Mosaics

Our trip may be focused on the world of Islam, but our route took us through a great deal of the former Greek and Roman worlds, from the birthplace of Aphrodite on Cyprus and the Ptolemaic capital of Alexandria to the Roman ruins of Baalbek and the Byzantine Dead Cities of Syria. Traipsing through such ruins, one sees a great deal of columns and inscriptions--carved in heavy stone, masonry stands the test of time. But another form of ornamentation is apparently delicate and durable in equal parts, and comprises a core bulk of ancient artwork that survives today: the mosaic.

Mosaics are the main representational artwork that survives from ancient times; when paintings have disintegrated or faded, they provide insight into the styles, tastes and beliefs of the day. In this post, I thought I would show you photographs of some of the most impressive or otherwise noteworthy mosaics from our trip, from all over the (expanded) Greek and Roman worlds.

From Palmyra, now in the National Museum in Damascus


Some masterpieces from the Syrian Hauran:

The cities of Suweida and Shahba possess some of the most remarkable mosaics of the Roman world. The second picture below in particular struck me for its sophisticated sense of light.




From Bosra. Bosra and Palmyra may have been part of the Roman Empire, but, in speaking Aramaic and Greek, and using camels, life in the Syrian desert certainly wasn't the same as life in Rome.


The "Map Mosaic" of Madaba, Jordan, is famous for its depiction of the eastern Mediterranean. The second image is a close-up of the Jerusalem portion of the map, showing not only the major gates and streets but also churches, many of which have survived to this day.



Other works from Madaba. The second image shows "editing" that was done during the iconoclastic period, when depiction of living animals was held improper (as in Islam)--the equivalent of the modern black box over nipples or *bleep* over swear words.



Some masterpieces from Paphos, Cyprus:

These two mosaics from the House of Aion featured some of the smallest tesserae we've seen--they are high resolution mosaics.



The house in which this mosaic was found is called the Villa of Theseus; this grand work shows the Minoan labyrinth of Theseus, complete with Ariadne's thread and the Minotaur in the center.


This mosaic in the House of Dionysus is a true standout for its sense of the third dimension and perspective.


Mosaics were not always original creations, but were often ordered from a catalog of designs. This Rape of Ganymede mosaic was apparently larger than the space for which it was intended, leading to the eagle's clipped wings. In another instance in Paphos, a tableau was bungled by the mistaken placement of a wrong character (of the same name as the right one), presumably picked, like clip art, from a stock selection of representations.


From the Sassanid city of Bishapur, Iran, on display at the National Museum in Tehran. The Persian Sassanids were, for a period, Rome's greatest enemy, once capturing the Roman Emperor. Some say that this mosaic in the Sassanid capital of Bishapur was made by Roman captives.


Umayyad Mosque, Damascus. The Umayyad Mosque was built during the Islamic era, but it is said that its construction was very much in the Christian Byzantine tradition, perhaps utilizing Byzantine artisans (and was in fact built on the site of, and perhaps utilizing some remains from, a Christian church). Almost all of the mosque's surfaces were covered in mosaics, although few of the original works survive today. (See also post of 4.10.)


I can speculate on several reasons mosaics survived so well over time. First, most mosaics were designed to be walked on, and so must have been able to take a fair amount of wear and tear. Second, mosaics were already made up of small pieces, and so there is nothing really to break apart. Since they were already on the ground, they had nowhere to fall, and the collapse of walls and other debris thereon served as protective layers. Finally, another reason that mosaics survived was that they are made of stone--the colors are not pigments that are quick to fade with exposure. Given the beauty and durability of this art form, it seems a shame that we don't make more mosaics today. Madaba today has a mosaic school, and great quantities of mosaics are produced for the souvenir trade. What do you think are the most memorable mosaics of the modern era? The ones that come to my mind include the mosaics of the New York subways, the Tiffany mosaics inside the Marquette Building in Chicago and the mosaic of 1980 Hong Kong inside Wan Chai's Hopewell Centre.

