Associazione Orientalisti

Definirsi e definire:
percezione, rappresentazione
e ricostruzione dell’identità

Atti del 3º Incontro «Orientalisti»
(Roma, 23-25 febbraio 2004)

a cura di Massimo Gargiulo, Chiara Peri e Giuseppe Regalzi

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Citazione consigliata

Definirsi e definire: percezione, rappresentazione e ricostruzione dell’identità. Atti del 3º Incontro «Orientalisti» (Roma, 23-25 febbraio 2004), a cura di Massimo Gargiulo, Chiara Peri e Giuseppe Regalzi, 2 voll., Roma, Associazione Orientalisti, 2005, http://purl.org/net/orientalisti/atti2004.htm.

Indice e abstracts

Prefazione (5-12)
Giuseppe Regalzi
El rol del estado en la construcción de identidades colectivas en Mesopotamia antigua (13-28)
Cristina De Bernardi: A conception of History which considers processes more important than facts, must analyze the present in order to make the questions which guide the inquiry of the past. Among the present problems, the re-actualization of ethnic identities and the demands for nationalities recognition have acquired an almost dramatic significance. From different areas of the Social Sciences, researchers such as Anthony Smith, Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner try to improve the comprehension of the processes of construction of collective identities and their connection with the state’s intentional actions. It is the aim of the following paper to test these concepts in a remote space and time, as it is the Mesopotamia of the Third Millennium BCE.
Shekelesh. Evidenze storiche su uno dei Popoli del mare (29-58)
Antonio Giuffrida: About the Shekelesh we have in general few historic data, such as their two raids in Egypt (in 1207 and 1174 BCE); few cuneiform data from Ugarit archives; owing to two later Egyptian records (the “Onomasticon of Amenope” and the “The Report of Wenamun”), we became acquainted with their settlement in Palestine and, finally, we discovered that by the end of the II millennium BCE the Shekelesh suffered a massive invasion – mainly affecting Dor (the capital of the area under their control) – carried out by the Cananean-Phoenician people coming from the North. Ever since then no more archeological traces have been found. The aim of this work is to try and broaden our knowledge. After outlining a historical and iconographical profile, typological comparisons will be made in order to highlight the architecture (the naval architecture in particular), the typology of burials, the ceramics, the worship objects and anything that might give us any kind of information on whom exactly these people were.
«Il sacro seme» (Isaia 6,13b = Esdra 9,2). Percezione, rappresentazione e ricostruzione dell’identità di Israele in epoca achemenide ed ellenistica (59-70)
Francesco Bianchi: This paper expounds the expression “holy seed”, which appears both in Isaiah 6:13b and in 1Esdras 8:67 (= Ezra 9:2). So many are the textual problems in Isaiah’s text that there is room for assuming that “holy seed” is a gloss born in Jerusalem during the Achaemenid period (V-IV sec. BCE). Whereas the Greek text of the Septuagint will erase that expression, it will be used again in 1Esdras 8:67 and Ezra 9:2, just at the beginning of the history relating the expulsion of the foreign women. Far from witnessing events of the Achaemenid age, that history was created only in II sec. BCE, when the religious reform of the high priest Alkimos raised the need of a community being ritually pure. The use of zr‘ qdš in 4QMMT – the so called Halachic Letter from Qumran – could confirm this suggestion.
L’identificazione tra Ebrei e Hyksos nelle fonti alessandrine (71-88)
Caterina Moro: After Hecateus of Abdera, whose narrative can be regarded as an alternative and more ancient form of the Exodus story, the first Greek author writing on the origins of the Jewish people was Manetho, an Egyptian priest, who identified them with the Asiatic sovereigns of Egypt whose defeat marked the beginning of the XVIII dynasty. According to Yoyotte, this identification took place in the VI-V century BCE, when Jews ‘came back’ to Egypt as soldiers of the Persian Empire in the military colony of Elephantine. The issue is somewhat complicated by the difficult attribution of some parts of Manetho’s story as reported by Josephus Flavius in his Contra Apionem. Some scholars think that the identification between Jews and Hyksos was added to Manetho’s original story by a Jewish author. The reaction of Hebrew culture to that identification may be seen in the History of Joseph (Gen 37-50) and in the life of Moses as narrated in Greek by Artapanus, where Moses is the adopted son of a king of the XIII dynasty, Chenephres, and helps him to consolidate his power against the other sovereigns of Egypt. This ‘apologetic’ chronology by Artapanus, which places Moses before the age of conflict between Egypt and Asia, may be related to the chronology by Africanus and Eupolemus.
L’uso di indicazioni di provenienza nelle formule votive del tofet (89-96) Francesca Guarneri: By examining the epigraphic material coming from tophet-contexts, some inscriptions indicating the origin of the dedicators through ethnic adjectives and proper names have been isolated. This has allowed the identification of the presence of foreigners (though limited in number) making dedication using the same modality of the other offerers. A distinction can be made between the reference to cases in which a person of foreign origin belongs to the genealogy of the dedicator and the cases in which the dedicator himself is a foreigner. The former suggests the settlement of the foreigner in the mentioned place and his/her descendant’s integration in the community (the descendant does not use his/her ancestor’s ethnic adjective). The latter needs another distinction: he/she can come from surrounding areas or from distant places (this type of distinction is quite difficult to make, since in most cases the places and cities mentioned in the inscriptions are unknown). The origin from areas near the tophet confirms that the votive area ‘served’ a much broader territory than the city and it was probably a landmark for the surrounding territory. When the inscriptions mention distant places, the hypothesis of commercial or private trips goes together with the one of a pilgrimage.
