{"title":"On the Edge of Empire","authors":"James F. Osborne","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199315833.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199315833.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter borrows from middle-ground studies and related hybridity theory to argue that the Syro-Anatolian Culture Complex (SACC) was on an equal cultural footing with its much more politically powerful neighbor, the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Although Assyria would come to conquer most of SACC by about 700 BCE, for several centuries the two entities influenced one another culturally, an influence that is visible in their cultural products like wall reliefs and monumental statuary. In several cases, these reliefs and statues deliberately fused elements from both places to produce newly significant products, often in ways that emphasized Syro-Anatolian cultural priority even in the face of political domination. Beyond the fusion of iconographic tropes in isolated artworks, this chapter surveys the archaeological record of Syro-Anatolian cities that continued in use past the Assyrian conquest, demonstrating that in nearly all cases these cities’ architectural traditions were unmolested even while new Assyrian buildings were constructed, such that these cities themselves became hybrid entities of Assyrian and Syro-Anatolian cultural production.","PeriodicalId":359662,"journal":{"name":"The Syro-Anatolian City-States","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132184448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Diaspora and the Origins of the Syro-Anatolian Culture Complex","authors":"James F. Osborne","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780199315833.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199315833.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter proposes a model for how the Syro-Anatolian Culture Complex (SACC) arose during the Late Bronze–Iron Age transition at the end of the second millennium and start of the first millennium BCE. It presents SACC as a case study for diaspora studies in the tradition of Paul Gilroy and James Clifford. A series of demographic transformations took place at this time, including small-scale migrations from central Anatolia and the Aegean into southeastern Anatolia, as well as a ruralization of the local settlement patterns from previous major urban centers. Together, these transformations brought several different populations into close contact with one another, resulting in a diverse ethnolinguistic landscape reminiscent of certain contemporary situations of diaspora. It is precisely these mixed cultural origins that have led SACC to be so difficult for scholars to characterize, leading as it did to multiple affiliation groups sharing cultural and political traditions.","PeriodicalId":359662,"journal":{"name":"The Syro-Anatolian City-States","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117149311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}