in history and the Bible visited the excavation. Some of these people, for example, were missionaries or engineers of the Baghdad railway, which was then being built to connect central Anatolian Konya with Baghdad. These visitors often spent a day or more with their families, friends, or alone at the famous biblical site of Babylon. Some visitors were part of the British military of various ranks, usually en route to or from Pakistan and India. And last but not least, some guests of Koldewey and his team were, as we call them today, tourists. One of these tourists was Friedrich Gustav Kögel (1860–1947),36 who – as noted in the excavation diary – was “Meisterschaftsfahrer der Welt” – world champion cyclist, who captioned his guest book entry of November 16, 1899 – quite modern with the slogan: “Die Welt ist mein Feld!” – The world is my track! And he wrote a short poem (fig. 8): Die Freude winkt auf allen Wegen, Die durch dies Pilgerleben geh’n Sie bringt uns selbst dem Kranz entgegen, Wann wir am Scheidewege steh’n. O, wunderschön ist Gottes Erden Und werth, darauf vergnügt zu sein, Drum woll’n wir, bis wir Asche werden, Uns dieser schönen Erden freu’n37 F. G. Kögel aus Leipzig „Meisterschafts-Fusstourist der Welt“ (z.Z. per Rad um die Erde.) Babylon, den 16.11.‘99

  On J. de Morgan and his life cf. Jaunay 1997.   On Gustav Kögel and his travels cf. Schepp 2015. 37   This short poem is a quotation of L. Ch. H. Hölty „Aufmunterung zur Freude“ written in 1783. On Karl May see the contribution of Friedhelm Pedde in this volume. 35 36

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Fig. 8: Guest book entries from top to bottom: J. de Morgan with the signatures by J. and G. Lampre and E. Andrej (all French mission in Susa), J. Rouet (French Consul in Baghdad), and F. G. Kögel (“Meisterschafts-Fusstourist”) (all November 16, 1899). Guest book p. 2.

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Fig. 9: Guest book entry by Otto Kapp von Gültstein (December 21, 1899). Drawing probably by the author. Guest book p. 4. From 1894 to 1896, Kögel was the first person to travel around the world on foot. On his (later) travels he met the famous German writer Karl May (1842–1912) in Beirut in June of 1900, who dedicated a short poem to him: Geh hin; fahr hin, und sieh die Welt, Die schöne, herrliche, und lerne. Schau auf zu dem, der fest sie hält Am Himmel seiner lichten Sterne. Sieh dir der Menschheit Völker an, Ihr Hoffen, Wünschen, Dichten, Trachten, Und hast du es gesehn, sodann Sag mir, ob sie es richtig machten. Du wirst dann meiner Meinung sein Und ihr auch deine Worte leihen: »Die Welt ist groß, der Mensch so klein; Gott hat ihm viel, viel zu verzeihen!« Berut, d. 15./6. 00 Karl May38 Kögel himself is quoted in The New York Times of June 19, 1904 regarding his visit to Babylon: “From there [Baghdad] I visited the ruins of Babylon, the city in 38

  Guntermann 1970: 178–179.

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which the Jews spent their captivity. I saw the tower which, according to the Bible, was to be built so as to reach the sky. Here I met a party of German explorers who were excavating the palace of Nebuchadnezzar and had just made important discoveries which have since been deciphered and have stirred the world of science.”39 Another engineer of the Baghdad railway is Otto Kapp von Gültstein (1853– 1920). He directed the works on the Corinth Canal in 1887 and also built, on behalf of the Anatolian Railway Company, the railway from İzmit to Ankara, a section of the route between Istanbul and Konya, from 1888 to 1898.40 Kapp visited the excavation on December 21, 1899 as part of a reconnaissance trip for the Baghdad railway project (fig. 9): Otto von Kapp, auf der Studienreise für die Eisenbahn in Mesopotamien begriffen nimmt von Babylon und seinen Herrn Ausgräbern die freundlichste Erinnerung auf seiner Weiterreise mit. Am kürzesten Tage des Jahres 1899. One of the most famous entries dates from January 14, 1901. It was probably written by Joseph Thomas Parfit (1870–1953), who was chaplain in Beirut and Lebanon, canon of St. George’s in Jerusalem, and missionary in Baghdad (fig. 10).41 The title of the entry reads: “A Fragment from É.DINGIR.RA”.42 The text is written exactly as the title suggests, as a fragmentary document. Therefore, the end of each line is missing: On the 14th day of the 1st month of the 1st year of the New century there came to the White Palace of the great genius Prince Koldewey, finder of my homes, Restorer Of my temples, King of hospitalities; in a reeling chariot … GREAT KAM-dE-RAH, King of Inventions, Conqueror of Rays … And his bearer [… FIT] to make obeisance to my Throne … To impress my [… ION], to sacrifice in my Temples … Whose mysteries I would know, whose c… tents I would shake, … Whose springs (sources) I espied, whose aims I frustrated … To the lordly board of … I brought his bearer in peace [wi … pieces] + He was rested (laid to rest?) by my skilful Duke André, Father of Pencils, Lord of Parchments, Master of Pictures, Friend of Travellers …” As deciphered by a grateful visitor: Jos. T. Parfit C.M.S.43 Baghdad     41   42   43   39 40

Anonymous 1904. On Otto Kapp von Gültstein cf. Götzen 1999. Cf. Parfit 1917, title page. Probably a misreading of KÁ.DINGIR.RA, the logographic writing for Babylon. Church Mission Society.

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Fig. 10: “A Fragment from É.DINGIR.RA”. Guest book entry by J. Th. Parfit (January 14, 1901). Guest book p. 14.

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The text is illustrated with ink drawings showing Nebuchadnezzar trying to use the enigmatic object called “KAM-E-RAH”. The drawings are usually said to be by Walter Andrae. However, since the style of the drawing differs greatly from his other works and the picture is unsigned, it can be assumed that the drawing was also made by Mr. Perfit. He probably saw the excavators using this very modern technique on the excavation and was inspired to write his short text. It is indeed remarkable how many photos were taken during the excavation. The photo journal lists 3836 photos. After the texts described above, one might get the impression that each guest wrote long and humorous entries. Unfortunately, this was not the case, as the passages written by Gertrude L. Bell (1868–1926)44 show, for example. This famous woman was born on July 14, 1868 at Washington New Hall near Newcastle, County Durham, the daughter of an industrialist. From the age of 15 she studied at Queen’s College, London, a prestigious all-girls school and then at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford where at just 18 she became the first woman to graduate with first class honours in Modern History. It is said that her questions troubled the examiner more than his questions her. Bell then entered the diplomatic service in 1904 and studied archaeology with Salomon Reinach in Paris.45 She took part in some archaeological missions in Asia Minor and northern Syria and directed an excavation in Binkirkilise (1907) with Sir William Ramsay,46 but never thought of herself as a real archaeologist. She summed it up when she said: “I have had the most delightful day today playing at being an archaeologist.”47 Gertrude Bell visited the Babylon excavation three times, first from April 1 to 4, 1909. After this visit, she wrote, in Arabic, a verse of the famous Arabic poet and contemporary of Muhammad, Labīd Ibn Rabi’ah (560–661), in the guest book (fig. 11): We wither away but they wane not, the stars that above us rise; The mountains remain after us, and the strong towers when we are gone.

Fig. 11: Guest book entry by Gertrude L. Bell (April 1–April 4, 1909). Guest book p. 148.   On Gertrude L. Bell cf. for example Cooper 2016; Collins / Tripp 2017.   On her education cf. Howell 2012: 28–42. 46   Cf. Jackson 2017. 47   Letter of Gertrude L. Bell to her stepmother Florence Bell, April 2, 1905 (Gertrude Bell Archive – Newcastle University; http://gertrudebell.ncl.ac.uk/letter_details.php? letter_id=1511, last accessed 27 September 2022. 44 45

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Fig. 12: Guest book entry by H. Earle Blunt (April 3, 1909). Guest book p. 149. .

The same verse prefaces her 1924 book “Amurath to Amurath. A Journey Along the Banks of the Euphrates”.48 With these famous Arabic words, Bell expresses her great familiarity and affinity with Arabic culture. The verses of Labīd are known as the most beautiful and eloquent of the Middle East. He was one of seven outstanding poets whose verses were inscribed on the Kaaba in Mecca. Unfortunately, we learn nothing more from the guest book of Babylon about the events of the first visit of this famous woman, known throughout the East. But at the same time there were two other visitors in Babylon, a certain Miss Halliwell and an American dentist, named Harry Earle Blunt (1877–1968). In a diary entry dated April 2, 1909, Gertrude Bell mentions both of them and describes them, not very kindly, as “dull people”.49 Miss Halliwell left no entry in the guest book, however, Mr. Blunt did (fig. 12): The emotions which thrill one are of a sincerity moving and varied as you stand amongst the ruins of an ancient glory and try any form, in your mind’s eye, a conception of the splendour of the wonderful palace and court of Nebuchadnezzar; the wonders of which, the present magnificent ruins, so ably brought to light   Bell 1911: v.   Letter of Gertrude L. Bell to her stepmother Florence Bell, April 2, 1905 (Gertrude Bell Archive – Newcastle University; http://gertrudebell.ncl.ac.uk/letter_details.php? letter_id=1511, last accessed 27 September 2022. 48 49

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by the Professor + his confrères, give such grand testimony. If the spontaneous hospitality of ancient Babylon was similar to that dispensed by the German Mission in Babylon today, well might the weary traveler cry out with joy on first descrying the walls of the city from afar. Mr. H. Earle Blunt. April 3 1909. Similar entries are probably still written in guest books today. The presence of other guests in Babylon at the same time that Gertrude Bell was there is not surprising. But in this case it becomes more interesting as the dentist Harry Earle Blunt published his travel experiences in a book he called “An American dentist’s unique experiences in foreign lands”.50 There he also wrote about his visit to Ba­ bylon and what happened during Gertrude Bell’s visit. That is, a feast in the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar’s palace in honor of Gertrude Bell. He describes this feast as follows: The entire floor of Nebuchardnezzar’s banqueting hall had been excavated, and as an honor for Miss Bell, dinner was being served there the following evening. After dinner, we were all given long chairs on which to recline, the lights were put out, and for fifteen minutes we were asked to close our eyes and try to imagine what the scene had been like on this same floor during one of Nebuchadnezzar’s banquets. Then the lights again appeared, and we spent the rest of the evening exchanging ideas of what those scenes must have been like. They were really fantastic.51 It is highly questionable whether it really happened as he describes it, since Gertrude Bell wrote in her diary for the evening of April 2, when this sumptuous banquet allegedly took place in the palace: I spent another peaceful and delightful day at Babylon, photographing the ruins in the morning, studying my Tigris route in the excellent library and riding out in the afternoon to see the remains of the Greek theatre, built, as usual, with Nebuchadnezzars tiles.52 The feast arranged in honor of her presence remains unmentioned, even in the diary entries of the following days. On her second visit, she stayed in Babylon from March 9 to 11. Only her signature, address, and the dates of her visit are recorded in the guest book.53 During this stay she worked on the plans of Ukhaidir.54   Blunt 1963.   Blunt 1963: 90. 52   Cf. Gertrude Bell Archive – Newcastle University; http://gertrudebell.ncl.ac.uk/ letter_details.php?letter_id=1511, last accessed 27 September 2022. 53   In her entry she writes that she stayed in Babylon from March 9 to 10. The excavation diary notes that she left early on March 11. Entry in guest book p. 186. 54   Cf. Bell 1914. 50 51

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At the end of her third and last visit to the Babylon excavations just before the start of the First World War on April 1, 1914, Gertrude Bell wrote the following in the guest book (fig. 13): I come to Babylon, to the home of my friends, a[nd] carry away with me the grateful memories which only friends can provide. Gertrude Lowthian Bell 95 Sloane Street – London S.W.

Fig. 13: Guest book entry by Gertrude L. Bell (March 30–April 1, 1914). Guest book p. 239. She wrote in her diary – alongside a detailed description of the ruins of Babylon, combined with remarks on the guided tour by the excavators: “One of the cats is called after me.”55 In the following war years there are hardly any entries that were not written by Germans. The cosmopolitan, warm and familiar atmosphere, that had accompanied the excavation for more than 10 years fell victim to the war. Two short entries as examples of German entries from the time of World War I are presented below. The first was written by Walter Andrae himself on June 2, 1916. This time he did not visit as an archaeologist, but as a captain of the Imperial German Army, which is also expressed in his entry (fig. 14): Zu alten Göttern zogen alte Fürsten, Ihre Heldenkehlen beide dürsten. Adorierend nahen sie der Cella, Wo der Dämon treu bewacht die Quelle. Freundlich Bel zu Babel winkt Gewährung: Gern doch zögernd bringt herbei zur Leerung Wundersame Tränke Eabani,56   Cf. Gertrude Bell Archive – Newcastle University; http://gertrudebell.ncl.ac.uk/ diary_details.php?diary_id=1177, last accessed 27 September 2022. 56   Meant is Enkidu, the companion of Gilgamesh. For Enkidu cf. Black / Green 2014: 76 and 89–91. 55

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Gläser schäumten wie bei Peras Jani. Und es zaubert aus den Tränken, aus den Klaren, Bel Erinnerung aus vielen tausend Jahren. Weiten Blicks betrachten nun die Fürsten – Ihre beiden Heldenkehlen dürsten – Neubegeistert Welt und Schützengraben Und bedanken sich für diese Göttergaben. W. Andrae Als Hauptmann Julius Jordan, Oberl. d. R.

Fig. 14: Guest book entry by Walter Andrae and Julius Jordan (only signature) (June 1–June 2, 1916).

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Fig. 15: Photograph of F. Wetzel feeding the cats of Babylon (April 1909). Taken by Gertrude L. Bell © Gertrude Bell Archive, Newcastle University K_217. The accompanying picture – drawn by Walter Andrae – illustrates the short text. On the right it shows two people in German uniforms in a typical Ur III or early Old Babylonian presentation scene (ca. 21st to 18th century BCE). The “introducing deity” is Walter Andrae, the worshiper Julius Jordan (1877– 1945),57 who began excavations at Uruk in 1912 together with Conrad Preusser (1881–1964).58   On the life of Julius Jordan cf. Raulwing 2020.   The architect Conrad Preusser worked in Ashur until 1912 and in Uruk until 1913.

57 58

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Both face the new god of Babylon, Robert Koldewey, in his typical white clothing. One of his feet rests on his symbolic animal, a so-called “Knotenschwanzkatze” (knotted tail cat). These cats lived in Babylon at that time. Standing behind him is Gottfried Buddensieg (1877–1960), Koldewey’s assistant in Babylon from 1904 to 1917. He is portrayed as a human-headed bull with a whisk. At the beginning of 1916 another interesting group visited the excavations: These were Duke Adolf Friedrich von Mecklenburg (1873–1969)59 accompanied by Captain of the Cavalry Franz Heinrich Schoelvinck (1870–1951) and the geographer and travel writer Sven Hedin (1865–1952). In his travel report “Baghdad, Babylon, Nineveh” Hedin describes in detail the long and sometimes arduous journey during which a couple of robbers attempted to board the small river boat on which the group travelled to Babylon. But according to Hedin, the robbers gave up after realizing that their intended victims were Germans.60 He also describes the small group’s arrival in Babylon at 8 o’clock in the morning – the exact time was noted in the excavation diary – on May 16, 1916. Furthermore, he recounts the moment and impression they had meeting Robert Koldewey for the first time. According to Sven Hedin the professor – at that time Koldewey had been working in Babylon for more than 12 years – in his white suit, the black sheepskin hat and “mit seinem dichten, graugesprenkelten Bart gleicht so den Gestalten, die man auf den assyrischen Reliefs abgebildet findet.”61 Presumably on the next day Koldewey guided the group through the ruins. On May 18 the three travelers continued their journey to Samarra, but not without writing an entry in the guest book (fig. 16): Babylon 16/18. Mai 1916. In Babel gibts viel’ schönen Plunder, Jedoch das grösste, der dortigen Wunder Ist Robert Professor Koldewey. Der mit Kenntnis ohne viel Geschrei Das alte Babylon wieder fand. Was schon ganz aus der Menschen Gedächtnis schwand Und sich selbst, damit ein Denkmal setzt. Das auch uns und die späteste Nachwelt ergetzt Gleich geschätzt, als Erzähler, Forscher, Wirt steht er da Der Robert, drum ihm ein dreifach dankbar Hurra! Lang. Lang soll er leben Und sein Budden-Sieg daneben! This was written by von Mecklenburg’s personal adjutant Schoelvinck. Such texts, which can only cautiously be called poems, are often found in the guest book. They are of variable literary quality and often characterized by a lack of literary imagination. This is frequently associated with a certain helplessness on the part of the visitors who attempted to write something in the guest book. On June 10, 1906, a visitor, Paul Behrens, summed it up quite well (fig. 17):   On his life cf. Bindseil 1992; Pade 2001.   Cf. Hedin 1918: 215–216. 61   Cf. Hedin 1918: 229. 59 60

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Fig. 16: Guest book entries from top to bottom: F. H. Schoelvinck (his signature is below the entry of A. F. von Mecklenburg), A. F. von Mecklenburg, and S. Hedin. Guest book p. 248.

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Fig. 17: Guest book entry by P. Behrens (June 6, 1906). Guest book p. 76.

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Wer mehr als einen Tag hier weilt, Den hat das Schicksal schon ereilt. Der muss, um hier sich einzutragen, Sich mit Gedichte-Machen plagen.“ (So sagt mir eben der Herr Reuther) Na denk ich, das wird ja recht heiter. Denn einer ist an Versen reich, Und findet Reime stets sogleich, Jedoch bei mir, Berliner Range, Da dauert’s Dichten ziemlich lange! Und ist es endlich dann heraus, Dann sind die Verse holprig, – kraus. Genau wie dieses hier geworden. (Dafür gibt’s sicher keinen Orden.) Drum will ich damit lieber schliessen Und all der Schönheiten geniessen, Die Babylon dem Fremden bietet Und von der DOG gehütet. Eh’ wir uns in den Wagen schwingen, Woll’n wir ein schönes Liedchen singen, Der Gastfreiheit, die hier stets herrscht. (Man lebt nich’ besser bei’nem Ferscht!) Beim Dr. Koldewey und seinen 3 Begleitern Dem Noeldeke, dem Buddensieg und Reuther62 Bedank ich mich, für Freundlichkeit, für Alles, Und fahr zurück nach Bagdad – mit ’nem Dalles. Below the small picture showing a man pouring water over his head is the comment: “Wie man in Bagdad badet”. Adolf Friedrich von Mecklenburg also left an entry in the guest book (fig. 16): Sindjerli 1894 – Babylon 1916. Wiedersehen nach 22 Jahren! Befund des oben Besungenen: unverändert. 1000 Dank für die Gastlichkeit und die lehrreichen Stunden. Adolf Friedrich Herzog zu Mecklenburg. This brief entry tells us that he and Koldewey had previously met in Zincirli, ancient Sam’al, where Koldewey’s work in the Middle East began. The last entry is written by Sven Hedin and his contribution to the guest book is unfortunately not in the same style as his famous and exiting travel memoirs (fig. 16): Mit herzlichem Dank für unvergessliche und lehrreiche Stunden in Babylon Sven Hedin.

  The architect Oscar Reuther (1880–1954) worked in Babylon from 1905 to 1912. For Reuther cf. Heinrich 1954–1956 and Petschel 2003: 769. 62

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Conclusion In summary, it can be said that the guest book of the excavations in Babylon is a unique document that provides insight into the early decades of the 20th century in the Middle East and the changing political climate around and during the First World War. By connecting the different entries to each other and to the authors’ biographies, it is possible not only to reconstruct daily life on an excavation, but also to open a window into the time of these early excavations, and revive the personalities of the people traveling and working in the Middle East. And it reminds us that even on such large-scale excavations that greatly influenced our understanding of the ancient Near East, the atmosphere was lively, humorous, and familiar, and that in this a guest book can be much more than just a collection of short sayings. Bibliography Althoff, J. / Matthes, O. 1998: Die ‚Königliche Kommission zur Erforschung der Euphrat- und Tigrisländer‘. Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 130, 241–254. Andrae, E. W. / Boehmer, R. M. 1989: Bilder eines Ausgräbers / Sketches by an excavator. Die Orientbilder von Walter Andrae 1898–1919. Berlin. Andrae, W. 1952: Babylon. Die versunkene Weltstadt und ihr Ausgräber Robert Koldewey. Berlin. Anonymous 1902–1903: Vereinsnachrichten. Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 16, 1–8. Anonymous 1904: Five Years of Thrilling Adventure on a Bicycle, in Six Continents. Survivor of a Party of Three Arrives in New York After Many Hairbreadth Escapes. The New York Times June 19th, p. 5. Bell, G. L. 1911: Amurath to Amurath. Cambridge. –– 1914: Palace and Mosque at Ukhaidir. A Study in Early Mohammadan Architecture. Oxford. Bindseil, R. 1992: Adolf Friedrich Herzog zu Mecklenburg (1873–1969). Bonn. Black, J. A. / Green, A. 2014: Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia. Austin. Blunt, H. E. 1963: An American dentist’s unique experiences in foreign lands. New York. Collins, P. / Tripp, Ch. (eds.) 2017: Gertrude Bell and Iraq. A Life and Legacy. Oxford. Cooper, L. 2016: In Search of Kings and Conquerors. Gertrude Bell and the Archaeology of the Middle East. London and New York. Delitzsch, F. 1908: Sardanapal. Grosse historische Pantomime in 3 Akten oder 4 Bildern unter Anlehnung an das gleichnamige Ballett Paul Taglionis neu bearbeitet. Musikalische Begleitung (unter freier Verwertung historischer Originalmotive und einzelner Teile der Hertel’schen Partitur) von Joseph Schlar. Begleitende Dichtung von Joseph Lauff. Als Manuskript gedruckt. Große historische Pantomime in 3 Akten oder 4 Bildern unter Anlehnung an das gleichnamige Ballett Paul Taglionis neu bearbeitet von Friedrich Delitzsch. Berlin. –– 1909: Asurbanipal und die assyrische Kultur seiner Zeit. Der Alte Orient 11,1. Leipzig.

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Freydank, R. 2011: Ruth Freydank „Sardanapal“ oder „Das Theater ist auch eine meiner Waffen.“ Geschichte einer Festaufführung im Königlichen Opernhaus. Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 143, 141–167. García Recio, J. 2008: L’image de Babylone dans les sources bibliques. In B. André-Salvini (ed.): Babylone. Paris, 363–366. Götzen, D. 1999: Von der Gäubahn zur Bagdadbahn – Otto Kapp von Gültstein. In R. Janssen / O. Auge (eds.): Herrenberger Persönlichkeiten aus acht Jahrhunderten. Herrenberger historische Schriften 6. Herrenberg, 361–366. Guntermann, K. 1970: Eine Begegnung. Jahrbuch der Karl-May-Gesellschaft, 177–180. Hansen, D. P. 1970: Al-Hiba, 1968–1969, a Preliminary Report. Artibus Asiae 32, 243–258. Hartmann, V. 2020: When Imitation Became Reality: The Historical Pantomime Sardanapal (1908) at the Royal Opera of Berlin. In L. Verderame / A. Garcia-Ventura (eds.): Receptions of the Ancient Near East in Popular Culture and Beyond. Atlanta, 83–104. Hedin, S. A. 1918, Bagdad, Babylon, Ninive. Leipzig. Heine, H. 1827: Buch der Lieder. Hamburg. Heinrich, E. 1954–1956: Oscar Reuther (20. Oktober 1880 bis 5. August 1954). Archiv für Orientforschung 17, 487–488. Henkelmann, W. F. M. / Kuhrt, A. / Rollinger, R. / Wiesehöfer, J. 2011, Herodotus and Babylon Reconsidered. In R. Rollinger / B. Truschnegg / R. Bichler (Hrsg.): Herodot und das persische Weltreich / Herodotus and the Persian Empire. Classica et Orientalia 3. Wiesbaden, 449–470. Howell, G. 2012: Daughter of the Desert. The Remarkable Life of Gertrude Bell. London. Huh, S. K. 2008: Studien zur Region Lagaš. Von der Ubaid- bis zur altbabylonischen Zeit. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 345. Münster. Jackson, M. P. C. 2017: A Critical Examination of Gertrude Bell’s Contribution to Archaeological Research in Central Asia Minor. In P. Collins / Ch. Tripp (eds.): Gertrude Bell and Iraq. A Life and Legacy. Proceedings of the British Academy 205. Oxford, 47–73. Jaunay, A. 1997: Mémoires de Jacques de Morgan (1857–1924). Directeur Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes, Délegué Général de la Délégation Scientifique en Perse. Souvenirs d’un archéologue. Paris. Kohlmeyer, K. / Strommenger, E. / Schmid, H. 1991: Wiedererstehendes Babylon. Eine antike Weltstadt im Blick der Forschung. Berlin. Marzahn, J. 2008: Robert Koldewey – Ein Lebensbild. In R.-B. Wartke (ed.): Auf dem Weg nach Babylon. Robert Koldewey – ein Archäologenleben. Mainz, 8–27. Matthes, O. 1996: Eduard Meyer und die Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft. Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 128, 173–218. –– 2000: James Simon. Mäzen im Wilhelminischen Zeitalter. Bürgerlichkeit, Wertewandel, Mäzenatentum 5. Berlin. Neumann, G. 2010: Ausgraben einmal anders. Das Gästebuch der deutschen Ausgrabungen in Babylon. Alter Orient aktuell 11, 4–7. Olbrich, H. 2018: Koldewey in Görlitz. In U. Quatember / H. Bankel (eds.): Post aus Babylon. Robert Koldewey, Bauforscher und Ausgräber Briefe aus Klein-

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asien, Italien, Deutschland und dem Vorderen Orient von 1882 bis 1922. Wien, 149–156. Pade, W. 2001: Zwischen Wissenschaft, Abenteurertum und Kolonialpolitik: Adolf Friedrich Herzog zu Mecklenburg. In M. Guntau (ed.): Mecklenburger im Ausland. Historische Skizzen zum Leben und Wirken von Mecklenburgern in ihrer Heimat und in der Ferne. Bremen. Parfit, J.T. 1917: Among the Druzes of Lebanon and Bashan. London. Petschel, D. 2003: Die Professoren der TU Dresden 1828–2003. 175 Jahre TU Dresden 3. Köln. Quatember, U. / Bankel, H. (eds.) 2018: Post aus Babylon. Robert Koldewey, Bauforscher und Ausgräber Briefe aus Kleinasien, Italien, Deutschland und dem Vorderen Orient von 1882 bis 1922. Wien. Raulwing, P. 2020: Between Kaiser and Führer: The Archaeologist Julius Jordan in the German Empire, the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. In S. Alaura (ed.): Digging in the Archives. From the History of Oriental Studies to the History of Ideas. Documenta Asiana 11. Rome, 91–157. Rheidt, K. 2018: Robert Koldewey in Assos. In U. Quatember / H. Bankel (Hrsg.): Post aus Babylon. Robert Koldewey, Bauforscher und Ausgräber Briefe aus Kleinasien, Italien, Deutschland und dem Vorderen Orient von 1882 bis 1922. Wien, 31–41. Salje, B. 2008: Robert Koldewey und das Vorderasiatische Museum Berlin. In R.-B. Wartke (Hrsg.), Auf dem Weg nach Babylon. Robert Koldewey – ein Archäologenleben. Mainz, 124–147. Salonen, A. 1963: Die Möbel des alten Mesopotamien nach sumerisch-akkadischen Quellen. Eine lexikalische und kulturgeschichtliche Untersuchung. Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae 127. Helsinki. Schepp, S. 2015: Mit dem „Teufelpferd“ auf großer Fahrt. Spuren der Weltumrundung von Willy Schwiegershausen und Gustav Kögel, Der Knochenschüttler. Zeitschrift für Liebhaber historischer Fahrräder 59/1, 3–9. Schmid, H. 1995: Der Tempelturm Etemenanki in Babylon. Baghdader Forschungen 17. Mainz. Seymour, M. J. 2008: Robert Koldewey and the Babylon Excavations. In I. L. Finkel / M. J. Seymour (eds.): Babylon. Myth and Reality. London, 41–53. Wartke, R.-B. 2005: Sam’al. Ein aramäischer Stadtstaat des 10. bis 8. Jhs. v.Chr. und die Geschichte seiner Erforschung. „… hoch geschätzt inmitten der mächtigen Könige vom Osten bis zum Westen“. Berlin and Mainz. –– 2008: Robert Koldewey und Sendschirli – Eine Station auf dem Weg nach Babylon. In: R.-B. Wartke (ed.): Auf dem Weg nach Babylon. Robert Koldewey – ein Archäologenleben. Mainz, 50–69. Weber-Nöldeke, E. / Nöldeke, A. (eds.) 2003: Altiki der Finder. Memoiren eines Ausgräbers. Hildesheim et al. Wilhelm, G. 1998: 100 Jahre Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft. In G. Wilhelm (ed.): Zwischen Tigris und Nil. 100 Jahre Ausgrabungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft in Vorderasien und Ägypten. Mainz.

Bemerkungen zur Rolle des (Alten) Orients in den deutschsprachigen (welt-)geschichtlichen Betrachtungen des 19. Jahrhunderts Hans Neumann Die Bedeutung der altorientalischen Kultur für die Auffassung von der Entwicklung der Menschheit hat sich endlich Anerkennung verschafft. Das kann wohl als Ergebnis eines Geisteskampfes hingestellt werden, der in den letzten zwanzig Jahren namentlich in Deutschland mit einem Aufgebot von persönlicher Hingabe seitens der Vertreter der neuen Erkenntnis geführt worden ist. Mit diesen Worten leitete der Berliner Assyriologe Hugo Winckler (1863–1913) im Jahre 1906 seine Streitschrift Der alte Orient und die Geschichtsforschung ein,1 um an anderer Stelle ein Jahr später noch einmal nachzulegen:2 Das Wissen vom Menschen als einem geselligen Wesen hat im 19. Jahr­ hundert eine Bereicherung erfahren, welche eine gleiche Umwälzung mit sich brachte, wie sie Dampf, Eisentechnik und Elektrizität auf technischem Gebiet hervorgebracht haben. Nach zweierlei Richtung ist das der Fall – räumlich und zeitlich. Während man sich bis dahin darauf beschränkt hatte, als das Menschengeschlecht, soweit man es überhaupt einer Be­ urteilung seiner Entwicklung für würdig hielt, die klassischen und die an sie anschließenden westeuropäischen Völker anzusehen, hat erst das 19. Jahrhundert den ganzen Erdenrund als die Schaubühne zu würdigen begonnen, auf der die Entwicklung der Menschheit sich abspielt. … Wie die Ausdehnung des Gesichtskreises in geographischer Beziehung auf die ganze Erde, so hat das 19. Jahrhundert den geschichtlichen auf den ganzen Zeitraum ausgedehnt … Diese Erweiterung unseres geschichtlichen Ge­ sichts­kreises … ist ein Ergebnis, und wohl das wichtigste, der Entzifferung der Urkunden des Alten Orients, des Euphrat- und Nillandes, Babyloniens und Ägyptens, der sogenannten Keilschriften und der Hiero­­glyphentexte. Hugo Winckler bezieht sich hier auf zwei für seine historiographischen Inten­ tionen wichtige Gesichtspunkte der geistesgeschichtlichen Entwicklung im 19. Jahrhundert: die Forcierung und Entwicklung weltgeschichtlicher Betrachtungs­ weisen und die Einbeziehung der altorientalischen Geschichte im Rahmen einer   Winckler 1906: 1.   Winckler 1907: 1 und 3. Zu Winckler vgl. Renger 1979: 162–166; Streck 2016–2018; zu dessen Aktivitäten im Rahmen des sog. Panbabylonismus, nicht zuletzt auch mit Blick auf seine Geschichtsrekonstruktionen, vgl. passim in Marchand 2009: 236–244 und Wei­ chenhan 2016; vgl. auch Polaschegg und Weichenhan 2017: 19–21; bezüglich Wincklers Völkerwellenmodell vgl. Wiedemann 2020: 307f. und 343–348 et passim. 1 2

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entsprechend konnotierten Geschichtsforschung. Letzteres wurde möglich durch die sich im 19. Jahrhundert rasant vollziehende Entwicklung eines Wissenschafts­ fachs, das unter der Bezeichnung „Assyriologie“ schon bald Eingang in den phi­ lologisch-kulturhistorischen Diskurs auf verschiedenen Ebenen der Geisteswis­ senschaften – und zwar in besonderer Weise in den deutschsprachigen Landen – finden sollte. Ausgangspunkt besagter Entwicklung war die mit Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775–1853)3 zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts eingeläutete Entzifferung der altpersischen Keilschrift aus der Achämeniden-Hauptstadt Persepolis. Von be­ sonderer Bedeutung waren im folgenden dann die Entzifferungen und sprach- wie texterschließenden Arbeiten des englischen Militärs Henry Creswicke Rawlin­ son (1810–1895),4 des irischen Pfarrers Edward Hincks (1792–1866)5 und des Deutsch-Franzosen Julius/Jules Oppert (1825–1905),6 denen zugleich das Ver­ dienst gebührt, die babylonisch-assyrische Schrift entziffert zu haben.7 Neben den Genannten war es dann vor allem der Alttestamentler Eberhard Schrader (1836–1908), der 1869 und 1872 den endgültigen Nachweis erbrachte, dass die babylonisch-assyrische Keilschrift als im Wesentlichen entziffert gelten konnte.8 1874 habilitierte sich schließlich der Sprachwissenschaftler und Philologe Frie­ drich Delitzsch (1850–1922) in Leipzig für das Fach Assyriologie,9 das damit erstmalig als eigenständiges Fach an einer deutschen Universität anerkannt war.10 Während also deutsche Gelehrte in entscheidender Weise an der Entwick­ lung der Assyriologie als selbständiges Fach beteiligt waren und in Bezug auf die damit verbundene Herausbildung eines philologisch-kulturhistorischen Me­ thodeninstrumentariums (insbesondere seit 1875) sogar eine führende Position einnahmen,11 wurde die archäologische Erforschung Vorderasiens, und hier spe­ ziell Mesopotamiens, seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts zunächst durch die ex­ pansiven Mächte Frankreich und England dominiert. Erwähnt seien hier die Gra­ bungen seit 1842 von Paul Émile Botta (1802–1870) und ab 1845 von Austen H. Layard (1817–1894) in Ninive sowie von letzterem ab 1845 auch in Nimrud12 und unter Botta ab 1843 in Chorsabad.13 Diese Unternehmungen erbrachten sowohl die europäische Öffentlichkeit beeindruckende assyrische Großdenkmäler als auch Tausende von Tontafeln mit assyrischer Keilschrift.14 1877 begannen unter Ernest de Sarzec (1832–1901) französische Grabungen in Tello, dem alten Girsu,

  Zu Grotefend vgl. (mit Literatur) Cancik-Kirschbaum 2012a.   Zu Rawlinson vgl. (mit Literatur) Cancik-Kirschbaum 2012b. 5   Zu Hincks vgl. Borger 1972–1975a; Cathcart 1983. 6   Zu Oppert vgl. (mit Literatur) Lion und Michel 2012. 7   Zu den Einzelheiten der Entzifferung vgl. Friedrich 1954: 44–57; Borger et al. 1975; Borger 1975–1978; Cathcart 2011 (mit Literatur); zuletzt Charpin 2022: 17–75. 8   Vgl. Neumann 2021: 66f. (mit Literatur). 9   Vgl. Müller 1979: 68f. 10   Zu Delitzsch vgl. Lehmann 2012 (mit Literatur); zu seiner Bedeutung als Begründer der Assyriologie als eigenständige Wissenschaftsdisziplin mit internationaler Ausstrah­ lung und Wirkung im ausgehenden 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert vgl. Neumann 2021: 74–76. 11   Vgl. Neumann 2009: 203f. 12   Vgl. Larsen 1996; Turner 2021. 13   Vgl. Fontan und Chevalier 1994. 14   Vgl. Curtis 2001: 37–39; Caubet 2001: 25–27. 3 4

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im Süden Mesopotamiens, die neben sumerischen Bildwerken auch Tontafeln mit sumerischen Texten zutage förderten.15 Die archäologischen Entdeckungen und assyriologischen Forschungen hatten – wie Felix Wiedemann zu Recht konstatiert – „für die Epoche zwischen … den 1850er Jahren und dem Ersten Weltkrieg ein(en) regelrechten Boom an histo­ riographischen Gesamterzählungen zum Alten Orient“ zur Folge, nicht zuletzt auch unter dem Gesichtspunkt ihrer Einbeziehung in einen universalhistorischen Zusammenhang.16 Natürlich wurde auch früher im Rahmen der universalhisto­ rischen Tradition der Aufklärung der (Alte) Orient bereits historiographisch be­ rücksichtigt. Nur erwähnt seien hier z.B. die entsprechenden Darstellungen und Positionen der Göttinger Gelehrten Joseph Christoph Gatterer (1727–1799), Au­ gust Ludwig Schlözer (1735–1809)17 und Arnold Hermann Ludwig von Heeren (1760–1842).18 Jedoch fehlte es – wenn man in Teilen von Indien und China ein­ mal absieht – für den Alten Orient naturgemäß noch an Primärquellen, und man nahm daher vor allem die in dieser Hinsicht sekundäre antike Quellenüberliefe­ rung, wie etwa Herodot, Ktesias und Diodor, sowie die entsprechend relevanten Bücher des Alten Testaments und auch Reiseberichte zur Grundlage der jeweili­ gen Geschichtsdarstellungen.19 Während zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts diese aufklärungsbasierte Tra­ dition im Zuge einer zunehmenden „Institutionalisierung und sogenannte(n) Verwissenschaftlichung der Geschichtsschreibung“ in Verbindung mit ihrer „historiographische(n) Fixierung auf die Nation“ in den Hintergrund trat,20 wurden weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungsweisen – und zwar unter Einschluss des Orients – im Rahmen der Geschichtsphilosophie nicht nur einfach weiter tradiert, sondern unter typologisch-kategorialem Gesichtspunkt systematisiert und gesellschafts­ vergleichend thematisiert. Erinnert sei hier etwa an entsprechende Ausführungen von Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), der die Weltgeschichte als Ab­ folge von Reichen definierte, worin sich das Selbstbewusstsein des Weltgeistes mit dem Ziel der Erlangung der vollkommenen Freiheit manifestiert.21 So heißt es unter anderem in seinen Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie:22 Der Orient wußte und weiß nur, daß Einer frei ist, die griechische und römische Welt, daß Einige frei seien, die germanische Welt weiß, daß Alle frei sind. Die erste Form, die wir daher in der Weltgeschichte sehen, ist der Despotismus, die zweite ist die Demokratie und Aristokratie, und die dritte die Monarchie.

