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Karin Bartl and Stefan R. Hauser (ed).: Continuity

and change in northern Mesopotamia from the
Hellenistic to the early Islamic Period (Berliner
Beiträge zum Vordern Orient, Bd. 17.) xi, 452 pp.,
8 plates. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1996. DM
79.

A. D. H. Bivar

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies / Volume 61 / Issue 02 / June 1998, pp
327 - 327
DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X00013872, Published online: 05 February 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0041977X00013872

How to cite this article:

A. D. H. Bivar (1998). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 61, pp
327-327 doi:10.1017/S0041977X00013872

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 REVIEWS 327
KARIN BARTL a n d STEFAN R. HAUSER shapes. Stefan R. Hauser's ' The production of
pottery in Arsacid Ashur' re-illustrates from
(ed.): Continuity and change in older reports some quite different profiles, and
northern Mesopotamia from the fig. 4, a, on p. 78 (not discussed here), looks
Hellenistic to the early Islamic like a Hellenistic 'fish-plate'.
period. (Berliner Beitrage zum Comprehensive syntheses include St John
Simpson's 'From Tekrit to the Jaghjagh:
Vorderen Orient, Bd. 17.) xi, Sasanian sites, settlement patterns and material
452 pp., 8 plates. Berlin: Dietrich culture in northern Mesopotamia'
Reimer Verlag, 1996. DM 79. (pp. 87-123), and Alastair Northedge's
' Friedrich Sarre's Die Keramik von Samarra in
This volume contains the proceedings of a perspective' (pp. 229-58). Michael Meinecke's
colloquium held at the Freie Universitat Berlin ' Die fruhislamischen Kalifenresidenzen:
on 6 to 9 April 1994, which brought together Tradition oder Rezeption' (pp. 139-64) disting-
scholars working in the several sectors of uishes the roles, in the design of the palaces, of
northern Mesopotamia. Thus contacts were artistic tradition and patron's requirements.
facilitated which in the field might have been C.-P. Haase (pp. 165-171) summarizes the
inhibited by international boundaries. In their results of excavations at Madlnat al-Far, a
foreword the editors note that excavators in settlement near Raqqa believed an Umayyad
the Near East had hitherto tended to concen- foundation. It has been identified as Hisn
trate on the prehistoric and 'cuneiform' Maslama, a residence of the son of 'Abd
periods, neglecting those of the Arsacids and al-Malik, though the small finds were mainly
Sasanians, and so moreover leaving the archae- Abbasid. The complex comprised a square
ology of Islam segregated from its origins. This enclosure to the north, with a rectangular
bias the present colloquium was concerned to structure placed obliquely outside its southern
redress. It had received the enlightened support face, and the whole within a perimeter-wall
of the Volkswagenstiftung at Hanover, and of extending south to protect the outer city. Most
the Gerda Henkel Stiftung at Dfisseldorf, and enigmatic here, at the centre of the square, is a
much help from the late Michael Meinecke, circular stylobate, enclosing an octagonal
formerly Director of the Museum fur Islamische foundation.
Kunst at Berlin, to whose memory the present Elizabeth Savage, 'Early 'Abbasid coinage,
volume is dedicated. traces of the past', offers firstfruits of the long-
It is hard for a single reviewer to do justice, awaited Abbasid catalogue inaugurated by the
in a collective volume, to each of the papers late Nicholas Lowick, examining names and
included, of which there are here 23. They are titlesexploring
appearing sporadically on the dirhams,
divided into three sections: I: Hellenistic to late and their implications for the power
Roman-early Byzantine/Sasanian periods; II: structure. R. M. Galan describes Seleucid traces
Islamic period; and III: Surveys (which often at Tell Beydar, but in discussing Dilleman's
suggestion that Tigranocerta might be at Tel
include topics from all these). Several of the Armen (near Qiziltepe), has overlooked
papers are concerned with specialized technical T. Sinclair's definitive location (Rev. des Etudes
problems, such as (pp. 23-53) Murray L. Armeniennes,
Eiland's' Some technological and petrographic of that site at25,Arzan 1994-95,183-243, esp. p. 199)
in Turkey. The eight
observations on post-Assyrian pottery from survey articles include the
Nineveh in Iraq' (pp. 127-36), Gerwulf Valley, the Upper Khabur,areas of the Ballh
Nasibin and the
Schneider's 'Chemische und mineralogische Upper Tigris.
untersuchung von Keramik der hellenistischen
bis fruhislamischen Zeit in Nordost-Syrien', A. D. H. BIVAR
and (pp. 219-27) Maigorzata Daszkiewicz and
Jerzy Raabe, ' Chemical composition and tech-
nical studies of Abbasid glasses from the Bijan
Island in Iraq'. The last, stressing the presence
of soda in Islamic glassware, forms an appendix CYNTHIA L. MILLER: The representation
to the well-illustrated paper (pp. 195-217) of of speech in Biblical Hebrew narrat-
Andrzej Reiche,' Early Islamic glass from Bijan ive: a linguistic analysis. (Harvard
Island (Iraq)'. This provides a very practical Semitic Monographs, 55.) xx,
classification for the 500 + sherds from this site 466 pp. Atlanta, GA: Scholars
(in the Euphrates between 'Ana and Haditha).
Miscellaneous glass sherds from excavations Press, 1996. $44.95.
can be difficult to classify, there being often no
consistent basis for a technological nor for a The reporting of speech is a significant, if not
chronological arrangement. Here the groupings dominant, feature of Biblical Hebrew narrative.
are: Close-shaped vessels (bottles,flasks),Open Haphazard attention has been paid to this in
shaped vessels (bowls and beakers), 'Aqua the past, but it is not surprising that the recent
glass', Bases, and Decoration; groups which, interest in the techniques and artistry of
though occasionally overlapping, are quickly narrative have brought this feature into greater
accessible. prominence, with at least one previous major
study devoted entirely to some aspects of it.
Christiane Romer's 'A first glimpse at glazed Miller's Chicago thesis is the first, however, to
pottery from Tell Seh Hamad' takes a stage attempt a comprehensive linguistic analysis.
further the search for ' Parthian' ceramics with The book faces simultaneously in two direc-
these green-, blue-, and yellow-glazed bowls: tions, first towards the interests of fellow
carinated, with everted rim; hemispherical linguists, for whom the analysis will provide
('Megarian') bowls; and similar, but 'footed' data for comparative study, and secondly