Alessandra Gilibert | Università Ca' Foscari Venezia (original) (raw)
Books by Alessandra Gilibert
This volume explores how Syro-Hittite monumental art was used as a powerful backdrop to important... more This volume explores how Syro-Hittite monumental art was used as a powerful backdrop to important ritual events, and it opens up a new perspective by situating the monumental heritage in the context of large public performances and civic spectacles of great emotional impact. The first part of the volume focuses on the sites of Carchemish and Zincirli, offering a close reading of the relevant archaeological contexts. The second part of the volume discusses the embedment of monumental art in ritual performance and examines how change in art relates to change in ceremonial behavior, and how the latter relates in turn to change in power structures and models of rulership.
Papers by Alessandra Gilibert
Archaeopress Publishing Ltd eBooks, Mar 2, 2023
Religions, 2022
This paper presents an analysis of a ritual event memorialised on stone reliefs at the ancient ci... more This paper presents an analysis of a ritual event memorialised on stone reliefs at the ancient city of Carchemish around 800 BC. It is argued that the reliefs represent a ceremony of investiture, in which boys of royal lineage are handed out toys as oracular instruments to elicit favourable omens for the heir apparent. The inclusion of boys and their toys in the visual commemoration of a political ritual has bearings on three levels of meaning. First, it testifies to a hitherto unrecognised cult practice, involving grouping boys in age classes and harnessing their ludic practices for ritual purposes. Second, it reflects local political preoccupations connected with dynastic controversies, in an attempt to silence counternarratives through the emphatic staging of children. Finally, the chosen imagery conveys complex philosophical ideas about life, education, and individual destiny, connecting with issues of material religion and childhood studies. The study integrates interpretive perspectives from visual semiotics, architectural analysis, and ancient studies to show how, upon specific occasions, marginal groups and everyday material items, such as children and their toys, may play critical roles in collective ritual events.
Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 2021
This article deals with the socio-political dimension of public space in 13th-century bc Ugarit, ... more This article deals with the socio-political dimension of public space in 13th-century bc Ugarit, with a particular focus on the city’s squares. It approaches urban space as an organic, dynamic, and multiscalar system of intersecting interactions, in which
the street network functions as prime connector and point of encounter for different social groups. The paper combines the analysis of space configuration, the analysis of urban design, and the contextual analysis of small finds and their distribution.
This combined methodological approach helps identify at Ugarit a market square and a system of ceremonial squares, each with its own political and social value.
Istanbuler Mitteilungen, 2007
TÜRKİYE BİLİMLER AKADEMİSİ ARKEOLOJİ DERGİSİ
In: Bobokhyan et al. 2019. Vishap between fairy tale and reality, Yerevan: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, 528-545.
This contribution explores the meaning of prehistoric relief stelae ("vishaps") from the South Ca... more This contribution explores the meaning of prehistoric relief stelae ("vishaps") from the South Caucasus representing monumental fish. It lays out a method to decode their symbolic meaning integrating quantitative analysis, iconographic analysis, and semiotic analysis. Quantitative analysis of the original altitude of these stelae shows that they are only found high in the mountains, as opposed to other stelae, which were also also erected at lower altitudes. Iconographic analysis indicates that these stelae represent large-size fish naturally living in the rivers and lakes of the lowlands, such as catfish, pikes, or carps. As a result, we observe a specific desire to monumentalize fish known from a lowland environment at a location far away from its habitat, thus envisioning a precise connection between high-altitude meadows and lowland environments. A semiotic analysis of piscis vishaps supports the hypothesis that they are part of a religious cult of water, with a focus on mountain springs. Bronze Age parallels and a structuralist analysis of the symbolic code of vishaps suggest that they reflect a cult based on a dual origin of water, a subterranean and a celestial origin. Specifically, we argue that they represent a local numinous entity connected with the idea of vast, primaeval expanses of subterranean water as the origin of the water of mountain springs, rivers, and lakes, but also of life and wisdom. Conversely, we propose to interpret connected stelae decorated with images of caprid hides as images of bloody sacrifices to a local storm god, based on a cultic offering of blood in exchange for rainfall water.