  Vgl. Parrot 1948: 14–22; Matthews 1997: 407; Huh 2008: 1f. et passim.   Wiedemann 2020: 76 mit Anm. 34. 17   Vgl. Wiedemann 2020: 88 mit Anm. 92f. 18   Zu Heeren vgl. Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer 2007: 519–524; vgl. im vorliegenden Zusam­ menhang auch Wiesehöfer 2007: 608f. 19   Vgl. Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer 2007: 522–524; Wiedemann 2020: 69–74. 20   Wiedemann 2020: 88. 21   Zur Rolle des Orients in diesem Zusammenhang vgl. vor allem Schulin 1958; vgl. da­ rüber hinaus unter vorliegendem Gesichtspunkt auch Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer 2007: 517–519 und Cancik-Kirschbaum 2011: 352–354 (jeweils mit weiterer Literatur); Jordan 2021. 22   Hegel 1986: 134. 15 16

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Derartige generalisierende Sichtweisen – nicht zuletzt auch im Sinne einer Fortschrittsgeschichte – beeinflussten die konkrete Geschichtsschreibung im 19. Jahrhundert durchaus, allerdings nur partiell. In bedeutender Weise entfalteten sie ihre Wirkmächtigkeit jedoch sehr wohl im Zuge weiterer geschichtsphilo­ sophischer und geschichtstheoretischer sowie gesellschaftsvergleichender Frage­ stellungen bis in das 20. Jahrhundert. Dies zeigt sich etwa an den geschichts­ wissenschaftlichen Äußerungen von Karl Marx (1818–1883)23 in unterschiedli­ chen Kontexten, in deren Zusammenhang auch Asien bzw. der Orient eine Rolle spielte. Im Wesentlichen sind hier zwei Phasen seiner historiographischen Orient­ rezeption zu unterscheiden: In den 1850er Jahren analysierte er vornehmlich die britische Kolonialpolitik in Indien mit den entsprechenden Auswirkungen auf die bestehende indische So­ zialordnung, wofür ihm zeitgenössische englische Quellen (nicht zuletzt auch zu den Parlamentsdebatten) zur Verfügung standen.24 Zudem orientierte er sich an der Gesamteinschätzung der indischen Gesellschaft im Reisebericht des franzö­ sischen Arztes François Bernier (1620–1688) in Moghul-Indien25 mit der (etwas vereinfachten) Quintessenz, dass für die „Türkei, Persien, Hindostan“ die „Ab­ wesenheit des (privaten) Grundeigentums“ typisch sei, was sich mit dem Topos des Despotismus und der Stagnation verband.26 Mehr beiläufig, jedoch mit großer politischer Wirkung in den marxistischen geschichtswissenschaftlichen Dogmen und Debatten des 20. Jahrhunderts kam er 1859 im Vorwort Zur Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie zu dem Schluss:27 In großen Umrissen können asiatische, antike, feudale und modern bürger­ liche Produktionsweisen als progressive Epochen der ökonomischen Ge­ sellschafts­formation bezeichnet werden. Ende der 1870er und zu Beginn der 1880er Jahre kam es, bedingt durch die vorrevolutionären Entwicklungen in Russland, bei Marx zu einer erneuten Be­ schäftigung mit orientalischen, aber auch amerikanischen Zuständen und mit der Urgesellschaft. Davon zeugen neben nachgelassenen Exzerpten insbesondere die 1879/80 angefertigten Notizen zu der Studie von Maksim Maksimowič Kovalev­ skij (1851–1916) über die Dorfgemeinden in Altamerika, Indien und Algerien.28 Die mittlerweile auch in den Fokus der Geschichtsschreibung gerückten altorien­ talischen Quellen aus Mesopotamien scheinen von Marx dagegen nicht weiter rezipiert worden zu sein.29 Die Briefentwürfe einer Antwort auf eine Anfrage der   Zu Marx als Historiker mit entsprechenden Beiträgen zur Geschichtsschreibung vgl. Küttler 1983; Kluchert 1985; Harstick 1986: 156–159. 24   Vgl. Nippel 2013: 477 mit Anm. 33 (Literatur); vgl. zusätzlich Peuke 1984; Sgro’ 2021: 127f. 25   Bernier 1830 (diese Auflage war die Grundlage für die Marxsche Lektüre; vgl. Harstick 1977: 237). 26   Die vorliegenden Formulierungen sind dem Briefwechsel zwischen Marx und Engels aus dem Jahr 1853 entnommen; vgl. dazu Brentjes 1979: 15; Nippel 2013: 477f.; Sgro’ 2021: 129f.; vgl. in diesem Zusammenhang auch Harstick 1977: 11f. Anm. 39 zur Genese der vorliegenden Auffassung von Marx. 27   Marx 1975: 9; dazu Nippel 2013: 478f.; Nippel 2020: 88–90. 28   Grundlegend Harstick 1977; vgl. darüber hinaus auch Brentjes 1983a: 17f.; Brentjes 1983b (mit weiterer Literatur); Brentjes 1987: 73–76; Sgro’ 2021: 136–138. 29   Dies zeigt bereits der Blick auf die von Marx nachweisbar exzerpierte bzw. biblio­ graphierte Literatur; zu Vorderasien vgl. Harstick 1978: 235. Einzig bei Friedrich Engels 23

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russischen Revolutionärin Vera Zasulič (1849–1919)30 aus dem Jahr 1881 zeigen das erneute „Suchen (von Marx) nach einem realen Bild der vielfältigen Weltge­ schichte“, differenziert nach Zeit und Region,31 indem er „im ganzen … für eine differenzierte Betrachtung der asiatischen und europäischen Geschichte (plädiert) und … seine Argumentation gegen … die simple Übertragung von am Modell Westeuropas entwickelten Strukturbegriffen auf indische oder asiatische Verhält­ nisse“ richtet.32 Aus seinem Lesefeld,33 verbunden mit den überlieferten Exzerptheften,34 wis­ sen wir, dass Marx auch Friedrich Christoph Schlossers (1776–1861) „Weltge­ schichte für das deutsche Volk“ aus den Jahren 1844 bis 1857 systematisch stu­ diert hatte.35 Schlosser stand noch in der Tradition der Spätaufklärung und bezog in seine Geschichtsdarstellung kulturelle Erscheinungen und Zusammenhänge ein und verband dies mit subjektiven Einschätzungen und moralischen Wertungen. Die Komplexität dieses Ansatzes im Rahmen einer kenntnisreichen Darstellung machten diese Weltgeschichte, in der auch die (damals bekannte) Geschichte der „Orientalischen Völker“ – darunter die „Babylonier und Assyrer“ – ihren Platz hatte,36 attraktiv und populär.37 Die erstmalige adäquate Berücksichtigung der in den ersten Jahrzehnten des 19. Jahrhunderts gemachten Entdeckungen und erreichten Ergebnisse im Rahmen der seinerzeit aktuellen Forschungen zum Alten Orient war ein Verdienst des aus Berlin stammenden Historikers Maximilian Duncker (1811–1886), dessen Geschichte des Althertums in vier Bänden aus den Jahren 1852–1857 mehrere Auf­ lagen erlebte.38 Die Bedeutung von Dunckers Geschichte des Alterthums unter vorliegender Fragestellung ist mit Josef Wiesehöfer darüber hinaus auch darin zu sehen, dass hier der Versuch unternommen wurde, „der Verdrängung des Alten Orients aus der Altertumsgeschichte entgegenzuwirken, … dem Babel, Memphis und Susa der Bibel und der klassischen Autoren das Babylon, Memphis und Susa der indigenen Überlieferung gegenüberzustellen“ sowie „die Altertumsgeschichte in die allgemeine Geschichte zu integrieren, und zwar nicht als eine Summe von Einzelgeschichten, sondern als ein Gesamtentwurf“.39 Er tat dies – von einigen klischeehaften Einschätzungen abgesehen – in weiten Teilen vorurteilsfrei, al­ lerdings rein rezeptiv, da er nicht die entsprechende philologisch-orientalistische (1820–1895) findet sich im sog. „Anti-Dührung“ aus den späten 1870er Jahren ein Ver­ weis auf „Smith’s assyrische Entdeckungen“ (Engels 1988: 276), womit die Entdeckung des babylonischen Sintflutberichts als Teil der XI. Tafel des Gilgameš-Epos im Jahr 1872 durch den englischen Assyriologen George Smith (1840–1876) bei Ordnungs- und Ent­ zifferungsarbeiten im British Museum (vgl. Cregan-Reid 2013: 37–69; Charpin 2022: 108–117) gemeint war; vgl. [Neumann] 1988. 30   Vgl. dazu, zum Teil mit kontroversen geschichtswissenschaftlichen Interpretationen und Positionen, Küttler 1976; Brentjes 1987: 70–73; Sgro’ 2021: 137f. 31   So die Einschätzung von Brentjes 1993: 39. 32   Harstick 1978: 13. 33   Vgl. Harstick 1978: 233. 34   Vgl. Krätke 2014; vgl. auch Harstick 1978: 320 Anm. 154. 35   Zu Schlosser vgl. Gottlob 1989; Sellier-Bauer 2004; weitere Literatur bei Wiedemann 2020: 88 Anm. 95. 36   Schlosser 1844: 1–146 „Orientalische Völker“ (47–55 „Babylonier und Assyrer“). 37   Vgl. dazu auch Wiedemann 2020: 88 Anm. 95. 38   Zu Duncker vgl. ausführlich Wiesehöfer 2012a. 39   Wiesehöfer 2012a: 371.

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Kompetenz besaß. Mit seiner offenen Sichtweise auf die Ergebnisse altorientali­ stischer Forschung zu jener Zeit40 schuf er sich in der historiographisch fachüber­ greifenden Debatte im Bereich der Altertumswissenschaften nicht nur Freunde, was z.B. in einer wertenden Bemerkung des Philologen und Historikers Alfred von Gutschmid (1831–1887) zum Ausdruck kommt, der Duncker 1875 in Bezug auf dessen „Geschichte des Alterthums“ vorwarf, der „Moderichtung“ Assyrio­ logie „größere Concessionen gemacht (zu haben), als sich mit seiner sonst so bewährten Umsicht vereinigen läßt“.41 Der gemeinhin als Begründer der modernen Geschichtswissenschaft geltende Historiker Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) thematisierte bereits in seiner Vor­ lesung „Allgemeine Weltgeschichte 1. Teil, bis auf den Untergang der Hohen­ staufen“ im Wintersemester 1825/26 die Geschichte Assyriens und Babyloniens, allerdings auf Grund der ungenügenden Quellensituation der historischen Realität naturgemäß nicht angemessen.42 In seiner ab 1881 erschienenen Weltgeschichte jedoch wird dann – und zwar offensichtlich in Kenntnis assyrischer Inschriften, über die er mit seinem Bruder, dem Theologen Ernst Ranke korrespondierte43 – präziser und faktenreicher insbesondere auf die geschichtliche Rolle der Assyrer im 1. Jahrtausend eingegangen.44 Auf der Basis der von ihm als „glaubwürdige schriftliche Aufzeichnungen“ charakterisierten Quellen45 wies er Assyrien im ver­ meintlichen Abwehrkampf gegen die Barbaren (z.B. Kimmerer und Skythen) eine positive historische Rolle und „den ersten Rang unter den damaligen Mächten der Welt“46 zu.47 Demgegenüber charakterisierte er Indien und China als Hort „eines ewigen Stillstandes“,48 deren Geschichte wegen angeblich fehlender Kommuni­ kationsfähigkeit zumindest für die Anfänge der Weltgeschichte keinerlei Bedeu­ tung zukam.49 Abgesehen von der zeitbedingten Unschärfe der Aussagen zum Alten Orient generell und zu den historischen Vorgängen vor und nach der neuassyrischen Zeit waren es die Schwächen Rankes auf dem Gebiet der Alten Geschichte insgesamt, die eine entsprechende zeitgenössische Kritik hervorriefen. So monierte Eduard Meyer (1855–1930),50 dass sich hier Ranke „an ein Gebiet“ gewagt habe, „für das ihm alle eingehendere Vorarbeit fehlte: er hatte sich mit der Geschichte des Altertums nur in jungen Jahren nebenbei beschäftigt, und hielt sich für berechtigt, die ergebnisreiche wissenschaftliche Arbeit eines halben Jahrhunderts so gut wie völlig zu ignorieren; so konnte der Versuch nur vollständig mißglücken“.51   Vgl. Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer 2007: 562f.; Wiesehöfer 2012a: 362 mit Anm. 23.   Vgl. Wiesehöfer 2014: 731 mit Anm. 14; vgl. in diesem Zusammenhang auch Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer 2007: 562 Anm. 203 (zu Johann Gustav Droysen [1808–1884]; zu letzterem im vorliegenden Zusammenhang auch Wiesehöfer 2012b). 42   Vgl. Cancik-Kirschbaum 2011: 354f. 43   Vgl. Muhlack 2010: 144f. 44   Vgl. Ranke o. J. [1881]: 38–45. 45   Ranke o. J. [1881]: 5. 46   Ranke o. J. [1881]: 45. 47   Vgl. in diesem Sinne Cancik-Kirschbaum 2011: 356. 48   Ranke o. J. [1881]: 6. 49   Vgl. Muhlack 2010: 164. 50   Zu Meyer vgl. (mit Literatur) Meißner 2012; Literatur ergänzend Wiesehöfer 2010: 217 Anm. 1. 51   Vgl. dazu (mit Zitat) Muhlack 2010: 169f. 40 41

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Zu einer derartigen Kritik war Eduard Meyer – abgesehen von seiner unzwei­ felhaften fachlichen Kompetenz – durchaus berechtigt, begann er ab 1884 doch selbst eine Geschichte des Altertums vorzulegen.52 Die darin enthaltene Darstel­ lung der Geschichte des Alten Orients zeigt deutlich die sprachlich-philologische Grundierung seiner Beschäftigung mit den altorientalischen Quellen.53 Zudem war er zunehmend auch organisatorisch und politisch in die Erforschung des Al­ ten Orients seitens der deutschen Wissenschaft involviert.54 Dies machte ihn zu ei­ nem ausgezeichneten Kenner des Forschungsstandes. Andererseits wertete er die altorientalische Geschichte unter einem dezidiert eurozentrischen Blickwinkel, d.h., der Alte Orient bildete nur die Vorstufe der späteren europäischen Geschich­ te.55 Dies wie auch die dem Orient angeblich eigene Stagnation bestimmten seiner Meinung nach auch den fehlenden Wert und die fehlende historische Wirkung des (Alten) Orients, dessen Geschichte nach Meyer niemals „das gleiche Interesse erwecken (kann), wie die Griechenlands oder Roms …, (denn) das Zentrum der Geschichte des Altertums bildet die Geschichte der griechischen Kultur“.56 Die von Vertretern der Geschichtswissenschaft verantwortete Weltgeschichts­ schreibung erfolgte im Kontext nicht nur der fortschreitenden forschungsmäßigen Erschließung der altorientalischen Kulturgeschichte im Verlaufe des 19. Jahrhun­ derts, sondern lief zudem parallel zu den historischen Gesamtdarstellungen aus der Feder der Assyriologen und Orientforscher selbst. International waren das z. B. die Monographien Histoire des empires de Chaldée von Jules Oppert aus dem Jahr 1865 und die fünfbändige Ausgabe The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World von George Rawlinson (1812–1902), dem Bruder des Keilschrift­ entzifferers Henry Rawlinson, aus den Jahren 1862 bis 1867.57 In Deutschland war dies zunächst vor allem der Münchener Assyriologe und Delitzsch-Schüler Fritz Hommel (1854–1936),58 der 1885 im Rahmen der Serie Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen mit seinem umfangreichen Werk Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens das Fachwissen seiner Zeit über den Alten Orient zusammenfasste und unter historiographischem Gesichtspunkt einem größeren gebildeten Publi­ kum vermittelte.59 Die Darstellung umfasst nach einer quellen- und forschungs­ geschichtlichen wie auch landeskundlichen Einleitung die Geschichte und Kultur „Altbabyloniens“ (worunter hier das Babylonien des 3. und 2. Jahrtausend zu   Vgl. Wiesehöfer 2010: 226 mit Anm. 28 (Auflagen).   Vgl. Wiesehöfer 2010: 226 mit Anm. 29; vgl. in diesem Zusammenhang auch die rück­ blickend kontextualisierende Positionierung von Meyer zur Gutschmid-Schrader-Kontro­ verse; vgl. Wiesehöfer 2014: 738–741. 54   Vgl. insbesondere sein Engagement für die Vorhaben und Ziele der Deutschen Ori­ ent-Gesellschaft (DOG); dazu ausführlich Matthes 1996; vgl. auch Wiesehöfer 2010: 221 mit Anm. 10. Zu seinen Aktivitäten hinsichtlich des Einsatzes seines Protegés Hugo Prinz (1883–1934) auf der Babylon-Grabung vgl. jetzt auch Wiesehöfer 2018: 370–372. 55   Wiesehöfer 2010: 230. 56   Vgl. (mit Zitat) Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer 2007: 565–569 sowie Wiesehöfer 2010: 230f.; vgl. auch Wiesehöfer 2020: 12f. 57   Zu den entsprechenden Werken aus dem englisch- und französischsprachigen Raum vgl. Wiedemann 2020: 77f.; zum Problem der Darstellung der Geschichte des Alten Ori­ ents in den deutschsprachigen Schulbüchern des ausgehenden 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhun­ derts vgl. Cancik-Kirschbaum 2011: 361f.; Wiedemann 2020: 90f. 58   Zu Hommel vgl. die (Literatur-)Angaben bei Borger 1972–1975b sowie Lundström 2013: 22f. 59   Hommel 1885. 52 53

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verstehen ist), „Assyriens“ (gemeint ist die mittel- und neuassyrische Geschichte im ausgehenden 2. und in der ersten Hälfte des 1. Jahrtausends) und „Neu-Ba­ byloniens“ bis Kyros. Dem ließ Hommel 10 Jahre später (1895) in der Samm­ lung Göschen eine populärwissenschaftliche Geschichte des alten Morgenlandes folgen.60 In ihrer Wirkung nicht ohne Bedeutung war auch die im Rahmen der Handbücher der Alten Geschichte 1886 erschienene Babylonisch-Assyrische Geschichte von dem niederländischen Theologen und Religionshistoriker Cornelis Petrus Tiele (1830–1903),61 der nach eigener Aussage „dankbar, wenn auch nicht ohne Kritik, … die Vorarbeiten der Assyriologen und Geschichtsforscher benutzt“ hatte62 und dessen Darstellung eine erstaunlich modern anmutende Quellenkri­ tik enthielt. Zudem thematisierte er explizit die Arbeitsweise und den erreichten Forschungsstand in der Assyriologie und der „neuere(n) Geschichtsschreibung.63 Die im vorliegenden Beitrag skizzierte Entwicklung der Weltgeschichtsschrei­ bung im 19. Jahrhundert in Verbindung mit den assyriologisch-archäologischen Forschungen zum Alten Orient wie auch die Herausbildung altorientalistischer Institutionen im ausgehenden 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert, zunächst insbeson­ dere in Deutschland,64 führten zu der eingangs zitierten Einschätzung von Hugo Winckler und stellten letztlich die Voraussetzung für die Geschichtsschreibung der folgenden Jahrzehnte dar. Bibliographie Bernier, F. 1830: Voyages … contenant la description des États du Grand Mogol, de l’Indoustan, du royaume de Cachemire, Bd. 1–2. Paris. Borger, R. 1972–1975a: Hincks, Edward. In Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 4, 415. –– 1972–1975b: Hommel, Fritz. In Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasi­ atischen Archäologie 4, 459. –– 1975–1978: Die Entzifferungsgeschichte der altpersischen Keilschrift nach Grotefends ersten Erfolgen. Persica 7, 7–19. Borger, R. et al. 1975: Die Welt des Alten Orients. Keilschrift – Grabungen – Gelehrte. Zum 200. Geburtstag Georg Friedrich Grotefends 9. Juni 1775–15. Dezember 1853 – Handbuch und Katalog zur Ausstellung. Göttingen. Brentjes, B. 1979: Zur Geschichte des Begriffs der „asiatischen Despotie“. Wis­ senschaftliche Zeitschrift der Marin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Ge­ sellschafts- und Sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 38/1, 15–20. –– 1983a: Marx und Engels in ihrem Verhältnis zu Asien. In B. Brentjes (Hrsg.): Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels zur Geschichte des Orients. Martin-Lu­ ther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge 35 (I 23). Hal­ le/Saale, 3–30. –– 1983b: Exzerpte von Karl Marx zu Grundeigentumsformen bei den Pathanen und einige Bemerkungen zu diesem Problem anhand neuer Studien. Wissen­   Hommel 1895 (1904 erschien die „Dritte, verbesserte Auflage“). Vgl. im vorliegenden Zusammenhang auch Wiedemann 2020: 79 mit Anm. 46. 61   Zu Tiele vgl. Lange 1998. 62   Tiele 1886: Vf. 63   Vgl. Tiele 1886: 6–49. 64   Vgl. dazu ausführlich Mangold 2004; Renger 2006. 60

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schaftliche Zeitschrift der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Ge­ sellschafts- und Sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 32/2, 111–123. –– 1987: Der Entwurf einer Geschichtstheorie in den Sassulitsch-Entwürfen. Die Exzerpte aus Kovalevskij und die Geschichte des Altertums. In J. Köhn / B. Rode (Hrsg.): Eigentum. Beiträge zu seiner Entwicklung in politischen Ge­ sellschaften – Werner Sellnow zum 70. Geburtstag. Weimar, 70–78. –– 1993: Produktionsweise, Geschichtsdetermination oder politische Argumenta­ tion. Zum Theorienstreit in der Geschichtswissenschaft der DDR. hochschule ost 4/93, 35–44. Cancik-Kirschbaum, E. 2011: Assyrien und die Universalgeschichtsschreibung des 19. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. In J. Renger (Hrsg.): Assur – Gott, Stadt und Land. 5. Internationales Colloquium der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 18.– 21. Februar 2004 in Berlin. Colloquien der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 5. Wiesbaden, 347–369. –– 2012a: Grotefend, Georg Friedrich. In Der Neue Pauly – Suppl. 6, 506–508. –– 2012b: Rawlinson, Henry. In Der Neue Pauly – Suppl. 6, 1033–1035. Cathcard, K. J. 1983: Edward Hincks (1792–1866) and the Decipherment of Cu­ neiform Writing. Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association 7, 24–43. –– 2011: The Earliest Contributions to the Decipherment of Sumerian and Akka­ dian, Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2011/1. Caubet, A. 2001: Départment des Antiquités Orientales, Louvre, Paris. In B. Salje (Hrsg.), Vorderasiatische Museen: Gestern – Heute – Morgen. Berlin – Paris – London – New York, Eine Standortbestimmung. Kolloquium aus Anlaß des Einhundertjährigen Bestehens des Vorderasiatischen Museums Berlin am 7. Mai 1999. Mainz, 25–34. Charpin, D. 2022: En quête de Ninive. Des savants français à la découverte de la Mésopotamie (1842–1975). Collection Docet omnia. Paris. Cregan-Reid, V. 2013: Discovering Gilgamesh. Geology, narrative and the histor­ ical sublime in Victorian culture. Manchester und New York. Curtis, J. 2001: Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities, The British Museum London. In B. Salje (Hrsg.): Vorderasiatische Museen: Gestern – Heute – Mor­ gen. Berlin – Paris – London – New York, Eine Standortbestimmung. Kol­ loquium aus Anlaß des Einhundertjährigen Bestehens des Vorderasiatischen Museums Berlin am 7. Mai 1999. Mainz, 37–49. Engels, Fr. 1988: Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzungen der Wissenschaft (An­ ti-Dühring). Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) I/27. Berlin. Fontan, É. / Chevalier, N. (Hrsg.) 1994: De Khorsabad à Paris: Les découvertes des Assyriens. Paris. Friedrich, J. 1954.: Entzifferung verschollener Schriften und Sprachen. Ver­ ständliche Wissenschaft 51. Berlin et al. Gottlob, M. 1989: Geschichtsschreibung zwischen Aufklärung und Historismus. Johannes von Müller und Friedrich Christoph Schlosser. Europäische Hoch­ schulschriften 03/385. Frankfurt et al. Harstick, H.-P. 1977: Karl Marx über Formen vorkapitalistischer Produktion. Vergleichende Studien zur Geschichte des Grundeigentums 1879–80. Quellen und Studien zur Sozialgeschichte 1. Frankfurt et al. –– 1986: Marx und Engels und die zeitgenössische Wissenschaft. Historiogra­ phische und wissenschaftsgeschichtliche Prolegomena. In M. Hahn / H. J.

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Sandkühler (Hrsg.): Karl Marx. Kritik und positive Wissenschaft. Studien zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte des Sozialismus 6. Köln, 141–167. Hegel, G. W. Fr. 1986: Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte (Werke in 20 Bänden): Bd. 12, hrsg. v. E. Moldenhauer / K. M. Michel. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 612. Frankfurt/Main. Hommel, F. 1885: Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens. Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen 1/2. Berlin. –– 1895: Geschichte des alten Morgenlandes. Sammlung Göschen. Leipzig. Huh, S. K. 2008: Studien zur Region Lagaš. Von der Ubaid- bis zur altbabylo­ nischen Zeit. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 345. Münster. Jordan, S. 2021: Das Bild vom Orient in Hegels Geschichtsphilosophie und in der Geschichtswissenschaft seiner Zeit. In E. Massimilla / G. Morrone (Hrsg.): Deutschland und der Orient. Philologie, Philosophie, historische Kulturwis­ senschaften. Studien und Materialien zur Geschichte der Philosophie 100. Hildesheim et al., 69–84. Kluchert, G. 1985: Geschichtsschreibung und Revolution. Die historischen Schriften von Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels 1846 bis 1852. problemata 103. Stuttgart und Bad Cannstadt. Krätke, M. 2014: Marx und die Weltgeschichte. Beiträge zur Marx-Engels-For­ schung NF 15, 133–177. Küttler, W. 1976: Inhaltsbestimmung und Periodisierung von Gesellschaftsfor­ mationen in Marx’ Briefentwürfen an Vera Zasulič (1881). In H. Bartel et al. (Hrsg.): Evolution und Revolution in der Weltgeschichte. Ernst Engelberg zum 65. Geburtstag. Bd. I. Berlin, 217–246. –– (Hrsg.) 1983: Das geschichtswissenschaftliche Erbe von Karl Marx. Berlin. de Lange, A. 1998: Tiele, Cornelis Petrus. In Biografisch lexicon voor de geschie­ denis van het Nederlands protestantisme 4, 421–424. Larsen, M. T. 1996: The Conquest of Assyria. Excavations in an antique land 1840–1860. London und New York. Lehmann, R. G. 2012: Delitzsch, Friedrich. In Der Neue Pauly – Suppl. 6, 293–296. Lion, B. / Michel, C. 2012: Oppert, Jule. In Der Neue Pauly – Suppl. 6, 904–906. Lundström, S. 2013: Das Institut für Assyriologie und Hethitologie an der Lud­ wig-Maximilians-Universität München und seine Vorläufer: Ein historischer Überblick. In S. Lundström / W. Sallaberger (Hrsg.): Assyriologie und He­ thitologie in München. Eine Geschichte des Faches anlässlich des 50. Jahres­ tages der Einrichtung des Lehrstuhls für Assyriologie am 3. September 1963. München, 9–78. Mangold, S. 2004: Eine „weltbürgerliche Wissenschaft“ – Die deutsche Orienta­ listik im 19. Jahrhundert. Pallas Athene. Beiträge zur Universitäts- und Wis­ senschaftsgeschichte 11. Stuttgart. Marchand, S. 2009: German Orientalism in the Age of Empire. Religion, Race, and Scholarship. Washington und New York. Marx, K. 1975: Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie. Januar 1859 bis Februar 1850. Karl Marx / Friedrich Engels Werke 13. Berlin, 7–160. Matthes, O. 1996: Eduard Meyer und die Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft. Mittei­ lungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin 128, 173–218. Matthews, R. J. 1997: Girsu and Lagash. In The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Archae­ ology in the Near East 2, 406–409.

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Meißner, B. 2012: Meyer, Eduard. In Der Neue Pauly – Suppl. 6, 817–822. Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer, E. 2007: Orientalismus? Die Rolle des Alten Orients in der deutschen Altertumswissenschaft und Altertumsgeschichte des 19. Jahrhun­ derts (ca. 1785–1910). In A. Luther / J. Wiesehöfer (Hrsg.): Getrennte Wege? Kommunikation, Raum und Wahrnehmung in der Alten Welt. Oikumene. Stu­ dien zur antiken Weltgeschichte 2. Frankfurt/Main, 501–594. Muhlack, U. 2010: Das Problem der Weltgeschichte bei Leopold Ranke. In W. Hardtwig / Ph. Müller (Hrsg.): Die Vergangenheit der Weltgeschichte. Univer­ salhistorisches Denken in Berlin 1800–1933. Göttingen, 142–171. Müller, M. 1979: Die Keilschriftwissenschaften an der Leipziger Universität bis zur Vertreibung Landsbergers im Jahre 1935. Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig. Gesellschafts- und Sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 28/1, 67–86. [Neumann, H.] 1988: Kommentar zu 275.41–276.5. Fr. Engels, Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzungen der Wissenschaft (Anti-Dühring). Karl Marx / Fried­ rich Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) I/27. Berlin, 1143–1144. –– 2009: Orientalistik im Spannungsfeld von Politik und Wissenschaft – preußisch-deutsche Orient-Politik und der Beginn der Altorientalistik in Deutschland. In S. Rogge (Hrsg.): Zypern und der Vordere Orient im 19. Jahrhundert. Die Levante im Fokus von Politik und Wissenschaft der eu­ ropäischen Staaten. Symposium, Münster 27.–28. Oktober 2006. Schriften des Instituts für Interdisziplinäre Zypern-Studien 7. Münster et al., 199–224. –– 2021: Die Berliner Keilschriftforschung im ausgehenden 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert im Spannungsfeld von Wissenschaft und Politik. In E. Can­ cik-Kirschbaum / T. L. Gertzen (Hrsg.): Der Babel-Bibel-Streit und die Wis­ senschaft des Judentums. Beiträge einer internationalen Konferenz vom 4. bis 6. November 2019 in Berlin. Investigatio Orientis 6. Münster, 63–80. Nippel, W. 2013: Der Diskurs über die orientalische Despotie im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Von Montesquieu zu Marx. In N. Zenzen / T. Hölscher / K. Trampedach (Hrsg.): Aneignung und Abgrenzung. Wechselnde Perspektiven auf die Antithese von ‘Ost’ und ‘West’ in der griechischen Geschichte. Oiku­ mene. Studien zur antiken Weltgeschichte 10. Heidelberg, 465–484. –– 2020: Von Marx zum Marxismus. Das Formationsschema und die „Asiatische Produktionsweise“. In C. Deglau / P. Reinard (Hrsg.): Aus dem Tempel und dem ewigen Genuß des Geistes verstoßen? Karl Marx und sein Einfluss auf die Altertums- und Geisteswissenschaften. Philippika 126. Wiesbaden, 87–106. Parrot, A. 1948: Tello. Vingt Campagnes de Fouilles (1877–1933). Paris. Peuke, H.-J. 1984: Karl Marx und Indien. In B. Brentjes (Hrsg.): Marx und Engels zur Sozialstruktur und Ideologiegeschichte des Orients. Martin-Luther-Uni­ versität Halle-Wittenberg. Wissenschaftliche Beiträge 1984/41 (I 27). Halle/ Saale, 108–127. Polaschegg, A. / Weichenhan, M. 2017: Berlin – Babylon. Eine deutsche Faszi­ nation. Wagenbachs Taschenbuch 770. Berlin. von Ranke, L. [1881]: Weltgeschichte. Die Geschichte der abendländischen Welt von den ältesten historischen Völkergruppen bis zu den Zeiten des Über­ gangs zur modernen Welt, Bd. I [Ungekürzte Neuausgabe]: Von den ältesten histo­rischen Völkergruppen bis zur Emanzipation der germanischen Völker. Wiesbaden.

