Abstract
This study addresses the forms of aniconism occurring in Phoenicia and its overseas colonies, while noting analogues, influences and parallels elsewhere. Phoenician (‘Canaanite’) culture belongs to the cities of the Levantine littoral, especially in the first millennium bce, and its colonial outposts ranging from Cyprus and Carthage to Sicily, Sardinia and Cadiz. In the culture’s floruit in the Iron Age, Phoenician craftsmen produced exquisitely-worked iconographic products, betraying other influences, notably Egyptian, but putting their own distinctive imprint on them. At the same time, some of these artifacts have been interpreted by scholars as in some degree aniconic, within one or other of the categories which scholars have identified.
Aniconism is a surprisingly elusive subject. Does it mean the avoidance of all visual representational forms? Or is it a rejection only of anthropomorphic imagery? Is it to be restricted to the portrayal of deities? Is it a late(r) phenomenon in the historical evolution of a religious tradition? Each of these questions allows more than one answer, and it is problems like this which are addressed here. Doak’s wise move, in the face of so many uncertainties, is to argue that ‘it would seem to be an advantage for not defining aniconism too closely…’ (p. 28). This may sound rather too fuzzy for purists, but given that so many variables obtain in the materials discussed, it is a sensible procedure for any comprehensive account. A number of authorities are evaluated, and the diversity of views confirms the wisdom of his strategy.
To contextualise the analysis to be offered, Doak surveys the main themes of Phoenician iconography, referring to external examples (Egyptian, Aramaean…) for stylistic comparison. He then turns to the matter of aniconism. Some examples given are the following. Empty thrones imply an invisible divine presence, though three-dimensional ones may have been for the use of portable cult-images. But representations of such thrones on stelae are presumably to be seen explicitly as remaining empty. Various stelae are discussed, often with abstract (or ununderstood) designs on them. A particularly interesting motif is the twin-stelae ‘image’ (the word is unavoidable!) representing Tyre. It is evidently a kind of instantly recognisable badge of the city. Whether it is aniconic is another matter. In this reviewer’s estimate, it probably applies to Tyre as a world-centre, appropriating the widespread image of twin-peaked Mount Kasion (Jebel el Aqra) in Syria, the Mount Ṣapūnu of Ugarit, Saphon of the Bible (e.g. Psalm 48:3, where, with Memphis, it is merged with Mount Zion). Since the mountain was deified in the ancient world, it is, however emblematic, a naturalistic if stylised portrayal rather than an abstraction. Stelae carved in bas relief on a larger stela supposedly take the relief to represent a supernatural reality, if not a deity, and are thus in a sense iconic, even though strictly non-representational, a kind of qualified aniconism. A number of miniature shrines have empty thrones in niches (perhaps for domestic rites), and may be aniconic, though in some instances they may have housed small images of deities.
From the perspective of the History of Religions, aniconism in various forms was accepted in Phoenician societies along with more conventional iconic forms of deities. There is no evidence of tension between the two, but they were, rather, complementary ways of apprehending the divine. A historical question of great interest in the study of religion(s) in Israel and Judah is whether any Phoenician influence is to be discerned in their adoption of aniconism, all the more interestingly in that Hiram of Tyre underwrote and provided the architectural and decorative specialists for the Jerusalem temple. The move towards a complete rejection of representations of Yahweh is difficult to date with certainty. The ‘Mosaic’ prohibition in the decalogue may be no earlier than the exilic era, and consequently attributable as much to the Babylonian experience as anything else. But a burgeoning area of scholarship in recent years, in Israelite and Judahite iconography, has shown an evident freedom of expression in the Iron Age, which makes it difficult to insist on an early date for the prohibition, though male human representations (as candidates for images of Yahweh) are notably scarce. At the worst, it indicates that the commandment was more commonly honoured in the breach than in the observance. Doak threads his way through the complexities of the Old Testament witness, and the greater complexities of scholarly disagreement, with great sensitivity and skill. While the issues under discussion will probably always remain open, this volume will remain a useful and integral point of reference for further work.
Some minor errors have crept in: the deity shown in fig. 4.5 is Nefertem rather than Horus; fig. 5.33 is a duplicate of 5.32 (the intended illustration missing); and the ‘object’ from Karnak (fig. 5.50, left) is not aniconic, but rather the ‘veiled’ ithyphallic form of Amen-Apet of Djeme (see van der D. Plas, Effigies Dei, Leiden 1987).