Modern mosaic in Penjikent, Tajikistan

Greeks and Turks

Traveling from Palestine to Cyprus, two infamously divided/occupied lands, it occurred to me how so many hostile pairs are, to outsiders, so similar. This post is entitled Greeks and Turks, and it is on them that I wish to focus, but first let's start with some other pairs. Jewish Israelis and Muslim Arabs: Conservative factions of both groups have relatively severe rules on gender (such as men and women worshipping apart), neither eat pork, both have dietary certification regimes (kosher and halal) and their languages are not horribly far apart. Indeed, Jews and Arabs belong to the same Semitic ethnic group. Is there any doubt that many Jews look like Arabs and many Arabs look like Jews, however offensive it may be to point this out to either such subgroup? Chinese, Koreans and Japanese--however much hostility there may be against the Japanese for 20th century history, let's face it, no-one can tell east Asians apart 100% of the time. They all use chopsticks to eat rice and salty side dishes, drink tea and have a tendency to fall in line and respect hierarchy. As much as Iranians may hate Israel and Zionists, for whom do they reserve a perhaps deeper well of hate and mistrust? Sunni Saudis. Never mind that many outsiders don't even know that Persians are not Arabs, or the distinction between Sunni and Shia Islam. And what minority in Iran suffers from the greatest discrimination? Probably the Afghanis, who speak the same language and share much of the same culture as Persians.

But back to Greeks and Turks. Despite all of the conflict between North and South Cyprus, a Greek Cypriot confirmed to us that it is impossible to physically identify a Cypriot as Greek or Turk. He explained that the two communities intermarried for hundreds of years, often dividing up the children of a mixed marriage so that the boys became Christian and the girls Muslim, or vice versa. In fact, prior to the conflicts of the last forty years, it seems that Cypriots didn't even think of themselves as Greek or Turk, but only as Christian or Muslim--simply a difference of faith rather than ethnic identity. Cypriot cuisine itself is a hybrid of Greek and Turkish food, and does not vary between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities--both eat fish meze and grill halloumi/hellim. During British control, we were told, Greek and Turkish Cypriots attended together English-language schools, only separating for classes in their respective mother tongue.

Greek


Turk


Setting the Cypriots aside, are Greeks from Greece and Turks from Turkey all that different? Both cultures dine on the small appetizers called meze, drink an anise liqueur called ouzo or raki (not too different from pastis or sambuca, for that matter), drink a thick sludgy coffee called Turkish coffee or Greek coffee (or, it in Cyprus, Cyprus coffee) and snack on a shawarma-like food called döner or gyros. They may be easier to distinguish in appearance than Jews and Arabs or Chinese and Japanese, but there are certainly some physical traits (e.g., hairiness) that they notoriously share in common.

Turkish Coffee


Greek Coffee


No doubt these similarities come from centuries of cohabitation. Ever since the Turks arrived from Central Asia into the eastern Mediterranean, they have been living together with Greeks (and Armenians--see post of 5.17), who had established cities in the region more than a thousand years before. Although the hostility in the early twentieth century (or the late twentieth century, in the case of Cyprus) resulted in Greeks and Turks moving apart into their own sovereign states, essentially to the exclusion of Greek and Turkish minorities within the other state, cultural similarities developed over centuries of living together cannot help but persist.

The same goes for the Jews and the Arabs, and east Asians. I suppose, in the end, that it could be all those years of living together, and all the similarities, that generate the hostility. Cohabitation, especially over hundreds of years, creates the opportunity for regretful incidents, periods of hostility for which grudges are held. Neighbors, with whom there were centuries of trade, cultural exchange and even intermarriage, become mortal enemies. That these opposing cultures are so similar means that, to foster a sense of uniqueness in national identity, there is a constant need to define against, to emphasize differences lest identity become muddled, and so every Chinese child is told that to be proud to be Chinese means in part to hate Japanese, and every Greek child is told that, despite appearances to the contrary, Greek identity is a world apart from, and superior to, Turkish identity. Another example of this is Uzbekistan, which denies the Tajik heritage of some of its citizens and greatest cities, to enforce a stronger sense of Uzbek identity (see post of 7.08). At times we need to forget the past, focus on similarities with our neighbors and not our differences and spend more time thinking about how to work together to promote mutual well-being rather than using scapegoats to promote a shorter-sighted ethnocentric nationalist agenda. The European Union seems to be showing us that this is possible--hopefully the rest of the world can follow its lead.