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Renger, J. 1979: Die Geschichte der Altorientalistik und der vorderasiatischen Archäologie in Berlin von 1875 bis 1945. In W. Arenhövel / C. Schreiber (Hrsg.): Berlin und die Antike. Architektur, Kunstgewerbe, Malerei, Skulptur, Theater und Wissenschaft vom 16. Jahrhundert bis heute. Aufsätze. Berlin, 151–192. –– 2006: Die Altorientalistik als philologische und historische Disziplin an den deutschen Universitäten des 19. Jahrhunderts. In: L. Hanisch (Hrsg.): Der Ori­ ent in akademischer Optik. Beiträge zur Genese einer Wissensdisziplin. Ori­ entwissenschaftliche Hefte 20. Halle/Saale, 43–62. Schlosser, Fr. Chr. 1844: Weltgeschichte für das deutsche Volk, Bd. 1, Frankfurt/ Main. Schulin, E. 1958: Die weltgeschichtliche Erfassung des Orients bei Hegel und Ran­ ke. Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 2. Göttingen. Sellier-Bauer, E. 2004: Friedrich Christoph Schlosser. Ein deutsches Gelehrtenle­ ben im neunzehnten Jahrhundert. Göttingen. Sgro’, G. 2021: Marx und die asiatische Produktionsweise. In E. Massimilla / G. Morrone (Hrsg.): Deutschland und der Orient. Philologie, Philosophie, his­ torische Kulturwissenschaften. Studien und Materialien zur Geschichte der Philosophie 100. Hildesheim et al., 125–147. Streck, M. P. 2016–2018: Winckler, Hugo. In Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie 15, 115–116. Tiele, C. P. 1886: Babylonisch-Assyrische Geschichte. Handbücher der Alten Geschichte 1/4. Gotha. Turner, G. 2021: The British Museum’s Excavations at Nineveh, 1846–1855, hrsg. v. J. M. Russell. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 115. Leiden und Boston. Weichenhan, M. 2016: Der Panbabylonismus. Die Faszination des himmlischen Buches im Zeitalter der Zivilisation. Berlin. Wiedemann, F. 2020: Am Anfang war Migration. Wanderungsnarrative in den Wissenschaften vom Alten Orient im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert. Tübingen. Wiesehöfer, J. 2007: Alte Geschichte und Alter Orient, oder: Ein Plädoyer für Universalgeschichte. In A. Luther / J. Wiesehöfer (Hrsg.): Getrennte Wege? Kommunikation, Raum und Wahrnehmung in der Alten Welt. Oikumene. Stu­ dien zur antiken Weltgeschichte 2. Frankfurt/Main, 595–616. –– 2010: »Alle Geschichte … muß ihrer Betrachtungsweise und Tendenz nach notwendig universalistisch sein«. Eduard Meyers »Geschichte des Altertums« und die Universalhistorie. In W. Hardtwig / Ph. Müller (Hrsg.): Die Vergan­ genheit der Weltgeschichte. Universalhistorisches Denken in Berlin 1800– 1933. Göttingen, 216–238. –– 2012a: Maximilian Duncker und der Alte Orient. In R. Rollinger et al. (Hrsg.): Altertum und Gegenwart. 125 Jahre Alte Geschichte in Innsbruck. Vorträge der Ringvorlesung Innsbruck 2010. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft Innsbruck, 351–375. –– 2012b: »Geschichtslose Völker«: Johann Gustav Droysen und der Orient. In S. Rebenich / H.-U. Wiemer (Hrsg.): Johann Gustav Droysen. Philosophie und Politik – Historie und Philologie. Campus Historische Studien 61. Frankfurt/ Main und New York, 159–188. –– 2014: Alfred von Gutschmid und Eberhard Schrader: eine Kontroverse. In S. Gaspa et al. (eds.): From Source to History. Studies on Ancient Near Eastern

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Worlds and Beyond. Dedicated to Giovanni Battista Lanfranchi on the Occa­ sion of His 65th Birthday on June 23, 2014. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 412. Münster, 729–743. –– 2018: Hugo Prinz: Ein althistorischer „Wanderer zwischen den Welten“. In J. Fouquet et al. (Hrsg.): Argonautica. Festschrift für Reinhard Stupperich. Boreas Beiheft 12. Marsberg und Padberg, 367–375. –– 2020: Alte Geschichte und Alter Orient. Anmerkungen eines Althistorikers. In: M. Krebernik / S. Ponchia (eds.): The Ancient Near East and the Foundations of Europe. Proceedings of the Melammu Workshop held in Jena 19th Septem­ ber 2017. Melammu Workshops and Monographs 3. Münster, 11–20. Winckler, H. 1906: Der alte Orient und die Geschichtsforschung. Eine unvollen­ dete Schrift. Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft 1906/1. Berlin. –– 1907: Die babylonische Geisteskultur in ihren Beziehungen zur Kulturentwick­ lung der Menschheit, Wissenschaft und Bildung. Einzeldarstellungen aus allen Gebieten des Wissens 15. Leipzig.

Villains or heroes of cultural history? The Ancient Near East in German textbooks around 1900 Björn Onken Anyone who looks at a world map at the time of imperialism around 1900 is confronted with the global dominance of the great European powers. Because of their military strength, they were able to subdue large parts of Africa and Asia. The German Empire is less well positioned on the map than Great Britain and France, because the German government avoided involvement overseas until the mid-1880s. After some activities under Kaiser Wilhelm I and Chancellor Bis­ marck since 1884, the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1888 marked the start of more aggressive colonial politics. In his recently published monograph, Ranfried Thelle connects this with the contemporary German perception of Mesopotamia:1 In the Middle East, Wilhelm II entered the competition for excavation sites in Mesopotamia. Imperialism and colonialism continued to shape archaeological practice, interpretation, and historiography. An example of this phenomenon is the way in which the Neo-Assyrian Empire has been described and interpreted in historical scholarship. Much like the biblical and ancient Greek sources conveyed a certain image of Babylon as an evil empire in need of punishment and whose religion was mocked by biblical prophecy, the Assyrians were now portrayed as a militaristic, warlike people. […]. In general, the first historical depictions of the ancient kingdoms of Assyria and Babylonia […] were deeply influenced by the nationalistic ideology and the imperialistic plans of the 19th century. Thelle thus places the image of the Ancient Near East in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century in Germany in the above-mentioned contexts of imperialism and nationalism. This assessment also fits very well with the postcolonial theory and concept of orientalism that currently dominate the discourse in cultural studies, but only recently recieved the attention it deserves in Ancient Near Eastern Studies.2 There can be no serious doubt that imperialism, nationalism and also racism had a major influence in late 19th century Europe and must therefore be taken into account in research on the perception of the Orient.3 All the earliest excavators from France and Great Britain were involved in economic and diplomatic businesses.4 Germany had economic and political interests in the Ottoman Empire as well. The Baghdad railway and oil fields were the main focus of the

    3   4   1 2

Thelle 2021: 170f. Verderame / Garcia-Ventura 2020: 3. Neumann 2009. Greenhalgh 2019: 65–83.

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German economic engagement.5 Finally, the religious factor must be considered, in particular the claims of European powers to protect Christians.6 However, the question arises as to whether these are the only, or at least the essential, contexts that need to be considered. One must also consider that it was sometimes in the interest of the great Western and Central European powers to even provide military support to the Ottoman Empire. At the time of the first excavations in the run-up to the Crimean War Britain did not accept the Russian offer for the partition of the Ottoman Empire,7 but instead attacked together with France the Russian Empire in the Black Sea region 1854 with their own troops in order to defend the Ottoman Empire against the Russian aggression started 1853. Germany has supported the Ottoman Empire in reforming the army since 1913 with the so-called “German Military Mission”.8 Reading the quote from Thelle already raises the question of why the Assyrian empire should have been an evil empire for the German contemporaries of Kaiser Wilhelm. Today radical militarism is unanimously seen as an important element of society in the German Empire,9 so that Assyrians, as a militaristic and warlike people, might have been more of a model than despicable for the canon of values of a Prussian militarist of the late 19th century. And more questions arise. Why did European adventurers10 bring the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia back to life? In view of the primitive conditions in northern and central Europe in antiquity, dealing with these early epochs of human history is actually not predestined to underpin a European feeling of superiority. For European prestige it might have been more useful to leave the remains of ancient Oriental greatness further underground, where the natives of the Middle East had left them for centuries. In this respect, there is some plausibility in the thesis that the Europeans have ignored their cultural roots in the Orient as far as possible and located their origins in Greco-Roman antiquity.11 However, the effort with which the exploration of Mesopotamia was carried out tells a different story, especially since the excavation sites were outside of Europe in the Ottoman Empire, where the Europeans had to seek the approval of the foreign authorities for their activities.12 The intellectual interest of the Europeans originated in the importance of the Bible for European cultures, because the Ancient Near East is the geographical setting of the biblical events and Assyrians and Babylonians are mentioned in the bible on several occasions.13 In addition, one can observe in European museums until today how the Ancient Near East is integrated in a civilization history that leads to European dominance of the world in the 19th century.14 The ancient doctrine of the succession of world empires and cultural development theories of the 19th century also fit in with this. In particular, Hegel’s philosophy of history with the succession from the Oriental, Greek, Roman to the Germanic world enjoyed a     7   8   9   5 6

    12   13   14   10 11

Geyikdagi 2011: 88–100 and 122–125; Özyüksel 2016. Kramer / Reinkowski 2008: 74. Baumgart 2020: 14; Badem 2010: 63–71. Kramer / Reinkowski 2008: 84. Hull 2013: 324–333. Thelle 2021: 83–117. Jonker 2009: 45. Seymour 2014: 141. Delitzsch 1903: 6. Bakkor 2011: 229; Liverani 2016: 365; Sonik 2022: xxix.

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lot of approval, especially in Germany in the 19th century.15 But Hegel has a lot of appreciation for the lost worlds, because otherwise the Greeks and Romans would have to be despised by him as well since they had to step aside, too. The thesis above, that Assyrians and Babylonians were despised in Europe, does not quite fit Hegel’s philosophy. In order to support his point of view Thelle refers to Kevin McGeough16 and in particular, Frederick Bohrer, who worked out a contempt for the Assyrians in his research on the perception of Assyria in the 19th century.17 In line with Said’s orientalism thesis, this view is often associated with a construction of the Orient as opposed to the West. However, it is also in tension with the concept of the history of civilization.18 It can be reconciled with the civilization history as long as the Assyrians can be constructed as a sinful counterpart to the Hebrews. However, when research in the second half of the 19th century revealed a possible dependence of the Bible on Mesopotamian sources through the finds of the De­ luge Tables by George Smith,19 this construction could no longer be maintained without further ado. The originality of the Old Testament has been questioned even before the 19th century again and again and older sources from other cultures were supposed since antiquity.20 Bohrer ignores the problem by not mentioning Smith at all, which is not convincing. Thelle, on the other hand, refers to researchers who, within the framework of so-called Pan-Babylonism, even took the view that the biblical texts were completely dependent on Babylonian sources and thus challenged the cultural dominance of the Bible and Graeco-Roman tradition in 19th century Germany. These debates somehow culminated in the “Bibel-Babel Streit”.21 However, Thelle does not see any lasting impact of these positions. In Germany in the late 19th century, however, even more voices about the Ancient Near East can be found that do not seem to be primarily influenced by colonialism and nationalism. Suzanne Marchand bases her relevant monograph on the following assessment:22 I do not think that all knowledge, orientalist or otherwise, inevitably con­ tributed to the building of empires, or even to the upholding of Euro­centric points of view. The question now arises as to whether, despite the above-mentioned objections, Bohrer and Thelle are correct in their thesis that orientalism and the idea of barbarians dominated the image of the Ancient Near East and whether the opinions they regard as marginal phenomena were actually only isolated opinions. So the question is whether the idea of the barbarian Ancient Near East was a hegemonic narrative. When searching for a hegemonic narrative in a society, a look at textbooks can help, because textbooks usually contain the narrative that the most influen  Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer 2007; Panaino 2019; Jordan 2021.   McGeough 2015. 17   Bohrer 2003. 18   Massimilla / Morrone 2021: 11. 19   Thelle 2021: 162–168. 20   Marchand 2014; Reinhardt 2022: 337. 21   Marchand 2009: 212–251; Seymour 2014: 199–204; Weichenhan 2017; Beigel / Mangold-Will 2017: 11; Lehmann 2018; Thelle 2021: 170. 22   Marchand 2009: xxv; see also Marchand 2021. 15 16

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tial circles in the social elite want to pass on to the next generation. The youth educated in the schools should be instructed to shape the present and the future in accordance with the values of this education.23 In many places, including in the German Empire, a textbook can only be used in schools with the approval of the authorities. In particular, it is checked whether the textbook corresponds to the curricula decreed by the government. However, the authorities sometimes have limits when it comes to controlling textbooks. In the German Empire, high school history teachers attached great importance to their academic training and were mostly very critical of content being falsified by political objectives.24 In this respect, the content of the textbooks was also based on the current state of the knowledge, which the authors of the textbooks could not always know in full and perceived from their perspective. After all, the textbooks had to find buyers on a free market, so that the ideas of the teachers in the schools also had an impact on the textbooks. So in the German Empire, with the government, the textbook producers and ultimately the entire teaching staff, there are several social actors who influence the narrations in the textbook. However, since these are actors who feel committed to state and nation, one can still assume that there was an orientation towards the hegemonic narratives of history. Since the school system was the responsibility of the federal states in the German Empire, Prussia, by far the largest state, played a leading role, so that in the following, mainly books for the higher education system from Prussia will be analyzed. As stated above, the curricula are an important guideline. However, the Prussian curricula of 1892 and 1901 basically only stipulate that the Ancient Near East should be dealt with in the classroom. Concrete contents are not described.25 This opens up the possibility of dealing with the topic in different ways and it shows that this is indeed the case. The most widespread textbook deserves special attention: the Lehrbuch der Geschichte by the Frankfurt school director Friedrich Neubauer26 in five volumes, which reached a circulation of more than 100,000 copies. In the volume for the 7th grade (age of the students approx. 12 years), the Ancient Near East is dealt with in a few lines:27 The oldest civilized peoples lived in the Orient, i. e. Peoples who had states and an orderly legal status, who not only cultivated the land regularly, but also engaged in trade and commerce, who possessed some science and education, who knew and worshiped deities. They include the Egyptians, the Babylonians and Assyrians, the Israelites and Phoenicians, later the Persians founded a large empire that encompassed all of the Near East. The Greeks and Romans developed an even higher culture than the peoples of the Orient. Obviously, no great value is placed on the depiction of the Egyptians, Babylonians and Assyrians, but the assessment is by no means negative, unlike what is assumed by Bohrer and Thelle. They are referred to as the “oldest civilized peo  Lässig 2009; Grever / van der Vlies 2017.   Rohlfes 2004: 389; a different point of view is represented by Jacobmeyer 2013, vol. 1: 161. 25   Ministerium der geistlichen, Unterrichts- und Medizinalangelegenheiten 1892: 242; Ministerium der geistlichen, Unterrichts- und Medizinalangelegenheiten 1901: 517. 26   Jacobmeyer 2013: 1211. 27  Neubauer 231915: 1. 23 24

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ples” who, in terms of a genetic theory of cultural development, were inferior to the later Greeks and Romans, but certainly enjoy respect as pioneers, as is the case with Hegel. In the upper level volume of the textbooks by Neubauer for students in the 11th grade (approx. 16 years), a detailed chapter of 15 pages is devoted to the Ancient Near East. It shares the overall positive view from the volume for the 7th grade. In the introduction to the chapter it is pointed out that the Egyptian and Near Eastern culture influenced the Greeks and Romans, who in turn were very important for the culture in Germany.28 The Assyrians are blamed for their cruel warfare, but King Hammurabi of Babylon is particularly praised:29 Chammurabi (around 1950) was a brilliant king, not only a conqueror who repelled the Elamites (in Susiana) and extended his empire beyond Assyria, but a caring ruler who organized the state, built canals, did many things for the good of the country and was the first of the great legislators in world history; his law has been preserved in writing. The Babylonian culture was already at its peak at that time. Similarly, the Persian kings Cyrus and Darius I are portrayed in a positive light. It turns out that the rulers are judged according to their achievements for the state. Therefore, King Darius III is despised since he lost the Persian Empire against the small invading army of Alexander the Great.30 The judging by achievements and merits as a standard of value fits well with the bourgeois system of values in the German Empire31 and also with the concept of rulership of Kaiser Wilhelm, who saw himself in the tradition of Frederick the Great, who presented himself as the “first servant of the state”.32 However, it should not be inferred from the positive depiction of kings that the textbook propagated an absolutist monarchy. The political ideal of the textbook is rather the constitutional monarchy, as can be seen in the chapter on Greek history.33 Since the German Empire had this constitutional form, the book, with its benevolent presentation of the Ancient Near East, can be viewed as having a stabilizing effect on the system, both socially and politically. Since Cyrus and Hammurabi appear in a positive light as conquerors, the book can definitely also be located in the context of imperialism. A devaluation of the Orient in the service of colonialism and nationalism cannot be seen here. The core elements of Neubauer’s account as the judging by achievements and merits are also found in other books.34 The book by Josef Werra and Karl Wacker goes into detail about the results of the excavations and offers even more praise for the heroes and more blame for the villains:35 Even now the powerful influence that Assyria had on the Greek intellectual culture via Asia Minor cannot be denied, and so we see all Western culture with its roots stretching down to the Assyrian intellectual development. […] The often-repeated remark can be made here that the political and spiritual development of a nation does not allow conclusions to be drawn  Neubauer 191912: 4 and 13.  Neubauer 191912: 9. 30  Neubauer 191912: 17–19 and 91; cf. Onken 2021. 31   Verheyen 2018: 127–154. 32   Lifschitz 2021: 538. 33   Onken 2009: 229. 34  Dahmen 21900; Schmidt 1908. 35   Werra / Wacker 1891: 26–28. 28 29

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about its moral education. The Assyrians possessed, to an admirable degree, all the qualities that make a warrior: physical strength, courage, endurance, skill, cool blood; but they were inaccessible to any nobler notion. […] No people abused the rights of the stronger like the Assyrians on their military campaigns. The conquered cities were mercilessly destroyed, the captured fighters killed in terrible agony. The Babylonians are also presented in detail and the corresponding section is provided with a balanced conclusion:36 The same city which had attracted the eyes of the world first by its wisdom, then by its industry, was notorious everywhere for its vices. This is where the negative assessment that Thelle made in the opening quote becomes apparent. However, it does not stand alone, but is integrated into a differentiated narrative. Some though regard the Ancient Near East as insignificant compared to the Greeks and Romans as the book by Wilhelm Martens,37 which is also aimed at the students of the 11th grade. Instead of 15 pages in Neubauer, the Ancient Near East is limited here to half a page, which is explained as follows:38 It is true that mankind owes the oriental peoples some great achievements, such as the division of time to the Babylonians […] but a direct, profound influence on the life of the later cultural world, apart from the fact that Jesus Christ came from the Semitic tribe of the Hebrews, can solely attributed to the Greeks and Romans, the classical peoples of antiquity. Some books go even further and spend only a few words on the Ancient Near East39 or do without it entirely,40 which fits to the above mentioned thesis that Europeans neglected their oriental origins. The spectrum of textbook narrations also includes racist thinking that connects the Ancient Near East with European history:41 The real bearers of higher human culture are the peoples of the white race. These are usually divided – following the biblical account of the sons of Noah and on the basis of their language – into: 1. the Semites, whose main centers are found in western Asia (in antiquity the Assyrians and Babylonians, Phoenicians, Lydians, now still Arabs and Jews); 2. the Hamites in North Africa, Egyptians now Copts and Berbers; 3. the Aryans, also called Indo-Germans or Indo-Europeans, represented in Asia by Indians and Persians, […] in Europe by all European civilized peoples […] The oriental peoples have created the basis for all state and economic life. The achievements of the Egyptians were particularly exemplary in agriculture and architecture, the Babylonians in the fields of mathematics and astronomy, […] The cultural work of the Semitic-Hamitic peoples was completed. With the Persians, who united them all under their rule and   Werra / Wacker 1891: 35   Jacobmeyer 2013: 1090. 38  Martens 21901: 15. 39   Jaenicke 1904: 3. 40   Schiller 1891; Stein 1905. 41   Endemann / Andrä 1907: 2 and 14. 36 37

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made use of the achievements of the subjugated, the Aryan race attained world domination. An explanation for the fall of the Ancient Near East despite the great ancestors is offered by the following book, which certainly conveys orientalist prejudices:42 The culture of the oriental peoples has not risen morally; it therefore goes into torpor and experiences its fall through the superior Aryan Persians, whose world empire was opened up to the Occident by Alexander the Great. The ideas of Delitzsch or even Pan-Babylonism did not find their way into history textbooks. The dependence of the Old Testament on earlier sources, which Friedrich Delitzsch put forward in the Bible-Babel dispute, is only rarely at least hinted at in history textbooks. In one of the few mentions of the Mesopotamian Flood Narrative, it is cautiously formulated that it “shows many similarities with the biblical one.”43 There was some sympathy for Delitzsch’s positions among the teaching staff, in particular among religion teachers.44 However, in view of the ultimately negative attitude of the Kaiser and government circles, difficulties in obtaining official approval for the books would have been expected. Since De­ litzsch’s theses soon lost public resonance,45 there was hardly any reason for the history textbook authors to take them up. It turns out that no hegemonic narrative can be discerned in the textbook presentations. Assyrians and Babylonians appear both as villains and as heroes of cultural history. Not all, but many of the controversial assessments in the discourse can also be found in the various textbook depictions. There are books that do not even mention the Ancient Near East, there is blame for cruel Assyrian warriors and Babylonian vices. But there is also a broad awareness of achievements and the importance of a non-European Mesopotamia as the origin of cultural development in world history. That Kaiser Wilhelm II justified his interest in archeology in the Middle East in his memoirs in 1922 with his wish to explore “the influence of the East on the West from a cultural point of view” also speaks for the widespread recognition of this idea.46 This suggests that the image of the Ancient Near East in Germany around 1900 cannot be clearly defined, as Thelle attempted, but should in fact be viewed as heterogeneous as Marchand suggested. Bibliography Badem, C. 2010: The Ottoman Crimean War (1853–1856). Leiden. Bakkor, H. 2011: Zur Repräsentation von Geschichte und Kultur des Alten Orients in großen europäischen Museen. Die Analyse der Dauerausstellungen in den vorderasiatischen Museen im Louvre, British Museum und Pergamonmuseum. Dissertation, Berlin (Freie Universität). Baumgart, W. 2020: The Crimean War: 1853–1856. London. Beigel, Th. / Mangold-Will, S. 2017: Einleitung. In Th. Beigel / S. Mangold-Will (eds.): Wilhelm II. Archäologie und Politik um 1900. Stuttgart, 7–14.     44   45   46   42 43

Zurbonsen 1909: 1. Schmidt 1908: 2. Lehmann 1994: 231–236. Lehmann 2018: 64. Wilhelm II 1922: 168; cf. Mangold 2017: 61–64.

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Bohrer, F. N. 2003: Orientalism and Visual Culture: Imagining Mesopotamia in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Cambridge. Dahmen, J. 21900: Leitfaden der Geschichte für höhere Mädchenschulen und Lehrerinnenseminare. Erster Teil. Leipzig. Delitzsch, F. 1903: Babel und Bibel: ein Vortrag. Leipzig. Endemann, K. / Andrä, J. C. 1907: Grundriß der Geschichte für höhere Schulen, Dritter Teil: Geschichte des Altertums für die Obersekunda höherer Lehranstalten. Leipzig. Geyikdagi, V. N. 2011: Foreign Investment in the Ottoman Empire: International Trade and Relations 1854–1914. London. Greenhalgh, M. 2019: Plundered Empire. Leiden. Grever, M. / van der Vlies, T. 2017: Why national narratives are perpetuated: A literature review on new insights of history textbook research. London Review of Education 15/2, 286–301. Jacobmeyer, W. 2013: Das deutsche Geschichtsschulbuch 1700–1945. Die erste Epoche seiner Gattungsgeschichte im Spiegel der Vorworte. 3 vols. Berlin. Hull, I. V. 2013: Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany. Ithaca, NY. Jaenicke, H. 1904: Die Geschichte der Griechen und Römer für die Quarta und Untertertia höherer Lehranstalten. Berlin. Jonker, G. 2009: Naming the West. Productions of Europe in and beyond Textbooks. Journal of Educational Media, Memory and Society 1/2, 34–59. Jordan, St. 2021: Das Bild vom Orient in Hegels Geschichtsphilosophie und in der Geschichtswissenschaft seiner Zeit. In E. Massimilla / G. Morrone (eds.): Deutschland und der Orient. Philologie, Philosophie, historische Kulturwissenschaften. Hildesheim, 69–84. Kramer, H. / Reinkowski, M. 2008: Die Türkei und Europa. Eine wechselhafte Beziehungsgeschichte. Stuttgart. Lässig, S. 2009: Textbooks and Beyond: Educational Media in Context(s). Journal of Educational Media, Memory and Society 1, 1–20. Lehmann, R. G. 1994: Friedrich Delitzsch und der Babel-Bibel-Streit. Göttingen. –– 2018: „Mit Schriften keilen“: Friedrich Delitzsch und der Babel-Bibel-Streit. Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte 12/4, 55–66. Lifschitz, A. 2021: Philosophy and Political Agency in the Writings of Frederik II of Prussia. Historical Journal 64/3, 533–556. Liverani, M. 2016: Imaging Babylon. The Modern Story of an Ancient City. Berlin and Boston. Mangold-Will, S. 2017: Die Orientreise Wilhelms II.: Archäologie und die Legitimation einer hohenzollerschen Universalmonarchie zwischen Orient und Okzident. In Th. Beigel / S. Mangold-Will (eds.): Wilhelm II. Archäologie und Politik um 1900. Stuttgart, 53–66. Marchand, S. 2009: German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race and Scholarship. Cambridge. –– 2014: Where does History Begin? J. G. Herder and the Problem of Near Eastern Chronology in the Age of Enlightenment. Eighteenth-Century Studies 47/2, 157–175. –– 2021: Vorwort. In E. Massimilla / G. Morrone (eds.): Deutschland und der Orient. Philologie, Philosophie, historische Kulturwissenschaften. Hildesheim, 7–10.

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Martens, W. 21901: Lehrbuch für Geschichte für die oberen Klassen höherer Lehranstalten, Erster Teil: Geschichte des Altertums. Hannover. Massimilla, E. / Morrone, G. 2021: Einleitung. In E. Massimilla / G. Morrone (eds.): Deutschland und der Orient. Philologie, Philosophie, historische Kulturwissenschaften. Hildesheim, 11–18. McGeough, K. M. 2015: The Ancient Near East in the Nineteenth Century: Appreciations and Appropriations. Vol. 1: Claiming and Conquering. Sheffield. Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer, E. 2007: Orientalismus? Die Rolle des Alten Orients in der deutschen Altertumswissenschaft und Altertumsgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts (ca. 1785–1910). In A. Luther (ed.): Getrennte Wege? Kommunikation, Raum und Wahrnehmung in der alten Welt. Frankfurt/Main, 501–594. Ministerium der geistlichen, Unterrichts- und Medizinalangelegenheiten 1892: Neue Lehrpläne und Prüfungsordnung für höhere Schulen. Centralblatt für die gesammte Unterrichts-Verwaltung in Preußen 3, 199–339. Ministerium der geistlichen, Unterrichts- und Medizinalangelegenheiten 1901: Neue Lehrpläne und Lehraufgaben für höhere Schulen. Centralblatt für die gesammte Unterrichts-Verwaltung in Preußen 43 (6/7), 471–541. Neubauer, Fr. 191912: Lehrbuch der Geschichte für höhere Lehranstalten. III. Teil Geschichte des Altertums für Obersekunda. Halle an der Saale. –– 231915: Lehrbuch der Geschichte für höhere Lehranstalten, Ausgabe A, 1. Teil, Geschichte des Altertums (Quarta). Halle an der Saale. Neumann, H. 2009: Orientalistik im Spannungsfeld von Politik und Wissenschaft. Preußisch-deutsche Orientpolitik und der Beginn der Altorientalistik in Deutschland. In S. Rogge (ed.): Zypern und der Vordere Orient im 19. Jahrhundert. Die Levante im Fokus von Politik und Wissenschaft der europäischen Staaten. Münster, 199–224. Onken, B. 2009: Griechische Demokratie in Schulbüchern des kaiserlichen Deutschlands unter Wilhelm II. In D. Bussiek / S. Göbel (eds.): Kultur, Politik und Öffentlichkeit. Festschrift für Jens Flemming. Kassel, 215–229. –– 2021: More than just Barbarians. The Two-Faced Narrative of Ancient Persia in German Textbooks since 1900. In St. Berger et al. (eds.): Analysing Historical Narratives. On Academic, Popular and Educational Framings of the Past. New York and Oxford, 117–130. Özyüksel, M. 2016: The Berlin-Baghdad Railway and the Ottoman Empire: Industrialization, Imperial Germany and the Middle East. London and New York. Panaino, A. 2019: The Persian Empire in Hegels Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte. In: R. Rollinger et al. (eds.): Das Weltreich der Perser. Rezeption, Aneignung und Verargumentierung. Wiesbaden, 379–403. Reinhardt, V. 2022: Voltaire: Das Abenteuer der Freiheit. München. Rohlfes, J. 2004: Deutscher Geschichtsunterricht im 19. Jahrhundert. Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 55, 382–401. Schiller, H. 1891: Leitfaden für den geschichtlichen Unterricht in den oberen Klassen höherer Lehranstalten I: Leitfaden für den Unterricht in der Geschichte des Altertums. Berlin. Schmidt, H. G. 1908: Karl Schenks Lehrbuch der Geschichte für Präparandenanstalten. III. Teil: Geschichte des Altertums. Leipzig and Berlin. Seymour, M. 2014: Babylon: Legend, History and the Ancient City. London. Sonik, K. 2022: Introduction. In K. Sonik (ed.), Art/ifacts and ArtWorks in the Ancient World. Philadelphia, xxix–xl.

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Stein, H. 1905: Lehrbuch der Geschichte für die mittleren Klassen höherer Lehranstalten, Erster Teil: Altertum. Paderborn. Thelle, R. I. L. 2021: Babylon entdecken. Stuttgart. Verderame, L. / Garcia-Ventura, A. 2020: Preliminary Considerations. In L. Verderame / A. Garcia-Ventura (eds.),:Receptions of the Ancient Near East in popular culture and beyond. Atlanta, GA, 1–10. Verheyen, N. 2018: Die Erfindung der Leistung. Berlin. Weichenhan, M. 2017: Panbaylonismus. Berlin. Werra, J. / Wacker, K. 1891: Aus allen Jahrhunderten. Historische Charakterbilder für Schule und Haus. vol. 1: Altertum. Münster. Wilhelm II. 1922: Ereignisse und Gestalten 1878–1918. Leipzig and Berlin.

Reconstruction drawings of Ancient Near Eastern architecture as inspiration for building in the 1920ies in Germany: The Einstein Tower in Potsdam and the Karstadt department store in Berlin Brigitte Pedde From the beginning of the excavations in Mesopotamia in the middle of the 19th century, the excavated objects and the remains of architecture were published in books and periodicals. Since the architecture was found only in fragmentary foundations, the archaeologists or architectural historians often created fanciful re­construction drawings. Sometimes the draftsmen were inspired by images on re­liefs or cylinder seals. Especially in the 1920s, avant-garde architects were inspired by these imaginative reconstruction drawings to create unusual architec­ tural forms for their part. In the following, this architectural reception will be demonstrated by means of two buildings, one of which was erected in Potsdam near Berlin and the other in the center of Berlin. The Einstein-Tower in Potsdam The architect Erich Mendelsohn (1887 Allenstein / East Prussia, today: Olsztyn / Poland – 1953 San Francisco / USA) was 31 years old, when the astro­ physicist Erwin Freundlich (since 1939 Erwin Finlay Freundlich) asked him to create drafts for a solar observatory which was to be built on the Telegrafenberg campus in Potsdam. The construction, officially named Einstein Tower after 1945, was started in 1920. The shell was completed in 1921, and the observatory was put into operation at the end of 19241 (fig. 1). This novel and extraordinary building, of which design ostensibly followed no known model, launched Mendelsohn’s career as a respected architect. The building itself became an icon of Expressionism. The initiator for the construction, Erwin Freundlich, was an assistant at the Babelsberg Observatory in Potsdam2 and advocated the experimental testing of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.3 Einstein himself never worked in the building in Potsdam named after him later. As early as 1917, Freundlich had asked Erich Mendelsohn to prepare sketches for a solar observatory.4 In a letter dated July 2, 1918, while Mendelsohn was still soldier at the front in World War I, Freundlich became more definite and informed Mendelsohn about his guidelines. He instructed him to erect “a tower telescope in the form of a chimney-shaped   Berhard 2005: 103–106.   Bernhard 2005: 96. 3  Heinze-Greenberg 2011: 33. 4  Bedoire 2004: 281. 1 2

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concrete tower, connected at ground level with a small building enclosing one or two rooms”.5 He also attached to the letter a simple sketch of a round, slender tower tapering towards the top.6 This brief description and preliminary drawing of the building project left enough room for Mendelsohn’s artistic creativity. Immediately after Mendelsohn’s return from World War I to Berlin in November 1918, the plan to build the tower became concrete.7

Fig. 1: Einstein Tower, Potsdam; photo: Brigitte Pedde. The Einstein Tower was not intended to be a single building, but part of an ensemble of buildings. The Potsdam complex of observatories and associated institutes on the Telegrafenberg campus was an astrophysical research institute with buildings scattered over a park-like terrain. In 1875, the architect Paul Emmanuel Spieker was commissioned to prepare architectural designs. The construction work lasted until the end of the 19th century.8 Spieker, who designed all of the 19th century buildings on the Telegrafenberg, had been a student of Friedrich August Stüler, one of the architects of Berlin’s New Synagogue in Oranienburger Strasse. Due to the myth of equal rights for Jews in Spain of the Omayyad caliphate, Jewish communities in the second half of the 19th century sometimes had built their synagogues in orientalistic style, especially the Spanish-Moorish style.9 This trend was followed by the Berlin synagogue, built from 1859 to 1866, first by Eduard Knoblauch and then by Stüler. Spieker took over the Orientalist repertoire     7   8   9   5 6

Heinze-Greenberg 2011: 33. Achenbach 1987: 61–62, Cat.-No. 170; Hoh-Slodczk 2000: 33; Krausse et al. 2002: 24. Cobbers 2007: 10. Krausse et al. 2002: 61. Künzl 1984.

