Cedar forests, cedar ships : allure, lore, and metaphor in the Mediterranean Near East / Sara A. Rich.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rich, Sara A., author.

Contributor:

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Series:

Archaeopress archaeology

Archaeopress Archaeology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cedar--Mediterranean Region--History.

Cedar.

History.

Mediterranean Region.

Physical Description:

xii, 283 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Archaeopress Publishing Ltd., [2017]

Summary:

It is commonly recognized that the Cedars of Lebanon were prized in the ancient world, but how can the complex archaeological role of the Cedrus genus be articulated in terms that go beyond its interactions with humans alone? And to what extent can ancient ships and boats made of this material demonstrate such intimate relations with wood? Drawing from object-oriented ontologies and other 'new materialisms,' Cedar Forests, Cedar Ships constructs a hylocentric anti-narrative spreading from the Cretaceous to the contemporary. With a dual focus on the woods and the watercraft, and on the considerable historical overlap between them, the book takes another step in the direction of challenging the conceptual binaries of nature/culture and subject/object, while providing an up-to-date synthesis of the relevant archaeological and historical data. Binding physical properties and metaphorical manifestations, the fluctuating presence of cedar (forests, trees, and wood) in religious thought is interpreted as having had a direct bearing on shipbuilding in the ancient East Mediterranean. Close and diachronic excavations of the interstices of allure, lore, and metaphor can begin to navigate the (meta) physical relationships between the forested mountain and the forest afloat, and their myriad unique realities.

Contents:

Part I Forests, Trees & Timber: The Realities and Relations of Wood

Chapter 1 The Enduring Qualities and the First Relations 23

Cedar Evolution and the Geological Background 23

The fossil record 25

Taxonomical debates over Cedrus Trew 29

East Mediterranean Cedar Forests: Geology & Geography 33

The Levant: Amanus and the Lebanon 35

Anatolia: The Taurus 36

Cyprus: The Troodos 37

Prehistoric Encounters: The Stone Age or the Wood Age? 38

Pleistocene Paleolithic in Western Asia 39

Epipaleolithic & Holocene Neolithic 41

Chapter 2 The Seductive Forests 47

Introduction: Souvenir Possession 47

Egypt & the hunger for everlasting life 48

The Levant: Amanus and the Lebanon 56

Gilgameš and those who followed his route 56

Canaan, Israel, and Phoenicia 64

Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian revival of tradition 68

The Persian version of the paradeisoi 71

Ptolemaic and Roman Levant 76

Anatolia: The Taurus 77

The Bronze Age empires 77

The Iron Age empires 79

Cyprus: The Troodos 81

Alašiya in the Amarna Letters 81

The island in the Iron Age 82

Conclusions: The Venerated & Vendible 'Pure Mountain' 85

Chapter 3 The Allure and the Distortion 87

Introduction: Pax Sylva vs. Religious Refugia 87

The Levant 90

The purlieus and their 'anchorites' 94

The vigilant cedar in prophecy and paradise 101

The Taurus 112

Ill omens and immigrations 113

The Troodos 116

More mountain sanctuaries 117

Conclusions: Irony in the Legacy 119

Part II Ships, Shipbuilding, and Seafaring: The Potency of Wood on Water

Chapter 4 Ships and Transformation 123

Introduction: Wind, waves & word-object play 123

Egyptian Mortuary Barques: Birth, Death, Dismemberment & Rebirth 128

Predynastic 128

Early Dynastic & Old Kingdom 131

Middle Kingdom 136

Egyptian ships as symbols 140

Senwosret III & the subjugation of Set 145

West Semitic Merchantmen: 'Coupling' onboard Seaborne Sanctuaries 147

West Semitic seafaring & shipbuilding mythology 148

The Gelidonya shipwreck 156

The Uluburun shipwreck 160

Putting the 'ax' back in axis mundi 164

Ptolemaic-era Warships: Parasemon, pilei & prophecy 165

Archaeological evidence of warships 165

Symbols on the Ram 168

The Athlit Ram's mythological implications 172

Conclusions: The Sacred Art of Shipbuilding 173

Chapter 5 Ship Construction, Myth Construction 177

Introduction: Place and the Ship Anthology 177

From Tree to Ship and back into Wood 182

Senwosret III's 'Carnegie' boat & Horsh-Ehden 182

The Uluburun (coastal Turkey) & the Syrian Coastal Range 187

The Athlit Ram (coastal Israel) & the Troodos (Cyprus) 192

Conclusions: Practical and Religious Considerations in Building an Ancient Cedar Ship 197

Chapter 6 The Ontology of Obsolescence 201

Introduction: From Sources to Resources (or, Hey Hylozoic Directions) 201

Byzantine-Arab Shipbuilding & Seafaring 203

Byzantine, Arab, and both 207

The Crusades and Shipbuilding among the Caliphates 211

Ottoman Shipbuilding on the Brink of the 'Age of Discovery' 214

Conclusions: The Early Modern Transformation 217.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781784913656

1784913650

OCLC:

987338619

Publisher Number:

99973825218