Divided Cyprus, Divided Nicosia

Looking north from South Nicosia, Cyprus


There have been, in recent history, many divided places. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Jerusalem (although not the Old City) was divided until Israel's victory in the Six-Day War of 1967, and likely will be again divided upon the establishment of an Arab Palestinian state. North and South Korea remain almost as apart as ever. But it is Nicosia (Lefkosia, Lefkoşa), Cyprus, that has the undistinguished title of "last divided capital."



Cyprus is something of a unique historical beast. Originally settled as one of many Greek settlements around the Mediterranean, Cyprus was eventually ruled by the Ptolemies (successors of Alexander the Great based in Alexandria, Egypt) and then the Byzantine Empire. During the latter's decline, Cyprus was controlled for extended periods of time by Crusaders and Venetians, all essentially Western Europeans and not of the eastern Mediterranean Greek tradition. It was the Venetians who surrounded the city of Nicosia with its formidable walls--in exemplary trace italienne but still barely slowing the Ottoman conquest of the city in the 16th century. With the decline of Ottoman power in the late 19th century, Cyprus became a British colony.



The most recent troubles in Cyprus arose after the departure of the British in 1964. Under the terms of the establishment of the independent Republic of Cyprus, the majority Greek Cypriots were to share power with the minority Cypriots of Turkish origin (some 20% of the population, who arrived in Cyprus over the hundreds of years of Ottoman rule). These arrangements were supposed to be "guaranteed" by the three interested states of the United Kingdom, Greece and Turkey. In 1974, after a Greece-sponsored coup threatened to discontinue the agreed-upon power sharing arrangements and cause Cyprus to be unified with Greece, Turkey invaded the island with the stated goal of protecting the interests of the Turkish Cypriots. The Turkish invasion of Cyprus and month of fighting led to a UN-monitored truce along a boundary known as the Green Line, which cuts painfully right through the middle of the old city of Nicosia, the capital. The country remains to this day divided, the northern 30% or so controlled by the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, which is recognized as a country only by its sponsor Turkey (and uses Turkish currency), and the rest controlled by the (Greek-ethnic) Republic of Cyprus, now a member of the European Union. The Greek and Turkish Cypriots, who lived intermingled for hundreds of years, moved during the conflict either north or south to live in what are now essentially mono-ethnic states (or moved abroad altogether).

(The Cyprus story is not dissimilar from that of Sri Lanka, where the Singhalese majority tried to overplay its majority control to the detriment of the Tamil minority's rights, leading to ethnic violence and an unstable situation that is severely detrimental to everyone. The Tamil also formed something of an independent state, in the north of the country, and, as noted by a reader to the blog (see comments to post of 3.23), has received assistance from its co-ethnic, co-religious "big brother" country, India.)





To say that the border between North and South Cyprus runs through Nicosia is something of an understatement, as the so-called Green Line runs right through the heart of the old walled city, with its most important historical monuments only a block or two off of the UN Buffer Zone, itself only one or two city blocks wide, that separates the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot/Turkish forces. The narrow streets of the old city end in blockades and fortifications on either side, sandbags and gun emplacements squeezed into the city's medieval layout.





Channeling Berlin, in a cafe on the Green Line


It is, quite simply, a shocking sight. It is peculiar to see something that is so whole by its nature--a circular walled city with all of its Venetian bastions in place, like petals on a flower--divided in two with each narrow alley blockaded. It is depressing to see people who lived harmoniously for centuries stare each other down from bunkers laden with barbed wire and sandbags, to see a medieval city littered with so many signs of active discord. It is odd to know that you're in the European Union, that model of reconciliation and unity, but still in a place with such a real and unresolved conflict. Adding another level of absurdity is that recent progress between North and South Cyprus has resulted in nearly free mobility between the two halves (for all but the recent Turkish immigrants into North Cyprus) and that earlier this year a border was opened right in the middle of the old city itself, effectively seamlessly connecting the urban cores of its two halves, while the rest of the Buffer Zone, one street away on either side, remains forbidden and armed.

You simply walk back and forth, with brief passports checks at both ends. The North conducts a more formal immigration process, complete with stamps, while the South just glances at passports, each trying to confirm or deny, respectively, the existence of a separate Northern entity.