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of forms and decor used by Knoblauch and Stüler in the Berlin synagogue10 and used it for the buildings on the Telegrafenberg. This is evident in the horizontal, wide yellow and narrow red clinker stripes, also in the high windows terminated with round arches and their arrangement, the surrounding star friezes of stained glazed brick, at one of the buildings in the shape of the Star of David.11 Another analogy is also the accentuation of the cornices with sculptural ornamental friezes. The first building, which was also the main building, the former astrophysical observatory, was completed in 1879. Its southern side shows three polygonal towers with a dome, according to the Berlin New Synagogue. Moreover, the domes of the observatories anyway emphasize the impression of Orient. Magazine articles stated that the observatories look “almost like mosques of an oriental city”.12 Was this obvious association of the observatory domes the reason why Spieker re­ sorted to the Orientalist architectural style that was fashionable at the time? It is quite conceivable that by this choice Spieker also wanted to establish a reference to the medieval transfer of astronomical knowledge via Islamic Spain to Europe.13 Luise Mendelsohn, Erich Mendelsohn’s wife, wrote that her husband had studied the neighboring buildings on the Telegrafenberg intensively before he began the construction of the Einstein Tower.14 Thus, it is obvious that Mendelsohn aimed for a building form that followed the tradition of Orientalism given by the already existing buildings, while being innovative and artistically representing a further development at the same time. Modern building materials such as concrete and iron also made new types of construction possible.15 In total, there are about 20 small-format sketches in the Mendelsohn estate for the Einstein Tower but they are not dated by Mendelsohn.16 The exact chronological sequence of the sketches can only be reconstructed approximately.17 Mendelsohn’s sketches, made in 1919 and 1920, shortly before construction, are created in two different styles. The two assumed early sketches show a roughly identical building, one with a stepped tower in red (fig. 2), the other in blue. This design presents a more conventional and static character in contrast to the dynamic execution of the other sketches (fig. 3) and can thus be classified as earlier in time.18 The first two sketches mentioned above (fig. 2), each show a building consisting of six tapering blocks stacked on top of each other. It clearly shows the prototype of a Mesopotamian temple tower, a ziggurat. In an expressionist manner, Mendelsohn sometimes emphasized the purpose of a building symbolically in the external form of his architecture or architectural designs.19 His idea linking the planned observatory with a Mesopotamian   Simon / Boberg 1995: 17; https://architekturmuseum.ub.tu-berlin.de/index.php? p=79&Daten =205759, last accessed 31 October 2021. 11   To see at the “Süringhaus”, built from 1890 to 1893. 12   Galle 1926: 65. 13   Fansa 2017: 33–35; Gastgeber 2018: 179–244. 14   Berhard 2005: 109. 15   Due to construction problems and others, Mendelsohn resorted moreover to traditional brick as a building material. About the building materials and problems of maintenance of the Einstein Tower see: Huse 2000. 16   Bernhard 2005: 101. 17   Achenbach 1995: 70–74. 18   Achenbach 1995: 67, dates these two sketches about 1919. 19   Achenbach 1976: 157; examples include the designs for an optical factory, 1917, floor plan in the shape of a light bulb. Furthermore, the hat factory Steinberg, Herrmann & Co., 10

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ziggurat may be due to the fact that in the archaeological literature of the 19th century these temples were sometimes mistaken for observatories because of their height.20 This opinion was also held by the archaeologist Georges Perrot and the architectural historian Charles Chipiez, especially regarding the ziggurat of the Assyrian residence Khorsabad, in their widely circulated volume on Mesopotamian art and architecture published in 1884.21 Probably the astronomical research in Ancient Mesopotamia, of which one already had knowledge in Europe, were for some archaeologists the impulse for such an interpretation of the temple towers. This could also have been a guiding idea for Mendelsohn for the choice of a ziggurat as the archetype for his solar observatory. The multi-volume work of Perrot and Chipiez22 was a collection and summary of archaeological researches of the second half of the 19th century, generously illustrated with drawings and reconstructions of the excavators and other draftsmen. The volume dedicated to Mesopotamia still contained the extremely fanciful and highly speculative graphics of an Assyrian23 (fig. 4) and three “Chaldean”24 ziggurats by Charles Chipiez. This volume in particular was to become a source of inspiration for avant-garde architects of the 1910s and 1920s. In 1924, the American architect Howard Doren Shaw explicitly called this book a standard work that should be part of the basic stock of each architect‘s library.25 It is known that also Le Corbusier was aware of the work.26 In 1919, the architect Bruno Taut had published the reconstruction drawing of the Assyrian ziggurat by Charles Chipiez (fig. 4) as one of the “examples of ancient city crowns” in his influential publication “Die Stadtkrone”.27 Bruno Taut and Erich Mendelsohn were both organized in the avant-garde Berlin artists’ association “Novembergruppe,” which had been founded in 1918.28 Undoubtedly, Mendelsohn was also familiar with Chipiez’s reconstruction drawings and took inspiration for his design from them, as will be discussed below. In the reconstruction drawing of the Assyrian ziggurat29 Charles Chipiez had assumed a zikkurrat, which can be seen on a Neo-Assyrian relief found in the palace of Assurbanipal in Nineveh.30 Note, this is Chipiez’s own interpretation of the representation on the relief. Based on his reconstruction drawing (fig. 4), Chipiez also created a longitudinal section (fig. 5).31 If one compares this longitudinal section with the side view of the Einstein Tower (fig. 6), the striking similarity is obvious and it is evident that this longitudinal section served Mendelsohn as inspiration. Luckenwalde, 1921–1923, the roof of the dye works in the shape of a hat, see: Cobbers 2007: 24. 20   Place 1867: pl. 36–37. 21   Perrot / Chipiez 1884: 395, 403–406, fig. 102 and 184–187. 22   Perrot / Chipiez 1882–1914. 23   Perrot / Chipiez 1884: pl. IV. 24   Perrot / Chipiez 1884: fig. 173–174, pl. II, III. 25   Kocher 1924: 316. 26   Turner 1977: 243: Drawings from Perrot / Chipiez 1882 mentioned Le Corbusier in his sketchbook “A-2”. 27   Taut 1919: fig. 10. 28   Achenbach 1976: 155. 29   Perrot / Chipiez 1884: pl. IV. 30   Perrot / Chipiez 1884: fig. 34. 31   Perrot / Chipiez 1884: 396, fig. 180.

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Fig. 2: Erich Mendelsohn, Einstein Tower, Sketch with the view of the front side, about 1919, Pencil, colored chalks, on transparent paper, 10,4 × 7,3 cm, Berlin, Kunstbibliothek, Hdz E.M. 143.

Fig. 3: Erich Mendelsohn, Einstein Tower, Sketch sheet with two perspective views, 1920, Pencil, colored chalks, on transparent paper, 9,4 × 20,8 cm, Berlin, Kunstbibliothek, Hdz E.M. 144.

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Fig. 4: Assyrian Ziggurat, Reconstruction drawing of Charles Chipiez; Perrot / Chipiez 1884, pl. IV; see also Taut 1919: fig. 10. As described above, Mendelsohn’s two early and almost identical sketches (fig. 2) show the frontal side of a stepped tower rising upward, its slenderness taking into account Erwin Finlay Freundlich’s expedient specifications of an astronomical light shaft with a long focal length. Comparing the three-dimensional drawing of the Assyrian ziggurat by Charles Chipiez (fig. 4), one can see the following analogies: Both buildings stand on a base and consist of set-back blocks. On the ziggurat and in the early sketches of the Einstein Tower there are prominent superstructures in each case: here the high temple, there the uppermost building block, which forms an architectural unit together with the dome of the solar observatory. However, Mendelsohn was obviously not satisfied with this design and sought for a more innovative, extravagant solution. He created further sketches (fig. 3) that were more expressive, more dynamically designed, and adopted Chipiez’s longitudinal section (fig. 5). The transformation of Mendelsohn’s sketches into a technical elevation drawing (fig. 6) shows these analogies much more clearly. Although the stepped form of the ziggurat is largely dropped, the tower of the solar observatory also stands on a low base and is likewise equipped with an accentuated entrance. The corridors of Chipiez’s longitudinal section bend at right angles inside the ziggurat and show a round-arched profile in cross-section, which is clearly emphasized by dark coloring (fig. 5). Both elements were adopted by Mendelsohn: The corridors of the ziggurat shown longitudinally have become the prominent horizontal indentations, and the cross-sections of the ziggurat corridors shown in dark color become windows at the inner edge of the indentations in Mendelsohn’s work, emphasized by their special shape. A technical construction drawing in longitudinal section32 shows that the windows are arranged towards the façade and ignore the floor levels inside. Here it becomes clear once again that for Mendelsohn the ex32

  Berhard 2005: 105, below.

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ternal effect of the building, and thus the metaphorical analogy to its model, was more important than the practicality of the interior. Finally, the temple on top of the ziggurat becomes the dome of the solar observatory.

Fig. 5: Assyrian Ziggurat, Longitudinal section; Perrot / Chipiez 1884: 396, fig. 180.

Fig. 6: Erich Mendelsohn, Einstein Tower, Construction drawing, view of the long side from the west, light tracing, detail from the approval plans from 9/30/1920, approved on 7/16/1921; Eggers 1995: 93, fig. 75.

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Erich Mendelsohn succeeded in creating a singular masterpiece by transforming the idea of a Mesopotamian ziggurat as a supposed observatory into a building of the expressionist avant-garde. He, to whom Germany owes one of the most remarkable buildings of modernism, emigrated to England with his wife and daughter in 1933 – forced by the Nazi terror in view of his Jewish origin. He first lived and worked in London and Jerusalem. In 1941 he went to the USA, where he remained until his death.33 The Karstadt department store at Hermannplatz in Berlin Another example of the reception of ancient Near Eastern architecture was built in Berlin in the late 1920s. On June 21, 1929, the first Rudolph Karstadt AG department store opened in Berlin at the Hermannplatz, where the districts of Kreuzberg and Neukölln adjoin34 (fig. 7). At that time, the metro station Hermannplatz was the crossing point of two subway lines and thus the most important subway transportation hub in the south of downtown Berlin.

Fig. 7: The department store Karstadt on Hermannplatz, Berlin; Schäfer 1986, fig. 251; photo: Waldemar Titzenthaler 1927 (Berlinische Galerie, Berlin). This crossing station had been built between 1925 and 1927. Due to the construction measures, a row of residential buildings on the west side of Hermannplatz, 33 34

 Bedoire 2004: 283.   Schaefer 1929: fig. 1–6 and 9; Lenz 1995: 103.

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on the Kreuzberg side, had to be demolished.35 The Hermannplatz was widened which gave the square a more representative appearance. At the same time, a large area had been created for new development. The new Karstadt department store was to be built on this site from winter 1927/28 to summer 1929.36 At that time, there were already a number of department stores in Berlin, of which the Wertheim department store on Leipziger Strasse, built by Alfred Messel37, and the “Kaufhaus des Westens” on Wittenbergplatz were the largest and most important.38 The opening of the new store at Hermannplatz was an extraordinary event both for the invited guests and for the citizens of Berlin. The press reported enthusiastically.39 From now on, the department store was considered the most modern not only in Berlin, but in Europe.40 It had more than twice the floor space of the “Kaufhaus des Westens” on Wittenbergplatz.41 In particular, the building’s innovative technical equipment attracted a great deal of attention.42 The standard of social facilities for employees were also exceptional for that time.43 Nevertheless, the spectacular architectural design of the building alone was a novelty in Europe. It went down in Berlin’s urban history as a “symbol of Americanism in the 1920s”.44 The building formed a singular architectural form with two distinctive stepped towers rising above the elongated, vertically articulated façade of the cubic structure. It is surprising that the impressive building has not yet received the attention it deserves in the general history of architecture. The chief designer of the building was Philipp Schaefer. From 1920 onwards he was the head architect of the Karstadt company for more than thirty years.45 His department store buildings mostly have a clearly structured façade with long, vertical niches that are again divided vertically with narrow ribs. Otherwise, his archi­tectural ideas in the period before the Karstadt building in Berlin were more committed to a traditional conception.46 In Berlin, Schaefer adopted the structure of the façade with vertical niches of his earlier buildings, but in its entirety the building represents a completely different architectural type. In view of this fact, it can be assumed that Schaefer processed new ideas and impulses for this innovative architectural design. In her dissertation, published in 1973, the art historian Hannelore Künzl wrote regarding the former Karstadt department store at Hermannplatz: “Two ziggurat-like stepped towers rise above the main façade of the building.”47 She placed the department store in a series of buildings erected since the beginning of the 20th century, whose stepped forms and their façades structured with vertical niches were, in her opinion, inspired by ancient Oriental architecture, which had been stimulated by the excavation activity of French, English and German archaeologists in Meso­     37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   35 36

Stürzebecher 1979: 41; Uebel 2000: 2–3. Stürzebecher 1979: 41. Stürzebecher 1978: 12–15; Habel 2009: 121–180; Habel 2012: 196–199. Stürzebecher 1978: 18–20. Uebel 2000: 15–16. Lenz 1995: 104. Güttler 1978: 73 and 81; Uebel 2000: 16. Lenz 1995: 103–106; Uebel 2000: 20–22. Uebel 2000: 30–31. Schäfer 1986: 287; Weber / Güttler 1978: 57–61; Pfeifer 1996: 52; Habel 2012: 201. Uebel 2000: 7. Schaefer 1929. Künzl 1973: 155.

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potamia.48 For the Karstadt building, she does not name a specific model and, as with most of the other buildings she mentions, she was rather general. The excavations in Mesopotamia, which had been carried out since the middle of the 19th century, initially by the French and the English, were accessible to anyone interested through their promptly published research results, which soon also appeared in popular scientific form. The German excavations in Babylon and Assur, in present-day Iraq, began at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and were also rapidly published by the excavators. Especially the reconstruction drawings depicting the spectacular step-pyramidal temple buildings, the ziggurats, were inspiring for imaginative designs of some architects looking for innovative impulses.49 One example is Otto Kohtz, who published his first drawings of stepped buildings in his book Gedanken über Architektur (Thoughts on Architecture) in 1909.50 From the early 1920s to the early 1930s, he designed several more tiered buildings.51 Kohtz’s concepts and also similar designs by other architects were, however, with very few exceptions, not translated into actual built architecture in Europe. In the USA, especially in New York, since the early 1920s – in accordance with the “zoning law” of 1916 – tiered skyscrapers were built, which were immediately associated with the Mesopotamian ziggurat. In some of them, the architects underlined this mental or intellectual connection of the stepped form with the Mesopotamian ziggurat by means of corresponding architectural ornaments.52 While in the other Mesopotamian excavation sites as well as in Babylon with the famous “Tower of Babel” there was “only” one stepped, pyramidal temple construction, the excavator Walter Andrae could prove in Assur – beside another single ziggurat – a double temple, the Anu-Adad temple, with two stepped, massive superstructures. Andrae’s first reconstruction drawing from 1908 shows a temple complex surmounted by two three-tiered towers, around which leads a spiraling ramp53 (fig. 8). The towers are connected by an elongated cubic transverse structure, adjoined by a rectangular courtyard surrounded by a suite of rooms. The façade of the two temple towers is articulated by narrow vertical niches. In 1923, the Austrian architect Adolf Loos designed a hotel to be built on the “Promenade des Anglais” in Nice on the Cote d’Azur. He gave the building the name “Grand Hotel Babylone” (fig. 9). The drawing was published in April 1924 in the magazine “Das Kunstblatt” edited by Paul Westheim.54 Loos’ design shows a building with two matching, stepped components. These are located on an elongated structure through which they are connected. The structure and arrangement of the building show analogies to the first reconstruction drawing of the Anu-Adad double ziggurat by Andrae from 1908 (fig. 8). The very name of the hotel “Grand Hotel Babylone” indicates a reference to the Ancient Orient and at the same time to the Ancient Oriental stepped towers, of which the most famous is the Babylonian   Künzl 1973: 143–162.   Pedde 2001; Pedde 2010; Cramer 2011; Pedde 2015. 50   Kohtz 1909: 32, fig. p. 412, 37, fig. p. 409; Arenhöfel 1979: nos. 994, 995 and 1001; Schäche et al. 2014: 234. 51   Arenhövel 1979, nos. 1002 and 1004; Schäche et al. 2014: 80–81, 93, 108–115. 52   Pedde 2018. 53   Andrae 1909: pl. IX. 54   Das Kunstblatt 8/1924: 96. 48 49

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Tower. Hannelore Künzl concluded from this drawing by Loos a connection to the first reconstruction drawing of the Anu-Adad temple in Assur by Walter Andrae.55 The second reconstruction drawing of the Anu-Adad temple was made by Walter Andrae in 1924, as can be seen from the dating of the drawing on the bottom right. It was published for the first time in March 1926 in the members’ journal of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft)56 (fig. 10).

Fig. 8: First reconstruction drawing of the Anu-Adad Temple by Walter Andrae, 1908; Andrae 1909, pl. IX.

Fig. 9: Grand Hotel Babylone, Drawing by Adolf Loos, published April 1924; Künzl 1973, fig. 474. 55 56

  Künzl 1973: 159.   Andrae 1926: fig. 25.

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Fig. 10: Second reconstruction drawing of the Anu-Adad Temple by Walter Andrae, 1924; Andrae 1926, fig. 25.

Fig. 11: Karstadt, Berlin, Façade to Hermannplatz, Construction drawing by the architect Dietrich Schaefer, November 1926 (Courtesy: Archiv der KarstadtWarenhaus AG Berlin). After his habilitation in the early 1920s, Walter Andrae, who had studied architecture, taught Near Eastern, Egyptian and Byzantine architecture as a lecturer at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin-Charlottenburg. In 1921 he became curator at the Department of the Ancient Near East of the State Museums in Berlin, of which he was director from 1928 to 1951. Andrae gave the exhibition of the Vorder­ asiatisches Museum its authoritative form in the newly built Pergamon Museum which opend in 1932 after long preparatory work.57 The Ishtar Gate and the ac57

  Andrae 1988: 250, 272–286; Andrae / Boehmer 1989: 32–44.

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companying Processional Way from Babylon erected there thanks to Andrae’s initiative, belong to the highlights of Berlin’s museums. The conception of the Vorderasiatisches Museum was developed by him. Due to the formative role Andrae played in Berlin’s scientific and cultural landscape, it can be assumed that Philipp Schaefer was aware of his research and his work, since the academic elites were personally acquainted with each other and there was an exchange between them. So it is obvious that Schaefer knew the reconstruction drawing of the double ziggurat of the temple of Anu-Adad in Assur by Walter Andrae from the year 1924, especially since it had been published, as mentioned, in the members’ journal of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, which was spread at that time in educated circles. In this reconstruction drawing of the Anu-Adad ziggurat by Andrae, Schaefer was able to find analogies in some details to some of his previous department store buildings. As an example, consider the department store in Hamburg-Barmbeck, which was built shortly before the Berlin building.58 This building results in a division of the façade into vertical modules, which in turn are subdivided by narrower vertical niches. The façade is terminated at the upper edge by jagged battlements and surmounted by a tower. In Andrae’s drawing, the elements of a vertically structured façade are also present, as well as crenellations and towers. These starting points may have prompted Schaefer to draw further inspiration from Andrae’s drawing and thus arrive at a more spectacular, avant-garde solution that also conveyed the flair of modern American skyscraper architecture with its stepped, pyramidal forms and the verticality of the façades. In November 1926, eight months after the publication of Andrae’s second reconstruction drawing, Schaefer prepared a construction drawing of the façade of the Karstadt building facing Hermannplatz (fig. 11). The construction drawing and the later building show clear analogies with Andrae’s reconstruction drawing: both consist of a rectangular-cubic structure with a flat roof, the façade of which is structured with vertical, long, narrow niches. While in Assur the temple building is flanked on both sides by towers, in the Karstadt building similar looking towers are set on the roof. In both cases, they are stepped towers, each formed by three blocks. The proportions of the towers correspond: the lowest level is the highest, the middle level the lowest, and the top level is in between in its height dimensions. An aerial view of the department store (fig. 12) shows yet another correspondence: both buildings have a central courtyard behind the two stepped towers. In Assur, the roof of the temple is located between the two towers. In the Berlin building the flat roof between the towers was used as a roof terrace. Andrae’s reconstruction drawing shows the terraces of the temple complex bordered by a ring of battlements. In the Karstadt building, Schaefer continues the façade as a parapet enclosing the roof terrace. The parapet is decorated by a frieze of three superimposed narrow recumbent rectangles, trimmed on the sides with an acute angle. Such an element is regularly placed above each narrow niche, imitating a pinnacle decoration analogous to the temple at Assur. The stepped towers of the Karstadt building are articulated by narrow convex niches divided by thin vertical webs, the upper edges of which in this way visually suggest battlements. The façade design and the crenellation were emphasized at night by light strips, the illumination of the towers and the light columns placed on them (fig. 13). 58

  Pfeifer 1996: fig. 41.

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Fig. 12: Aerial view of Karstadt on Hermannplatz, Berlin, about 1935 (Courtesy: Museum Neukölln, Berlin).

Fig. 13: Night shot with the illuminated Karstadt building on Hermannplatz, Berlin, 1929 (Courtesy: der Karstadt-Warenhaus AG Berlin).

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Fig. 14: The department store Karstadt with the preserved façade integrated into the modern building; photo: Brigitte Pedde 2020. The Great Depression, which began in 1929 shortly after the opening, affected the department store and employees had to be laid off. In addition, the rise of the National Socialist movement, which considered department store culture to be a Jewish creation, began smear campaigns against Karstadt at Hermannplatz. Among others, a 1932 NSDAP pamphlet entitled “Warenhaus-Pest” (Department Store Plague) polemicized against the department store “as out of place in a working-class district” and defamed it as a “monstrosity of a stranglehold palace”.59 59

  Gerber 1932: 23; Lenz 1995: 107; Uebel 2000: 34.

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On April 25, 1945, the building was destroyed. It is largely assumed that the Waffen-SS blew up the building to prevent the supplies stored inside from falling into the hands of the Red Army, which by this time was already in Berlin a few kilometers away. Several Berliners died in the blasting and were buried by the rubble.60 Only a narrow segment with three vertical niches of the building front on Hasenheide has been preserved from the department store. It was integrated into the new building in the post-war period (fig. 14). The Karstadt building by Philipp Schaef Andrae 1926 is an important architectural testimony to the legendary culture of 1920s Berlin. The catchphrase “Berlin – Babylon” for this era thus also received its architectural manifestation. Bibliography Achenbach, S. 1976: Erich Mendelsohn. In E. Berckenhagen (ed.): Fünf Architekten aus fünf Jahrhunderten, Berlin/Baden-Baden/Bonn/Zürich 1976–1977 Berlin 155–207. –– 1987: Erich Mendelsohn: 1887–1953. Ideen, Bauten, Projekte. Berlin. –– 1995: „Das Gesicht dem Anderen eindeutig zu machen, das ist Alles.“ Erich Mendelsohns Skizzen zum Einsteinturm. Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, 53–75. Andrae, E. W. / Boehmer, R. M. 1989: Bilder eines Ausgräbers. Die Orientbilder von Walter Andrae 1898–1919. Berlin. Andrae, W. 1926: Altmesopotamische Zikkurat-Darstellungen. Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin 64, 32–54. –– 1988: Lebenserinnerungen eines Ausgräbers. Stuttgart. Architekten- und Ingenieur-Verein zu Berlin (ed.) 1978: Berlin und seine Bauten. Teil VIII Bauten für Handel und Gewerbe. Band A Handel. Berlin et al. Arenhövel, W. (ed.) 1979: Berlin und die Antike. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut – Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Berlin. Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam (ed.): Der Einsteinturm in Potsdam. Architektur und Astrophysik. Accompanying volume to the exhibition „Vom Großen Refraktor zum Einsteinturm“. Berlin. Bedoire, F. 2004: The Jewish Contribution to Modern Architecture 1830–1930. Jersey City, NJ. Bernhard, A. 2005: „Merkwürdig fremde und doch überzeugende Schönheit“. Die Architektur des Einsteinturms. In H. Wilderotter (ed.): Ein Turm für Albert Einstein. Potsdam, das Licht und die Erforschung des Himmels. Hamburg, 87–124. Cobbers, A. 2007: Mendelsohn 1887–1953. Der analytische Visionär. Köln. Cramer, J. 2011: Rebuilding the Past. The Mesopotamia of Robert Koldewey and Walter Andrae and the Berlin Architecture in the Twenties. In A. Minta / B. Nicolai (eds.): Modernity and Early Cultures. Reconsidering non western references for modern architecture in a cross-cultural perspective. Neue Berner Schriften zur Kunst, Band 12. Bern, 53–69. Das Kunstblatt 1924: Nr. 8. Potsdam. Eggers, B. 1995: Der Einsteinturm – die Geschichte eines „Monuments der Wissenschaft“. Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, 76–97. 60

  Uebel 2000: 37.

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Fansa, M. 2017: Die arabisch-islamischen Naturwissenschaften des 8.–16. Jhs. und ihr Einfluss auf Europa. In M. Fansa / D. Quintern (eds.): Wissenswege als Kulturbrücken. Wissenschaften im Islam (8.–16. Jahrhundert). Mainz, 33–40. Galle, A. 1926: Zur Geschichte des Potsdamer Telegrafenbergs. Das Weltall 5, 65–68. Gastgeber, C. 2018: Astronomie und Astrologie im Mittelalter zwischen den Kulturen, in: A. Fingernagel (Hrsg.), Juden, Christen und Muslime. Im Dialog der Wissenschaften 500–1500. Berlin and Wien, 179–244. Gerber, G. 1932: Warenhaus-Pest. Kampfschrift gegen Warenhaus und Konsum der N.S.D.A.P. Plauen, http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/gl-kapsel-8-7s/start.htm/, last accessed: 23 July 2021. Güttler, P. 1978: Liste der vor 1945 erbauten Warenhäuser. Die Architektur der Warenhäuser. In Architekten- und Ingenieur-Verein zu Berlin (Hrsg.): Berlin und seine Bauten. Teil VIII Bauten für Handel und Gewerbe. Bd. A Handel. Berlin et al., 71–82. Habel, R. 2009: Alfred Messels Wertheimbauten in Berlin. Der Beginn der modernen Architektur in Berlin. Mit einem Verzeichnis zu Messels Werken. Die Bauwerke und Kunstdenkmäler von Berlin – Beiheft 32. Berlin. –– 2012: Berliner City Architektur (1871–1933). In F. P. Hesse (ed.): Stadtentwicklung zur Moderne – Die Entstehung großstädtischer Hafen- und Büroquartiere. ICOMOS – Hefte des Deutschen Nationalkommitees 54. Berlin, 195–203. Heinze-Greenberg, I. 2011: Erich Mendelsohn „Bauen ist Glückseligkeit“. Jüdische Miniaturen 116. Berlin. Hoh-Slodczyk, C. 2000: Von der Skizze zum Turm – vom Skizzieren zum Bauen. In N. Huse (Hrsg.): Baudenkmale der Moderne. Mendelsohn, Der Einsteinturm. Die Geschichte einer Instandsetzung. Stuttgart, 28–51. Huse, N. (Hrsg.) 2000: Baudenkmale der Moderne. Mendelsohn, Der Einsteinturm. Die Geschichte einer Instandsetzung. Stuttgart. Kocher, L. 1924: The Library of the Architect, Part III. The Architectural Record 56/4, 316. Krausse, J. / Ropohl, D. / Scheiffele, W. 2002: Vom Großen Refraktor zum Einsteinturm. From the Great Refractor to the Einstein Tower. Gießen. Künzl, H. 1973: Der Einfluß des alten Orients auf die europäische Kunst besonders im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Dissertation Köln. –– 1984: Islamische Stilelemente im Synagogenbau des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts. Judentum und Umwelt 9. Frankfurt/Main. Lenz, R. 1995: Karstadt: ein deutscher Warenhauskonzern. Stuttgart. Pedde, B. 2001: Orient-Rezeption, II. Vorderasien/Kunst. In Der Neue Pauly 15/1, 1210–1222. –– 2010: Reception of Mesopotamian Architecture in Germany and Austria in the 20th Century. In P. Matthiae et al. (eds.): Proceedings of the 6th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 5 to 10 May 2008. Wiesbaden, 121–129. –– 2015: Mesopotamia: A Source of Inspiration for Architecture in the 20th Century. In M. G. Micale / D. Nadali (eds.): How Do We Want the Past to Be? On Methods and Instruments of Visualizing Ancient Reality. Regenerating Practices in Archaeology and Heritage 1. Piscataway, NJ, 27–47.

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–– 2018: The “New Babylon”: New York Architecture in the 1920s and Early 1930s. In F. Pedde / N. Shelley (eds.): Assyromania and More. In Memory of Samuel M. Paley. Münster 413–427. Perrot, G. / Chipiez, C. 1882–1914: Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité, vol. 1–10. Paris. –– 1882: Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité, Vol. 1: L’Egypte. Paris. –– 1884: Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité, Vol. 2: Chaldée et Assyrie. Paris. Pfeifer, H.-G. 1996: Entstehung und Entwicklung der Kauf- und Warenhäuser von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis in die 30er Jahre des 20. Jahrhunderts. In F. Kellermann et al. (eds.): Architektur für den Handel. Basel et al., 14–63. Place, V. 1867: Ninive et l’Assyrie, avec des Essais de Restauration par Félix Thomas, Vol. 3. Paris. Schäche, W. / Jacob, B. / Pessier, D. 2014: In den Himmel bauen: Hochhausprojekte von Otto Kohtz (1880–1956). Berlin. Schaefer, P. 1929: Neue Warenhausbauten der Rudolph Karstadt A.G. Berlin et al. Schäfer, H. D. 1986: Metropole verinselt. In J. Boberg / T. Fichter / E. Gillen (eds.): Die Metropole. Industriekultur in Berlin im 20. Jahrhundert. Industriekultur deutscher Städte und Regionen; Berlin 2. München, 282–289. Simon, H. / Boberg, J. (eds.) 1995: „Tuet auf die Pforten“: Die Neue Synagoge 1866–1995. Berlin. Stürzebecher, P. 1978: Warenhäuser. In Architekten- und Ingenieur-Verein zu Berlin (Hrsg.): Berlin und seine Bauten. Teil VIII Bauten für Handel und Gewerbe. Band A Handel. Berlin et al., 1–27. –– 1979: Das Berliner Warenhaus. Bautypus, Elemente der Stadtorganisation, Raumsphäre der Warenwelt. Berlin. Taut, B. 1919: Die Stadtkrone. Jena. Turner, P. V. 1977: The Education of Le Corbusier: A study of the development of Le Corbusier’s Thought, 1900–1920. New York. Uebel, L. 2000: Karstadt am Hermannplatz: Ein gutes Stück Berlin seit 1929. Berlin. Weber, K. W. / Güttler, P. 1978: Die Architektur der Warenhäuser. In Architekten- und Ingenieur-Verein zu Berlin (ed.): Berlin und seine Bauten. Teil VIII Bauten für Handel und Gewerbe. Bd. A Handel. Berlin et al., 29–70. Wilderotter, H. (ed.) 2005: Ein Turm für Albert Einstein. Potsdam, das Licht und die Erforschung des Himmels. Hamburg.

The German novelist Karl May (1842–1912) as a multiplier of knowledge about the Ancient Near East Friedhelm Pedde Karl May (1842–1912; pronounced like the English word “my”) was a German novelist (fig. 1). He was a contemporary of the French writers Gustave Aimard (1818–1883), Jules Verne (1828–1905), and Louis Boussenard (1847–1910), as well as the Italian author Emilio Salgari (1862–1911), the Scottish writer Ro­ bert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894), and the American novelist Herman Melville (1819–1891). May experienced his greatest success with colorful stories of travel, which in most cases are set with Native North Americans or in the Near East. May relayed these stories from a first-person point of view, pretending that he had seen everything himself – which was not actually the case at all.1 Even within his own lifetime, his books sold well, making him a very rich man by the end of the 19th century. Even today, he remains the German writer with the largest number of copies sold: 100 million books were sold in Germany, and another 100 million copies were translated into roughly 40 languages and sold abroad.2 Karl May is particularly highly appreciated in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic, as well as in Germany. Karl May3 was the son of a poverty-stricken Saxonian weaver family. He was quite a good pupil and originally even became a teacher. However, while still a young man, May clashed with the law due to several counts of swindling and fraud, landing himself in jail for several years. There, he read everything he could find in the jail’s library, imagining himself away from the prison cell and into the wide world beyond it. In 1875, after his imprisonment, he started to write serialized novels. These stories were simple and literarily insignificant but were extensively read by ordinary people. His first story about the Orient was “Die Rose von Kahira” (The Rose of Cairo), written in 1876. From 1877 on, Karl May was a freelance author. In the 1880s, he filled thousands of pages with stories of adventures in which the protagonists traveled the globe. During this time between 1881 and 1888, Karl May wrote in a Catholic magazine about an alleged journey through the Ottoman Empire, in which he started in Tunisia and crossed through Egypt and the Near East into Albania. In 1892, this story was revised and summarized into six volumes with 2,400 pages of what became the “Orientzyklus” (Orient Cycle Series), which is still available today as one of May’s many outstanding works.   For the convenience of the readers all German quotes in this contribution have been translated into English. For a short English introduction see Walther Ilmer, Meet a Marvel, https://www.karl-may-gesellschaft.de/index.php?seite=englisch&sprache=fremdsprachen; last accessed 21 February 2023. There are also introductions available here in French, Spanish, Catalan, and other languages. 2   https://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Übersetzungen; last accessed 21 February 2023. 3   Bugmann 2019. For more information on May and his perspective of the (Ancient) Near East cf. Pedde 2015, Pedde 2016, Pedde 2020, Pedde 2022 and Pedde in press. 1

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Fig. 1: Karl May, 1905 (Photo: Karl-May-Stiftung Radebeul).

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On the whole, his best works since 1890 were published as books. In addition to May’s writings on travel in the Orient, his adventures featuring Native North Americans were also very successful. These novels center around the protagonist’s deep friendship with Winnetou, an Apache chief. These Wild West novels were a kind of “gateway drug” for several generations of Karl May readers. His success might be partially due to May’s claim that he had personally lived and chronicled these adventures, which might allow readers to identify with the author more easily. Yet this trick does not wholly explain the overwhelming success of Karl May’s books. So, how did he become so successful? To discover the reason, we must first understand the situation as it was at the end of the 19th century. The unification of the German Empire of 1871 had occurred only a few years prior, and Germany saw itself as a nation late in entering international affairs. The world had already been divided by the European Great Powers for a long time, but the Germans, with a newfound feeling of national strength, wanted to participate. Thus, Germany founded colonies in Africa, China, and the South Sea in the last two decades of the 19th century. The country’s interest in the rest of the big wide world was growing. But here again the French and the English were still some steps ahead. Travelers of these nations had already explored the continents for many years, bringing back unknown objects from strange and foreign cultures to display in the Louvre and the British Museum. One of the key figures here is Austen Henry Layard (1817–1894), who carried out excavations in Nimrud and Nineveh, and brought Assyrian reliefs and Assyrian gateway figures, like the Lamassus, supernatural winged bulls and winged lions with human faces, to England (fig. 2). In addition to his archaeological reports, he published several books about his adventurous trips to the Orient for a broader public, all of which sold well. Two of these books, Nineveh and its Remains (1849) and Discoveries among the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (1853), were translated into several languages, including into German as Ninive und seine Überreste (known today under the title of Auf der Suche nach Ninive) and “Nineveh und Babylon” in 1850 and 1856 respectively. In 1851, a first world exhibition took place inside the “Crystal Palace,” a building designed specifically for said event. This building was re-erected two years later in Sydenham, close to London. In this second exhibition, Assyrian and Achaemenian objects were added, featured in a so-called “Nineveh Court” designed by the artist James Fergusson and including colored gypsum copies of Lamassus. For this exhibition, Layard published a small guide: The Nineveh Court in the Crystal Palace (1854). In 1889, the next world exhibition was in Paris, and it also included copies of Assyrian and Sasanian architecture and objects. Many other exhibitions followed in Europe and the USA shortly thereafter. Layard’s books and the contents of the world exhibitions contributed greatly to the interest of ordinary people from many European countries in these – to them at least unattainable – regions, and Germany was no exception. But, unlike May, Layard was no German! In Germany, “Völkerschauen” (ethnological expositions) were a popular event; even before Karl May, the interest in Native North Americans was greater in Germany than in other European countries, which is evidenced by the early presence of numerous Wild West shows. One reason might be that approximately four million Germans migrated to North America during Karl May’s lifetime. Another contributing factor was the travel accounts of mostly English and French travelers, which mentioned dangerous and thrilling occurrences. Several Germans wrote such ac-

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counts as well; for instance, Friedrich Gerstäcker (1816–1872) wrote captivating adventure novels, which are still read by a broad public even today, based on his experience living in North America. In contrast to Karl May, he truly wrote about things he had personally experienced himself. Another such author was Balduin von Möllhausen (1825–1905), who also wrote remarkable travel accounts and novels about his time in North America. Africa and the Orient had also been visited by some German travelers and scientists, including the Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius (1810–1884), the zoologist Alfred Brehm (1829–1884), the geographer Gerhard Rohlfs (1831–1896), and the botanist Georg Schweinfurth (1836–1925). The orientalist Heinrich von Maltzan (1826–1874) mentioned in a report published in 1865 that he had visited the holy city of Mecca. But such texts were read by very few scholars. There were few Germans who traveled beyond the destinations of the gradually developing organized tourism to the still more or less unknown areas of the Orient.4 While in former times extremely few people made the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, since 1867, tourists traveled with Thomas Cook and, since 1869, with the Berlin based company Carl Stangen to the Eastern Mediterranean and the wider world beyond it. In 1899, Stangen offered 199 journeys to the Orient. These tours mostly went from Greece to Egypt to the Holy Land and then to Lebanon and Syria.

Fig. 2: A Neo-Assyrian winged gatekeeper figure from Nimrud in the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin (Photo: Friedhelm Pedde). 4

  Twain 1869.