In: Natur und Kult in Anatolien, Viertes Wissenschaftliches Netzwerk an der Abteilung Istanbul des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, edited by Benjamin Engels, Sabine Huy and Charles Steitler, 283-302, 2019
This paper deals with prehistoric stone stelae called »vishaps« or »dragon stones«. Vishaps are i... more This paper deals with prehistoric stone stelae called »vishaps« or »dragon stones«. Vishaps are impressive basalt stelae sculpted with animal reliefs. They originally stood upright in secluded, water-rich, high-altitude meadows in the mountains of East Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and the Azerbaijani exclave Nakhichevan. Since 2012 an Armenian-German-Italian team has been conducting field research in modern Armenia, primarily in the Geghama Mountains and on Mount Aragats, in order to understand who produced these monuments in a seemingly remote and hidden setting, when and why. Though cardinal questions related to vishaps remain open, it is argued in this paper that dragon stones were monuments integrated into prehistoric sacred landscapes bestowing specific significance to mountain peaks and water springs, certainly pre-dating the Late Bronze Age and perhaps going back as early as the Chalcolithic period.
Rassegna degli Armenisti Italiani XIX, 2018
Kaniuth, K., D. Lau, D. Wicke (eds.), Übergangszeiten. Altorientalische Studien für Reinhard Dittmann anlässlich seines 65. Geburtstags. Muenster 2018, 289-308
This paper discusses the textual sources for Ashurbanipal’s “Garden Party” and its implications f... more This paper discusses the textual sources for Ashurbanipal’s “Garden Party” and its implications for Assyrian narrative art in general. Assyrian narrative art is imbued with direct and indirect visual allusions to literary sources, primarily the annalistic tradition. The case of the literary motifs encoded into Ashurbanipal’s Garden Party is presented here as emblematic of this entanglement between narrative art and royal inscriptions in Assyria. The paper comes to the conclusion that the master sculptors were educated in the scribal milieu of the royal court, and that Assyrian narrative art should be seen as inextricably connected to the Assyrian scribal milieu.
Archeo 394 (December Issue), 40-57, 2017
Preliminary results of the ongoing "Dragon Stones Archaeological Projects" presented for a genera... more Preliminary results of the ongoing "Dragon Stones Archaeological Projects" presented for a general audience in a richly illustrated, 17-pages essay for "Archeo", an Italian popular science magazine devoted to archaeological research. The essay focuses on the Armenian "vishaps" and discusses their implications for the study of the origins of monumental art in the South Caucasus.
In A. D’Agostino / V. Orsi / G. Torri (eds.), Sacred Landscapes of Hittites and Luwians, Proceedings of the International Conference in Honour of Franca Pecchioli Daddi, Florence, February 6th-8th 2014, Firenze 2015, 137-146.
This paper focuses on monumental art decorating public gates at Karkemiš as a key to understandin... more This paper focuses on monumental art decorating public gates at Karkemiš as a key to understanding the negotiation of political power in the period between 1200 and 950 BC. I argue that this kind of public art was first developed in Hittite Central Anatolia as a form of propaganda connected to state cults and formally bound to the centre of the Empire. After 1200, this art practice migrates south and is taken up by emerging polities seeking to perpetuate Hittite ideology. In the 12th century, Hit-tite-inspired public art is limited to the political milieu of the Great Kings of Karkemiš, with images centred on cult and kingship. In the course of the 11th century, the territorial influence of Karkemiš deflates and competing polities start their own Hittite-style public art projects. At Karkemiš, Hittite blueprints are forever abandoned in the first half of the 10th century, when public art shifts its focus from cult and kingship to the display of heroic force. I argue that this change of visual idiom is related to the rising political influence of a new class of governors, the Country Lords, and reflects the struggle of the Great Kings to negotiate a balance of power. By the end of the 10th century, the Country Lords reach full independence, the city's political identity changes radically, and public art morphs into something entirely different.
Entry of the Enzyklopädie Jüdischer Geschichte und Kultur dedicated to the Iron Age site of Tell ... more Entry of the Enzyklopädie Jüdischer Geschichte und Kultur dedicated to the Iron Age site of Tell Halaf, Northern Syria, and to the complicated life and expectations of Max Oppenheim, its excavator.
“Dragon stones” (Armenian vishapakar) are standing stones carved with animal imagery found in the... more “Dragon stones” (Armenian vishapakar) are standing stones carved with animal imagery found in the high-altitude summer pastures of modern Armenia and neighboring regions. So far, their existence has been largely ignored by the international scientific community and their function and dating have remained the object of speculation. In June 2012, an Armenian–German team started the first systematic archaeological investigation of the Armenian dragon stones. This article offers an introduction to the topic and presents the results of the first fieldwork season. Most importantly, it reveals for the first time that the dragon stones are systematically associated with Bronze Age burial mounds. Thus, dragon stones are unraveled as a monumental feature of a previously unknown high-altitude mortuary landscape, probably connected with the economic exploitation of summer pastures by early transhumant pastoralists.