Cyprus was, for us, a depressing finale to the most politically troubling portion of our trip. Israelis and Palestinians in Palestine (see post of 10.21); the Christian sects of Jerusalem, including especially the territorial disputes at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (see posts of 10.19 and 10.20); Greeks and Turks: Can't we find a way to get along with each other?

E-Z Tours

If you've travelled anywhere, you've seem 'em--advertisements for quick and dirty, and often cheap, tours, purportedly taking in everything that you need to see in a matter of hours. There's no end to the selection on offer in Southeast Asia, to help relatively impoverished and inexperienced backpackers plan their itineraries, or to help package beach tourists take in a manageable bite of inland culture. A few bucks to see the Killing Fields of Phnom Penh, daytrips to see the "Real Bali," three-day packages from Hanoi for the mountains of northwest Vietnam.

These tours are not always bad (though of course they often are), and undeniably they are time- and cost-efficient. But, having an entire year to travel, it's hard not to feel a bit sorry for those who have to opt for the worst of these tours. Our cheap Cairo hotel, or rather pushy travel agent with rooms as some reviewers have described it, offered insane four-day Egypt itineraries, taking in everything from the Pyramids to Abu Simbel in Nubia. Our hotel in Hama, Syria, seemed to offer one-day itineraries taking in a seemingly unlimited number of nearby sites, the time at each shrinking, I guess, with your sightseeing appetite.

But we saw the craziest one yet in Cyprus--Egypt as a daytrip by air, taking in somehow the Pyramids, the Egyptian Museum, a Nile cruise (including a dance show) and the markets of Islamic Cairo.



The Pyramids are indeed great--but if any country merits a trip on its own, wouldn't Egypt be a strong contender? Even with intense preparation in advance--and I can't imagine that the Cyprus crowd spontaneously flying to Cairo has such preparation--can one possibly absorb a meaningful amount of Egyptian history and culture (Egypt, of all places), in less than 24 hours? Most tourists to Cyprus are Europeans (largely Brits), and Egypt is hardly further away from home than Cyprus. Can't they just enjoy Cyprus for now and go to Egypt some other time? Do these people get only one trip abroad in their entire lives, that they would have to go on such a tour?

Multicultural Israel

It feels a bit strange to say this, especially of a country that was founded on the basis of a common ethno-religious identity, but it could definitely be argued that Israel is the most multicultural country in the world. Given that Zionism as an idea is only a bit over 100 years old, and the state of Israel a bit over 50 years old, essentially everyone in Israel, other than the 20% or so minority that is Arab, is an immigrant or descended from relatively recent immigrants. Even if mostly Caucasian in race, and Jewish in religious culture, the citizens of the state of Israel come from all over--Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, the Maghrib, the United States and even India and Africa--taking advantage of the Law of Return, which allows automatic Israeli citizenship to anyone of Jewish descent. Israel is, in many senses, giving the idea of nation-building a whole new meaning--newly acquired territory, a new language (modern Hebrew having been developed from an ancient liturgical language not in vernacular use), a new national identity.

It would be fascinating to visit different ethnic communities in Israel, and to learn how they were integrated and to what extent they are assimilated, into Israeli society. Israel must benefit from such a wide range of programs, both public and private, to acculturate newly arrived immigrants into Israeli society. From our brief visit, some pictures showing the pluralism of Israel:

The Old Bukharan Synagogue, in the Bukharan Quarter, Jerusalem. Bukharan Jews include not only those Jews from the city of Bukhara itself, in now Uzbekistan (see post of 6.11), but Jews from other parts of the Near East, such as Iraq and Iran.


Russian delicatessen, Allenby Street, Tel Aviv. The greatest current immigration into Israel is from Russia, and evidence of this Russian population is easy to find in Tel Aviv, with Cyrillic advertising everything from restaurants to bookstores. We were told by some sources, admittedly Palestinian-leaning in political orientation, that many of these newest immigrants are not Jewish at all, and that Israel was overlooking the faulty Jewish credentials on the part of some immigrants (who are presumably economically motivated), figuring that it was good enough for them to be willing to say they are Jews and to raise their children as Jews in order to expand the future Jewish population of Israel as a bulwark against the growing Arab populations of Israel and Palestine.