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Fig. 3: Karl May in his library, 1896 (Photo: Karl-May-Stiftung Radebeul). Germany developed very quickly after its unification in 1871. Due to its victory in the Franco-German War the year before, the nation received 5 billion Franc as reparation payments. In the so called “Gründerjahre” (founder years) the network of railway lines and the postal service routes were rapidly extended. Modern industrialization progressed, and the capital of Berlin developed to a hotspot of science. The civil law and social legislation were standardized and unitized, and the standardized legal basis led to an upturn in press and publishing. Due to literacy campaigns, the ability to read and write rose from 75% in 1870 to 90% in 1900, and electrification and the introduction of gaslight enabled better conditions for reading for large parts of the population in the evenings. These were good conditions for a novelist, who was able to entertain their readers with exciting stories from distant lands. Apart from the fact that Karl May’s journeys to those countries did not occur, despite his claims, his books still had a touch of authenticity; Karl May used every relevant publication he could find as research for his books: travel accounts and novels, historical papers, lexica, the Bible, the Koran, maps, and about 200 dictionaries (fig. 3). He did not shrink from copying long passages from other books into his stories. His plagiarism is provable in many cases. But this reproach does not deny the real importance of May’s work. The high volume of copies he sold transformed from a mere plagiarist to a multiplier of knowledge about foreign countries and peoples. Who else had so many dictionaries and specialist literature? It was also of great significance for the readers in Germany and Austria at that time that the author was German. Today this fact is often underestimated. In Karl May readers had a positive role model with whom they could easily acquaint them-

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selves. Of course, this interest in distant countries and exotic ethnic groups was not limited to Germany, but also present in other countries, as is shown by the success of Salgari, Boussenard, Aimard, Verne, Stevenson, and Melville. In England, a person, whose real identity remains unknown even today, wrote bestsellers under pseudonyms about alleged wanderings through New Guinea and South East Asia. He also had claimed to have personally completed these trips and even invented non existing landscapes and mountains, which he claimed to be the first European to discover.5 Obviously Karl May was not the only one stretching the truth! May, the alleged globetrotter, describes himself in his stories as an omnipotent hero: multilingual, with an enormous general education, perspicacious, courageous, and an excellent rifleman and rider. The beginning of his “career” is described in the first volume of the Wild West trilogy Winnetou: he, still an unexperienced young man, becomes a very good friend and “blood brother” to the Apache Winnetou, receiving the name of honor, “Old Shatterhand.” In addition to countless adventures in the Wild West, the protagonist Old Shatterhand (supposedly Karl May) travels to North Africa and Near Eastern countries. The Orient Cycle Series is his most well-known story,6 and is supplemented by the book Bei den Trümmern von Babylon.7 Here, in the Oriental world, which encompasses the territory of the former Ottoman Empire and the Balkan countries, the first-person hero (still supposedly Karl May) is called Kara Ben Nemsi, and he is always accompanied by his Arab friend Hadji Halef Omar. These stories are mostly set in the 1870s. On his imaginary journeys, Karl May quite successfully avoided places visited by other Europeans, who might be able to notice inaccuracies and thus pin him as a fraud. Instead, he chose routes away from big towns, roads, and railroad lines, and became in this way a supposed exclusive eyewitness of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire and the Wild West. Karl May was able to incorporate contemporary people and political events into his work. For example, a self-constituted “Mahdi” had proclaimed an Islamic State, which lasted from 1881 to 1898, in what is today southern Egypt and northern Sudan. This occurrence was used by Karl May as a topic for a serialized novel, which was featured in a magazine between 1891 and 1893 and was published in 5   See also Lawson 1875 or Bradley 1876; cf. https://www.spektrum.de/news/john-lawsonder-falsche-entdecker/1831234?utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=sdw-nl&utm_ campaign=sdw-nl-daily&utm_content=heute; last accessed 19 February 2023. 6   An English abridged edition was published in five volumes: In the Desert (1977), The Caravan of Death (1979), The Secret Brotherhood (1979), The Evil Saint (1979), and The Black Persian (1979). A new unabridged edition is Oriental Odyssey I–VIII (2020), see: https://www.nemsi-books.com/store/oriental-odyssey-softcover, last accessed 21 February 2023/; for more English editions see also: https://www.karl-may-gesellschaft.de/index. php?seite=englisch&sprache=fremdsprachen, last accessed 21 February 2023. – In Italian only two (Vol. 1 and 3) of the six Orient volumes were published: Attraverso il deserto (1973) and Vol. 3, Da Baghdad a Istanbul (1972). For more Italian editions see: https:// www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/Italienische_Übersetzungen; last accessed 21 February 2023. – In 1937 the complete Orient Cycle Series was published in Spanish as Por tierras del Profeta in six volumes: Los piratas del Mar Rojo; El espíritu de la caverna; La caravana de la muerte; Los contrabandistas búlgaros; En las redes del crimen; El fin de una cuadrilla. For more Spanish editions see: https://www.karl-may-wiki.de/index.php/ Spanische_Übersetzungen; last accessed 21 February 2023. 7   English edition: In the Realm of the Silver Lion II (2012).

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1896 in three book volumes under the title Der Mahdi.8 Karl May claimed that he had met and fought against the man who later became the Mahdi when he was still an unknown young man. In the “Orient Cycle Series,” Karl May introduced an English archaeologist, Sir David Lindsay, who is looking for Assyrian winged bulls he wants to give to the British Museum. It is easy to realize that Lindsay is none other than Austen Henry Layard. But May divides the person of Layard into two characters: Karl May himself, under his protagonist’s name Kara Ben Nemsi as the leading light, claims Layard’s travels to the area of today’s Northern Iraq as his own, and Layard’s archeological accomplishments are used to form the character of David Lindsay. In his book, Layard provided a positive report on the discriminated religious group of the Yezides, who are viewed by Muslims even today as devil worshippers. He was a guest in the holy place of Lalish, 60 km north of Mosul, the grave of the most important saint Sheikh Adi. Layard became a contemporary witness when Turkish troops started fighting against the Yezides. Yet, contrary to Layard, who just reported as a witness, Kara Ben Nemsi – meant to be an adopted name for Karl May personally – claimed that he successfully helped the Yezides in their fight with a trick.9 Because May’s books in Germany were by far better known than Layard’s actual account, it was Karl May who brought knowledge about the Yezides to the German readers. On another occasion Kara Ben Nemsi successfully reached the city of Mecca.10 Obviously Karl May adapted this idea from the real travelers Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890)11 and Heinrich von Maltzan (1826–1874).12 In the third volume of his Orient Cycle Series Von Bagdad nach Stambul, parts of the author’s story are based on travel descriptions from Claudius James Rich (1787–1821), the first excavator of Nineveh.13 Some of the archaeological sites of the Ancient Near East served Karl May as settings for his adventures. He mentioned places like Nimrud, Khorsabad, Kalat Shergat (Assur), Nineveh with Kuyunjik, El Hadr (Hatra), Birs Nimrud and Ba­ bylon with Amran, Kasr and Tell Babil:14 Toward noon we reached the palm plantations located on the left bank of the Euphrates. To the right-hand side we saw the ruin El Himmar, then the mound Bab el Mujellibeh and the mound Kasr, representing the remains of the former royal citadel where Alexander the Great died. Another rise close-by, Amran Ibn Ali, was probably the site of Semiramis’s hanging gardens. To the left we also saw numbers of ruins, the biggest of which is still called Babel today. Sometimes May gave a more detailed historical description, as he does here on Babylon:15 Next we passed a mound rutted on all sides called Tell Amran ibn-Ali, which derives its Arabic name from an Islamic saint who lies buried there. Shortly   English edition: The Mahdi I–III (2015).   May 1977: 343–410. 10   May 1977: 176–190. 11   Andree 1861. 12   Maltzan 1865. 13   Rich 1837. 14   May 2012: 27. 15   May 2012: 91–92. 8 9

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thereafter we saw the immense rubble pile of the kasr rise up in front of us. Kasr means castle, a name used to designate this ruin because the kasr was the residence of Nebuchadnezzar, who built it after leaving the castle of his ancestors, who had lived on the right-hand side of the Euphrates. Even today the ruins are still 400 meters long and 350 meters wide; yet, according to a Jewish historian citing Berosus the Chaldean, the castle was built in only fifteen days. This claim is hard to believe, even if one assumes that all the raw materials had already been brought there and prepared, and only needed assembling. However, a recently excavated cuneiform inscription, which is now kept in London, contains amongst others also the following passage: “ina XV yumi sibirsa usaklil”, which in English means: “I finished this magnificent work in fifteen days.” One can only imagine how many thousand hands it must have taken to accomplish the construction in such a short amount of time! And this gargantuan undertaking was only one of several that bear witness to Nebuchadnezzar’s initiative and spirit! The inscription of course also says in this respect, quite proudly: “I’ve built this palace, the residence of my kingdom, the heart of Babel in the land of Babylonia. I have put its foundations below the water level of the river. I have documented the construction on cylinders and have encased them in bitumen covered bricks. With your help, O noble God Merodach, I have erected this indestructible palace. May God sit enthroned here in Babel. May he take up his residence here. May he increase the number of residents sevenfold. May he reign over the people of Babylonia through me for all eternity! Birs Nimrud in particular received a special place of prominence in his books. At that time, Birs Nimrud was erroneously interpreted to be the Tower of Babel. Thus, Karl May’s descriptions of the ruins are based on the texts of the Bible, Herodotus, and some reports, which include maps from several German travelers. May’s attention to detail is amazing and gives the story some authenticity (fig. 4):16 … and hurried on toward the Tower of Babel, which lies three quarters of an hour’s ride southwest of the town. The fact that Hilla occupies the approximate center of a still existing field of ruins will convey some idea of the huge area of ancient Babylon. The sun was about to set when we saw the tower, which rises by the side of the Ibrahim Khalil ruin. It is surrounded by swamp and desert. What remains of it is probably no more than fifty meters high, and on it one can see a single shaft a little more than ten meters high which dominates the surrounding area. This is all that still stands of the “mother of cities”, as Babylon was called, and even it has a deep crack running down the middle. In one of these episodes Karl May’s alter ego Kara Ben Nemsi fights against a gang of smugglers who store their goods and hold people captive in hidden rooms inside the ziggurat of Birs Nimrud.17 Such rooms were indeed mentioned in the reports of Henry Rawlinson and Claudius James Rich about Birs Nimrud and Babylon, and May even used some details of their reports for his story. It is uncertain if Karl May knew of these books, but it is extremely improbable that May 16 17

  May 1979: 187.   May 2012.

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independently invented these stories,18 as a couple of such caverns were indeed excavated by an Austrian team of archaeologists from Innsbruck led by Wilfrid Allinger-Csollich (fig. 5).

Figs. 4a & b: In the 19th century Birs Nimrud was mistaken as the Tower of Babel (Photos: Friedhelm Pedde).   Rich 1818: 23–32; Rawlinson 1861. These books are not in May’s library, but May also used books from lending libraries.

18

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Fig. 5: A Parthian cavern (1st cent. BCE–3rd cent. CE) in the ziggurat of Birs Nimrud (Photo: Wilfrid Allinger-Csollich). May’s success, particularly in the 1890s, led to a real cult following. He answered a huge amount of fan mail and led his readers to always believe that he was indeed a matchless hero, constantly engaging in worldly trips from time to time. For us today, it is hard to understand why readers eagerly believed and trustingly absorbed everything he wrote. Moreover, it is hard to understand why May again and again created needless lies, which he palmed off onto his devoted and trusting readers. Part of this is that he adorned himself with a wrong doctorate. In 1896, the sudden wealth that accompanied being a bestseller author enabled him and his wife Emma to buy a villa in the little town of Radebeul, close to Dresden. He called this house “Villa Shatterhand” and lived there for the rest of his life. Today the villa is used as the Karl May Museum, and his living rooms, his library, and a rich ethnological collection can be visited.19 In addition, numerous “souvenirs” from his journeys, both imaginary and real, are on display: for example, his two legendary guns from the Wild West, which were in fact made secretly by a gunsmith in Dresden. In 1898, the German emperor Wilhelm II and his wife visited the Ottoman Empire. On this trip they also traveled to the Holy Land, which led to a wave of Orient enthusiasm in Germany. The journey was documented in magnificent commemorative volumes, which sold like hot cakes. One destination on this journey 19   https://www.karl-may-museum.de/en/exhibitions/special-exhibitions/ (in English); last accessed: 19 February 2023.

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was the Lebanese excavation site of Baalbek, which impressed the emperor so much that he immediately asked the Sultan in Constantinople for permission to excavate, which was granted. This was a time of growth for German Near Eastern archaeology, and excavations in Babylon, Assur, Uruk, and many other sites followed, the finds of which can be seen today in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin. This “Orient hype” surely had positive effects on the sales figures of Karl May’s books: the Orient Cycle Series sold 500,000 copies by 1918.20 It was at this time, when Karl May had earned great fame and fortune, that the first voices in the press began to posit that May had by no means made the journeys described in his books, but that everything in his stories was completely fictitious. To escape his critics and to prove them wrong and to defend his good reputation, he made a long trip to Oriental countries as far as Indonesia.21 This journey lasted 16 months, going from 1899 to 1900. For the first time, Karl May was confronted with the reality of these countries. Nevertheless, he took advantage and wrote hundreds of postcards to private individuals, newspapers, and publishing houses just to broadcast that he was on a real trip and to maintain his status as a world traveling adventurer. But the reality was that Karl May visited the usual touristic destinations, armed with a safari suit and sun helmet, Baedecker guidebook, and a well-stuffed wallet. The first part of the trip he made alone. In Cairo, Karl May visited Max von Oppenheim, a member of the German embassy who later discovered the site of Tell Halaf. He had traveled a lot in the Near East, was a real expert on the region, and spoke perfect Arabic. In other words: he was a lot like May’s protagonist Kara Ben Nemsi. For Oppenheim, who had read many of Karl May’s books, it was a pleasure to meet this famous man. Oppenheim was very impressed, and he wrote very positively about their long talk even 37 years later.22 Later, after returning from Indonesia, May was accompanied by his wife Emma and two friends for the second part of his journey. They visited the pyramids of Giza and biblical sites in the Holy Land. Baalbek in Lebanon is the only place they visited that was integrated into any of the Orient Cycle Series.23 In reality, the trip turned out to be a kind of cultural shock for May24 and led to a new literary beginning after their return home. This later work of Karl May is mystical and allegorical but did not gain acceptance of the readers until today. During their absence from Germany, the so-called Boxer Rebellion25 against colonialism had taken place in China. This rebellion was defeated by a coalition of eight colonial powers, including Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy. It was in this militaristic political climate that Karl May was asked to contribute to a book glorifying the victory over China. May agreed to write something, but instead of following the purpose of the book, he contrarily wrote the travel story Ex in terra pax, in which he explicitly took a position against war, militarism, intolerance, and racial hatred. In doing so, he impeded the intention of glorifying war in this magnificent anthology, and the editor of the volume had to personally apologize to readers in the foreword. With this statement and his loudly expressed   Ozoróczy 1991: 55 n. 4.   Bartsch / Wollschläger 1999. 22   Pedde 2020: 521f. 23   May 1979: 236–268. 24   He wrote in a letter: “I drowned the former Karl in the Red Sea”, Bartsch / Wollschläger 1999: 104. 25   Preston 2000. 20 21

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pacifism, Karl May aggravated flag-waving patriotic people in Germany at that time. Even after returning home from the Orient trip, the topic of the Ancient Near Eastern ruins and the Tower of Babel did not leave May’s mind. In the meantime, the German excavations in Babylon, led by Robert Koldewey (1855–1925), had begun. The new investigation and insight from archaeology led to a new evaluation of the point of view concerning the storis of the Old Testament in Germany. It was the Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch (1850–1922), director of the Vorderasiatisches Museum, who demanded a new understanding of the role of the Israelites in the context of the Mesopotamian history. This led to a bitter quarrel with the Protestant church for about one decade, the so-called “Babel-Bible-Dispute.” Affected by Delitzsch’s rhetoric, Karl May wrote a stage play set in front of the Babylonian Tower with the title Babel and Bible.26 But the play failed to achieve success. Following May’s return from his real Orient journey, the charges against him of his falsehoods and untruths increased more and more, and he started to bring lawsuits to his adversaries in the last years of his life. It is not an exaggeration to claim that the smear campaigns and disparagement against Karl May as a “gang leader” and “born criminal” is unique in the history of literature. These lengthy legal proceedings greatly impacted May’s health. Karl May’s friend, the peace campaigner Bertha von Suttner (1843–1914), rushed to May’s defense, stating: “Jules Verne27 has also not been on the moon, and Friedrich Schiller28 has not been to Switzerland.” On March 20, 1912, May was invited to Vienna for a two-hours talk with 3000 guests, who acclaimed him frenetic with wild applause – the final highlight of his career. Here May met Bertha von Suttner, who later wrote of him: “In this soul the fire of kindness was blazing.” Karl May returned home with a cold accompanied by a fever and died unexpectedly ten days after his talk. Seven years later, on July 13, 1919, the German novelist Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) wrote in the well-known newspaper “Zürcher Zeitung”:29 I love to recommend his books to the uncles, who want to give books as a gift to the youth. They are phantastic, persevering, and outrageous, of a healthy, splendid structure, something complete fresh and naïve, despite all lively technique. How must he have an effect on the youth! If he had seen the war and had been a pacifist! No sixteen-year-old had joined the armed forces! As mentioned previously, he was a pacifist. Perhaps because of that the sales figures of his books fell temporarily in the last years of his life but rose again for some years after his death. In the meantime, 90 volumes of Karl May remain published and available to the public. Whatever we might think about Karl May and his work, the world view of Germans and Austrians between 1890 and the 1970s concerning the North American natives and the Near East was significantly influenced by May’s books – and later also by numerous movies. For many readers it   In Italian as: Alla torre di Babele. Wunderkammer. Collana di germanistica (Roma 2012). 27   The author of From the Earth to the Moon. 28   The author of Goetz von Berlichingen. 29   Seul 2013: 32. 26

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was the only time in their life that they heard anything about the Tower of Babel and the Ancient Near East. And for some archaeologists, reading Karl May might have been the cause of interest for their profession in future. Karl May even found a place in space: in 1990, two German astronomers discovered an asteroid, which received the name “Karlmay” from the International Astronomical Union.30 Bibliography Andree, K. (ed.) 1861: Burtons Reisen nach Mekka und Medina und in das Somaliland und Härrär in Ostafrika. Leipzig. Bartsch, E. / Wollschläger, H. 1999: Karl Mays Orientreise 1899/1900. In L. Schmid / B. Schmid (eds.): In fernen Zonen. Karl Mays Weltreisen. Bamberg and Radebeul, 33–231. Bradley, J. 1876: A Narrative of Travel and Sport in Burma, Siam and the Malay Peninsula. London. Bugmann, M. 2019: Savage to Saint: The Karl May Story. Hamburg. Lawson, J. A. 1875: Wanderings in the Interior of New Guinea. London. Maltzan, H. von 1865: Meine Wallfahrt nach Mekka. Leipzig. May, K. 1977: In the Desert (transl. M. Shaw). New York. –– 1979: The Caravan of Death (transl. M. Shaw). New York. –– 2012: In the Realm of the Silver Lion II (transl. J. H. Nett). Pierpont, S.D. Ozoróczy, A. von 1999: Karl May und sein Orient. In D. Sudhoff / H. Vollmer (eds.): Karl Mays Orientzyklus. Paderborn, 53–63. Pedde, F. 2015: Karl May und der Alte Orient. Alter Orient aktuell 13, 21–24. –– 2016: Karl May en zijn tijd: Karl May en de Oude Oriënt. De Witte Bison 19, 6–9. –– 2020: Vom Erzgebirge ins Land der Fowlingbulls. Karl May und die vorderasiatischen Altertümer. In N. Cholidis / S. Kulemann-Ossen / E. Katzy (eds.): Zwischen Feldforschung und Ausstellung. Festschrift für Lutz Martin. Münster, 507–533. –– 2022: Durch das Zweistromland. Karl May Museum Magazin 3, 26–36. –– (in press): Lo scrittore tedesco di viaggi Karl May. In Museo delle Civiltà Roma (ed.), Salgari e dintorni. Riflessioni sul mondo salgariano, Roma. Preston, D. 2000: The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China’s War on Foreigners That Shook the World in the Summer of 1900. New York. Rawlinson, H. C. 1861: On the Birs Nimrud, or the Great Temple of Borsippa. Journal of the Asiatic Society 18, 1–34. Rich, C. J. 1818: Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon. London. –– 1837: Reise nach Kurdistan und dem alten Ninive, nebst dem Bericht einer Reise den Tigris entlang nach Bagdad, und eines Besuchs von Schiras und Persepolis. Stuttgart (German translation of: Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan, and on the Site of Ancient Nineveh [1836]). Seul, J. 2013: 100 Jahre Karl-May-Verlag. In B. Schmid / J. Seul (eds.), 100 Jahre Verlagsarbeit für Karl May und sein Werk 1913–2013. Bamberg and Radebeul: 10–32. Twain, M. 1869: The Innocents Abroad. Newark, NJ. 30   https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=Karlmay&view=VOPDA; last accessed 21 February 2023.

Fashion and the Ancient Orient Frances Pinnock When we use the term “fashion” (Haute Couture in French) we hint at a specific phenomenon, started in Europe, and specifically in France,1 by mid-‘800 and related with the personality of a number of dressmakers, who were able to impose their idea of dress and of human shape, instead of adapting to the instructions of those who would wear the dress and to the impositions of an established tradition. Fashion is a very complex phenomenon, which, in a way, starts from and follows a tradition, while, at the same time, sometimes by means of gradual passages, sometimes through sudden breaks, it creates renovation and progress.2 Certainly people dressed up before the 19th century and dresses fulfilled the obvious need to cover and protect, but they also had the function of markers of class and/or belonging – e.g. to a social or ethnic group; thus, they obeyed to specific rules, which allowed the observers to immediately understand social level, role and function of those who wore them. So, for instance, people belonging to a lower status could not access precious materials for ornament and, moreover, they frequently used monochromatic textiles, both for utilitarian reasons and for the need to underline the impossibility to access technologies and materials reserved for the elites.3 It is evident that – however simple – clothes and ornaments have their specific agency, which must be related to the time and place where they perform their action.4 Donning an attire, any attire, means, somehow, to get ready for a performance,5 not necessarily a high profile one: clothing reveals – or better revealed6 – if one   The first two Countries who programmatically used fashion as a general cultural promotion were France, where fashion was born in the 19th century, and Italy, where, much later, on February 25th, 1951, Giovan Battista Giorgini organised a ball and a fashion show in Florence: Bianchino / Quintavalle 1989. 2   Barthes 1967: 197–198, 223, 291, 297–298; Sellerberg 2005. 3   See, at this regard, with special concern for the Mesopotamian world in the neo- and late-Babylonian periods, Malatacca 2017. 4   As regards the ancient Near East, several studies highlighted how, in fact, the basic elements of the male and female clothing were not too different from each other, whereas the way to wear dresses or some accessories certainly varied, like the belts – more frequently worn by men – or the pins – more frequently used by women: Abrahami / Lion 2020: 21–22; Michel 2020: 188–189; Rendu Loisel 2020: 200; Quillien 2020 208, 214–215. 5   Barthes 1967,: 35–36, 40–41, 257–258, 280 (“la Mode [est] récit”); Fabbri 2019: 51. 6   These considerations do not apply any more nowadays, when the so-called dress-code is completely revolutionised, allowing a freedom of choice which would have been unthinkable of – at least in Italy – 30 or 40 years ago. This is most probably the consequence in part of a natural evolution in customs, in part of choices determined by ideological issues – like the unhinging of the traditional ways to present oneself, linked to the libertarian movements started in 1968, for instance – or by practical needs – like the spreading of female work, which more and more frequently requires the adoption of practical clothing and/or of attires which may be used from morning to evening. This led to the possibility for women and girls to wear trousers in offices and schools. Men too are requesting and obtaining to wear casual clothing where it was previously forbidden, like in offices. 1

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was dressed to undertake domestic chores, or if one was dressed to go out; in this second case, one might dress to go to a food market or to a religious function, or a ceremony, or a meeting with friends. To dress up meant to find a way to represent oneself, to manifest one’s social position, or the activity one wanted to perform and, within the limits set by custom and/or social rules, one’s proprioception. Somehow, as Roland Barthes maintained,7 clothing is a language (langue) and dresses are words (paroles).8 Archaeology allowed us to observe how, since remote times, the upper classes had the possibility to use colours,9 and were also able to complete their attires with precious multi-coloured jewels. And yet, before the birth of “fashion”, terms like costume or clothing are preferably used, as if to underline the utilitarian use of clothing, rather than the eventual ideological, or symbolic meanings, though studies dedicated to the agency of clothing are available, with special concern for cult activities, for which there is enough written evidence.10 Here I would like to take into account a peculiar aspect of this sector of the ancient Near Eastern cultures, namely its eventual transmissibility in time, considering that other interesting aspects of continuity have already been examined, which concern mainly iconographies of the pre-classical Syrian world,11 and their transmission to the western world, particularly in the Middle Ages.12 Very interesting “revivals” of different aspects of the ancient Near Eastern cultural expressions in the contemporary world have also been largely taken into account elsewhere.13   Barthes 1967: 23; Gleba 2008: 13. On the interpretation of fashion as a system of significations see also Volli 2005; Quintavalle 2005; Abruzzese 2005. 8   Barthes 1967. Explicitly inspired by de Saussure’s semiology (Ibidem: 14), he bases his analysis on the description, or narrative of fashion in two specific fashion magazines, namely Elle and Jardin des Modes, for the year 1958–1959. 9   Textiles are very seldom preserved from ancient Near Eastern contexts, unlike what happens in Egypt, for the different climate and soil conditions, which prevent the preservation of organic materials. The few fragments preserved reveal the use of the colours red and black. The texts of the Ebla Archives of 2300 BC often mention the colour of textiles, which are frequently attested in the administrative documents because they were a very important part of the town economy. Sometimes it has been possible to relate specific colours with specific activities: red and orange were used by women during the marriage ceremonies, whereas the king usually adopted multi-coloured dresses, and white was usually connected with anger: Pinnock 2018, with relevant bibliography. One context where it was possible to analyse several fragments of textiles is the royal tombs of Qatna, of the Middle Syrian period. Here analyses highlighted a wide use of the so-called “royal purple”, namely a variety of colours, from blue to red, obtained from sea molluscs, in particular the murex, but also from the madder plant (rubia tinctorum L.): James / Reifarth / Evershed 2011; on the different kinds of textiles identified Reifahrt / Drewello 2011. On the use and possible identification of different kind of attires for the Akkadian period, Foster 2010. 10   Some interesting contributions on this subject were published in Gaspa / Vigo 2019, in particular Garcia Ventura 2019, dealing with the building rituals of the 1st millennium BC; Rendu Loisel 2019 and Gaspa 2019. 11   For convenience, or out of habit, I will use “traditional” terminologies, even though they are now more and more questioned, but thus far, no completely satisfactory alternative proposal has been forwarded. 12   Pinnock 2002; 2007; 2015; 2016. 13   Verderame / Garcia-Ventura 2020. 7

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Fig. 1: Covered sugar bowl, Wedgwood Factory 1805–1815, Rosso Antico Ware. Chazen Museum of Art. Dadmot CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Fig. 2: C. F. Worth, ball gown, ca. 1872, Metropolitan Museum of Art 46.25.1a–d. Wikimedia Commons.

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At a first glance, the search for motifs, assonances or reminiscences of the ancient Near Eastern cultures in the modern and contemporary western fashion and design looks more like acknowledging absence, rather than presence. As concerns design, a well-known example regards Egypt, rather than the Near East. At the beginning of the 19th century, certainly under the suggestion created by the discoveries following Napoleon’s military deeds in Egypt in 1798–1801, the English china and porcelain manufacturer Wedgwood created a largely appreciated set of table ware in Jasperware14 and Rosso Antico ware15 (fig. 1) with Egyptian motifs. Later on, at the beginning of the 20th century the famous jeweller Cartier, followed by Van Cleef & Arpels, produced a small series of jewels with Egyptian motifs.16 In fashion, on the contrary, the ancient Near East appears seldom, and this is true also for ancient Egypt,17 though the latter was certainly more attractive, and was the object of some sporadic appearance, sometimes related with contingent mediatic phenomena, like exhibitions of particular resonance – especially those about Tutankhamun18 – or by some motion picture. For instance, Cleopatra, directed by J. L. Mankiewicz in 1963, aroused a great echo for the huge budget spent for the production, but, on the other hand, it was a huge box office success, greatly enhanced by the popular interest for the love affair between the two protagonists – Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra) and Richard Burton (Marc Anthony). These were only momentary flashes of light and they did not start real fashion trends. There apparently was a lack of interest for those   Jasperware is of a type of pottery production, created by the founder of Wedgwood, Josiah Wedgwood, in 1770: its surface is matte and mostly characterised by a light blue colour; it features elegant decorations in relief in contrasting colours, usually white. 15   The Rosso Antico Ware, too, was created by Josiah Wedgwood: it shares the same basic characteristics of Jasperware and belongs to the same general category of stoneware, but the base colour is red. On the history of stoneware see Wood 2014. 16   The most important, and renowned jewel is a brooch, shaped as a scarab with outspread wings, created in 1928 by Cartier for Linda Lee Porter, wife of the composer Cole Porter, using fragments of materials coming from the excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb, whose discovery obviously led to the fashion of jewels inspired by those fabulous treasures: Ruiz 2015. The sensation created by the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb can be easily understood, whereas it seems quite strange that a similar phenomenon was not urged by the discovery of the so-called Royal Tombs of Ur. 17   We refer here to the sector of Haute Couture, as it is also known, namely to the fashion presented in periodical shows by the maisons: these manifestations, however, have a limited effect on the so-called street-fashion (Barthes 1967: 201), namely on the dresses used by common people in their everyday life. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is the industrial production of the ready-to-wear (prêt-à-porter), which follows the novelties proposed by the stylists, but is limited by the needs of the production chains, that produce clothes for more than one stylist in the same factory. Thus, the fashion shows, on the one hand, propose unique specimens for a very limited elite of customers, and, on the other hand, their sometimes very innovative and revolutionary proposals are used to characterise them and make them recognisable and appreciated by the large public, who will be able to buy only a few dresses of the ready-to-wear and, most of all, other products of the maison, like perfumes or underwear. An important role is that of fashion magazines, which, after the show, pick up some specific elements, in order to create a general idea of the events, eliminating excesses and proposing an all-encompassing stereotype, what Barthes called “rhétorique de la Mode” (Barthes 1867: 255–256). 18   The first travelling exhibition of Tutankhamun’s treasures 1961–1963, was organised by the Smithsonian Institution and toured several towns in the United States and Canada. 14

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cultures, a phenomenon which, on the contrary, does not touch eastern Asia, or southern America, which are quite present in the so-called ethnic fashion – also called folk fashion. To try and propose some hypothesis about this possible rejection, it seems opportune to trace, albeit in very general lines, a history of fashion since mid-‘800.19 The birth of modern fashion is related with a few well-known personalities of dressmakers, first and foremost Charles Frederick Worth (1825–1895). Worth was British by birth, but he worked mostly in France, creating dresses for Empress Eugenie (Eugénie de Montijo, 1826–1920), wife of Napoleon III. He had a great influence on her, and convinced her to abandon the use of crinolines.20 And yet Worth was not the exclusive dressmaker for royalties, because he created dresses for court ladies and nobility, for the upper class (fig. 2), for singers and actresses.21 He called himself maître et créateur and he not only revolutionised the female silhouette, but also the relation between dressmaker and customer: previously the dressmaker – usually a woman for women and a man for men – went to the customer’s house, whereas with Worth customers went to the maître’s atelier, which became a meeting place, where dresses were presented by models in flesh and blood, not through drawings.22 The dress was “signed”,23 or anyhow recognisable as a specific dressmaker’s creation, it was no more an ideal model, meant to be worn by one person only, usually at the top of the social pyramid, and to be reproduced in poorer and poorer copies for the lower levels of society, who could not afford high quality materials. The dress became a status symbol because it was made by a specific dressmaker and it was the direct visual representation of the economic, rather than political, power of those who could afford it. Moreover, accepting to wear a dress by Worth, the customer also accepted to become a “Worth woman”,24 to represent the female model imagined and proposed by the dressmaker, and therefore immediately recognisable. In this way, Worth was no more only a dressmaker – a craftsman who made dresses –   I am not, of course, a specialist of fashion, and, therefore, I refer to some general works: I found particularly useful, for the precise connections between dressmakers and contemporary artistic movements Fabbri 2019, whereas a detailed history of Italian fashion in the same line, can be found in Bianchino and Quintavalle 1989. When the source of a piece of news is not specifically indicated, it can be found in Wikipedia. 20   Fabbri 2019: 30–30. On the use of crinolines, see Ringgaard 2008: 153–154. 21   Important magazines, dedicated to women and fashion, were founded in the 18th century, like the Journal des dames, founded in 1759: Black 2019: 184. These fashion magazines spread the knowledge of dresses models to every social class: the upper classes, born with the industrial revolution, had the possibility to reproduce those models both in the shape and in the materials, whereas the middle and lower middle classes could only imitate the models, but could not access the finest materials: Black 2019: 187. Still today, fashion magazines play an important role in creating a kind of shared feeling about what is correct to wear and when: Barthes 1967: 25–26, 30–32. This, of course, is even more true for jewels, and in this period they started to experiment with synthetic materials for the production of ornaments, like the strass, a lead crystal created by the French Georges Frédéric Strass (1701–1773), which perfectly imitated diamonds: Ibidem. 22   Fabbri 2019: 17. 23   Worth is the first dressmaker who signed his dresses, putting a label with his name on them: Fabbri 2019: 45. 24   In his way of thinking, the “Worth woman” was a beautiful statue to be contemplated, whose nature had to be completely obliterated by the dress and ornaments covering her body: Fabbri 2019: 40. 19

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but rather a stylist, a kind of aesthetic operator, imposing to those who accepted his style, attire, makeup, hair-dress and, through them, poise and attitude.25

Fig. 3: J. Doucet, ball gown, ca. 1898–1900. Credit: Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs Daniel M. McKeon and Robert Hoguet, Jr 1965; MET 158194. Wikimedia Commons.   Fabbri 2019: 50. Worth abandoned the cumbersome crinoline (Fabbri 2019: 35), which obliged to a specific way of moving, walking and sitting, but he imposed the use of the corset and of the so-called tournure, a rigid structure which lifted the dress in the back and created a silhouette which was anyhow static and mortifying of the female body, with elongated bust, very slim waist and dress swollen on the hips and back (Fabbri 2019: 36). On the limitations created by clothing see Fabbri 2019: 33–35. 25

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Fig. 4: M. Fortuny, Delphos dress, 1910–1932 (exact date unknown), based on the ancient Greek chiton. Wikimedia Commons. Worth is the true father of modern haute couture, but others worked in the same years, like Jacques Doucet (1835–1929) (fig. 3), with his disciples Madeleine Vionnet (1876–1975)26 and Paul Poiret (1879–1944).27 These personalities were cultivated, interested in history and art collectors:28 their cultural references were in the European world, thus, as concerns the past, the Greco-Roman world and central and northern Europe.29 Echoes of these cultures may appear in their collections, in some lines of their dresses, in some drapery, in some decorative motifs; in the latter, the central-northern European tradition was particularly visible. By the beginning of the 20th century the world of fashion became more and more interlaced with the contemporary artistic movements, from Symbolism in its different regional declinations – Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Modern Style, Liberty, El Modernismo – to Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, metaphysical painting.30 There is a very interesting interchange between dressmakers, who were in the process of changing the silhouette – particularly the female one – and artists, who   Vionnet, who opened her own maison quite late in her life, was a great innovator and she was a strong supporter of the elimination of the corset: Fabbri 2019: 116. 27   Doucet, somehow in opposition to Worth, softened the female figure, particularly by means of the use of lightweight fabrics: Fabbri 2019: 63–65. 28   Doucet was the first purchaser of the Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso: Fabbri 2019: 64. 29   Fabbri 2019: 31–32. 30   Fabbri 2019: 66–69. 26

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made dress models too, though they preferred to create textiles: Gustav Klimt (1862–1918),31 Giacomo Balla (1871–1948),32 Sonia Delaunay (1885–1979)33 and Mariano Fortuny (1871–1949) (fig. 4).34 Together, dressmakers and artists were creating new models of persons, in whose image movement had to be prevailing: thus, bodies had to appear free, snappy, electrical, not supported and blocked by cloth armours, like the traditional female dresses, with the terrible corsets, the tournure and a series of petticoats which hampered a normal walk.

