From the Axial Age to the Fifth Sun. The articulation of the local with the global

Abstract

and that the authors themselves do not view Athenian citizenship as a standard norm against which all other modes of belonging should be measured. But such a presentation of contrasting examples is a reminder of how deeply ingrained a Greekand Roman-centric perspective still is. Riva and Grau Mira acknowledge the depth of this challenge themselves – they note, ‘This process of decentring and decolonization : : : has been put in jeopardy by recent Big History studies of long-term Mediterranean trajectories where the grand narrative’s preference for integration is largely for the Graeco-Roman world and the east of the basin’. The implication is that the Greek and Roman worlds remain at the centre, and ‘new additions’ made in the name of decolonization or decentring must be integrated with them, instead of the reverse. Riva and Grau Mira’s emphasis is quite rightly placed on the critical contributions of microhistorical archaeology; the degree to whichMediterranean archaeology has been colonized by our obsession with Greece and Rome (Dietler 2005), however, means that many of the themes and phenomena explored by a global archaeology will have been established within the same heavily biased context. That is to say, they have been identified because of their relevance to Greece and Rome.Without great care, the exercise in one-sided integration seems likely to repeat itself under a slightly different guise. Riva and Grau Mira are, of course, no strangers to this issue either. They note that their analysis of citizenship in south-eastern Iberia is only possible because notions of Athenian citizenship have been dramatically overhauled in recent years. Even so, we are left considering south-eastern Iberian as belonging as part of a much broader, more socially rooted form of ‘citizenship’ instead of discussing Athenian citizenship as one form of collective belonging exhibited more broadly in urbanizing contexts. The difference is subtle, but the implications are great. I do not mean to suggest that Mediterranean-wide comparison is impossible; on the contrary, it is essential. But perhaps a modified structure would be more fruitful. Instead of comparing seemingly ‘anomalous’ micro-scale examples to sweeping trends, like might be paired with like, and comparanda could be limited to equally microscopic case studies, evaluated through a shared bottomup process. By introducing data from traditionally marginalized regions and contexts into direct conversation with Greek and Romanmaterials (or even eschewing them altogether), a more balanced knowledge baseline might be established. From that baseline, new themes and phenomena may be identified that hold more equal relevance for all Mediterranean regions. Once such a knowledge landscape has been established – one that is less overtly colonized by its very nature – a decolonized global archaeology of the 1st-millennium Mediterranean may be a realistic goal.