Page 140 - The Art & Architecture of the Ancient Orient_Neat

CHAPTER 9
ASIA MINOR AND THE HITTITES

Introduction

Various finds, such as cylinder seals and tablets, prove that Mesopotamian influence
pervaded all the surrounding countries during the latter part of the Protoliterate Period,
towards 3000 b.c. It even reached Egypt, where an autochthonous civilization was like­
wise in its formative phase and was stimulated and enriched by an acquaintance with
Mesopotamian achievements.1 But among the immediate neighbours of Sumer no
com parable developments took place. They merely advanced a little beyond the limita­
tions of prehistoric village culture and required about a thousand years to catch up with
the deep and rapid changes which had taken place in Mesopotamia and the Nile valley.
Moreover, the peripheral regions never achieved the cultural and political stability of
the two great river civilizations. It is true that according to Egyptian standards even the
Mesopotamian development appears continually disturbed by historical contingencies.
But if we compare it with the developments in neighbouring countries, the continuity
of Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian culture stands out. It was modified but never
destroyed by the invasions and changes in hegemony which threw the country into con­
fusion at frequent intervals. Elsewhere in Asia - in Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, and Persia -
similar upheavals had a more destructive effect, because the cultural fabric was less re­
sistant. There may have been a certain degree of continuity which survived the ethnic
and political cataclysms, but at this distance of time we cannot recognize it. It is this cir-
. cumstancc, and not a scarcity of evidence which future discoveries might remedy, that
makes it impossible to write a history of the art of any of those countries. Works of in­
terest and merit were occasionally produced, but they appear without ancestry and re­
main without heirs. They arc, moreover, exceptions among a mass of monuments show­
ing lack of skill rather than of stylistic character. Yet it was through the odd peripheral
schools that some of the great achievements of Ancient Near Eastern art affected the art
of Europe, first in the sixth and seventh centuries b.c. and then again in the Middle Ages.

Anatolia up to the Middle of the
Second Millennium b.c.
In Asia Minor the seaboard with its valleys differs from the rest of the peninsula. When­
ever a culture arose which was peculiarly Anatolian it was centred in the uplands. The
Mediterranean littoral was in many respects an outpost of Aegean culture, although it
also retained links with die plateau. Western Anatolia and Cilicia were therefore peri­
pheral regions in more senses than one. ^

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