Fig. 5: Thayaht, TUTA, 1920; Museo del Tessuto, Prato. Wikimedia Commons. In 1910 an important exhibition on Japan was held in London, and it aroused the interest of dressmakers too, who took inspiration for the creation of textiles inspired by the colours and subjects of Japanese paintings and kimonos. At the same time, they started to look at Countries like India, Morocco, and Persia, who used fascinating palettes of warm colours, and introduced new clothing shapes, too, like the Moroccan barracan or the Indian sari;35 these were considered particularly suited   Klimt liked the caftan and preferred lightweight and impalpable fabrics, creating deconstructed dresses, which were worn by his companion and muse Emilie Flöge: Fabbri 2019: 70–71. 32   Fabbri 2019: 157–159. 33   Fabbri 2019: 175–176. 34   Fabbri 2019: 186–192. 35   Marie Gerber used both the sari and the kimono, not on the line of a mannerist orientalism, but rather reinterpreting them as instruments for the liberation of the women’s 31

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for the new language they wished to use and for the new female model they wished to promote, free from the constraint of corsets and petticoats. In the moment when the body image is revolutionised – the woman loses the “hourglass” shape, and it becomes more like a cylinder36 – a few interesting personages turn their attention to ancient Mesopotamia. This is the case of Thayaht: Thayaht is the palindrome pseudonym of Ernesto Michahelles (1893–1959).37 Florentine by birth, international by formation and related to the Futurist movement, he worked, between 1919 and 1925 for the maison of Madeleine Vionnet:38 he invented the first unisex dress, the TUTA (fig. 5),39 which proposed a squared silhouette, identical for men and women, in an attire which was explicitly meant for work. In the line he created for Vionnet, Thayaht included some movements of fringes, on profiles which were always squared, reminiscent of the Mesopotamian kaunakés.40 Later on, a very innovative Italian dressmaker, Germana Marucelli (1905–1893), a follower of the Op Art movement, collaborated with the artist Paolo Scheggi (1940–1971) and created a line of dresses called Assira (fig. 6), characterised by textiles painted by hand in short oblique bands of colours in the tones of dark green, brown and reddish-brown, and by trapezoidal profiles, vaguely reminiscent of some Mesopotamian architectural shapes.41 Summing up, in the history of fashion in its formative and most creative phases, the Near East appears seldom and in a not very characterised way: we are not dealing with an inspiration leading to reproduction or re-elaboration of specific models, but rather with a kind of generic cultural perception of worlds that were other, and distant and different. This trace could be easily inserted, in the visions of these dressmakers/artists, in their experiments about shapes, colours and textiles, whose main aim was to break with the past, even with their own recent past, represented by iconic figures like Worth and Doucet. The artists, with the Expressionist, Cubist and Futurist movements, were fragmenting the vision of the world in shapes and colours – sometimes quite sharp – where nature itself was fragmented and composed again in images which appeared foreign and unrecognisable. At the same time the dressmakers modelled the human bodies in shapes meant to occupy in a dynamic way the new world, dominated by movement, electricity and speed. bodies: Fabbri 2019: 101. On the use of colour palettes of near-eastern inspiration see Bianchino 2005. 36   This is, for instance, the style of Paul Poiret, called Le Magnifique, who frees women from the corset, but ties their legs, making very tight tubular skirts; at the same time, for the decorative motifs, he turns his eye to the contemporary Middle East – Persia, Morocco and Turkey most of all: Fabbri 2019: 103, 108, 110. 37   Fabbri 2019: 165–171. 38   Fabbri 2019: 120. 39   In Thayaht’s idea the word TUTA referred to the T-shape of the dress and to the fact that all (tutta in Italian) the cloth was used, even the cut-outs with which the 7 buttons and the belt were made. The name tuta still defines today, in Italian, a typical unisex working suit (overalls in English). 40   With this term we usually refer to the typical Sumerian costume, including a skirt, or a cloak made of wool fleece, represented as flounces of vertical, wavy tufts. The procedure to obtain this textile is not known, probably they knotted the tufts on a base of woven fabric: al Gailani Werr 2013. 41   Fabbri 2019: 300–301. Between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the Assyrian cultures started to be known through excavations reports and reconstructions of architecture, which were influenced by the opinions and cultural background of their authors: Micale 2020; Pedde 2010.

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Fig. 6: Germana Marucelli 1961. Dresses painted by hand by Paolo Scheggi, Assira line. Manuelarosi CC BY-SA 4.0. https://creative commons.org/licenses/by.sa/4.0. How can we frame the oriental and ancient near eastern – real or presumed – presences within the phenomenon we call fashion? As we have previously said, since its onset modern fashion was dominated by the couturieurs, who we nowadays call stylists. They took the leadership and sometimes they overtly boasted of “creating” models, not only for clothing, but also for the bearing and behaviour their dresses compelled to assume. Basically, the stylists escorted – through their dresses, the accessories and the movements they imposed – the person entering society. The person became the signature they were wearing. Fatally, the fashion phenomenon seems to favour an action on the female body for different reasons: when fashion was born, it had to help the new upper and middle classes to enter the so-called “best parlours”, and this could happen by means of two languages. The first language was the reassuring one of tradition, of the assimilation of consolidated and acceptable ethic and taste principles; the second language was the external manifestation of the acquired well-being. Men could be satisfied with a well-cut dress made of a good cloth, with some lessons of bon ton and eventually with the exhibition of a few precious objects – a watch, whose chain was visible over the gilet, cufflinks, a tie clip. On the contrary, it is on the women’s bodies that the action was more evident: the dresses featured many levels of precious textiles, whereas the jewels, albeit being numerous for different parts of the attire, from head to toes we might say, could not be too much extravagant. The multiplication of the different pieces of attire a woman had to wear, and most of all the imposition of the corset, created a female silhouette completely unnatural and strongly binding movement and even breathing. A woman in full official attire had even difficulties at eating, and was prone to frequent fainting, thus conveying the image of the woman as a frail creature in constant need of protection and help.

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Fig. 7: Drawings of typical flappers’ clothes, Paris Couture, ca. 1923. Public Domain. On the contrary, since the beginning of the 20th century the artistic movements intersect with fashion, proposing a definite break with the past. Within this frame we cannot forget the decisive contribution by the so-called “flappers” (fig. 7): young women, who entered in numbers the world of occupation, who earned their money and wanted to have fun, even by themselves, and not necessarily in male company.42 Thus, they were ready to accept proposals of extravagant attires and of dresses inspired by the male world and by sports, like those presented mainly by Coco Chanel (1883–1971).43 Among the flappers we may recall some women of great cleverness and, frequently, of great income, whose lives crossed each other in international scenarios, from New York, to London, to Paris and Venice. Among them we may recall Nancy Cunard (1896–1965),44 Zelda Fitzgerald

  For a lively and well documented history of the “flappers”, see Mackrell 2013.   Chanel’s revolution in clothing goes together with the introduction of a very short haircut, a bob which was called “male-style” (à la garçonne in French): Fabbri 2019: 131–140. 44   Cunard was the heiress of the famous shipping company; she was fascinated by the African cultures and used to wear gaudy jewels, inspired by those cultures, in particular large original bracelets of wood, bone and ivory, which usually completely covered her arms. 42 43

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(1900–1948),45 Tamara de Lempicka (1898–1980),46 Tallulah Bankhead (19021968),47 Josephine Baker (1906–1975),48 Luisa Casati Stampa (1881–1957),49 Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979).50 These women – who would today be called “socialites” – were all extraordinary personages, whose common traits include ideas much more advanced for their times, rebellion against traditions and fre  Fitzgerald’s life is inextricably linked with that of her husband Francis Scott Fitzgerald, and it is sometimes forgotten that she was a good writer too, and she might have more than inspired parts of her husband’s works. Her husband defined her the first American flapper and their life was a turbulent race towards destruction and self-destruction. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Zelda was sent to a clinic, where she died in a fire, from which she could not run away. 46   This great artist was born in Warsaw, but soon moved to Saint Petersburg, and lastly went to Paris, where she studied painting, becoming one of the most requested painters, particularly for her beautiful portraits. In 1939 she emigrated to the United States, and in 1974 to Mexico where she died in poverty. 47   Bankhead belonged to a prominent family of Alabama: her grandfather and her uncle were senators, and her father was also engaged in the political life and became Speaker of the House of Representatives. Her family was quite conservative, whereas Bankhead was strongly engaged in favour of civil rights. During the Spanish Civil War and during the II World War she helped many families to escape from war. Yet, Bankhead, too, had many problems with alcohol, drugs and smoke. She became a well-known and appreciated stage and film actress, but sometimes she was not able to perform, because she was completely dazed by the cocktails of pills she assumed to sleep. 48   Baker was born in St Louis, Missouri and was very soon aware of the discriminations against people of African descent, something which she fought against for the whole of her life. She emigrated in France, and she also took the French nationality by marriage: she was a very good singer and a wonderful entertainer, becoming very famous for her lovely dancing and very succinct dresses (one of the most famous stage costumes included only a string of bananas and a necklace). But Baker was much more than that: besides her fight against discrimination, during the II World War she operated as an agent for the French resistance against the Nazis, which brought to the awarding of the Legion d’Honneur by General De Gaulle. She adopted 12 children, while she called her “Rainbow Tribe”, of different origins and religions, because she wished to prove that coexistence was possible. 49   Born Luisa Amman, she is one of the most tragic figures of this group: born in Milan, she married the marquis Casati Stampa di Soncino, but after the birth of their only daughter, the marriage was virtually ended, though they did never divorce. She was very rich from her own family and became one of the most renowned socialites of her time, adored by artists of every kind, protagonist of social events famous for their eccentricity: she used to attend with two cheetahs and wearing live snakes as necklaces. In 1910 she bought the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal of Venice, which became the ideal stage for her performances. Her lifestyle led to the accumulation of a huge amount of debts and, at last, she went to London, where she died in total poverty. Her personality is so fascinating that she still inspires stylists like John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, and an Italian singer, Achille Lauro, who attended the song festival of Sanremo in 2020 wearing an attire reproducing one of Casati’s. 50   Guggenheim is worldwide famous for her love for contemporary art and for the creation, in the first place, of a museum in the house where she lived in Venice. Curiously, the palace is the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, once owned by Luisa Casati. The Palazzo had seriously deteriorated after the Marchesa was obliged to leave it, and Guggenheim bought and refurbished it, living there for the rest of her life. Guggenheim was a rich socialite, too, an in her youth she lived in Paris, where she met and sponsored Man Ray, Constantin Brâncusi, Marcel Duchamp an others. For a recent history of the Palazzo Venier: Mackrell 2017. 45

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quently a strong interest for civil rights, but also very complicated personal lives;51 they were often the inspirers of artists and stylists, while de Lempicka was an artist herself; they protected the artists, and to the stylists they asked for unique and peculiar clothes for their extravaganzas and in these clothes one can often identify oriental traits, albeit imbued of a dreamlike, unrealistic spirit.52 In this atmosphere fashion was challenged to go beyond its limits, to do away with models and this may probably explain the neglect of the safe path of tradition – represented by what was considered the sound culture of the West, where the most exotic traits were those of the Greek and Roman antiquity. Now, together with the important presence of China, Japan, India, Persia and Morocco, who contributed with dresses with large and flowing shapes, with warm and bright colours and with well detectable exotic fantasies, also suggestions from Egypt and the ancient Near East can be detected, albeit in an emphatic and unrealistic way. We may ask why these trends did not last. We must certainly consider, as acutely maintained by Ann Guinan,53 the general negative consideration of the ancient Near East, based on biased interpretations of the Assyrian world as depicted in the Bible and in the Greek traditions. Moreover, the Second World War imposed the choice of more sober and practical clothes, for women who had to take over works previously covered by males only, and we have a memory, but no trace left, of some textiles called Astarté and Sardanople, probably both a kind of jersey.54 After the war, in a changed world gradually coming out from a nightmare and going back to a more or less normal life, the film stars became the new models for dressing and behaviours, both through the films and through their private lives, made public in the so-called women’s weekly magazines.55 On the one hand, the stylists embarked with enthusiasm in the new adventure of the contemporary fairy tales, as happened with the Sorelle Fontana, who became worldwide famous because in 1949 they made Linda Christian’s wedding gown for her marriage to Tyrone Power.56 On the other hand, through the development of the prêt-à-porter and afterwards of the fashion lines for the department stores, a larger number of persons was able to obtain copies – more or less refined – of those dream clothes, with the illusion to become protagonists in the fairy tale created by the motion pictures. A peculiar phenomenon is the costume motion pictures – the so-called peplum –, that proposed their own interpretations of the ancient clothing.57   Nearly all of them suffered from different kinds of addiction, from alcohol to drugs and their sexual lives were considered very scandalous. 52   These dresses used oriental or orientalising textiles, with rich embroidery like the damask fabrics or even authentic damask; there was a large use of feathers and elaborated jewels too. The general effect was exotic and redundant. 53   Guinan 2018. 54   Rosina 2005. 55   On the relations between cinema and fashion, see Abruzzese 2005; Fabbri 2019: 286– 289. 56   Fabbri 2019: 324–325. Tyrone Power (1914–1958) was a very famous American actor at the time, particularly after the release in 1940 of The Mark of Zorro; Linda Christian (1923–2011) was not as famous, though she took part in many movies and she gained worldwide fame or her marriage to Power, which was a huge mediatic success. 57   Borrell 2008; in these motion pictures clothes were used to convey a specific message about the role and nature of the character, rather than to provide a truthful image of the period represented, and this is particularly true for the female characters, whose 51

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Fig. 8: Screenshot from Intolerance by D. W. Griffith (1916) with a mass scene. Public domain. Recently, some stylists, whose cultural lineage can be clearly traced from the great dressmakers of the beginning of ‘900, who were sometimes their mentors,58 created collections where elements of “ancient Near Eastern” or “Egyptian” inspiration were present with specific and well identifiable recalls. In 1970 Jacques Estérel presented a collection meant to be unisex, where men and women made the catwalk, both wearing or trousers or skirts or gowns. The collection was called Les Sumériennes and a few attires hinted specifically at Mesopotamian art in their sexuality was often underlined (ibid.: 159). The interpretation of historical attires is based on the Victorian interpretation of the paintings with biblical subjects and on the stage costumes for theatrical representations of the beginning of the 19th century (ibid.: 160). In the episode Babylon of the 1916 motion picture Intolerance by D.W. Griffith, all the characters, male and female, wear structured dresses (fig. 8), albeit quite fanciful, whereas the Mountain Girl wears a kind of poorly made kaunakés, with which she looks dressed in rags, and she features a modern hair-dress. The princess beloved by Belshazzar wears a low-necked dress with an embroidery of pearls, whereas a very heavy makeup hints at her being “oriental” (ibid.: 161). In Cleopatra (1963) directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Liz Taylor’s dresses always have a strong sexual underline and are quite skimpy and tight fitted, looking very much as typically 1960’s, whereas her hair-dress and makeup are truly inspired by Egyptian iconographies (ibid.). More recent motion pictures are no exception: in Gladiator by Ridley Scott (2000), the character of Lucilla is interpreted by an actress wearing not historical attires, which underline her being a typical Hollywood beauty, rather than a Roman woman (ibid.: 162). On the contrary, better research for truthfulness in costumes and architectural elements can be found in the Italian motion picture Cabiria (1914), directed by Giovanni Pastrone. 58   For instance, this is the case with Courrèges, Armani and Jil Sander who are closely related with Coco Chanel’s innovations, whereas Schiaparelli, Gaultier and Lacroix refer explicitly to Worth: Fabbri 2019: 133.

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shape and decor.59 Later on, the phenomenon appears again in a few collections presented in a time-span of a very few years and must be probably related to the strong interest roused by the tragic events that affected and still affect several countries in the Near East, and particularly Iraq and Syria. The proposals featuring more than one specimen were presented by Balenciaga (2013), Missoni (2014), Christian Dior (2015), Givenchy (2016–2017), Chanel (2018).60 On the contrary, Gianni Versace (1946–1997), a stylist who was always attracted by the ancient world, particularly by the classical antiquity – the logo of the maison is a Medusa head – when he was asked to create the stage costumes for a representation of the Josephlegende by Richard Strauss at the Scala theatre in Milan in 1982, did not abandon what he evidently considered his primary cultural matrix, and he prepared the costumes getting inspiration from the Greek world. Due to the obvious restrictions in space, in this contribution I could not deal with two important aspects of the phenomenon of fashion: the first one is which model was imposed in time, particularly to women. I just quickly hinted at this, but the subject is quite complicated, and it needs a much longer treatment, in order not to turn to the easy cliché of the male image as a strong and dominant individual, and of the female image as feebler and subdued, because this would be an over-simplification. The creation of models, as I have tried to show, albeit in a very summary way, was linked, in the past, to the aesthetic mark of the couturier. Nowadays, to better understand the phenomenon, one should also deal with the industrial production and narrative of fashion,61 which contributed to the imposition of models in order to make the production processes easier: what one sees on the catwalk is not – or not entirely – what is produced, particularly for the readyto-wear, because the assembly lines cannot be radically changed at every change of season.62 Moreover, the same assembly lines may work for different maisons. Probably for this reason, therefore, the collections inspired by the ancient Orient were never represented in the ready-to-wear fashion. Another aspect I have disregarded is the production of fashion in the Countries of the near East and in Egypt, where we face an interesting phenomenon: stylists born in these Countries who mainly target the western or westernised market – as happens with Elie Saab (1964) or Hussein Chalayan (1970) – apparently privilege the decorative aspects of their traditional cultures, whereas, thus to mention other two examples, Japanese stylists like Issey Miyake (1938) or Rei Kawakubo (1942) seem to be more keen on their traditions, albeit proposing very innovative solutions. On the contrary, stylists working mainly with local markets look more interested in their ancient past, albeit mostly in luxury products, with the suggestions of extravagant wealth it apparently offers. Summing up, and turning again to Roland Barthes, it is perhaps possible to maintain that today the trend in fashion is the fragmentation of the paroles, and several different langues can be spoken on the same catwalk. As concerns the presence of suggestions from the Orient, and specifically from the ancient Near   Lion 2020. An interview with J. Estérel, featuring some of his dresses can be found at: https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/video/i06117463/jacques-esterel-a-propos-de-sestuniques-unisexes. 60   These maisons were no more represented by their founders in the mid-tens of 2000, but by young creative artists like, e.g., Wang for Balenciaga. 61   Barthes 1967: 20–22. 62   Barthes 1967: 23. 59

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East it is a rare phenomenon, which can be related to periods of change and of research of different sources of inspiration, as certainly happened in the Twenties of 1900 – when a group of artists and dressmakers aimed at changing fashion and at freeing the bodies –, in 1970 – following the movements started in 1968 –, and between 2013 and 2018 – probably under the influence of the impression of the events in the Middle East, and when a strong reaction started against the codification of the body as was imposed on the catwalks.63 Bibliography Abruzzese, A. 2005: Media e moda, Enciclopedia della moda. Roma, 47–87. Barthes, R. 1967: Système de la Mode. Paris. Bianchino, G. 2005: Esotismi, Enciclopedia della moda. Roma, 397–409. Bianchino, G. / Quintavalle, A. C. 1989: Moda, dalla fiaba al design. Italia 1951– 1989. Novara. Black, A. J. 2019: Storia dei gioielli. Città di Castello. Borrell A. 2008: Ancient Female Costume: From Silent Cinema to Hollywood Glamour. In M. Gleba / C. Munkholt / M.-L. Nosch (eds.): Dressing the Past. Ancient Textiles Series 3. Oxford, 158–165. Fabbri, F. 2019: La moda contemporanea, I. Arte e stile da Worth agli anni Cinquanta. Torino. Foster, B. R. 2010: Clothing in Sargonic Mesopotamia: Visual and written evidence. In C. Michel / M.-L. Nosch (eds.): Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean from the Third to the First Millennia BC. Oxford, 110–145. Al Gailani Werr, L. 2013: A Note on Sumerian Fashion. In H. Crawford (ed.): The Sumerian World, London and New York, 378–394. Garcia-Ventura, A. 2019: Male and Female in Mesopotamian Rituals: An Overview Based on the Use of Woven Materials in Building Rituals. In S. Gaspa / M. Vigo (eds.): Textiles in Ritual and Cultic Practices in the Ancient Near East from the Third to the First Millennium BC. Proceedings of an International Workshop in Copenhagen (6th to 7th October 2015). Münster, 159–175. Gaspa, S. 2019: The Textile Dimension of Cult: The Ritual Construction of Performers, Victims, Objects and Spaces in the Assyrian and Babylonian Cult (First Millennium BC). In S. Gaspa / M. Vigo (eds.): Textiles in Ritual and Cultic Practices in the Ancient Near East from the Third to the First Millennium BC. Proceedings of an International Workshop in Copenhagen (6th to 7th October 2015). Münster, 199–249. Gleba, M. 2008: You Are What You Wear: Scythian Costume as Identity. In M. Gleba / C. Munkholt / M.-L. Nosch (eds.): Dressing the Past. Ancient Textiles Series 3. Oxford, 13–28. Guinan, A. K. 2018: Being Sardanapallus: Sex, Gender, and Theory. In St. Lynn et al. (eds.): Gender and Methodology in the Ancient Near East. Approaches from Assyriology and beyond. Barcino Monographica Orientalia 10. Barcelona, 11–39.   The reaction was – and still is – particularly vehement against the presence on the catwalk and in fashion magazines of exceedingly thin, white (“Caucasian”) models, favouring a more inclusive representation of the human body. On the “idealisation” of the body in the fashion narrative see Barthes 1967: 265–266. 63

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James, M. A. / Reifarth, N. / Evershed, R. P. 2011: Chemical Identification of Ancient Dyestuffs from Mineralised Textile Fragments from the Royal Tomb. In P. Pfälzner (Hrsg.): Interdisciplinäre Studien zur Königsgruft von Qatna. Qaṭna Studien 1. Wiesbaden, 449–467. Lion, B. 2020: A Note on Gender and French “Haute Couture” in 1970: “Les Sumériennes” by Jacques Estérel. In M. Harlow / C. Michel / L. Quillien (eds.): Textiles and Gender in Antiquity from the Orient to the Mediterranean. London, 295–296. Mackrell, J. 2013: Flappers. Six Women of a Dangerous Generation. London. –– 2017: The Unfinished Palazzo. Life, Love and Art in Venice. London. Malatacca, L. 2017: Ordinary People’s Garments in Neo- and Late-Babylonian Sources. In S. Gaspa / C. Michel / M.-L. Nosch (eds.): Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD. Lincoln, NE, 107–121. Micale, M. G. 2010: Designing Architecture, Building Identities. The Discovery and Use of Mesopotamian Features in Modern Architecture between Orientalism and the Definition of Contemporary Identities. In P. Matthiae, et al. (eds.): Proceedings of the 6th ICAANE, 5 May–10 May 2008, “Sapienza” Università di Roma. Wiesbaden, 93–112. Pedde, B. 2010: Reception of Mesopotamian Architecture in Germany and Austria in the 20th Century. In P. Matthiae et al. (eds.): Proceedings of the 6th ICAANE, 5 May–10 May 2008, “Sapienza” Università di Roma. Wiesbaden, 121–129. Pinnock, F. 2002: Note sull’iconografia di Melqart. In M. G. Amadasi Guzzo / M. Liverani / P. Matthiae (eds.): Da Pyrgi a Mozia. Studi sull’archeologia del Mediterraneo in memoria di Antonia Ciasca. Vicino Oriente Quaderni 3. Roma, 379–389. –– 2007: Motivi orientali nell’arte occidentale: le ragioni di una trasmissione. In A. Calzona / R. Campari / M. Mussini (eds.): Immagine e ideologia. Studi in onore di Arturo Carlo Quintavalle. Milano, 9–20. –– 2015: From Ebla to Guzana: The Image of Power in Syria between the Bronze and Iron Ages. Studia Eblaitica 1, 109–129. –– 2016: Mermaids and Squatting Women: Interlacing Motifs between Prehistoric Mesopotamia and Medieval Europe. In I. Thuesen (ed.): Proceedings of the 2nd International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, 22– 26 May 2000, Copenhagen, vol. I. Bologna and Winona Lake, IN, 263–274, doi: 10.12878/orientlabsi2icaane-1. –– 2018: A New Dress for the Maliktum. Attires and Functions of Court Ladies at Ebla in the Early and Old Syrian Periods. Studia Eblaitica 4, 59–108. Quintavalle, A. C. 2005: Moda come sistema di significati, Enciclopedia della moda. Roma, 31–45. Reifahrt, N. / Drewello, R. 2011: Textile Spuren in der Königsgruft. Vorbericht zu ersten Ergebnissen und dem Potential zukünftiger Forschungen. In P. Pfälzner (Hrsg.), Interdisciplinäre Studien zur Königsgruft von Qatna. Qaṭna Studien 1. Wiesbaden, 469–482. Rendu Loisel, A.-C. 2019: Chasing the Evil with Coloured Textiles in Ancient Mesopotamia (First Millennium BC). In S. Gaspa / M. Vigo (eds.): Textiles in Ritual and Cultic Practices in the Ancient Near East from the Third to the First

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Millennium BC, Proceedings of an International Workshop in Copenhagen (6th to 7th October 2015). Münster, 189–198. Ringgaard, M. 2008: Cut, Stitch and Fabrics: Female Dress in the Past 200 Years. In M. Gleba / C. Munkholt / M.-L. Nosch (eds.): Dressing the Past. Ancient Textiles Series 3. Oxford, 134–157. Rosina, M. 2005: Tessuti del Novecento, Enciclopedia della moda. Roma, 289–303. Ruiz, M. 2015: The King-Tut-Inspired Gemstones Even Museums Can’t Afford, Vanity Fair, June 15th 2015. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2015/06/kingtut-inspired-gems-art-deco-egyptian-revival; last accessed 22 October 2021. Sellerberg, A.-M. 2005: Sociologia della moda, Enciclopedia della moda. Roma, 121–137. Verderame, L. / Garcia-Ventura, A. (eds.) 2020: Receptions of the Ancient Near East in Popular Culture and Beyond. Atlanta, GA. Volli, U. 2005: Semiotica della moda, Enciclopedia della moda. Roma, 11–29. Wood, F. L. 2014: The World of British Stoneware: Its History, Manufacture and Wares. Kibworth Beauchamp.

Carsten Niebuhr and Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy: How a keen observer and a gifted young scholar unravelled the secrets of Sasanian Naqš-e Rostam1 Josef Wiesehöfer & Philip Huyse Although it will hardly surprise anyone that early European travellers to Persia had in the first place been overwhelmed by the impressive ruins of Persepolis with its remains of colossal buildings and still standing columns on a huge terrace constructed in the open plain, the nearby site of Naqš-e Rostam (situated only a few kilometres further to the northwest), was soon to arouse their lasting interest as well. From the 17th century onward, the rock reliefs and inscriptions in thitherto unknown scripts to be found there started to intrigue them more and more. It would take over another century, however, before the great French orientalist Antoine Isaac baron Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1838) succeeded in reading and interpreting correctly a number of short trilingual inscriptions. Had it not been for the excellent drawings made by the explorer in Danish service Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815), his decipherment attempts might have remained just as unfruitful as all the preceding ones. The following pages intend to offer a reconstruction of the history of the deciphering of the Middle Persian and Parthian inscriptions with the help of their Greek parallel texts, and to highlight the individual role of the two named distinguished personalities in order to appreciate them at their true value. Carsten Niebuhr, Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy and Sasanian Testimonia2 Plusieurs voyageurs, Kœmpfer (sic), Chardin, Corneille le Brun et autres ont parlé de ces monumens ainsi que des bas-reliefs dont ils sont ornés; mais personne n’en a donné une description plus détaillée que M. Niebuhr, qui en a dessiné et fait graver plusieurs, et à qui l’on doit pareillement des copies exactes de diverses inscriptions qui accompagnent ces bas-reliefs. (…) D’ailleurs les savans qui, d’après des copies moins exactes que celles   This contribution combines two parts that were created in collaboration between both authors. The first section of the article, written by Josef Wiesehöfer, highlights Niebuhr’s accomplishment and his crucial contribution, which ultimately led to Silvestre de Sacy’s successful deciphering attempts. The second section of the article, authored by Philip Huyse, traces the history of decipherment from its earliest origins in the 17th century up to the 19th century. Both parts, therefore, share the common objective of illuminating the origins of Sasanian epigraphy. They do so through various perspectives and by addressing different issues, thus complementing each other. Minor overlaps arise from the fact that the authors address a common subject of investigation, but from different angles, which render the respective information essential for each of the two parts. To convey both the collaboration of the contributors and the autonomous nature of the two parts to the readers, a common bibliography has been eschewed, and each part has been provided with its own bibliography (pp. 200–201 and 219–221). 2   For their support in obtaining articles, I [JW] thank Katharina Stüdemann (Stuttgart) and Andreas Luther (Kiel). 1

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de M. Niebuhr, avoient essayé de les déchiffrer, s’accordoient à les regarder comme des monumens des Parthes ou des Arsacides (…).3 I am not the first to point out the close connections between the author of this quotation, the philologist and orientalist Antoine Isaac Baron Silvestre de Sacy from Paris, and the object of his praise, the traveller and explorer Carsten Niebuhr from Hadeln near Cuxhaven. My predecessors were particularly interested in the (almost completely lost4) correspondence between Niebuhr and de Sacy about the scientific results of the Danish Arabian expedition and in the latter’s efforts to obtain for Niebuhr a membership in the Académie des Inscriptions et BellesLettres, of which de Sacy himself had been a member since 1785.5 As far as the French interest in the expedition and the knowledge of its results are concerned, which had led Niebuhr, after the death of all his companions, also to India, Persia, to the countries of the Fertile Crescent, to Cyprus and Asia Minor, research has concentrated on the “questionnaire” that the Academy had sent to Copenhagen before the expedition, and on the progress of knowledge concerning Arabia (Yemen).6 Niebuhr had, in answer to corresponding questions of the Paris Academy, already commented on this in a memorandum to the Viris Illustribus et Eruditissimis Regiae humaniarum litterarum Academiae in 1768, which, however, remained unnoticed in the Academy.7 In contrast, the reception and use of Niebuhr’s achievements in the field of the exact description and characterization of the inscriptions and reliefs of Persepolis and its surroundings by de Sacy and others have remained rather underexposed until today. This chapter cannot completely remedy this desideratum – more intensive archival studies are necessary – but it can help to alleviate it. In the next two parts, therefore, the two protagonists as “epigraphists” and “art historians” (of Sasanian Iran) will be presented in more detail. In Niebuhr’s detailed travelogue8, which, unlike most of the ones before and after him, is exceptionally free of European self-importance, there are a lot of episodes, which made him aware of being a foreigner and of being, rightly, regarded as a stranger by the locals. On these occasions, he tried to resolve the rigid East-West dichotomies and to fully appreciate the views of his oriental contemporaries. In Persepolis, Naqš-i Rustam, and Naqš-i Raǰab, Niebuhr moves in old paths: he, like his predecessors, has to leave it at characterizing the Achaemenid (c.   Histoire de l’Académie royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres 47 (1809): 47f.; quoted after Detalle 2003: 7. In his article (7f.), Detalle quotes further praising mentions of Niebuhr in publications and letters of de Sacy. 4   Cf. Detalle 2003: 8. 5   See particularly Detalle 2003. Niebuhr became membre associé étranger de la classe des sciences morales et politiques de l’Institut national on August 12, 1802; after the Bonapartist reorganization of 1803, Niebuhr, together with Thomas Jefferson, James Rennell, Charles James Fox, Christian Gottlob Heyne, Francis Wilford, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, and Christoph Martin Wieland, belonged to the 3rd class (classe d’histoire et de littérature ancienne) of the Institute, which in 1816, after Niebuhr’s death, regained its old name Académie royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres (ibid.: 10f.). 6   Detalle 2003: 1–5. 7   Detalle 2003: 4f. – For the memorandum, see Detalle / Detalle 2011. 8   For Carsten Niebuhr and the Danish Expedition to Arabia, cf. most recently Friis / Harbsmeier / Baek Simonsen 2013; Baack 2014. 3

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550–330 BCE) and Sasanian (224–651 CE) reliefs there as belonging to different times and to provisionally designate the latter – according to local views – as representations of the mythological hero Rustam and a man named Raǰab.9 However, like Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716), whose description of the sites he carried with him, Niebuhr is convinced – and rightly so – that the name Rustam conceals various royal individuals: Herodot bemerkt im 3ten Buch § 85. daß Darius bald nach seiner Gelangung zum Thron ein steinernes Bildniß zu Pferde habe aufrichten, und dabey eine Inschrift setzen lassen. Vielleicht also sollen einige der großen Figuren, die man in Persien hin und wieder an Felsen ausgehauen findet, und die man jetzt alle Rustâm nennet, Könige vorstellen.10 As far as his observations are concerned, scholars have always rightly stressed the new quality of Niebuhr’s descriptions of the monuments at and near Persepolis. They have, however, only rarely explained this novel aspect. First of all, one should note that Niebuhr, unlike most of his predecessors, was completely obsessed with the idea of visiting Persepolis and thus making a contribution to a better understanding of the site. This is the reason why he stayed in Persepolis more than three weeks and would have stayed even longer if his servant had not died and he himself had not fallen ill. It also explains, why he was so restrained in criticising his predecessors, a criticism clearly of secondary importance when compared to his own curiosity and open-mindedness. This fits perfectly with his ability to be content with leaving final answers to later scholars. And, last but not least, this is the reason why he was such a keen observer, reporter and draughtsman (facts that cannot be explained solely by his instructions11).12 It is not possible today to give a list of all the ways in which Niebuhr’s description surpassed the discoveries of his predecessors, and which have been confirmed by modern archaeologists. Let me just remind you of his most important observations: • the discovery that Persepolis represents different building stages and was never completed;13   Today’s locals are convinced that the name Naqš-i Raǰab goes back to a Mašd Raǰab who owned a teahouse near the Sasanian reliefs many hundreds of years ago (kind information from Vesta S. Curtis, London). 10   Niebuhr 1778/1837 (= 1968), vol. 2: 156f. (note). 11   “Part of the explanation for Niebuhr’s outstanding perspicacity, assiduity, and originality in distinguishing writing from pictures in Egypt certainly has to be seen in the fact that Niebuhr followed Michaelis’ instructions not only in the literal sense of trying to answer the learned questions, but more importantly in the sense of clearly distinguishing his own function and duties as observer and describer in the field from the task of the learned Stubengelehrten at home. It was this conscious division of labor that made it possible for Niebuhr to distinguish so clearly between what he could see for himself on the one hand and what was in need of learned efforts of decipherment and interpretation on the other” (Harbsmeier 1992: 37). 12   In the case of the illustrations, this applies both to the drawings made on site and to their careful conversion into engravings when the “Reisebeschreibung” was printed. 13   Niebuhr 1778/1837 (= 1968), vol. 2: 123: “Daraus [from the presence of still unbuilt stones at the northwest corner, J.W.] erhellt also daß auch dieser Fels außerhalb der Mauer abgetragen werden sollen, und daß man den Bau noch nicht ganz geendigt habe, als der 9

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the comparatively accurate characterisation of the fantastical apotropaic creatures on Xerxes’s ‘Gate of all Lands’, which had so fired the imagination of his predecessors;14 • the precise description and drawing of the so-called ‘tribute-bearers’ on the stairway façades and of the ‘throne-bearers’ on the doorway reliefs;15 • the interpretation of the ‘Hall of 100 Columns’ as a throne hall and a building for ceremonial purposes;16 • the description of the so-called ‘Unfinished Tomb’ at Persepolis17 and his claim that there was a synchronism between the cruciform rock chamber-tombs of Persepolis and Naqš-i Rustam;18 • his thesis that the Persepolitan reliefs were older than the so-called Rustamic ones at Naqš-i Rustam and Naqš-i Raǰab;19 and finally, • his accurate description of the Ka‘ba-i Zardušt in Naqš-i Rustam20 (of which, however, he could at that time see only the upper section above the debris).21 This was remarkable progress. However, two other observations were to prove even more important subsequently. First, it is entirely thanks to Niebuhr’s fairly exact copies of the Achaemenid inscriptions at Persepolis and the Sasanian ones at Naqš-i Rustam that this progress came about. These copies were “not without fault, but far more reliable … than anything known until then.”22 This praise is not only justified for the copies of the trilingual inscriptions of the Achaemenid kings23, but also, as we will see, for those of the partly trilingual inscriptions from the Sasanian period. After all, people, such as Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775–1853) and Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, were able to lay the basis for the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions and the reading of the Middle Persian and Parthian ones, respectively. It was Niebuhr who discovered that three different systems of cuneiform signs (he called them alphabets) had been used by the Achaemenid kings. For the simplest of these “alphabets”, he was able to distinguish (not, however, to read) 34 Old Persian cuneiform characters – Niebuhr called them “letters” (“Buchstaben”) – (out of a total of 36 syllabic ones, 8 logograms, 2 word-dividers and some numerical symbols). Thanks to his observation •

Pallast zerstört worden. Daß nicht alles auf einmal angelegt worden sey, davon sieht man verschiedene Beweise.” 14   Niebuhr 1778/1837 (= 1968), vol. 2: 122, 125–126 and Tab. XX. 15   Niebuhr 1778/1837 (= 1968), vol. 2: 129–133 and Tab. XXII–XXIII. 16   Niebuhr 1778/1837 (= 1968), vol. 2: 148. 17   Niebuhr 1778/1837 (= 1968), vol. 2: 150. 18   Niebuhr 1778/1837 (= 1968), vol. 2: 150–151, 155. 19   Niebuhr 1778/1837 (= 1968), vol. 2: 157. 20   Niebuhr 1778/1837 (= 1968), vol. 2: 159. 21   Huyse 1999/I, 7 n. 24. The Sasanian inscriptions attached to the building, the res gestae of Šābuhr I (ŠKZ) and the inscription of the ‚priest‘ Kirdīr (KKZ), were below ground level in Niebuhr’s time. 22   Schmitt 1986: 15. 23   The inscriptions copied by Niebuhr and illustrated on Tabs. XXIV and XXXI are the following royal inscriptions: Inscription A = Old Persian version of XPb (inscription b of Xerxes I from Persepolis), lines 6–30; B = Old Persian version of DPa (inscription a of Darius I from Persepolis); G = Old Persian version of XPe; H = Old Persian version of DPd; I = Old Persian version of DPe. The inscriptions C, D, E, F, K and L are copies of the Elamite and Babylonian versions of the inscriptions.