This paper discusses the Ancient Near Eastern "system" of food and drink offerings to the dead as... more This paper discusses the Ancient Near Eastern "system" of food and drink offerings to the dead as known from Late Bronze and Iron Age sources.
The conceptual background of these mortuary and commemorative rites, their ties to a specific belief about life after death and the rules imposed by the latter to ancestor cults are described. Then, three different forms in which food and drink offerings to the dead took place are analysed: the presentation of food and drink offerings to an image of a dead ancestor, the partaking in cultic meals inside a funrary crypt, and the organization of "dining parties" in honor of a dead member of a male sodality.
This volume explores how Syro-Hittite monumental art was used as a powerful backdrop to important... more This volume explores how Syro-Hittite monumental art was used as a powerful backdrop to important ritual events, and it opens up a new perspective by situating the monumental heritage in the context of large public performances and civic spectacles of great emotional impact. The first part of the volume focuses on the sites of Carchemish and Zincirli, offering a close reading of the relevant archaeological contexts. The second part of the volume discusses the embedment of monumental art in ritual performance and examines how change in art relates to change in ceremonial behavior, and how the latter relates in turn to change in power structures and models of rulership.
Archaeopress Publishing Ltd eBooks, Mar 2, 2023
Religions, 2022
This paper presents an analysis of a ritual event memorialised on stone reliefs at the ancient ci... more This paper presents an analysis of a ritual event memorialised on stone reliefs at the ancient city of Carchemish around 800 BC. It is argued that the reliefs represent a ceremony of investiture, in which boys of royal lineage are handed out toys as oracular instruments to elicit favourable omens for the heir apparent. The inclusion of boys and their toys in the visual commemoration of a political ritual has bearings on three levels of meaning. First, it testifies to a hitherto unrecognised cult practice, involving grouping boys in age classes and harnessing their ludic practices for ritual purposes. Second, it reflects local political preoccupations connected with dynastic controversies, in an attempt to silence counternarratives through the emphatic staging of children. Finally, the chosen imagery conveys complex philosophical ideas about life, education, and individual destiny, connecting with issues of material religion and childhood studies. The study integrates interpretive perspectives from visual semiotics, architectural analysis, and ancient studies to show how, upon specific occasions, marginal groups and everyday material items, such as children and their toys, may play critical roles in collective ritual events.
Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 2021
This article deals with the socio-political dimension of public space in 13th-century bc Ugarit, ... more This article deals with the socio-political dimension of public space in 13th-century bc Ugarit, with a particular focus on the city’s squares. It approaches urban space as an organic, dynamic, and multiscalar system of intersecting interactions, in which
the street network functions as prime connector and point of encounter for different social groups. The paper combines the analysis of space configuration, the analysis of urban design, and the contextual analysis of small finds and their distribution.
This combined methodological approach helps identify at Ugarit a market square and a system of ceremonial squares, each with its own political and social value.
Istanbuler Mitteilungen, 2007
TÜRKİYE BİLİMLER AKADEMİSİ ARKEOLOJİ DERGİSİ
In: Bobokhyan et al. 2019. Vishap between fairy tale and reality, Yerevan: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, 528-545.
This contribution explores the meaning of prehistoric relief stelae ("vishaps") from the South Ca... more This contribution explores the meaning of prehistoric relief stelae ("vishaps") from the South Caucasus representing monumental fish. It lays out a method to decode their symbolic meaning integrating quantitative analysis, iconographic analysis, and semiotic analysis. Quantitative analysis of the original altitude of these stelae shows that they are only found high in the mountains, as opposed to other stelae, which were also also erected at lower altitudes. Iconographic analysis indicates that these stelae represent large-size fish naturally living in the rivers and lakes of the lowlands, such as catfish, pikes, or carps. As a result, we observe a specific desire to monumentalize fish known from a lowland environment at a location far away from its habitat, thus envisioning a precise connection between high-altitude meadows and lowland environments. A semiotic analysis of piscis vishaps supports the hypothesis that they are part of a religious cult of water, with a focus on mountain springs. Bronze Age parallels and a structuralist analysis of the symbolic code of vishaps suggest that they reflect a cult based on a dual origin of water, a subterranean and a celestial origin. Specifically, we argue that they represent a local numinous entity connected with the idea of vast, primaeval expanses of subterranean water as the origin of the water of mountain springs, rivers, and lakes, but also of life and wisdom. Conversely, we propose to interpret connected stelae decorated with images of caprid hides as images of bloody sacrifices to a local storm god, based on a cultic offering of blood in exchange for rainfall water.