Francophone Yeshiva, Jerusalem. Many Israeli Jews claim American and Western European origin. We were repeatedly told that Americans in particular are among the most vehement Zionists and the most aggressive "settlers" (see post of 10.21).


Ethiopian Restaurant, Jerusalem. We had heard about the Ethiopian Falasha Jews and their mass emigration to Israel when we were in Ethiopia in 2005, but were surprised to see so many people of Ethiopian descent in Israel. If anyone can offer me an explanation, please do!


Unfortunately, we did not have time to track down the Cochin Jews (see post of 3.2). Next time!

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Founded by St. Helena, mother of Roman Emperor Constantine, during her fourth century pilgrimage to uncover the Christian holy places, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre incorporates many of the places associated with Jesus's crucifixion and death (the last four Stations of the Cross, to be specific). Having been destroyed by conflict and fire, and continuously rebuilt and expanded, it is a historical mishmash comparable, among the sites we have visited, only to the Sri Meenakshi Temple of Madurai in South India (see post of 3.19)--not remotely an architectural masterpiece of aesthetic harmony but an awe-inspiring complex of medieval and modern chapels and shrines, pulsing with pilgrims and seething with spirituality. This is no museum, as the great cathedrals of Europe sometimes feel, but a place where the most sacred, whether true or false, can be literally touched and felt.

Pilgrim outside of the "edicule," the shrine surrounding Christ's tomb, lighting and extinguishing candles to take home


Catholic chapel on Golgotha, or Calvary, the location of the crucifixion


Every stone, even every crack in every stone, seems to have a story, going as far back as Adam, the first man. The rock of Golgotha, the site of the crucifixion, is exposed, not only to be seen but touched. Dark stairs lead to the place that St. Helena is said to have discovered the True Cross, the walls leading the site etched with countless crosses, left by medieval pilgrims with apparently ample time. All around are remnants of Crusader churches and columns, mosaics and icons, old and new, and on the wall the sword of the Crusader Godfrey of Bouillon. Ambulatories open into chapels with Roman, Greek and Armenian script. The floor is a mosaic of paving stones, mismatched and laid in various eras, their relative blackness suggesting their age.

Crosses etched into walls in medieval times


Dome above the Greek Orthodox Catholicon


An Italian pilgrim crosses himself. Greeks await service in the Greek Orthodox Catholicon. A Filipino group recites the Lord's Prayer in English after having carried a wooden cross along the length of the Via Dolorosa. Dozens of pilgrims wait in line for their few seconds inside the Tomb of Christ. Mother Teresa nuns light candles on the Golgotha shrine. Indian and African Christians wipe the Stone of Unction with scarves, as if to absorb residual blood, the power of Christ. Polish pilgrims scrape the mortar from between the church's bricks, to take back home a piece of the sacred building. All around are priests in myriad vestments--Coptic monks in their hoods, Orthodox priests in their caps, Franciscans in their frocks--walking around with keys, crosses and artifacts for services.

In the basement, an Ethiopian Orthodox chapel


African Christian at the Stone of Unction, on which the body of Christ is said to have been lain after his crucifixion


Central dome, with top of the "edicule," the shrine surrounding Christ's tomb, rising at bottom

The Wall

In late 1947, the United Nations called for the partition of what was then known as Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, and in 1948 the state of Israel was born, all after some fifty years of Jewish agitation for a national homeland (including a series of anti-British and anti-Arab Jewish terrorist attacks in the 1930s and 1940s). In 1967, Israel's victory in the Six-Day War over its Arab neighbors led to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the two territories that were intended to form the bulk of the Arab Palestinian state, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights (see post of 5.3), a situation that is not only unstable in itself, but contributes more than any other single dispute to global instability, to this day.