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of the different word dividers in two text-same, opposite inscriptions24, Niebuhr could additionally confirm that the writing ran from left to right.25 He at no point in his life regarded himself as an ‘interpreter’, merely as someone who ‘described’ things. It would thus be inappropriate to measure his achievements against those of the decipherers of the 19th century, who, we should note, had the great advantage of knowing etymologically related languages – an insight ultimately owed, as we will see, to de Sacy’s work on Niebuhr’s copies of the Sasanian inscriptions.26 It is precisely the testimonies of the Sasanian period in Niebuhr’s travelogue that we will now turn to. How much the ruins fascinated the traveller on site, how much he was interested in the most exact description and graphic recording of their individual components as well as their entire ensemble, is not only proven by the many measurements in the text, the detailed individual observations, often enough using contemporary analogies, the categorization of buildings, parts of buildings, reliefs and inscriptions made with the help of letters and numbers, as well as the numerous illustrations (18 plates on almost 40 pages27) in this part of the report. Fascination and simultaneous care are also evidenced by the fact that the description of the place, with its antiquarian relevant details, is rarely interrupted by other literary ‘genres’ such as ethnographic-contemporary digressions or interpolations, anecdotes or stories. Persons other than his deceased informants are mentioned only when they are able or willing to help in individual matters.28 Only at the very end of the report, the inhabitants of the plain of Marvdašt, so appreciated by Niebuhr because of their hospitality and their interest in his work, appear, as it were, as if they had not wanted to disturb the traveller during his studies before.29 The “Rustamic” reliefs were already mentioned above.30 The inscriptions from the 3rd century A.D. copied by him and illustrated in Tab. XXVII (fig. 1) are the   “… so muß man dem Bauherrn danken, daß er diese Schriften doppelt hat einhauen lassen” (Niebuhr 1778/1837 [= 1968], vol. 2: 138). 25   “Bey diesen Inschriften machte ich die Anmerkung, daß zwey Buchstaben, die man in der einen Thür am Ende der dritten Reihe findet, in der andern im Anfang der vierten Reihe stehen. Die Gelehrten also, die sich die Mühe geben wollen, selbige zu dechifriren, können ziemlich gewiß seyn, daß sie, so wie die europäischen Schriften, von der linken zur rechten geschrieben sind” (Niebuhr 1778/1837 [= 1968], vol. 2: 143). 26   Silvestre de Sacy 1793; for the history of the decipherment of these inscriptions, cf. Drouin 1898. 27   These are a “ground plan” (“Grundriß”) (of the overall layout of the “Palast” at Persepolis), three “Prospects” (“Prospect(e)”) (of the ruins as a whole, of buildings G and I), and thirteen “Illustrations” (“Abbildungen”) (1. of the “Animals” (“Thiere”) at the gate of Xerxes, 2.–9. Achaemenid and Sasanian reliefs (“figures”/“Figuren”) from Persepolis, Naqš-i Raǰāb and Naqš-i Rustam, 10.–13. “inscriptions”/ “Inschriften” from different periods in different writing systems). 28   Mr. Hercules as ‘describer’ of the interior of the royal tombs (Niebuhr 1778/1837 [= 1968], vol. 2: 155f.), the peasants of the surrounding area as ‘interpreters’ of the “Rustamic” figures at Naqš-i Raǰab and Naqš-i Rustam (ibid.: 153, 157). Incidentally, the Persepolis report alone accounts for about one tenth of the volume 2 of the “Reisebe­ schreibung” (with its account of the stations from Bombay to Mount Lebanon). 29   “Zum Schluß muß ich noch einiges von den jezigen Einwohnern dieser Gegend, und meinem Aufenthalt unter denselben erwähnen” (Niebuhr 1778/1837 [= 1968], vol. 2: 160). 30   For the reliefs from Naqš-i Rustam and Naqš-i Raǰab and their significance in Sasanian “memory culture”, see Canepa 2018: 257–270 (with the older literature). – For the Sasa24

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following texts: The Middle Persian, Parthian, and Greek versions of ŠNRb (inscription of Šābuhr I from Naqš-i Raǰab; see fig. 2), listed in the Tab. with the letters F, G, and H31; under the letter I are listed below each other: the inscription ANRm-a (inscription a of Ardašīr I from Naqš-i Rustam), namely the Parthian, Greek and Middle Persian versions, and the Middle Persian, Parthian and Greek versions of the inscription ANRm-b (inscription b of Ardašīr I from Naqš-i Rustam)32; the last line in Niebuhr’s copy remains unclear. Tab. XXXIV (fig. 3) contains the upper left part (lines1–18, 30–34) of the Middle Persian inscription KNRm (inscription of the ‘priest’ Kirdīr from Naqš-i Rustam).33 The copy of the latter was much less accurate than the other ones, probably due to the poor lighting conditions on site.

Fig. 1: Niebuhr 1778/1837, vol. 2, tab. XXVII. nian reliefs and inscriptions of the 3rd century AD, cf. also Huyse 2008: 109–123; for Old and Middle Iranian inscriptions, see Huyse 2006b: 72–115. 31   For this inscription, see Back 1978: 282f. 32   For these inscriptions, see Back 1978: 281f. 33   For this inscription, see MacKenzie 1989: 35–72; Gignoux 1991, s.v.

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Fig. 2: Relief and Inscription ŠNRb (photo B. Overlaet).

Fig. 3: Niebuhr 1778/1837, vol. 2, tab. XXXIV.

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Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy34, who was born in Paris on September 21, 1758, and died there on February 21, 1838, can rightly be called the founder of modern Arabic studies; through his research, teaching (not least in the subjects of Arabic and Persian) and academic work, he was not least responsible for Paris becoming the centre of Orientalist studies in Europe, indeed in the world. His textbooks on the Arabic language were considered standard works well into the last century, and the Journal des Savants (founded in 1665), which he co-edited and reissued from 1816 onwards, became the leading scholarly journal in the world during his time. The many hundreds of articles that de Sacy published there and elsewhere (for example, in the Fundgruben des Orients [1809–1818], edited by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall [1774–1856]35) attest to the breadth of his philological and linguistic interests and the excellence of his knowledge. Medals of honor and numerous honorary memberships of institutions in France, Germany and Russia testify to de Sacy’s outstanding and generally recognized competence in rebus orientis antiqui. Of particular interest to us in this context are the achievements of the Frenchman in the field of the decipherment of foreign scripts. Well known is de Sacy’s preliminary work on the decipherment of the demotic characters on the Rosetta Stone. Less familiar to a wider public are his achievements in deciphering the Pehlevi script of the Middle Persian inscriptions from Fars, from Ṭāq-i Bustān, and on the legends of the coins of the Sasanian kings. It had been Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron who had laid the foundations of the study of the Avestan and Middle Persian languages in Europe, on the basis of his knowledge of the Zendavesta acquired in India.36 Further advances in knowledge, however, became possible only after the inaccurate and unreliable copies of characters and illustrations of reliefs from Fars by early modern travellers (such as Jean Chardin [1643–1713], Engelbert Kaempfer [1651–1716], and Cornelis de Bruyn [1652–c.1727]) had been replaced by Niebuhr’s highly accurate reproductions of the Achaemenid and Sasanian inscriptions taken on site in the spring of 1765 and published soon after his return to Copenhagen. De Sacy, although fluent in German, did not use the original German version of the travelogue for his studies, but rather the French version (of the second volume) published in Amsterdam in 1780. At the beginning of the 1790s, the French scholar was able to devote himself relatively undisturbed to the publication and editing of the four Mémoires on the Sasanian languages and inscriptions from Fars, which had been presented to the Académie between 1787 and 1791, since the Académie des Inscriptions had been temporarily dissolved in June 1792 and the position of Commissaire général des monnaies, which de Sacy had held, was abolished shortly thereafter. The Mémoires sur diverses antiquités de la Perse et sur les médailles des rois de la dynastie des Sassanides then appeared in Paris in 1793.   The most important recent research and literature on Silvestre de Sacy can be found in the following publications: Larzul 2012 (http://lodel.ehess.fr/dictionnairedesorientalistes/document.php?id=331; accessed 23.2.2021); Espagne et al. 2014 (however, this anthology is primarily about Silvestre de Sacy as an Arabist and about his role in the development of Oriental Studies with its sub-disciplines in Europe); Marics 2016 (the work is primarily concerned with de Sacy as a translator and with his role in the development of interpreter training in France; however, there are also useful references to his life and work and to our research question: pp. 117–154. 401 no. 53). 35   Cf. the contribution of Hannes Galter in this volume. 36   Cf. Anquetil 2005; Valensi 2012: 25–27. 34

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What do we now know about the connections between Niebuhr and de Sacy in the context of the Sasanian Testimonia? First of all, in the Mémoires, de Sacy likewise acknowledged the great achievements of the traveller from Hadeln:37 Si elles laissent encore quelque chose à désirer, c’est une suite inévitable des difficultés qu’éprouve quiconque entreprend de copier des caractères inconnus, inintelligibles, & que le temps a déjà considérablement altérés. Ce voyageur a d’autant plus de droit à la reconnoissance des savans … The reliefs from Naqš-i Rustam and Naqš-i Raǰab, not least the investiture relief of Ardašīr from Naqš-i Rustam, on which there are also the inscriptions ANRm-a and b, he interprets, more correctly than, for example, Chardin, de Bruyn, and Niebuhr38, as belonging to the Sasanian period. Yet he wrongly assigns both the reliefs copied by Niebuhr and illustrated on plate XXXIII (fig. 4) of his work (investiture relief of Ardašīr I and triumph relief of Šābuhr I) to Ardašīr and interprets the investiture scene as a battle scene:39 Pourquoi y chercheroit-on autre chose qu’un tableau allégorique de l’insurrection d’Ardeschir contre Ardévan, de ses combats, de sa victoire & de la défaite du prince Arsacide ? l’objet du combat entre ces deux rivaux, est représenté par le diadême que chacun d’eux tâche d’arracher à son adversaire; les combattans sont distingués par des caractères qui indiquent leur origine, & qui ne pouvoient manquer d’être facilement saisis par les gens du pays. Dans cet autre bas-relief où un homme à genoux implore la clémence d’un cavalier en lui tendant les mains, tandis que celui-ci saisit & tient fermement un autre personnage qui est à pied & debout devant lui, le cavalier est reconnoissable par sa thiare absolument pareille à celle que l’on voit sur la plupart des médailles des Sassanides, par tout le reste de son habillement & par son amure. Ne peut-on pas croire que ce tableau offre l’image d’Ardeschir vainqueur de son rival ? In his intensive study of the epigraphic information given by the travellers and scholars before Niebuhr and of Niebuhr’s copies of Sasanian inscriptions on plate XXVII, de Sacy, in his Mémoires of 1793, turned first to the Greek versions of the trilingual inscriptions of Ardašīr I and Šābuhr I copied by Niebuhr. Based on his knowledge of Graeco-Roman and Byzantine as well as post-Sasanian tradition concerning the Sasanians (Arab and Syriac historiography, New Persian epic poetry, etc.) and with the help of textual comparisons of the inscription copies themselves, he first succeeded in reconstructing the titles of the early Sasanians40 and commenting on it in (religious) historical terms as follows:41  Sacy, Mémoires sur diverses antiquités de la Perse, Paris 1793: 122.   Vgl. Briant 2015: 19–21. Chardin had described the investiture relief as “Rustamic” and referred it to the dispute between the king of Persia and that of India; de Bruyn gave two versions transmitted to him: either Alexander and Darius (III) were depicted or two princes who were in dispute about the ring; Niebuhr, finally, shared the opinion of the locals who wanted to recognize in the two figures Rustâm Sâl and Rustâm Koladás. 39  Sacy, Mémoires sur diverses antiquités de la Perse, Paris 1793: 68f. 40   For these titles, cf. Huyse 2006a: 181–201. 41  Sacy, Mémoires sur diverses antiquités de la Perse, Paris 1793: 30f. 37 38

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ΤΟΥΤΟ ΤΟ προσωπΟΝ ΜΑCΔΑCΝΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ ΑΡΤαξαρου βασιλεΩC ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ ΑΡΙΑΝΩΝ εκ γενουC ΘΕΩΝ ΥΙΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ ΠΑΠΑκου ΒΑσιλΕΩC and ΤΟ ΠρΟCωΠΟΝ ΤΟΥΤΟ ΜΑCδαCΝΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ CΑΠορΟΥ ΒΑCΙΛΕΩC ΒΑCΙΛΕΩν αριαΝΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΑΝΑΡΙΑνΩΝ Εκ γεΝΟΥC ΘΕΩν υιου ΜΑCδαCΝΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ ΑΡΤαξΑΡΟΥ βασιλεως ΒΑCΙΛΕΩΝ ΑΡΙΑΝΩΝ ΕΚ ΓΕΝΟυς θεων ΕΚΓΟΝΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ ΠΑΠΑΚΟΥ ΒΑCΙΛεως. De Sacy recognised at the same time, differently from Niebuhr, that: a) these inscriptions had to be assigned to the early Sasanians; b) the non-Greek versions of these inscriptions had also been written by representatives of this dynasty and the Iranian languages in use in Fārs in their time were hidden behind them; c) inscriptions and “Rustamic” reliefs (the inscriptions copied by Niebuhr were partly on the reliefs) had to be Sasanian as well. That he erred in matters of detail in his commentary42, and that he was still far from a source-critical approach to the evidence available to him cannot be held against him in view of his rather philological or linguistic approach, the state of knowledge of Sasanian history at the time43, and the lack of modern historiographical standards. Starting from the Greek versions of the inscriptions, de Sacy succeeded in deciphering and publishing the Middle Persian equivalents, not least through the names, titles, and self-attributions of the kings and the linguistic knowledge gained through the Zendavesta: For the crucial Greek titular passage Μασδάσνου θεοῦ Άρταξάρου, βασιλέως βασιλέων Άριανῶν, ἐκ γένους θεῶν, υἱοῦ θεοῦ Παπάκου βασιλέως he finds the following Middle Persian equivalent (in modern transliteration): mzdysn byh ’rthštr MLK’n MLK’ ’yr’n … BRH p’pky MLK’ („of the Mazdayasnian lord Ardašahr/Ardašīr, King of Kings of Ērān, son of the lord King Pābag“). His only error in this passage was to read bhy /beh/ (“better”) instead of the correct bgy /bay/ (“lord”). On the other hand, Niebuhr – certainly also because of his dissatisfaction with his apostrophisation as a (mere) “descriptor” by Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) in 178744 – had become increasingly aware since the late 1780s that the inscriptions he had copied had stimulated the scholarly discourse on the bearers of the ancient Iranian civilisations and their languages and writings in an enormous way. He probably became aware of de Sacy’s Mémoires, as one can gather from his correspondence with the famous orientalist Oluf Ger  For example – apart from the incorrect attribution of all reliefs to Ardašīr and the wrong interpretation of the investiture relief of this king – in the connection of Anērān and Tūrān or in the definition of the Parthian language of the (second version of the trilingual) inscriptions as “une langue particulière aux habitants du Dilem” (p. 123). See also Huyse’s contribution below, p. 214 n. 93.. 43   “L’histoire des rois de Perse de la dynastie des Sassanides, est généralement peu connue” (p. IV). 44   Still in 1802, Niebuhr comments on his role in a letter to Tychsen: “Ich glaube freilich ohne Stolz behaupten zu können, daß ich beim Copieren der Keilschriften mehr Fleiß angewandt habe als irgend einer von meinen Vorgängern oder Nachfolgern” (quoted after Krieger 2002: 354). 42

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hard Tychsen (1734–1815), in the mid-1790s. De Sacy’s praise for his work must surely have pleased him. In 1795, he sent a copy of the Mémoires to Tychsen with the note: “Nur bitte ich, selbige wieder an mich zurück zusenden, wenn Sie sie gebraucht haben; das Werk interessiert mich zu sehr …”45

Fig. 4: Niebuhr 1778/1837, vol. 2, tab. XXXIII. 45

  Quoted after Krieger 2002: 352.

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Even if Niebuhr’s and Tychsen’s interest referred primarily to the Achaemenid inscriptions and the decipherment of the cuneiform script and the decisive progress in the decipherment of the cuneiform script is not to be attributed to them, but to Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775–1853) and Henry Creswicke Rawlinson (1810–1895), the importance of de Sacy’s reading of the Middle Persian inscriptions also for the efforts to decipher the cuneiform inscriptions was recognised by both: the way to gain knowledge via names and titles; the increased possibilities to make progress with the help of etymology and through the expansion of the legitimate and historical vocabulary of the Iranian and Indo-European languages. It is exactly these opportunities that Grotefend and Rawlinson then took advantage of since the beginning of the 19th century. Bibliography (first part) Anquetil, J. 2005: Anquetil-Duperron, Premier orientaliste français. Paris. Baack, L. J. 2014: Baack, Undying Curiosity. Carsten Niebuhr and The Royal Danish Expedition to Arabia (1761–1767). Oriens et Occidens 22. Stuttgart. Back, M. 1978: Die sassanidischen Staatsinschriften. Acta Iranica 18. Leiden, Tehran and Liège. Briant, P. 2015: Darius in the Shadow of Alexander. Cambridge, MA. Canepa, M. P. 2018: The Iranian Expanse. Transforming Royal Identity through Architecture, Landscape, and the Built Environment, 550 BCE–642 CE. Oakland. Detalle, M.-P. 2003: Die dänische Expedition nach Arabien, Carsten Niebuhr und Frankreich. Historische Mitteilungen der Ranke-Gesellschaft 16, 1–14. Detalle, M.-P. / Detalle, R.: Carsten Niebuhr et l’expédition danoise en Arabia Felix. Un memorandum adressé en 1768 à l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Journal des Savants, 277–332. Drouin, E. 1898: Histoire de l’épigraphie sassanide. Le Muséon 17, 5–14, 108–121. Espagne, M. et al. 2014 (eds.): Silvestre de Sacy. Le projet européen d’une science orientaliste. Paris. Friis, I. / Harbsmeier, M. / Baek Simonsen, J. 2013 (eds.): Early Scientific Expeditions and Local Encounters. New Perspectives on Carsten Niebuhr and ‘The Arabian Journey’. Proceedings of a Symposium on the Occasion of the 250th Anniversary of the Royal Danish Expedition to Arabia Felix. Scientia Danica. Series H, Humanistica, 4, vol. 2. Viborg. Gignoux, Ph. 1991: Les quatre inscriptions du Mage Kirdīr. Textes et concordan­ ces. Collection des sources pour l’histoire de l’Asie centrale pré-islamique II/I. Studia Iranica, cahier 9. Paris. Harbsmeier, M. 1992: Before Decipherment: Persepolitan Hypotheses in the Late Eighteenth Century. Culture and History 11, 23–59. Huyse, Ph. 1999: Die dreisprachige Inschrift Šābuhrs I. an der Ka‘ba-i Zardušt (ŠKZ). Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum, pt. III, vol. 1, texts 1. 2 Bde. London. –– 2006a: Die sasanidische Königstitulatur. Eine Gegenüberstellung der Quellen. In J. Wiesehöfer / Ph. Huyse (eds.): Ērān ud Anērān. Studien zu den Beziehungen zwischen dem Sasanidenreich und der Mittelmeerwelt. Oriens et Occidens 13. Stuttgart, 181–201.

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–– 2006b: Inscriptional Literature in Old and Middle Iranian. In M. Macuch / R. Emmerick (eds.): History of Persian Literature. Companion Volume. Wiesbaden, 72–115. –– 2008: Die sāsānidischen Inschriften und Felsreliefs. In K.-P. Johne (ed.): Die Zeit der Soldatenkaiser, vol. I. Berlin, 109–123. Krieger, M. 2002: „Zwischen Meldorf und Bützow. Carsten Niebuhrs Korrespondenz mit Oluf Gerhard Tychsen“. In J. Wiesehöfer / S. Conermann (eds.): Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815) und seine Zeit. Oriens et Occidens 5. Stuttgart, 341–356. Larzul, S. 2012: Silvestre de Sacy, Antoine-Isaac. In F. Pouillon (ed.), Dictionnaire des orientalistes de langue française. Nouvelle édition revue et augmentee. Paris. MacKenzie, D. N. 1989: Kerdir’s inscription. In The Sasanian Rock Reliefs at Naqsh-i Rustam. Naqsh-i Rustam 6. Iranische Denkmäler, Lief. 13. Reihe II: Iranische Felsreliefs I. Berlin, 35–72. Marics, A. 2016: Die Briefe Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacys an Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall – translatorisch beleuchtet. Graz (PhD). Niebuhr, C. 1778/1837: Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern umliegenden Ländern. Kopenhagen and Hamburg 1778/1837 (repr. Graz 1968). Schmitt, R. 1986: Dänische Forscher bei der Erschließung der Achaimeniden-Inschriften. Acta Orientalia 47, 13–26. Silvestre de Sacy, A.-I. 1793: Mémoires sur diverses antiquités de la Perse. Paris. Valensi, L. 2012: Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron. In F. Pouillon (ed.), Dictionnaire des orientalistes de langue française. Nouvelle édition revue et augmentée. Paris, 25–27.

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A brief history of the beginnings of Sasanian epigraphy Antoine Isaac baron Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1838)46 can be rightly called the founder of Sasanian epigraphy and the decipherer of some of the earliest Sasanian trilingual inscriptions. It is just as undisputed that the drawings made by the mathematician, cartographer, and explorer in Danish service Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815) played a major role in it. However, the first tentative efforts to make sense of these short inscriptions began more than a century earlier. For a better appreciation of de Sacy’s achievement and the huge progress made by him, it is worth to have a closer look at the antecedents of their deciphering. Since the early 17th century, more and more travellers and explorers such as Don García de Silva y Figueroa (1550–1624), Johann Albrecht von Mandelslo (1616–1644) or Pietro della Valle (1586–1652) had visited the mighty ruins of Persepolis, though most stayed there for hardly more than a couple of hours. Occasionally they had even pointed out the existence of inscriptions in unknown scripts, there and in the nearby site of Naqš-e Rostam. All of this soon led to increased efforts being made to capture the inscriptions in detailed drawings in order to enable them to be deciphered. It all started when the Fellows of the Royal Society of London, founded in 1660, decided that it was worth learning more about it, fascinated as they were by what they had heard and read about Persepolis and other sites in Persia. Since one of the Society’s missions was to advance scientific knowledge in all possible fields, they formulated in March 1666 a series of “Inquiries for Persia”,47 the third of which referred specifically to Persepolis: Whether, there being already good Descriptions in Words of the Excellent Pictures and Basse Relieves, that are about Persepolis at Chimilnar, yet none very particular; some may not be found sufficiently skill’ed, in those parts, that might be engaged to make a Draught of the Place, and the Stories and Pictures there carved? Two and a half years later, at a meeting of the Society’s Council on November 19, 1668, the first Secretary of the Society and founding editor of the Philosophical Transactions, Henry Oldenburg (ca. 1618–1677), was able to produce and read a letter which the English Consul at Aleppo Benjamin Lannoy48 had sent him from there on July 6th of the same year. In it, the latter informed him that a Mr. Stephen Flower, “the agent for the English East-India company in Persia” had sent him several letters to answer the questions put by the Society. With reference   Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy was born into a family of the Parisian bourgeoisie of jansenist tradition. He had inherited the surname of his father Abraham Jacques Silvestre (1765–1819), a notary; in order to distinguish him from his younger and older brothers (a fourth child had died in infancy), he added to his patronymic the name of the village of Sacy in the department of Yonne in Burgundy (for biographical details see Dehérain 1936: 264–266). The title of “baron” was bestowed on him in 1813 (see Reinaud 1838: 44); cf. Josef Wiesehöfer’s part of this contribution, dealing extensively with De Sacy. 47   This request for further information was published in 1667, on page 420 of the second volume of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (see also Sancisi-Weerdenburg 1991: 23). 48   Benjamin Lannoy was appointed consul in 1659 and was recalled in 1572 (information taken from the “List of British Consular Officials in the Ottoman Empire and its former territories, from the sixteenth century to about 1860”, compiled by David Wilson in July 2011). 46

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to the query about Persepolis, Flower had to tell him to his regret, “that at present there are no draughts extant”, but that he had found a person “skilful in the faculty of limning, and painting” who would accompany him on a renewed journey to Persepolis. Trusting that the Royal Society would generously reimburse their travel expenses, he had hired the draughtsman of Polish origin at his own expense, and without awaiting the Society’s reply, they had set out for Persepolis by the end of 1667.49 On that occasion they also visited Naqš-e Rostam, about which Flower had the following to report:50 The 22d of November they arrived at Chahelmanar, alias Persepolis, and went to the mountains called Norturestand [sic], to the westward of Persepolis a good league, where they took the several draughts of the four tombs, where the antient kings have been interred. They are all within a stone’s cast of each other, of the same form and work, carved out of the main rock of greyish marble; and although some are more perfect and less defaced by time than others, yet it is hard to decide which is more antient; their hight, and breadth, and length equal. A little distance to the westward of those tombs is about twenty foot from the ground cut out of black marble, in the said mountain, two horses with their riders, which are supposed to be alexander, and rustram, a mighty man of the Gours, or Gabres, (of whom the Persians have many stories) who are contending for a ring of iron, which each have hold of. On the thigh of each horse before are engraven some characters, which he endeavoured, as many as were discernible, exactly to set on a paper, being only two lines; as also of another antient character, by none legible at this day. Part of each whereof I send you here enclosed: the last character being written at Persepolis in no less than 20 several places of black marble within and without, in a quadrangle not above ten yards distance in any ways; not one of them being intirely perfect, but all more or less defaced by time and malice. Fearing that the whole project might finally turn out to be too expensive, the Society decided to let it go and have Flower informed that he should make no further effort, as “their revenues was not so considerable as to enable them to be at great expences”. Flower’s letter seems to have contained the earliest – albeit still vague – mention of the two short trilingual inscriptions on the investiture relief of Ardaxšīr I. (r. 224–239/40) in Naqš-e Rostam, carved on the chests of two horses, each carrying a rider, and identifying them as the first Sasanian King (ANRm-a) and Ohrmezd/Ahura Mazdā (ANRm-b). In light of the Society’s response, the matter was not further pursued, but since Flower and his travelling companion had already been on their way, some of the planned work had been realised by the time they   According to Flower’s own words, he had already visited Persepolis as early as 1661, “in company of agent Buckridge, who is now in England”. As Flower expected the drawing work to take at least a whole year, it was agreed upon on the occasion of his second journey in late 1667 that the draughtsman should make “the exactest draughts, that hitherto hath been taken”, and colour them upon their return in Isfahan, while they would wait there for more detailed instructions on the proceeding for reimbursement. 50   The letter is quoted after Birch 1756: 325f. 49

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were informed of the Society’s decision. After agent Flower’s death in 1677, some of the “Draughts and Papers” retrieved in his personal estate finally came into the Society’s possession through the intermediary of “a good friend”, as Francis Aston (1645–1715), Secretary of the Royal Society from 1681 to 1685, put it in his accompanying letter to the Publisher of the Philosophical Transactions. Aston’s letter as well as “an Exact Draught or Copy of the several Characters engraven in Marble at the Mountains of Nocturestand and Chahelminar in Persia, as they were taken in November 1667” with some further explanations by Flower found their way into the 17th volume of the Philosophical Transactions, and were published on pages 775–777 of the 201st issue dated of June 1693 (fig. 5).

Fig. 5: Drawing of the inscriptions ANRm-a (nrs. 1 [Parthian], 2 [Greek]) ANRm-b (nr. 4 [Parthian and Greek]) by Stephen Flower, joined to his letter published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London of 1693.

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Fig. 6: Drawing of the same inscriptions ANRm-a/b by Jean Chardin in the third volume of his Voyages (Chardin 1711, inserted before p. 119). Three of the six writing samples in the drawings left by Flower pertain at Sasanian inscriptions: while nrs. 1 and 2 obviously contain the Parthian and Greek versions of the inscription ANRm-a,51 nr. 4 renders the Parthian and Greek versions of the inscription ANRm-b. As can furthermore be seen from Aston’s above-mentioned letter, the members of the Royal Society had also placed high hopes on the publication of Sir John Chardin’s travelogue and drawings to find out more about Persepolis. Jean Chardin (1643–1713) was born in Paris and had followed his   Concerning the inscription nr. 1 Flower had noted the following: “This Character hath some Similitude with the Ancient Hebrew, but the Persians would have it their own, tho’ they understand not a Letter”.