In: Natur und Kult in Anatolien, Viertes Wissenschaftliches Netzwerk an der Abteilung Istanbul des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, edited by Benjamin Engels, Sabine Huy and Charles Steitler, 283-302, 2019
This paper deals with prehistoric stone stelae called »vishaps« or »dragon stones«. Vishaps are i... more This paper deals with prehistoric stone stelae called »vishaps« or »dragon stones«. Vishaps are impressive basalt stelae sculpted with animal reliefs. They originally stood upright in secluded, water-rich, high-altitude meadows in the mountains of East Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and the Azerbaijani exclave Nakhichevan. Since 2012 an Armenian-German-Italian team has been conducting field research in modern Armenia, primarily in the Geghama Mountains and on Mount Aragats, in order to understand who produced these monuments in a seemingly remote and hidden setting, when and why. Though cardinal questions related to vishaps remain open, it is argued in this paper that dragon stones were monuments integrated into prehistoric sacred landscapes bestowing specific significance to mountain peaks and water springs, certainly pre-dating the Late Bronze Age and perhaps going back as early as the Chalcolithic period.
Rassegna degli Armenisti Italiani XIX, 2018
Kaniuth, K., D. Lau, D. Wicke (eds.), Übergangszeiten. Altorientalische Studien für Reinhard Dittmann anlässlich seines 65. Geburtstags. Muenster 2018, 289-308
This paper discusses the textual sources for Ashurbanipal’s “Garden Party” and its implications f... more This paper discusses the textual sources for Ashurbanipal’s “Garden Party” and its implications for Assyrian narrative art in general. Assyrian narrative art is imbued with direct and indirect visual allusions to literary sources, primarily the annalistic tradition. The case of the literary motifs encoded into Ashurbanipal’s Garden Party is presented here as emblematic of this entanglement between narrative art and royal inscriptions in Assyria. The paper comes to the conclusion that the master sculptors were educated in the scribal milieu of the royal court, and that Assyrian narrative art should be seen as inextricably connected to the Assyrian scribal milieu.
Archeo 394 (December Issue), 40-57, 2017
Preliminary results of the ongoing "Dragon Stones Archaeological Projects" presented for a genera... more Preliminary results of the ongoing "Dragon Stones Archaeological Projects" presented for a general audience in a richly illustrated, 17-pages essay for "Archeo", an Italian popular science magazine devoted to archaeological research. The essay focuses on the Armenian "vishaps" and discusses their implications for the study of the origins of monumental art in the South Caucasus.
In A. D’Agostino / V. Orsi / G. Torri (eds.), Sacred Landscapes of Hittites and Luwians, Proceedings of the International Conference in Honour of Franca Pecchioli Daddi, Florence, February 6th-8th 2014, Firenze 2015, 137-146.
This paper focuses on monumental art decorating public gates at Karkemiš as a key to understandin... more This paper focuses on monumental art decorating public gates at Karkemiš as a key to understanding the negotiation of political power in the period between 1200 and 950 BC. I argue that this kind of public art was first developed in Hittite Central Anatolia as a form of propaganda connected to state cults and formally bound to the centre of the Empire. After 1200, this art practice migrates south and is taken up by emerging polities seeking to perpetuate Hittite ideology. In the 12th century, Hit-tite-inspired public art is limited to the political milieu of the Great Kings of Karkemiš, with images centred on cult and kingship. In the course of the 11th century, the territorial influence of Karkemiš deflates and competing polities start their own Hittite-style public art projects. At Karkemiš, Hittite blueprints are forever abandoned in the first half of the 10th century, when public art shifts its focus from cult and kingship to the display of heroic force. I argue that this change of visual idiom is related to the rising political influence of a new class of governors, the Country Lords, and reflects the struggle of the Great Kings to negotiate a balance of power. By the end of the 10th century, the Country Lords reach full independence, the city's political identity changes radically, and public art morphs into something entirely different.
Entry of the Enzyklopädie Jüdischer Geschichte und Kultur dedicated to the Iron Age site of Tell ... more Entry of the Enzyklopädie Jüdischer Geschichte und Kultur dedicated to the Iron Age site of Tell Halaf, Northern Syria, and to the complicated life and expectations of Max Oppenheim, its excavator.