Artigianato ‘popolare’ – devozione ‘personale’ nella Sardegna di età ellenistica: problemi di definizione e di identificazione (97-112)
Giuseppe Garbati: One of the most common expressions, used in archaeological researches regarding the study of ancient religious phenomena, is “popular religion”. This expression is often utilized to describe a particular aspect of the religious system, with a special reference to rituals ascribed to the lower classes, partially independent of political decisions and testified by several ex voto, often made in terracotta and realized in a modest standard of production. The modesty of the offerings is frequently used to define the cultual phenomenon: the word “popular”, adopted to classify the handicraft’s level and its origin, is employed, at the same time, to relate the main characteristics of a cult attested by ‘poor’ ex voto. In this paper we will try to examine the application of this expression to cultual realities, considering the difficulty of using a modern definition in historical enquires dedicated to ancient religions. Particularly we will consider the archaeological documentation of Sardinia in the Hellenistic Age: during this period the rural and urban territories of the island are populated by several small sanctuaries, whose devotional addresses, directed to the protection of personal life, of family and of the activities of subsistence, are mainly attested by humble offerings. These sacred areas are characterized by a long attending that involves different cultures (especially local, Punic and Roman): some of the sanctuaries attest a sort of ‘cultural synthesis’ between groups of different ethnical origin. The realization of the ‘synthesis’ is maybe ascribable to the particular ‘popular’ rituals, whose development is probably caused by common social and economic needs grown inside the rural groups, between the 4th and the 2nd century BCE. So, besides the problem of ‘popular religion’, the archaeological finds point out the question of ethnic identity among the different communities who participate in similar religious expressions, not directly dependent on institutional choices.
Spazio, corpo, identità. Definirsi e definire a Sparta (113-30)
Nicola Cusumano: The case of Spartan identity polarized the regard of ancient and modern historiography: it represents both a problematic pattern and a good workroom to think about the definition of self and otherness. Through a general analysis of the Spartan agoge and of the Spartan way of making war, as they are told by the classical sources, it will be possible to understand something interesting about the relation between the Spartiates, the Ilotes and the Perioikoi, trying to reconstruct the role of Spartan identity not only in the ancient Greek world but also in the history of Western representation of “self” and “other”.
Identità scomposte: l’etnografia erodotea tra «molteplice» e «particolare» (131-43)
Claudia Vassallo: By a general analysis of Herodotus’ ethnographical writing, it is possible to find some ways to reconstruct an idea of ethnic identity in this author. But the result escapes a strict definition: it is various and different, according to the historical concreteness of the various and different groups considered in the Historiai. Alterity, in its many-sided forms, does not produce a knowledge able to reduce all the differences to unity, and so Herodotus does not work up a theory of the Barbarous. In this way the Herodotean ethnography escapes the epistemological requirement of a kind of anthropology and the attempts to explain Historiai through predetermined and abstract outlines usually forget Herodotus’ wealth and complexity.
Il femminile come alterità in Aristotele (144-58)
Marzia Soardi: In the Corpus of his biological works, Aristotle investigates the fulfillment of the vital functions of all living beings, which, according to the philosopher’s teleological vision, rank in a hierarchy at whose top is Man, by excellence the complete and perfect being. In such a representation, a description of the female nature finds its place as well, also considered for each animal species and ranking in the same hierarchy. Aristotle’s reflection on the female, both from the physiological and the psychological-behavioral point of view, is always set in relation with the corresponding male. A female nature does not exist by itself, with its own well defined identity, but its characteristics are rather described in relation with the male ones, in most cases in depreciative sense or following quantitative categories. Female’s nature is distinguished by its weakness and frailty, both physical and psychological, as opposite to male’s strength and vigour. However, as soon as Aristotle investigates motherhood, the event which pre-eminently characterizes female’s nature, a sort of reversal of the identity principles occurs. Namely, in order to dignify and bestow some authoritativeness upon the maternal figure, the mother is ascribed a series of characteristics which normally belong only and entirely to the male identity. Therefore, motherhood is brought back to the channels of the male identity, even though with the purpose of dignifying the female, usually depreciated and considered the inferior alter ego of the perfect being: Man.
