CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION: USING THE TOOLS OF ICONOGRAPHY TO DECIPHER THE MULTI-LAYERED
1.1. P ROBLEMS WITH THE COMPLEXITY OF THE TOPIC : THE CONCEPT OF IMAGES AS MEDIA
1.1.2. Syro-Palestinian religious iconography in focus: the impact of Othmar Keel and The Fribourg School
The attitude of interpreting images as independent historical sources is indelibly related to the Swiss theologian, art historian, Egyptologist and religious historian Othmar Keel. His early passion for iconography, based on his personal in situ experiences in the lands of the ancient Near East,13 remained strong enough to lead him to pursue an academic career after his graduation. He was a member of the founding committee of the Biblical Institute (later renamed the Department of Biblical Studies) at the University of Fribourg in 1970. He built up a new branch of research within Old Testament studies. The “Fribourg School” that developed from his and his students’ research work represented an entirely new level in studying visual sources, which probably fundamentally changed biblical science and the scientific attitude to the biblical world, one of its first imprints being Die Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament: Am Beispiel der Psalmen (1972).14 The series Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis (since
10 Gressmann 1927.
11 ANEP, see Pritchard 1954/1969b
12 Vanel, 1965.
13 For Keel’s passion on iconography strengthened personal experiences of travelling through the ancient Near East with a Vespa, see Keel – Uehlinger 1996: 10.
14 Keel 1972/51996 (in German), for the English version of the work, see Keel 1997b.
7 1973) and Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, Series Archaeologica (since 1980), both founded and published by Keel, provide opportunities to publish the results of iconographic research.
According to Keel’s method, the examination of objects from the visual perspective could offer a key to understanding connections, through the symbolism, metaphorism and visual exegesis of the images.
The main purpose of the investigations carried out by Keel, his colleagues and his students is to reconstruct the intellectual and religious history of Palestine/Israel, guided by the evidence of images. This involves understanding images as media15 and paying greater attention to the ancient Near Eastern glyptic as an important object group, constituted of stamp seals and cylinder seals, and regarded as media of intercultural communication. The detection and synthetization of the dominant iconographic features and motifs culminated in the construction of a corpus of stamp seal amulets from Palestine/Israel (citing circa 10,000 amulets from legal excavations), entitled Corpus der Stempelsiegel-Amulette aus Palästina/lsrael. Von den Anfängen bis zur Perserzeit, have been published in five volumes, presenting the object material according to their archaeological sites. The chronological frames of the corpus processed from the beginning to the Persian period.16
Related studies on certain important key motifs connected to the corpus material entitled Studien zu den Stempelsiegeln aus Palästina/Israel have been published in five volumes.17 This research can be considered a significant cornerstone of iconographic research on Syro-Palestinian miniature art. In addition, the Corpus der Siegel-Amulette aus Jordanien, the catalogue of stamp seals originating from Jordan, has also been compiled in one volume. The chronological frames of the corpus extended from the Neolithic period to the Persian period.18 The comprehensive monograph entitled Göttinnen, Götter und Gottessymbole: Neue Erkenntnisse zur Religionsgeschichte Kanaans und Israels aufgrund bislang unerschlossener ikonographischer Quellen (1992), abbreviated as GGG is a guide handbook interpreting the symbol system of Syro-Palestinian material sources.19 Keel’s principles and attitude towards examining images as media are also followed by his students, using additional exciting perspectives of examination.
15 For the reference of the concept about images acting as mass-media devices (Massenkommunikationsmittel) in the 1st millennium ancient Near Eastern glyptic, see Keel – Uehlinger 1990; Uehlinger 2000; XV–XVI
16 For the volumes, see Keel 1995; Keel 1997a; Keel 2010a; Keel 2010b; Keel 2013; Keel 2017b.
17 For the volumes, see Keel – Schroer 1985; Keel – Keel-Leu – Schroer 1989 (is dedicated for Dominique Collon);
Keel – Shuval – Uehlinger 1990; Keel 1994.
18 For the volume, see Eggler – Keel 2006.
19 Keel – Uehlinger 1992/52001). The volume re-issued in English in Fribourg, Bibel+Orient Museum in 2010, and used for references in the present study.
8 Urs Winter’s iconographic exegesis entitled Frau und Göttin: Exegetische und ikonographische Studien zum weiblichen Gottesbild im Alten Israel und in dessen Umwelt (1983) reflects on gender studies by investigating the correlation between biblical passages and the images of female deities in ancient Israel and neighbouring cultures.20
Silvia Schroer, in her doctoral dissertation entitled In Israel gab es Bilder: Nachrichten von darstellender Kunst im Alten Testament (1987), pointed out that – contrary, for example, to the words of the Ten Commandments – there are many references found in the Bible to prove the existence of visual images in Israel.21 Silvia Schroer is the author of the series Ikonographie Palästinas/Israels und der Alte Orient (IPIAO). The four-volume work seeks to construct and interpret the symbol system of Palestine/Israel with the help of contemporary iconographic examples cited from the surrounding cultures, using them to complement the lack of Syro-Palestinian sources from the Early Bronze Age to the Achaemenid Period.22
The unceasing passionate interest in and iconographic examination of objects ultimately led to the creation of a collection of objects. The Foundation BIBEL+ORIENT was established to develop its own collection, with the aim of setting up a museum, also serving as an exhibition space, which opened on the campus of Fribourg University in 2005, with a relatively small exhibition area of 60 square metres, under the name of BIBEL+ORIENT Museum.23 As one of the pioneering projects related to the museum, the online iconographic database of digitized material sources (BODO BIBEL+ORIENT Datenbank Online) facilitates searching according to iconographic element and period. The database has been accessible to researchers all over today’s digital world since 2010.24
The constant importance of glyptics as a key medium in interdisciplinary research is demonstrated by a recent Sinergia four-year research project entitled Corpus of Stamp Seals from the Southern Levant (CSSL), launched in January 2020. The programme aims to compile an open access digital database on the selected object group with a narrower regional focus than the CSSPI, concentrating on the area of the Southern Levant (present-day Israel, Jordan, and
20 Winter, U. 1983.
21 The doctoral dissertation of Silvia Schroer defended at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Fribourg, see Schroer 1987.
22 For the volumes, see Schroer – Keel 2005; Schroer 2008; Schroer 2011; Schroer 2018.
23 For the historical background and foundation of the museum, about the collections held, and the principles for expanding the collections, see the webpage with the related topics, see http://www.bible-orient-museum.ch/index.php/de/information/geschichtliches (in German)
24 The BODO BIBEL+ORIENT Datenbank Online database is available via the webpage of the BIBEL+ORIENT Museum Fribourg, see http://www.bible-orient-museum.ch/bodo/
9 Palestine), to serve as the basis for international and interdisciplinary research (archaeology, biblical studies, history of religions, gender studies).25
1.1.3. Applied Methodology and Method schemas “als das Recht (und Fähigkeit)