51

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father’s business as a jeweller and merchant. He had visited Persia in 1666 for the first time and then again from 1673 to 1677 while staying at Isfahan. Upon his return to Europe, he decided to settle in England in 1681 because of the increasing persecution of the Huguenots in France by Louis XIV. In his new home country, he was received with all due honours and Sir Christopher Wren, the famous architect who was also one of the founding members of the Royal Society and served as its President from 1680 to 1682, even personally proposed Chardin’s election as a Fellow on November 30, 1682. Obviously, the election also came with the hope that it would incite the new member to quickly publish his Persian travelogue.52 For our immediate concern, it is merely significant that Chardin in the third volume of his Voyages, published in Amsterdam only in 1711, briefly addresses the inscriptions of Naqš-e Rostam,53 and also adds a few drawings, which hardly differ from those made by Flower (fig. 6): La figure Y. est un échantillon des Inscriptions qui sont en ancient Syriaque, & en Grec. A l’égard des Inscriptions Grecques, je les crois Modernes, & du temps du bas Empire. La taille en est fort mauvaise, tant celle de relief, que celle de gravûre. Il y a des (p. 120) mots entiers effacez, et ceux qu’on lit de suite ne font point de sens bien suivi. Des gens fort doctes, qui ont tâché de les déchiffrer, ont crû qu’on pouvoit donner ce sens à la première Inscription Grecque. C’est le visage du Divin Alexandre, Roi des Rois de toutes les Nations Asiatiques, fils du Divin Philippe Roi. Mais je ne croi pas ce sens vrai, étant persuadé au-contraire qu’il ne reste au monde ni statuë, ni figure d’Alexandre tirée de son vivant. Pour les trois mots de l’autre Inscription, laquelle est au bas d’une des Statuës représentées, ils veulent dire Regardez en la face de Dieu le Pere, ou de Jupiter Dieu. The drawings of the inscriptions made by Flower had meanwhile also caught the eye of the English orientalist Thomas Hyde (1636–1703), Laudian Professor of Arabic and Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford. He had referred to them in his main work, Historia Religionis Veterarum Persarum (1700), in the pages immediately preceding the well-known and often quoted passage in which he called the cuneiform characters from Persepolis exactly as that (ductuli pyramidales seu cuneiformes).54 According to Hyde, the new unknown characters most closely resembled those known from the bilingual inscriptions in Palmyrene Aramaic and Greek. He correctly recognised that the writing was to be read from the right (lectio videtur esse à dextrâ). Based on a comparison with the two Greek inscriptions ANRm-a and b, both of which begin with ΤΟΥΤΟ ΤΟ ΠΡΟCΩΠΟΝ, he rightly conjectured that the initial words of the two corresponding (Parthian) inscriptions would have to be identical too, which, however, seemed to him not entirely to be the case. What he could not know, of course, was that the discrepancies in the drawing were rather to be attributed to Flower’s draughtsman than to the carelessness and ignorance of the stonecutter (sculptoris incuriam & igno  According to the Minutes of July 22, 1685, Chardin was however as quickly ejected from the Royal Society as he had been elected, officially because of his arrears in the payment of his membership contribution. The real motive for his expulsion can only be guessed at, but the extraordinarily slow publication of his travelogue may perhaps not have been entirely alien to it. 53   See Chardin 1711: 119f. 54   See Hyde 1700: 524–526. 52

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rantiam). Like Chardin after him, he surmised that the inscriptions dated from the time of Alexander since they contained the latter’s name (debent fuisse citra tempus Alexandri, cum ejus nomen contineant). In his eyes, the inscriptions were by no means official and did not bear any pre-eminent authority (nihil autoritatis prae se ferunt), as they would surely have been better executed, but were perhaps nothing more than random scribbles by some untalented soldiers simply idling away the time (aliquae Scriptitationes fortuitò factae fortè per aliquos imperitos Milites ibi aliquando otiantes) and marking their passage on the site (memoriae causâ quod ipsi aliquando ibi fuerunt). The very industrious Gijsbert Cuper (1644–1716), an erudite Dutch antiquarian and politician, was in many ways a typical representative of the scholarly world (“the Republic of Letters”) of the second half of the 17th century.55 He maintained an extensive correspondence with leading politicians, scholars and other personalities of his time. Among other famous people, he had corresponded with the German philosopher and universal genius Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646– 1716) about the cuneiform inscriptions in Persepolis.56 The interest in Oriental languages and scripts of Cuper and his contemporaries can be explained on the one hand by an antiquarian tendency at that time, which consisted in collecting archaeological artifacts and inscriptions for a better understanding of the past rather than studying written literary sources. On the other hand, scholars endeavoured to study a variety of scripts and the evolution of the letter forms from the perspective of Biblical history, in order to prove that all scripts ultimately derived from or were related to the Hebrew alphabet, as Leibniz and others believed. Over time, Cuper included other people in his correspondence on Persepolis, such as the Dutch artist and traveller Cornelis De Bruijn (1652–1727),57 whom he visited in Amsterdam in 1709,58 and Mathurin Veyssière La Croze (1661–1739),59   For further biographical details on Cuper see Drijvers 1991: 98f.; Heindl 2018: 29f.; and Touber 2019: 68–84. He wrote well over 5,000 letters, most of which are now preserved at the Dutch Royal Library (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) in The Hague. A number of his letters were published in Beyer 1743. In recognition of his scholarly merits, he was elected an honorary member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris in 1715. 56   Regarding the cuneiform script, Leibniz wrote to Cuper in a letter dated from December 29, 1707 (GWLB Hannover, LBr. 187, Bl. 58–63) that in a description of the ruins of Persepolis, he had noted something about a truly unique kind of alphabet and surpassing all others in simplicity (Alphabetum genus plane singulare et aliis, ni fallor, praestans simplicitate). Over the next year and a half, the two scholars would regularly return in their correspondence to Persepolis and the cuneiform (and other) scripts found there (for further details see Heindl 2018: 50–55). 57   Cuper also appears to have met Chardin in person in Den Haag, but seems to have retained only a flawed recollection of that encounter (for further details see Heindl 2018: 57). 58   On the exchange of Cuper and De Bruijn, in whose scrupulous drawing talents the former seems to have placed great hopes in order to get a more precise picture of the ruins at Persepolis in general and of the cuneiform inscriptions in particular, see Hotz 1911: 6–14; Drijvers 1991: 99–104; and Heindl 2018: 65–73. Contacts with De Bruijn seem to have come to a more or less abrupt end in the course of 1713, when Cuper must have realised that De Bruijn’s drawings were unfortunately no more trustworthy than those he already knew from the works of Jean Chardin and Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716) (see also Heindl 2018: 57 n. 188). 59   His name was also spelled as Mathurin Veyssière de Lacroze. 55

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a French Benedictine historian and orientalist, who had become a royal librarian in Berlin in 1693. With the latter, as well as with Jacob Rhenferd (1654–1712), a German orientalist at the Frisian University of Franeker, he corresponded on the bilingual inscriptions from Palmyra.60 In his book Periculum Palmyrenum (…), published in 1704, Rhenferd had already made a first attempt to decipher Palmyrene Aramaic and was considered to be an authority in this regard. In a series of letters to the above-mentioned correspondents, which he wrote between mid-May and mid-August 1709, Cuper repeatedly referred to the inscriptions from Naqš-e Rostam.61 The first time he addressed the matter is in a letter to Rhenferd dated May 15, 1709 (KB Den Haag 72 G 25).62 He wrote to him that he had recently been in Amsterdam where he had met Nicolaes Witsen.63 Among the many curiosities collected by Witsen, there was a ‘bilingual’ inscription from Persepolis of which Herbert de Jager (1636–1694), one of Witsen’s employees at the East India Company, had sent him a copy.64 Cuper joined to his letter his own interpretation of the Greek text over which he had pondered a while (in Graeca verba incubui aliquantum); he probably hoped that by comparing the letters of the other inscription with those known from Palmyra, Rhenferd would be able to decode them as well. The attached autograph made it clear that Cuper assumed the name ΑΡΖΑΚΟΥ (sic) to be in the second line (Fateor tamen nihil hic certum cognoscere praeter Arsacem Regem Regum) and that there were also some further minor errors in his reading.65 Two weeks later, in a letter dated June 1, 1709, Cuper wrote to Leibniz (GWLB Hannover, LBr. 187, Bl. 93–96) that he had forwarded the inscription to Rhenferd (Misi hoc monumentum ad Rhenferdum), and that he hoped that the latter would be able to decipher the unknown letters, which would no doubt also help to explain the Greek text, as he was convinced – and rightly so – that both inscriptions meant the same thing in two different languages (Spero Rhenferdum nobis interpretaturum litteras incognitas, nec dubito, quin inde Graeca explicari poterunt, com habeam persuasum, eandem rem binis illis linguis contineri).66 In addition to that, Cuper wrote another letter to La Croze as well on that same day, June 1, 1709.67 Therein he equally expressed the hope that Rhenferd would use the other inscription to improve the badly copied Greek version.   See Heindl 2018: 73–80 and Touber 2019: 70 and 94–96.   The episode is described in detail by Heindl 2018: 79–100. 62   See Heindl 2018: 79–82. 63   Nicolaes Witsen (1641–1717) was a Dutch diplomat, Mayor of Amsterdam between 1682 and 1706, Administrator of the Dutch East India Company since 1693, Fellow of the Royal Society of London since 1689, a cartographer and an authority on shipbuilding. On Witsens correspondence with Cuper see Peters 1989 and 2010, 271–302. It began in August 1683 and lasted 33 years until Cuper’s death in 1716; it contained 207 letters, 109 from Cupers to Witsen and 98 from Witsen to Cupers (most of which were published by Gebhard 1881/II: 283–469). 64   Witsen mentions the inscription from Persepolis made known to him by De Jager in two letters to Cuper, dated January 1, 1713 (letter nr. 47 in Gebhard 1881/II: 350–354) and February 15, 1713 (letter nr. 50 in Gebhard 1881/II: 358–360). On Herbert De Jager see also Hotz 1911: 3–6 and Peters 1989: 112f. 65   From the transcription it is clear that the inscription meant by Cuper was actually ANRm-a: in the first line, he mistakenly read ΜΑCΛΑCΝΟΥ (for ΜΑCΔΑCΝΟΥ) and in line 4 ΠΑΠΑΙΟΥ (for ΠΑΠΑ[ΚΟΥ]). 66   On this letter see Heindl 2018: 82f. 67   See Heindl 2018: 83f. The letter is reprinted in Beyer 1743: 23–27. 60 61

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J’ai envoyé cette pièce à M. Rhenferd afin qu’il la veuille examiner, & voir si l’on pourroit corriger le Grec, qui est mal copié, à ce que j’en puis juger; & je n’y comprends rien que le nom de ΘΕΟΣ ΑΡΣΑΚ … ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ, par où vous pouvez voir qu’elle est d’une date postérieure. Obviously getting impatient in the absence of a response, Cuper asked Rhenferd once more for his pending assessment on June 29, 1709, and coupled it with a request that the copy of the inscription be sent back to him immediately so that he could consult other people as well on the matter (KB Den Haag 72 G 25).68 His next letter of July 9, 1709 was then addressed again to La Croze.69 Therein, he soon came to speak anew of the inscription ANRm-a, which he now understood had not been discovered in the ruins of Persepolis, but in nearby Naqš-e Rostam: Vous avez appris par ma lettre du i. du mois passé, que celle que l’illustre M. Witzen m’a communiquée est moitié Grecque, moitié conçuë en des caractères inconnus, qui ne ressemblent point du tout à ceux, dont vous recevez la copie, & je croi pour cela qu’elle ne s’est pas trouvée dans les ruïnes de Persépolis, mais selon toutes les apparences dans le lieu que les Persans appellant Nakschi Rustan, où l’on voit aussi de belles Antiquités, dont parle Mr. Thevenot dans son Voyage; il m’a fait naître cette pensée, parce qu’il dit dans un endroit; cette figure est toute couverte d’écriture, qui semble Grecque, mais elle est tellement ruinée, qu’on ne la sçauroit lire:70 s’il en a connu seulement quelques Lettres, il en a pu conclurre qu’elles étoient Grecques, et il est constant que cette langue y a été en usage, après Alexandre le Grand, d’où je juge que cet Ouvrage pourroit être des Arsacides, dont le nom se trouve dans l’inscription de Mr. Witzen. In the further course of that same letter, Cuper came back to the inscription twice more, first to let La Croze know that he had just received a reply from Rhenferd. Therein the latter informed him that he had unfortunately mislaid the copy of the inscription, but that this was not a problem since Thomas Hyde had previously published it: Je viens de recevoir en ce moment une Lettre de Mr. Rhenferd, où il me mande que l’Inscription, que Mr. Witzen m’a communiquée, s’est égarée parmi les autres papiers, qu’il la retrouvera certainement, & qu’on n’y perdroit pas beaucoup, si cela n’arrrivoit pas, parce qu’elle a été publiée par Thomas Hyde dans son Histoire de la Religion des anciens Perses. Et en vérité je la trouve sur une table à la p. 516 & Mr. Rhenferd me mande qu’il n’y voit goute, & que les caractères lui sont tout à fait inconnus; il croit avec cela qu’on y a ajouté depuis le Grec, dont le commencement a été, à ce que j’en puis juger, de cette manière: ΤΟΥΤΟ ΤΟ ΠΡΟCΩΠΟΝ . . . . . . ΘΕΟΥ. ΑΡΖΑΚΟΥ. ΒΑCΙΛΕΩC ΒΑCΙΛΕΩΝ   See Heindl 2018: 84f.   See Heindl 2018: 91–97. The letter is reprinted in Beyer 1743: 27–34. 70   The quote is on page 287 of the second volume (Suite du Voyage de Levant […]. Paris, 1674) of Jean de Thévenot’s (1633–1667) travelogue. 68 69

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ΑΡΣΑΝΩΝ ΘΕΩΝ ΥΙΟΥ. ΘΕΟΥ ΠΑΠΑΙΟΥ ΒΑCΙΛΕΩΣ. & l’autre doit être aussi corrigé, ΤΟΥΤΟ ΤΟ ΠΡΩCΟΠΟΝ ΔΙΟC ΘΕΟΥ. Car dans l’exemplaire de Mr. Witzen il y a très distinctement ΔΙΟC; celui qui a consacré ce Monument témoigne, que la tête qui s’y voyoit, étoit de Jupiter, Jovis Dei, & l’autre d’Arsaces, qui a été peut-être appellee aussi Maclasnus. L’ΑΡΣΑΝΩΝ m’est inconnu; et Hérodote (p. 29) témoigne que Papæus est le nom de Jupiter, parmi les Scythes, & c’est pour cela que je l’y croi trouver. Finally, in a last passage, he commented on Hyde’s interpretation: Mais pour revenir à l’Inscription de Mr. Witzen, j’ai remarqué que Mr. Hyde la change fort, & qu’il y trouve Alexandre le Grand, au lieu d’un Arsaces: car il en fait ΤΟΥΤΟ ΤΟ ΠΡΟCΩΠΟΝ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ ΒΑCΙΛΕΩC ΒΑCΙΛΕΩΝ ΑCΙΑΝΩΝ ΑΓΑCΘΕΝΩΝ ΥΙΟΥ ΦΙΛΙΠΟΥ ΒΑCΙΛΕΩΣ. C’est à ce que j’en puis juger, une entreprise trop violente et trop hardie, et je ne crois pas qu’Alexandre ait été jamais appellé Rex Regum, & ce titre seul defend un Arsaces, qui me plait plus que l’Alexandre de Mr. Hyde. Et il faut bien considerer que cette Inscription n’a pas été trouvée à Persepolis, mais à Nocta Rustan, qui sont des ruïnes à trois lieuës de Chelminar; & c’est par là, & par le moyen d’Arsaces, que je suis confirmé dans ma conjecture, que les ruïnes de Persepolis, ou plutôt ce Palais, doit son origine aux Perses, & celui de Rustan aux Parthes, ou aux Arsacides (…). On August 14, 1709, La Croze finally replied to Cuper’s letter of July 9th (KB Den Haag 72 G 18–19).71 Like Rhenferd before him, he wrote that the inscription from Persepolis – by which he meant ANRm-a – was already known to him, as Hyde and Thévenot had published it before. However, La Croze emphasised that Cuper’s copy of it seemed to him to be much more accurate. If one summarises the relatively modest knowledge gained at the beginning of the 18th century, it can be stated that on the one hand a lot of contradicting information circulated about the exact find spot (Persepolis or Naqš-e Rostam? Inscriptions engraved on the bases of two separate equestrian statues or on the horses of two equestrian figures in a single relief? Placement of the relief?), and on the other hand, none of the highly praised travellers like Chardin or De Bruijn had been able to produce better and more precise drawings than the ones Stephen Flower had already had made in 1667. For this reason, there was not even agreement on the reading of the Greek inscription, nor was there the slightest hint of some understanding that the unknown letters actually represented inscriptions in two – not just one! – further languages, let alone even the beginning of an attempt at deciphering these parallel Parthian and Middle Persian inscriptions. In view of the prevailing confusion, it was more than understandable that only very few people dared to tackle the matter again. The art collector, homme de lettres and member of the Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris Anne Claude Philippe de Caylus (1692–1765), also known as the Comte de Caylus, agreed for his part with the prevailing opinion that the reliefs and inscriptions in 71

  See Heindl 2018: 98–100.

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Naqš-e Rostam were probably more recent than the remains at Persepolis and might perhaps be attributed to the Arsacids.72 Shortly before, Jean-Jacques Barthélemy (1716–1795), also called l’abbé de Barthélemy, who was a collaborator of the Comte de Caylus at the Cabinet des Médailles, and like him a member of the Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, had also expressed his opinion on the subject. In agreement with Cuper and contrary to Hyde, he believed that the incomplete name in the second line of the Greek inscription had to be read as ΑΡΖΑ[ΚΟΥ] and that the inscription had therefore to be dated back to the time of the Parthian kings. However, he did not want to rule out that the name of the king had been misspelt by the stone mason and that these inscriptions actually dated from the Sasanian period, when several kings had borne the name of Artaxerxes, i.e. Ardaxšīr:73 Si cette réponse ne satisfait pas, j’irai plus loin, & j’ajoûterai que les inscriptions ont été faites pour des Rois de la Dynastie des Sassanides. On sait que ces Princes avoient adopté ces titres fastueux qui rendoient les Parthes respectables à leurs sujets, & que plusieurs d’entr’eux ont porté le nom d’Artaxerxès, que l’ouvrier peut avoir mal figuré dans cette occasion. Barthélemy thus became the first to hesitantly open the trail to the Sasanians. Since he was more specifically known for his decipherment of Palmyrene writing a few years before (1754), his opinion therefore counted when he agreed with Hyde on the resemblance of the unknown characters in the other inscriptions to Palmyrene writing. Given that the Palmyrene alphabet had been in use between the first century BC and the third century AD, the argument of the script resemblance seemed more compatible with the Arsacid hypothesis than with the Sasanian one, however, and one easily understands Barthélemy’s puzzlement and his concluding sigh when he writes:74 S’il étoit possible d’avoir une copie exacte des inscriptions inconnues qu’on y voit, toutes nos difficultés seroient éclaircies: celles qu’on nous a transmises, quoique très-défectueuses, présentent assez de lettres Palmyréniennes pour justifier les détails où je me suis engagé. In this regard, the drawings made by Niebuhr, which the latter published in Pl. XXVII of his travelogue mark a crucial turning point for the future decipherment of the inscriptions.75 His drawings were certainly not absolutely flawless, but for the first time it became possible to get a more accurate picture of the state of preservation of the Greek versions of the inscriptions ANRm-a/b, particularly of the gap in the second line of the first inscription where the king’s name was missing. It was now beyond doubt that the name began with the letters ΑΡΤ[–] (which excluded once and for all any connection to Alexander the Great). Furthermore, it became apparent that both Greek inscriptions were accompanied by not just one   Caylus 1764: 144–146: “On pourroit, avec plus de vraisemblance, attribuer aux Arsacides ces bas-reliefs qu’on voit encore sur la montagne de Naxi-Rustan, & sur celles qui bordent la vallée de Persépolis; ils sont d’un goût & d’une antiquité bien inférieures aux tombeaux & aux bâtimens des ruines” (p. 144). 73   Barthélemy 1759: 595. 74   Barthélemy 1759: 596. 75   For the identification of the inscriptions F (ŠNRb, MPers.) – G (ŠNRb, Pa.) – H (ŠNRb, Gr.) – I (ANRma/b) in plate XXVII in Niebuhr 1778 see Wiesehöfer’s contribution above (p. 194). 72

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but by two more parallel inscriptions in as many unknown scripts. In the case of ANRm-a, the order was Parthian – Greek – Middle Persian, whereas in the case of ANRm-b it was Middle Persian – Parthian – Greek. In the running text of his travelogue, Niebuhr considered the inscriptions from Naqš-e Rostam to be “alle sehr schlecht”.76 As to his interpretation of the Greek inscriptions, he writes:77 Die Griechen haben ihren Namen hier auch verewigen wollen. Es ist aber mit sehr weniger Kunst und Geschmack geschehen; denn ihre Schriften stehen auf den Pferden, und sind so schlecht eingehauen, daß sie fast am meisten durch die Zeit gelitten haben. Niebuhr is also the first to mention the inscriptions ŠNRb of Šābuhr I in Naqš-e Rajab (Pl. XXVII, F-G-H) and KNRm of the high priest Kerdīr in Naqš-e Rostam (Pl. XXXIV).78 Here is what he writes on the former:79 Die untersten 6 Reihen griechischer Schrift sind wohl die neuesten, aber am meisten beschädigt. (…) Die Inschrift F [= MPers., my remark] ist am besten eingehauen, aber doch bey weitem nicht so scharf, als die an den Ruinen zu Tschil Minâr. Die Schriftzüge bei F und G [= Pa., my remark] sind verschieden. Einige Buchstaben aber scheinen in beyden dieselben zu seyn. Die Sprachforscher können also vielleicht die eine brauchen, um die andere daraus zu erklären. Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy had already made his marks in the field of Syriac, Hebrew and Arabic studies,80 when on March 9, 1787, at the still young age of 28, he gave the first of his famous four lectures on the Antiquities of Persia at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, in which he presented his findings on the decipherment of the earliest Sasanian inscriptions.81 De Sacy, too, had immediately noticed the remarkable similarity between Flower’s and Chardin’s drawings (see above, p. 206), as well as the fact that they had both made the same mistakes in the same places. He concluded that one had in fact copied from the other but left open the answer to the question whether Flower’s drawings were based on Chardin’s or

76   Niebuhr 1778: 158: in the present context, Niebuhr’s “schlecht” means “poorly executed” rather than “badly preserved”. 77   Niebuhr 1778: 159. 78   See Wiesehöfer’s contribution above, p. 194. Regarding the inscription KNRm, Niebuhr 1778, 157f. only briefly remarks the following: “Hinter dem Pferde D Tabelle 32 ist eine Tafel mit einer großen Schrift, wovon das meiste durch die Zeit sehr beschädigt ist. Ich habe eine Ecke derselben, (p. 158) (etwa 1/3 der Breite, und die Hälfte der Höhe, also überhaupt ungefehr nur 1/6 von allem) auf der Tabelle XXXIV copirt”. 79   Niebuhr 1778: 153 with note. 80   See Reinaud 1838: 6f. and 10f. Meanwhile, de Sacy had learnt a number of other oriental (among which Ethiopian, Persian, Turkish) and occidental (Italian, Spanish, English, and German) languages. Of the numerous biographical notes and appraisals of de Sacy’s life and works, the detailed “notice historique et littéraire” by his student Joseph Toussaint Reinaud (1795–1867), who succeeded to him in the chair of Arabic at the École des Langues Orientales Vivantes (nowadays INaLCO), remains one of the most informative (together with Dehérain 1936 and 1937; see also Foucher 1938). 81   This first lecture was entitled “Mémoire sur les inscriptions et les monumens de Nak­ schi-Roustam”.

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vice versa.82 However things may have happened, the quality of none of these drawings was nearly as good as of those prepared by Niebuhr. De Sacy began his investigation with a detailed examination of all known Greek inscriptions: by now being able to additionally consult the Greek version of the trilingual inscription ŠNRb thanks to Niebuhr, it turned out that the king’s name the reading of which had so long remained uncertain, was indeed to be understood and completed as ΑΡΤ[ΑΞ] ΑΡΟΥ.83 Likewise, there was no longer the slightest doubt about the father’s name of the king, since he was called a son “of king Pābag” (ΠΑΠΑΚΟΥ ΒΑCΙΛΕΩC).84 Given that none of the titles contained in the inscriptions corresponded to any of the Greek epithets found on Arsacid coins85 and that a further royal name could be supplemented as [C]ΑΠ[ΟΡ]ΟΥ (ŠNRb 2),86 it was apparent by now that Barthélemy had hit the mark with his second conjecture (see above, p. 211), and that the deity meant by ΔΙΟC in ANRm-b had to be Ohrmezd, whose name was obviously also contained in ΜΑCΔΑCΝΟΥ.87 These were clearly Sasanian inscriptions. After having established a relationship between the inscriptions and the bas-reliefs,88 the French scholar then turned to the two Iranian versions, first that in Middle Persian (which he called “pehlvi”).89 He rightly assumed that the Greek inscriptions represented in actual fact the translations of the other two versions. In his attempt to decipher the Middle Persian text, he wrote the corresponding signs from the square Hebrew script underneath each of the unknown characters whose value he had been able to determine, partly by comparing the letter forms of the inscriptions with those known from the Avestan and Book Pahlavi scripts;90 in the next   See Silvestre de Sacy 1793: 19–25. The first hypothesis seemed more likely to him, on the basis that Chardin had visited Persepolis for the first time in 1666, whereas Flower returned there only in late 1667 with his Polish draughtsman. In this respect it is worth noting that Nicolaes Witsen in one of his letters to Gijsbert Cuper, dated January 1, 1713 (see Gebhard 1881/II: 350–354, letter nr. 47), told him of a recent conversation he had had with Cornelis De Bruijn. As a result, he had come to believe that Chardin’s drawings did not always correspond to reality and that he considered De Bruijn’s to be superior. Conversely, he judged Chardin’s text to be far better than De Bruijn’s. In an earlier letter to La Croze, dated December 26, 1712 (see Beyer 1743: 118*[sic]–119, letter nr. XXXIV), Cuper mentioned for his part that he had found “quelques différences remarquables” (p. 117) in the drawings of the two travellers. In any case, De Bruijn himself left no doubt as to his conviction that his own drawings were much more accurate than those of Chardin and Kaempfer (see Drijvers 1991: 104–106). 83   See Silvestre de Sacy 1793: 31f. 84   See Silvestre de Sacy 1793: 32–34. 85   See Silvestre de Sacy 1793: 34–61. 86   In the second lacuna, an omega should be supplemented instead of an omikron, but that is only a detail. 87   See Silvestre de Sacy 1793: 61f. 88   See Silvestre de Sacy 1793: 63–71. 89   The procedure is described in Silvestre de Sacy 1793: 72f., and was then further developed (ibid., 73–107). 90   As he mentions himself (Silvestre de Sacy 1793: 106f.: “je ne connois le zend et le pehlvi que par les ouvrages de M. Anquetil”), de Sacy knew Avestan and Book Pahlavi only through the works of Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil Duperron (1731–1805), in particular from table VIII inserted between pages 424 and 425 of the second volume of his Zend-Avesta (1771). Despite their age difference, the young Silvestre de Sacy and the aging Anquetil Duperron had a lot of respect for each other and became even befriended to the point that de Sacy delivered the funeral eulogy at the tomb of Anquetil (see Silvestre de Sacy 1805) 82

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line, he put the words of the Greek inscription under the corresponding words in the unknown characters, taking into account that the Iranian inscriptions had to be read in the opposite direction (from the right to the left).91 For his decipherment, it was crucial that some words were used repeatedly in the Greek inscriptions (in particular ΜΑCΔΑCΝΟΥ, ΠΑΠΑΚΟΥ and ΑΡΤΑΞΑΡΟΥ), so that he was able to find the corresponding words in the inscription in unknown characters and at the same time to determine the number of letters for each word. It was certainly helpful that some letters (Α, Π, Ρ, C) occurred more than once within the words he had first been able to identify. These first steps made it then possible for him to retrieve the already identified signs in the remaining words and by and by to fill up the gaps, first in the remaining name of Šābuhr (I. [r. 241–271/2]) and then in the titles and epithets. The final outcome of his deciphering attempt was fairly correct except for the word bgy /bay/ “god, majesty” which he misunderstood as †bhy /behi/ (= /weh/) “good, excellent”.92 The aramaeograms were of course not yet recognised as such but were considered as being ordinary Middle Persian words. On the other hand, de Sacy’s knowledge of Semitic languages served him well in understanding the words of non-Iranian origin in the inscriptions. The Parthian version was then dealt with in the same manner, though he could only decipher the proper names and some more words, which seemed to him to belong to a different dialect, without being able of fully understanding the inscriptions in their entirety.93 What this second dialect had in common with Middle Persian, and made them differ both from Avestan, was that the vowels were not expressed. With this first Mémoire of 1787, de Sacy had undoubtedly made a major breakthrough and had almost completely succeeded at first go in deciphering the two Iranian versions. In his subsequent contributions, he worked out more details, which only further confirmed the validity of the results of his first investigation. While his second Mémoire elaborated on the Arabic and Persian inscriptions at Persepolis94 that were copied by Niebuhr and is therefore out of the frame for our present purpose, the next two lectures again dealt directly with Sasanian epigraphy. In his third Mémoire,95 he was able to demonstrate that the same royal titles that he had discovered in the short inscriptions of Naqš-e Rostam and Naqš-e Rajab were also found on Sasanian coins, some of which were preserved at the Cabinet des Médailles.96 His and that the latter entrusted the former by testament a few days before his death with the care of the oriental manuscripts in his possession; on de Sacy’s proposal and after negotiation, the manuscripts were finally ceded to the conservators of the Imperial Library (today: Bibliothèque Nationale de France [BNF]) and the proceeds of the sale paid out to the heirs of Anquetil (see Deherain 1919: 105–111). 91   See Silvestre de Sacy 1793, Plate I (here: fig. 7). 92   See Silvestre de Sacy 1793: 76–83, esp. 77 (see also Wiesehöfer’s contribution above, p. 198). 93   See Silvestre de Sacy 1793: 108–115. Since the later terms Chaldeo-Pahlavi or Parthian were not yet in use, Silvestre de Sacy 1793: 123 associated the hitherto unknown characters of the second language with that of the Daylamites in the mountainous coastal region to the south of the Caspian Sea. 94   The second lecture of July 1, 1788 was entitled “Sur les inscriptions arabes et persanes de Tchehel-minar”. 95   The title of the third lecture of August 17, 1790 was “Sur les médailles des rois de Perse de la dynastie des Sassanides”. 96   After his Law studies, de Sacy had been appointed as an adviser at the Cour des monnaies in 1781 (see Daunou 1839: 509f.), which closely supervised minting under the An-

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fourth and last Mémoire was consecrated to the two short Middle Persian inscriptions from Tāq-e Bostān (ŠTBn-I and II).97 They had become known in 1787 thanks to the copies made by Pierre-Joseph de Beauchamp (1752–1801), known as the abbé de Beauchamp, who was at that time vicar general to the bishop of Baghdad. Although the monolingual inscriptions are a century younger and can be attributed to Šābuhr II (r. 309–379) and III (r. 383–388), their wording is nevertheless comparable to the earliest Sasanian inscriptions that de Sacy had already deciphered.98 He interpreted correctly ŠTBn-I but made a mistake on ŠTBn-II, where he read the name of Wahrām (IV [r. 388–399]) instead of that of his father (?) Šābuhr III.99 De Sacy’s four Mémoires had been uttered in times of revolutionary turmoil. The Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres saw therefore little opportunity to publish them quickly but allowed de Sacy to bundle them for publication at his own expense in 1793. A decree of November 27, 1792 prohibited the Royal Academies from providing for replacement of deceased academicians, before another decree of August 8, 1793 ordered the abolition of “all Academies and literary societies patented or endowed by the Nation”. The Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres thus became the third class of the Institut de France established by the Constitution of the year III (1795). Its former name of Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres was later restored by ordinance of March 21, 1816 under Louis XVIII. In the meantime, de Sacy had continued his activities in the field of biblical studies, but returned one last time to Sasanian epigraphy. Affirming his conjecture expressed in his first Mémoire, he fixed the reading of the first words ptkly ZNE of the Middle Persian version of ANRm-a and ŠNRb corresponding to Greek ΤΟΥΤΟ ΤΟ ΠΡΟCΩΠΟΝ.100 Honours and marks of recognition continued to fall to the young scholar who was still in the early stages of his career. To name but a few: in 1791, he was appointed by the king as one of the Commissaires généraux des monnaies (but he resigned from this function in the following year and retreated to private life);101 cien Régime in France, in direct cooperation with related legal authorities. This professional occupation explains perhaps de Sacy’s interest in numismatics. 97    The fourth lecture of July 1, 1791 was entitled “Mémoire sur les monumens et les inscriptions de Kirmanschah ou Bi-sotoun, dans le Curdistan” (it remained the only lecture that was reprinted in the collection of the Mémoires de l’Académie in 1815). On de Sacy and the study of Tāq-e Bostān see also Potts 2022. 98    The inscriptions are engraved to the left and right of two standing figures (see Fukai / Sugiyame / Kimata / Tanabe 1983, pl. XXIII), portraying Šābuhr II and his son Šābuhr III, who seems to have been the patron of the relief which was, unlike all others known that far, not carved as a rock relief but at the rear wall of a barrel-vaulted space quarried in the cliff. Since the two king figures differ only in their respective crowns, their identification has caused a debate among art historians as to whether Ardaxšīr II (r. 379–383) was depicted here rather than Šābuhr III. According to Overlaet 2011: 242f., the inscriptions were later additions by Šābuhr III having usurped the relief originally depicting Šābuhr II and his (half-)brother Ardaxšīr II. Previously, Tanabe 1985: 109–112 had argued that both reliefs were actually finished by Šābuhr II before his son Šābuhr III got enthroned and that the latter added the inscriptions after his enthronement. More recently, Canepa 2013: 870 and 2018: 360 returned to the older view adopted by Tanabe. 99    See Silvestre de Sacy 1793: 255f. 100   The addition was published in the Journal des Savans of 30 pluviôse of the year V (February 18, 1797) and later reprinted in Salmon 1905: 1–8. 101   See Reinaud 1838: 18f.

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in 1792, he was elected an ordinary member of the Academy;102 in 1795, he was appointed as the first professor of Arabic at the newly created École Spéciale des Langues Orientales Vivantes,103 and in 1806, the chair of Persian was created for him at the Collège de France.104 When the general atmosphere finally began to calm down a little, the Academy offered him to republish his four lectures in its collection of Mémoires, but he saw no point in it and a résumé was published instead.105 Merely his fourth and last Mémoire was republished with some additions in 1815.106

Fig. 7: Drawing of the inscriptions ANRm-a/b by Silvestre de Sacy 1793, Pl. I (based on Niebuhr 1778, Pl. XXVII), inserted before the text of his first Mémoire.   See Reinaud 1838: 18. He was even the last Academy member elected before its dissolution pursuant to the decree of November. From 1833 to 1838, de Sacy also served as secrétaire perpétuel of the Academy. His predecessor Bon-Joseph Dacier (1742–1833) recognized de Sacy’s merits in his report on scholarly progress to the king in the following terms: “Une branche toute nouvelle a été ajoutée à cette science [i.e., numismatics, my remark] par M. Silvestre de Sacy. Il a réussi à lire les caractères, jusqu’alors inconnus, des légendes des médailles frappées sous les rois Sassanides qui ont régné en Perse depuis l’an 227 de l’ère Chrétienne, et il est parvenu à les expliquer. On ne sait ce qu’on doit admirer le plus dans son travail, ou des rares connoissances de l’auteur dans les langues Orientales, ou de l’étonnante sagacité qui dirige ses recherches” (Dacier 1810: 63 = Dacier 1862: 105). At de Sacy’s death, his successor as secrétaire perpétuel Pierre-Claude-François Daunou (1761–1840) also paid tribute to him in his obituary, read in public on August 10, 1838 (see Daunou 1839). 103   See Reinaud 1838: 23. 104   See Reinaud 1838: 29; on de Sacy’s teaching qualities and his daily routine see ibid.: 49–52. 105   See Silvestre de Sacy 1809. 106   See Silvestre de Sacy 1815. 102

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The first results obtained by de Sacy were soon universally acclaimed in the early decades of the 19th century and his initial work prompted further studies. The English traveller William Ouseley (1767–1842) was the first to pursue de Sacy’s studies on the Middle Persian legends on Sasanian coins and seals,107 while the French missionary Eugène Boré (1809–1878) undertook it to contest some points of detail in de Sacy’s fourth Mémoire on the inscriptions of Tāq-e Bostān,108 in particular concerning the initial words of the Middle Persian text, only to find himself reprimanded by the orientalist Louis Dubeux (1798–1863) for having overlooked de Sacy’s later addition after the publication of his Mémoires in 1793.109 The English diplomat and traveller James Morier (1780–1849) for his part criticised a little carelessly Niebuhr’s drawings and even put them on a par with those made by Chardin and De Bruijn, considering all of them to be “entirely unworthy of the originals”. With his bragging about “the full and characteristic distinctions preserved in Mr. Morier’s Sketches”, he totally overestimated the quality of his own work,110 however, which fell far short of what the painters and travellers Sir Robert Ker Porter (1777–1842)111 and Eugène Flandin (1809–1889) were shortly thereafter able to transmit to posterity.112 The Bavarian orientalist Marcus Joseph Müller (1809–1874), who had been a student of Silvestre de Sacy during his stay in Paris in 1833, published an Essai sur la langue pehlvie, which can be considered as the beginning of (Book) Pahlavi studies: his article was even preceded by a short note from the editors of the Journal Asiatique, explaining that its publication had in fact long been accepted, but was delayed as it needed the creation of a special typographic set for rendering Pahlavi letters. In his said article, Müller subjected the letter forms of inscriptional Middle Persian and Book Pahlavi to an in-depth investigation and examined their relation to the Avestan alphabet; he furthermore offered a detailed discussion on the occurrence of Semitic words in Middle Persian. The underlying principle of huzwārišn (or: huzwāreš in its Pāzand form), litt. “disclosure”, was nevertheless only understood by Charles Clermont-Ganneau (1846–1923) and Martin Haug (1827–1878).113 For the time being, no one felt compelled to try to interpret Kerdīr’s inscription at Naqš-e Rostam, though Niebuhr had also made a good drawing of it (see above p. 212).114 Noteworthy progress in Sasanian epigraphy was not any more to be realised for a long period until a number of scholars,   See his monographic study Ouseley 1801 among other contributions.   See Boré 1841. 109   See Dubeux 1843. 110   See Morier 1812: 380 and his drawings on plate XXIX. 111   See his drawings of the reliefs, statues, and inscriptions at Naqš-e Rostam (ANRm-a in Porter 1821/I: 548 pl. 23), Naqš-e Rajab (ŠNRb in Porter 1821/I: 572 pl. 28 [here: fig. 8]), and Tāq-e Bostān (ŠTBn-I/II in Porter 1821/II: 188 pl. 65 [here: fig. 9]). 112   See Flandin’s drawings of the inscriptions at Tāq-e Bostān (Flandin / Coste 1851, Planches I: pl. 6), Naqš-e Rostam (ibid., Planches IV: pl. 181), and Naqš-e Rajab (ibid., Planches IV: pl. 190). 113   See Ganneau 1866 and Haug in his introductory remarks to Jamaspji Asa 1867, XIII– XXX. 114   A further drawing is also included in Flandin / Coste 1851, Planches IV: pl. 181 and 181bis. Thomas 1868: 301–309 mentioned the inscription (and tried to make a first tentative transliteration in Book Pahlavi as well as a transcription in Persian), but West 1881: 29–34 was the first to edit it, on the basis of Flandin’s drawing and of the tracing of the copy sent to him by Westergaard in 1878 (see West 1881: 29). 107 108

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beginning with the Danish orientalist Niels Ludvig Westergaard (1815–1878), started working on the bilingual Parthian–Middle Persian inscription found at Hāǰǰīābād to the north of Persepolis, of which Porter – who first discovered it in 1818 – and Flandin had also included drawings in their respective works.115

Fig. 8: Drawing of the relief and the trilingual inscription ŠNRb at Naqš-e Rajab in Porter 1821/I: 572 Pl. 28.

Fig. 9: Drawing of the statues and the trilingual inscriptions ŠTBn-I/II at Tāq-e Bostān in Porter 1821/II: 188 Pl. 65. 115   See Porter 1821: 513 pl. 15 and Flandin / Coste 1851, Planches IV: pl. 193bis; as well as Westergaard 1851. More Sasanian inscriptions were by and by discovered in the course of the 19th century (for further details on the history of their discovery see Thomas 1868: 267–346 and Drouin 1898: 12–14; on progress made in Middle Persian studies and in Sasanian numismatics see also Haug 1869.

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