Blair Fowlkes-Childs and Michael Seymour. The World Between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019.

This catalogue was published in conjunction with “The World between empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East,” on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, from March through June 2019.

The recent exhibition and resulting catalogue, The World Between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East, focus on the liminal space between the Roman and Parthian Empires from 100 BC to 250 CE. This area defies easy categorization and has attracted attention from scholars of various disciplines. The material remains of the ancient world in this region display a stunning diversity. Scholars are often quick to categorize certain art or architectural forms as either “Roman” or “Parthian” because they want to draw a direct line between the material culture and these powerful political entities. But, as Fowlkes-Childs and Seymour write, “Art does not neatly track with empire” (5).

The curators of the exhibit and authors of this catalogue resist the urge to classify objects by these two great empires (“Roman” or “Parthian”) and, instead shift the focus to the local vicinity they reflect. In its first nine chapters, the volume highlights nine different areas along trade routes in the ancient Middle East: beginning with southwestern Arabia (modern day Yemen), then Nabataea, Judea, Tyre and Sidon, Heliopolis-Baalbek, Palmyra, Dura-Europos, northern Mesopotamia, and ending with southern Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq). Each of these sections provides a brief but informative summary of the political and cultural history of the region from the first century BC to the third CE, complete with citations from primary sources which mention the area. Upon this foundation the authors provide a thorough description of exhibited objects from that region.

For example, the historical summary in the chapter on Judea covers pre-Roman rule under Herod, the Great Revolt of 66-70 CE, Judea under Roman rule, the Bar Kokhba revolt, and the problems caused by the constant transitions of control over the land including and adjacent to Judea. The reader is well positioned not only to see the importance of the famous Magdala stone which bears perhaps the earliest image of a menorah found in a synagogue, but also to appreciate the juxtaposition of a coin minted by Judeans during the Great Revolt and one produced by Romans after the Flavians controlled Judaea in 69 CE. Though the summaries for each region are not exhaustive, they present sufficient historical background for the general reader who may be unfamiliar with the scholarly or archaeological work in a particular area. More importantly, this volume offers such readers insight into what is distinctive about each place and to what extent it was connected with other areas in the ancient Middle East or the two empires.

From left to right: Obverse and reverse of a bronze Coin from Judaea (69 CE) and a bronze sestertius of Vespasian (71 CE).

A focus on local spaces instead of empires provides viewers of this exhibition and subsequent readers of the catalogue the space to rethink how one identities the objects on display as well as the people who may have used them. Throughout this volume and in each object description, the authors try to remain comfortable with the “in-between” and allow the multiplicity of identities to coexist. Fowlkes-Childs and Seymour do not ask their readers to consider whether someone from Dura-Europos or Petra or Sidon would think of themselves as “Roman” or “Parthian” first, but rather their careful descriptions prompt the following question: Would identification with Dura-Europos or Petra or Sidon matter the most to the people living in these places? Or would a religious affiliation or priestly duty or their occupation as a glass-maker be paramount? Often the descriptions of materials featuring deities seem to privilege Greek and Roman deities over local divinities, but often information about local deities is not known. Although this feature diverts attention from the local context, it made me wonder about the effect of such identifications. What is the result of naming a female figure as “Venus-like” or observing that a male figure posed with vines resembles Dionysus? Does it advance our knowledge or is it distracting? It re-inscribes the binaries in which we often want to view this ancient Middle Eastern art – as markedly “Roman” or not.

From left to right: Mithras and Sol (ca. 210 CE) ; Stele of a goddess (“Goddess of Hayyan”); Glass hexagonal amphoriskos (1st c. CE); Cippus of Titus Flavius Appianus (2nd-3rd c. CE). [Images courtesy of the author].

The authors consistently preserve the specific contexts of these objects preserving their variety and liminality. Their efforts made me appreciate how scholars can hone their vocabulary for describing overlapping and fluid identities, difference, and the local as more than the opposite of the imperial. This challenge continues to exist despite the fact that scholars have consistently pointed out the problem of assuming singular “identity” for a while.

When I walked through this exhibit last summer, I was stuck by the incredible breadth and diversity of the objects on display. As a Classicist who studies early Christianity, I am used to arguing that “Christian” texts and objects merit consideration as part of the Roman world. I often contend that an object’s “Christianness” is not the only or even the foremost marker of its identity. A claim to “Christianness” does not invalidate “Romanness” or “Greekness” in any way, and such objects are worthy of study as much as a bust of Vespasian or a letter written by Trajan. As I sat and looked at the famous wall paintings of Jesus from Dura after spending time amazed at the bilingual inscriptions on altars to Palmyrene gods, I realized that I am often preoccupied with how objects reflect empire. I feel the need to argue that something is Roman or Greek (at least in Classics) because those categories are more accessible, more conceivable, and honestly easier for me and my colleagues to work within. An object that is “Venus-like” fits our expectations, but one that is an “unnamed goddess” does not. We prefer working in our disciplinary siloes, but our academic disciplines often carve up the ancient world in artificial and forced ways, masking the vast mixture of different people, spaces, and experiences that existed. These empires or Rome or Greece or Parthia shaped the lives of those living within them, but what if we put aside these imperial lenses and instead focus on the local? What if we let small cities be centers and let ourselves imagine a diversity of meanings, identities, people, and objects in the ancient world? This volume and the exhibition explore this very question.

Funerary relief ca. 150-200 CE [Image courtesy of the author]. — Funerary relief ca. 150-200 CE [Image courtesy of the author].

The last chapter in this volume summarizes the destruction that has occurred at some of the ancient sites highlighted in the exhibition. The authors survey the current efforts of archaeologists and historians to preserve sites that have been partially destroyed. During the exhibition, there was a video of three archaeologists (Zainab Bahrani, Michel Al-Maqdissi, and Michał Gawlikowski) discussing the destruction of cultural heritage during the recent conflicts in Iraq and Syria. It is still available to watch online and serves as a great reminder of the following: first, as Fowlkes-Childs and Seymour write, that “People are more important than things, and insofar as heritage deserves protection in times of crisis, it is a human phenomenon” (267). And second, that it is the continued existence of a market for illicit antiquities that drives looting and destruction of ancient sites and material, so it is extremely important to pay attention to the provenance of any object or text one might work with.

Overall, this exhibition and the catalogue that accompanies it are great starting points for those interested in expanding their understanding of the ancient world. The summaries of each region underscore the importance of interdisciplinary work. This publication will spur more scholars to reach across disciplinary boundaries and rethink an empire-centered view of the ancient world from 100 BC to 250 CE.

Alex Istok is Ph.D. Student at New York University (alex.istok@nyu.edu). Follow Alex’s research on Twitter.