“Dragon stones” (Armenian vishapakar) are standing stones carved with animal imagery found in the... more “Dragon stones” (Armenian vishapakar) are standing stones carved with animal imagery found in the high-altitude summer pastures of modern Armenia and neighboring regions. So far, their existence has been largely ignored by the international scientific community and their function and dating have remained the object of speculation. In June 2012, an Armenian–German team started the first systematic archaeological investigation of the Armenian dragon stones. This article offers an introduction to the topic and presents the results of the first fieldwork season. Most importantly, it reveals for the first time that the dragon stones are systematically associated with Bronze Age burial mounds. Thus, dragon stones are unraveled as a monumental feature of a previously unknown high-altitude mortuary landscape, probably connected with the economic exploitation of summer pastures by early transhumant pastoralists.
This paper discusses the Ancient Near Eastern "system" of food and drink offerings to the dead as... more This paper discusses the Ancient Near Eastern "system" of food and drink offerings to the dead as known from Late Bronze and Iron Age sources.
The conceptual background of these mortuary and commemorative rites, their ties to a specific belief about life after death and the rules imposed by the latter to ancestor cults are described. Then, three different forms in which food and drink offerings to the dead took place are analysed: the presentation of food and drink offerings to an image of a dead ancestor, the partaking in cultic meals inside a funrary crypt, and the organization of "dining parties" in honor of a dead member of a male sodality.
Nach dem Ende des hethitischen Großreiches um 1200 v. Chr. bildet sich im syro-anatolischen Raum ... more Nach dem Ende des hethitischen Großreiches um 1200 v. Chr. bildet sich im syro-anatolischen Raum ein Netzwerk von florierenden Stadtstaaten. In den Stadtgefügen dieser Zentren nehmen neu angelegten, breiten Platzanlagen eine wichtige Rolle ein. Durch monumentale Tore erreichbar und mit Bildwerke in eindrucksvoller Weise gestaltet, die neuen Plätze bilden das zeremonielle Zentrum der Stadt. Sie sind nicht einfach frei gelassenen Fläche, sondern komplex konstruierten Außenräume. Die These dieses Beitrages ist, dass die syro-hethitischen Plätze als theatralischen Räumen für breitangelegten Festen für den gesamten Stadtbevölkerung konzipiert wurden. Dabei waren die zahlreiche Bildwerke, zum Teil aktiv in Performanzen eingebettet, einen zentralen Element der choreographische Gestaltung.
New York University, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, November 28, 2017. Abstract... more New York University, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, November 28, 2017.
Abstract
In the 12th century BCE, when the dissolution of the Hittite Empire released the Eastern Mediterranean communities into times of profound change, the polities of ancient Syria began experimenting with monumental art on public display. Exploring new communicative practices, local rulers decorated city gates and ceremonial squares with colossal statues and cycles of bas-reliefs with an increasingly manifest political content. In doing so, they initiated a unique tradition of public art that lasted five centuries and exerted a significant influence on neighboring regions. This talk will focus on the city of Carchemish between 1200 and 700 BCE and explore how monumental art was used to reinforce political practices, negotiate power struggles, express changing civic identities, and challenge the status quo.
Brown University, Providence, USA, December 4, 2013
In this paper, I discuss how an apparently chaotic series of small-sized, crudely carved and unde... more In this paper, I discuss how an apparently chaotic series of small-sized, crudely carved and under every respect inconspicuous stone reliefs may turn out to be a cleverly devised architectural mean to create a very specific “sense of place”. My case-study are nearly 200 small stone slabs that lined the back façade of one of the most remarkable ceremonial buildings of the North Syrian Iron Age, the Palace of King Kapara of Guzana, modern Tell Halaf. The “small orthostats” bear simple self-contained, single-scene reliefs and were arranged along the back walls of the palace side by side, alternating basalt and limestone reliefs, like playing cards laid down in a long row. It is immediately apparent that the reliefs were re-used and that their original setup must have followed a different order. Until now, it has also been generally accepted that the secondary setup did not follow any kind of meaningful pattern other than the chromatic dado dictated by the stone materials. In this paper, I contradict this assumption and show how the secondary setup of the reliefs reflects an elaborate blueprint that fold together visual sequences and architectural rhythms. The result was a frieze of images allowing multiple perspectives, setting focal points in space and giving a sense of place to a potentially amorphous open space.