Syria Project Melqart (Bir Hadad) Inscription (KAI 201/Gibson II:1)

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1 Syria Project 2011 Iron Age and Late Bronze Age Inscriptions Among the significant antiquities in Syria are two sets of inscriptions of special interest to scholars of the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age (ca BCE). One group of texts encompasses several early alphabetic monumental inscriptions in Aramaic dating to the ninth and eighth centuries BCE: Aleppo Melqart (Bir Hadad) Inscription (KAI 201/Gibson II:1) Damascus Tell Fakhariyeh Stele (KAI 309) Sefire I Inscription (KAI 222/Gibson II:7) Sefire II Inscription (KAI 223/Gibson II:8) These Aramaic inscriptions are important for understanding the history, language, iconography, religion and culture of ancient Syria. The Melqart (Bir Hadad) inscription is important in that it represents a kind of inscription found also in Phoenician and Punic, that is, a dedication to a deity in performance of a vow. The Sefire inscriptions are important for our understanding of ancient treaties between cities or territories. The inscription from Tell Fakhariyeh is perhaps the most intriguing. Written on the skirt of a statue of a king, it is a bilingual inscription written in both Neo-Assyrian and Aramaic. It has caused quite a bit of commentary because, while the style of the statue and the cuneiform script point to a date in the ninth century BCE, the Aramaic script has many old features that initially led scholars to date the inscription to the eleventh century BCE. High resolution images are essential for studying this unusual script, and for understanding the origins and development of the alphabet. The Ugaritic texts from Ras Shamra are arguably the most important inscriptions discovered in the ancient Near East. The earliest extensive texts written in an alphabetic script, these inscribed clay tablets give us essential information about ancient Canaanite religion, as well as law, commerce, and the international relations of the Late Bronze Age. The language used in the texts fills an important gap in our understanding of the languages of that region. We are particularly interested in imaging some of the literary and religious texts held in the Aleppo and Damascus museums, as time allows. Aleppo Literary Ugaritic Texts (house of high priest) KTU 1.3 and 1.4 (part of the Baal Epic), , (the Kirta Epic), 1.21, 1.22 Damascus RS 24 series ritual texts, KTU (RS , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , etc.)

2 The museums of Syria, of course, contain a wealth of artifacts from pre-history up through the Byzantine and Islamic periods, and we would be happy to image artifacts that would be of particular interest to the museums themselves and to scholars engaged in research both in and outside of Syria. The Frescoes of Dura Europos Eighty years after the Franco-American archaeological excavations of Dura Europos in Syria ( ), the images unearthed from the Christian Baptistery and the Jewish synagogue still represent some of the oldest examples of biblical iconography. Individual panels portray characters and events recounted in the Bible and post-biblical literature. Incorporated into those images are also pagan figures, forms and symbols. After their initial publication, the frescoes have been the subject of scientific scrutiny regarding external influences, their relationship to nascent Christian iconography and their role within Jewish communal life and biblical interpretation. Lying at the crossroads of caravan transport from the East, it is not surprising that scholarship has identified in the composition of the frescoes influences from Greek, Roman, Parthian and local styles. Indeed, the frescoes illustrate the centrality of Syria in the Roman East. The scope of this project is to take advantage of technological advances in digital imaging to re-photograph the frescoes. Currently there are very fiew high quality color pictures of the frescoes. What images are in print are mostly black and white. Color pictures are dated and generally of a poor quality. In the first stage of the project we will digitally photograph the frescoes of the Christian Baptistery housed at Yale University. Subsequent imaging will be completed of Dura Synagogue frescoes at the National Museum in Damascus, Syria. Imaging Technology The technology we propose using is called Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), developed originally by Hewlett-Packard Imaging Labs.

3 Fig. 1: Dome for Capturing PTM Images Detail of Tablet in PTM Dome This type of imaging is created by capturing a series of digital photographs, each from a different light angle (typically around 32) of a given target (see Fig. 1). The images are then mapped into a master image using customized software, the result being an image in which one can view an object from any light angle in real time by moving a mouse to any position on the image. This image is not actually the aggregate of the various subsidiary images per se, but rather maps the data from all these images and builds its image based on these data. The image can also be enhanced in a number of ways, especially, specular enhancement, through which the surface texture can be made highly reflective (as though it had been dipped in silver; see Fig. 2). Such images can bring out even the smallest variations in texture and are especially effective for illustrating the slightly raised features of seal impressions on cuneiform tablets. Another option is to employ dual virtual lights. In this case the user can in real time move two lights around (their sources are conveniently marked with green and red spots) in order to set various combinations in order to illuminate a given textured surface effectively. This approach is especially effective for lighting cuneiform tablets and inscriptions, since it allows one to set up a key-and-fill combination, that is, a dominant light from the upper left hand corner with a buffering secondary light on the right, an approach that has proven to be the most highly effective in outlining the shadow details of individual cuneiform wedges.

4 Fig. 2: Visible light and specular enhancement The technology has also proven to be highly effective in imaging painted surfaces, even when the painting, or fresco, appears flat. The technology was recently used by us on some wall paintings from China, and was helpful in showing the colors in the painting, the texture of the surface, and the direction of the brushstrokes (Fig. 3).

5 Fig. 3: Chinese wall painting with various enhancements applied in RTI imaging Since most of the objects and texts we would be imaging are too large to put into a dome such as the one pictured above (Fig. 1), we propose using a variation of the technology called Highlight-RTI. This methodology only requires a digital camera, tripod, hand-held flash, and a shiny ball placed near the artifact. Instead of the lights in the dome, the handheld flash is moved to different positions as the camera takes a series of images indeed a kind of virtual dome is created that is similar to the pattern of lights in the fixed dome above.

6 We propose to send two teams to work in the Aleppo and Damascus Museums for three weeks to image the Dura Europos frescoes, Iron Age monumental inscriptions and selected Ugaritic tablets. This portion of the project will be carried out jointly under the auspices of the University of Southern California and Nyack College, New York. It is hoped that we would be able to carry out this project during June, If any further information is required, we will be glad to provide it.