Mario Liverani, The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy, tran. by Tabatabai Soraia, London; New York: Routledge, 2014.
1 THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST AS A HISTORICAL PROBLEM
1 The myth of the Ancient Near East
One of the main sources that preserved a historical memory of the Near East through time (that is with- out interruption) is the Old Testament.
However, this complex collection of writings, which vary both in terms of dating and type, was compiled according to the ideological intentions of its editors.
Originally, the archaeological rediscovery of the Ancient Near East was itself part of an attempt at recovering data and images of the so-called ‘historical context’ of the Old Testament.
Only at a later stage, and undoubtedly as a reaction against a historical and textual analysis of the Old Testament, archaeo- logical activities intensified in order to demonstrate its substantial accuracy.
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The majority of researchers involved (philologists, historians and archaeologists, to name a few) were initially spurred by common motivations.
From the nineteenth century onwards, however, a more secular approach has slowly managed to prevail, despite its occasional involvement in historically misleading controversies and debates – from the ‘Babel und Bibel’ of the nineteenth century, to the recent debates on Ebla.
The classical authors were another source guaranteeing the survival of information and images of the Near East in Western culture.
These authors were representatives of a world (Ancient Greek, then Hellenistic and Roman world) that was contemporary, yet in a way in opposition to late Near Eastern cultures.
With the significant increase of information on the Near East, however, new myths have replaced the old ones.
I am mainly referring to the modern version of the origin myth that sees the Ancient Near East as the ‘cradle’ or the ‘dawn’ of civilisation.
This view is partly true, yet dangerous in its implications. it is dangerous and misleading to imagine a monogenesis of civilisation, which instead had several starting points and different paths.
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the world and the drastic changes in the systems of transmission of ideas and concepts.
This forces us to put our own ethnocentric point of view aside and to take advantage of the experiences and paths previously ignored by other ethnocentric worldviews.
The Near Eastern contribution to human history is certainly not the earliest one. It is preceded by other equally fundamental prehistoric phases.
Therefore, the Near East is only one of many phases, and equal to any other period of history, including those that are not part of that privileged backbone of history established by modern Western historiography.
Nevertheless, the history of the Near East attracts particular attention due to its crucial place in history, as a threshold or starting point of fundamental constitutive processes characteristic of complex societies.
Moreover, these myths and misconceptions characterising the traditional image of the Near East need to be reconsidered and clarified with a critical eye, rather than ignored or all too easily removed from our memory.
2 Historiographical approaches to the Ancient Near East
Modern historiography has long abandoned those mythical motivations emphasising the uniqueness of the Near East (for theological reasons, as an anthropological categorisation, or as an issue of ‘original’ primacy).
It now aims, at least in its most conscious trends, for a normalisation of this phase of history, to be analysed and evaluated in the same way as other phases and other cultures.
Consequently, land- scapes and material remains are analysed in conjunction with social, economic, and political aspects, as well as ideologies and symbolic systems, in an attempt to reconstruct the whole network of interconnections and motivations linking these elements to each other.
Unlike other ancient periods of history (Ancient Greece and Rome in particular), for the Near East this task is influenced, both positively and negatively, by two factors: one of absence, and one of presence.
On the one hand, we lack an ancient historiography able to provide a sort of guideline for our reconstruction.
the history of the Near East has to be reconstructed ex novo from primary sources, unmediated by later historians.
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However, this historiographical delay is contrasted by this field’s enormous potential, which has now begun to be applied.
The lack of historiographical traditions and the constant influx of new material allows for the development of new approaches and methodologies, at times close to the most naïve and reckless of improvisations.
It can be said that there has not been a single analytical method or theme in historiography, recent or not so recent, which has not been applied to the Near East:
from neo-geographic spatial analysis to the structural analysis of the narratives;
from acculturation to frontier studies;
from modes of production to systems of exchange;
from the structure of myths to political discourse;
from settlement patterns to historical seman- tics;
from systems theory to mental maps, and so on.
The reconstruction of late prehistoric phases in particular – characterised by the difficult task of reconstructing complex social structures on the basis of non-textual evidence – has acted as an incentive for the coordinated and in-depth application of all the clues and evidence available:
from data regarding ecology to pedology, paleo-botany, archaeo-zoology, ethno-archaeological comparisons, and experimental archaeology, along with all the refinements in prehistoric excavations (stratigraphic investigations as well as surveys), and all the problematic complexity of social, political, and economic anthropology.
On the other hand, these results open up a sort of ‘New History’, characterised by a desire to establish ‘laws’ (in a way similar to other, typically American, new sciences such as New Archaeology, New Geography, and New Economic History), aimed more at ‘predicting’ the past rather than reconstructing it.
These trends manifest a tendency to detect laws instead of identifying exceptions.
Moreover, the introduction of electronic programs has opened up a range of possibilities (and risks) through ‘simulations’ applied to the uncertainties of the past, rather than the uncertainties of the future.
This has formed a generation of ‘demiurge’ historians who prefer to creatively construct the past, rather than reconstructing it.
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Therefore, apart from the immediate results gathered from an understanding of the historical facts examined, the study of the Near East constitutes an opportunity to gain a wider perspective on the results gathered, allowing a reconstruction of influential historical and anthropological patterns.
3 Unity and variety, centre and periphery
With the appearance of these phenomena, then, it becomes clear that an isolated study of the history of the Near East becomes inadequate and needs to be abandoned in favour of a wider approach.
This first level of approximation is, however, not enough, since it leaves aside the problem of the plurality and interconnection of the various centres of urbanisation.
Consequently, their study is fundamental for the understanding of the developments taking place in neighbouring urban centres.
Therefore, while the selection of a specific area highlights the unique character of the chosen region, a wider perspective allows for an appreciation of the plurality of centres and their mutual relations.
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The entire region is held together by strong cultural, political, and commercial interactions.
Nonetheless, each area maintains deeply embedded traits that allow a clear distinction between, for instance, the cultural context of Syria and Central Anatolia, or Lower Mesopotamia and Elam, and so on.
Therefore, even on a local level (though only to a certain extent), one finds those contrapositions between unity and difference, centre and periphery, singularity and interrelation.
A similar situation can be envisioned on a diachronic level:
the long span of time (three millennia: from 3500 to 500 bc) considered here has its own fundamental continuity and solidity, mainly arising from the increasing spread and development of the urban model and state formation.
However, this apparent unity does not preclude interruptions, at times quite dramatic (often due to the rise or reappearance of non-urban and non-palatial features), or distinctions into phases (and ‘centuries’).
Apart from chronological and geographical difficulties, there are internal complexities and variables due to the social context, economic and technological knowledge, and political participation of the areas under study.
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