Over the years, Israel has maintained various levels of command over the occupied Palestinian Territories. All entries to the West Bank are controlled by Israel, meaning that one must pass through Israeli immigration and customs in order to enter or leave the Palestinian Territories. As Israeli authorities have complete say over who gets in and out, one Brit teaching in the West Bank told us that he was cautious about voicing political opinions for fear that the Israelis would refuse him entry. An American professor that we met told us that the Israelis refuse exit to a Palestinian human rights activist friend of his, even to attend academic conferences. Additionally, there are numerous Israeli checkpoints throughout the West Bank, and one must go through identification and security checks even to move between many Palestinian towns. While, at least day-to-day, Israeli forces are not visibly active in most Palestinian areas, and the West Bank cities that we visited seemed peaceful, economically active and at least superficially free, Israeli forces are never far away, often surveying areas from armed hilltop posts.

Huwwara checkpoint, through which all who wish to exit Nablus southward for other parts of the West Bank must pass. No doubt, the security checkpoints are also intended to serve as reminders to the Palestinians that the Israelis are in control--there are always long lines here and the experience and conditions left us feeling a bit more cattle than human. One wonders what Arab and Israeli parents tell their children about each other and the state of their lands.



"Occupation" is to some extent not quite the right word, as Israel has outright annexed certain portions of Palestinian land, particularly in and around the city of Jerusalem. Some of this land may be returned to an Arab Palestinian state once one is established (and are essential bargaining chips in the negotiations), but other areas, on which Israelis have built "settlements" (somewhat akin to colonies), are likely to remain a part of Israel. Even if it is implausible that Zionism's ultimate goal is to expand Israel indefinitely (including up to Iran, as one otherwise reasonable Iranian told us), it is hard to dispute that Israel has, for whatever reason, been largely in a land-acquisitive mode since its creation.

Israeli groups have, sometimes through duplicitous means, acquired property in the Christian, Muslim and Armenian Quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem, seeking to expand the Jewish footprint in the Old City, which most would argue belongs in the future Arab Palestinian state. This building, in the heart of the Muslim Quarter, imperiously announces its Israeli ownership.


An Israeli settlement near the West Bank city of Bethlehem. We were repeatedly told that many of the most aggressive and radical Israeli settlers are American.


Most controversially of all, since 2002, Israel has been constructing a wall cordoning off much of the West Bank, the real focus of this post. Passage remains possible (for some) through checkpoints, but the wall has of course had the effect of destroying the Palestinian neighborhoods through which it passes. The wall has had the desired impact of reducing active Palestinian-Israeli hostility, but one wonders at what cost. Driving along the wall, we saw entire neighborhoods that had been essentially shut down and abandoned because of the wall. The wall cuts off family members who live across town or even down the street, people from their jobs and farmers from their fields, with essentially all of the negatives effects falling to the Palestinian Arabs, through whose land the wall cuts. The wall is but one of many barriers created on Palestinian land, including "bypass" highways connecting Israeli settlements, which are not allowed to be used by Palestinians (Israeli license plates have small Israeli flags, making for quick identification), and some observers see the wall (and its meandering "routing") as one more step in a systematic effort by Israel to expand its boundaries into Palestinian land.

Snaking across the hills outside of the city of Jerusalem


To someone with Christian sympathies, it is especially heartbreaking to see the walls around the (Arab Christian) West Bank city of Bethlehem. To me, it is one of the wonders of the conflict that so many western Christians are fervent promoters of the state of Israel, when arguably it is the Christian Palestinians, such as those in Bethlehem, for whom they should feel more kindred sympathy.

The walls near Bethlehem have also become the premier "gallery" for art on the wall, created by Palestinians and sympathetic Europeans, reminiscent of graffiti on the former Berlin Wall.



One piece of graffiti near the "entrance" to Bethlehem said "Welcome to the Ghetto." Of course, the word "ghetto" comes from medieval Venice, where Jews were required to live in a small neighborhood near the foundry ("ghetto" in Italian). Other graffiti also point in one way or another to the irony that Jewish Israelis are now the ones enforcing ghettos.



"Made in USA." Palestinians often cite the economic support that the U.S. provides to Israel in connection with the high cost of constructing the wall. It is hard to underestimate the resentment that Muslims around the world have not only against Israel, for its existence and its occupation of Palestinian territory, but against the U.S., for its support of Israel. Even in places where love of the U.S. and all things American seems deeply ingrained, many Muslims complain bitterly of American policy on Israel and Palestine.



A Palestinian Guernica