Il termine Hèllenes nel tempo: antichità, medioevo, epoca moderna (159-66)
Domna Iordanidou: According to mythology, Hellen – the ancestor of all the Hellenes – was the son of Deucalione and Pirra, the couple which survived a prehistoric flood. The term “Hellenes” is used in order to define two distinct groups – the first situated near Phtia, the homeland of Achilles (Homer), the second situated near the sanctuary of Zeus in Dodona, Epirus (Aristotle). Herodotus is the first to give the elements that characterize the idea of “Panellenion”: common race, common language, common religion, common culture. Isocrates said that “the Greeks are the ones sharing our own education”. After 212 CE even the Greeks are called “Romans”, as making part of the Roman Empire. For the Christian Empire of the Orient, “Hellenes” are the pagans. But as soon as the 10th century, the upper classes begin to reconsider the whole question and call themselves “Hellenes”, using the term against the Latins of the West. During the Ottoman occupation, quite every people of the Balkans claims the Greek identity. The modern Greek state is created on 1830 and the term “Hellenes” is used in the interior of the state, while the other Western countries use the term “Greeks” and similar ones.
Turkish Political Identity through Its Image of Atatürk (167-73)
Murat Cem Mengüç: Turkish Republic is understood to be founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. A military man in origin, Atatürk was a modernist who saw clear differences between East and West, and wanted to form a nation state where such divisions could be overcome. As a reformist he confronted cultural obstacles set by Turkish-Islamic tradition. When he died in 1938 he became a celebrated hero whose image stood for progress and modernity. Also, after his death, a new image of Atatürk started to emerge. This second Atatürk had its root in the real individual but it was now a concept, shaped in the light of reformist and conservative struggles. These struggles dominated Turkish culture to the present. This essay will present the second Atatürk as a conceptual identity, a conceptual battleground for the fights between all segments of Turkish society. To ask who the second Atatürk is, is the same as trying to determine what it means to be a modernist or a conservative Turk. I will give examples related to headscarf as a semi-illegal Muslim attire, membership to European Union, and how such issues do pose direct challenges to the identity of the second Atatürk.
Nel nome dei Mani: un’alternativa all’identità israeliana secondo A. B. Yehoshua (174-84)
Anna Lissa: In order to emphasize the importance of the onomastics not only in archaeology, but also in the literary field, I will focus on a short analysis of the role of proper names in A. B. Yehoshua’s novel Mr. Mani. I will point out the importance of the Hebrew title of the novel (Mar Mani), which is also the name of the family whose history is told, from the point of view of both the literary technique and the contents of the novel. As a result, it will be quite clear that the title of the book and the name “Mani” are laden with sense, and that the whole matter turns around personal and collective identity, caught from a social and historical point of view.
Bauddha dharma manchu. La costruzione dell’identità buddhista tra i Tharu e i Magar in Nepal: note dal campo (185-213) Chiara Letizia: In Nepal two different forms of Mahāyāna Buddhism have traditionally been practised: Tibetan Buddhism, which is found in the ethnically Tibetan groups in the North of the country and among the Gurungs, Thakalis and Tamangs; and Newar Buddhism, among the Newar people of the Kathmandu Valley. The Theravāda Buddhism – in its ‘modernist’ form emerged last century in Sri Lanka under the impact of colonialism and the Christian missionary activity – arrived in Nepal in the 1920s and was enthusiastically received by the Newars. In the last five years, the Buddhist proselytism has reached other Nepalese ethnic groups outside the Kathmandu valley. These field notes show the spread of Theravāda among the Tharus and the Magars. Moreover, they provide an interpretation of this Buddhist conversion process in the context of the ethnic movements which appeared with the advent of Democracy in 1991. This movements joined the pan-Nepalese Nepal Janajāti Mahasang organization. The new word “janajāti” points to the ethnic minorities oppressed by the Hindu State. Strongly influenced by Hinduism in the past, Magars and Tharus are starting now to look for their identity through a process of desanskritization. The shift to Buddhism is an important part of this process.
Identità versus alterità: gli Spagnoli pensati dagli Aztechi (214-25)
Sergio Botta: The Conquest of America inaugurated an age of change of the European conceptual baggage and of deconstruction of the native values. The first contact between two worlds did not represent, however, a radical cognitive fracture: both parts were involved in a process they perceived through a restricted exegesis that encouraged a cultural continuity with their own values. The Conquest of ancient Mexico, carried out by the expedition led by Hernan Cortés, was interpreted by the Aztecs (who suffered its consequences) like a familiar and understandable act, in full agreement with a cyclical and prophetic view of time. The unexpected and unforeseeable attack by the political and military opponents was then interpreted inside their own conceptual universe. The Conquest was thought over and rewritten to favour a nostalgic derivation from an idealized past. This gave the birth to a narrative of continuity, which ended up taming the acts, the objects and the ideas of the Europeans by connecting them to the practices, the institutions and the objectives of the natives.