‚Abrechnung’ sehen muss, war der inzwischen in der US-Armee tätige Bernhard von Bothmer eingeweiht, der am2.9.1944 an Steindorff schrieb: „Ich hoffe immer noch,dass Sie das ‚I accuse‘ bald schreiben werden. Die Zeit istgekommen.“22 Für eine gültige Einschätzung der ‚Stein-dorff-Liste‘ muss daher die laufende Aufarbeitung vondessen Nachlass in Leipzig23 abgewartet werden.

Der fünfte Artikel des Bandes, „Manfred Mayrhofer’sStudies on Indo-Aryan and the Indo-Aryans in the An-cient Near East: A Retrospective and Outlook on FutureResearch“ von Peter Raulwing, erweist sich als einehochinteressante Studie über die Forschungsgeschichteder ‚Indo-Arier‘ mit Bezug auch zu Ägypten (vgl. die Auf-zählung auf S. 259–260). Dezidiert geht Raulwing dabeiauf die Rolle ein, die Hitlers Machtübernahme bei derAnwendung von Rassekriterien spielte (S. 261–265), ohnedass es einer einheitlich gelenkten Wissenschaftspolitikder Nationalsozialisten bedurfte.24 Angereichert mit einerumfangreichen Bibliographie (S. 272–285) und zahlrei-chen Hinweisen zu Ursprung und Gebrauch von ein-schlägigen Termini wie ‚nordische Rasse‘, ‚blond‘, ‚lang-schädelig‘, ‚europäische Rasse‘ und ‚Arier‘ (S. 264–265,Anm. 81 und 82) klärt Raulwings Retrospektive über ideo-logische und wissensgeschichtliche Rahmenbedingun-gen dieser Zeit auf. Als erster veröffentlichter Beitrag zurägyptologischen Fachgeschichte, der einen vertieftenwissensgeschichtlichen Ansatz wagt, bildet dieser Auf-satz daher einen Bezugspunkt, auf den laufende und zu-künftige Forschungsvorhaben rekurrieren können.

In der Gesamteinschätzung bleibt der Sammelbandden im Titel erhobenen Anspruch einer Entwicklungs-geschichte der Ägyptologie „vom Ersten Weltkrieg biszum Dritten Reich“ schuldig. Doch liefern die Aufsätzemit ihren zahlreichen Detailinformationen und umfang-reichen bibliografischen Angaben viele Ansätze für Wei-terentwicklungen, die zur Schaffung eines Gesamtbildesder Ägyptologie in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhundertsbeitragen können.

DOI 10.1515/olzg-2014-0087Spalinger, Anthony / Armstrong, Jeremy (Hg.): Rituals ofTriumph in the Mediterranean World. Leiden/Boston:Brill 2013. 157 S. 8° ¼ Culture and History of the AncientNear East 63. Hartbd. € 98,00. ISBN 978-90-04-25100-7.

There are many studies of war and violence in the an-cient world which address the related issues from variousdifferent theoretical and methodological perspectives.1

However, studies of victory celebrations and war tri-umphs are only emerging. The volume before us is apublication of a collection of papers presented at theconference “Rituals of Triumph in the MediterraneanWorld from Antiquity to the Middle Ages” (21–22 Novem-ber 2008 at Swansea University). This volume aims to fillthe gap in the studies of military triumph being thatthese studies were so far mostly restricted to the Romanworld,2 as also stated in the introductory chapter writ-ten by editors Jeremy Armstrong and Anthony Spalinger(pp. 1–6). All together the volume brings an introductionand seven following contributions on the topic. Biblio-graphy (pp. 139–153) of 361 units is provided cumulativelyat the end of the publication and not specifically for eachof the papers. The publication provides the reader withan accompanying index of terms (pp. 155–157).

Four contributions are dealing with Classical (an-cient Greek and Roman) sources dealing with victory cel-ebrations and triumphs. Lisa Irene Hau in her paper“Nothing to celebrate? The lack of Disparagement ofVictory Celebrations in the Greek Historians” (pp. 57–74)discusses the silence of Greek historians regarding thevictory celebrations. She points to the negative attitudetowards premature celebrations, e.g the description ofthe inappropriate behavior of Syracusans found in Dio-dorus, or towards the “victory induced arrogance” de-scribed by the Hellenistic historians (pp. 68–70). Thequestion Hau raises is, if this attitude can be recognizedin Classical historians and therefore if silence regardingvictory celebration is a consequence of a specific culturalattitude? She points to the class background and the factthat the Greek historians, being part of the elite, were ac-tually not interested in celebrations which occurredamong the “common” people (pp. 72–73). She also raises

22 Schreiben B. v. Bothmers an Steindorff vom 2.9.1944: ÄMUL, NLSteindorff.23 ‚Wissenshintergründe und Forschungstransfers am Beispiel desÄgyptologen Georg Steindorff (1861–1951)‘, DFG-Projekt am Ägyp-tischen Museum – Georg Steindorff – Leipzig.24 Vgl. z. B. M. Grüttner, „Wissenschaft“, in: W. Benz, H. Graml,H. Weiß (Hrsg.) Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus, Stuttgart1997,135–137 und grundsätzlich A.C. Nagel, Hitlers Bildungsrefor-mer. Das Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volks-bildung 1934–1945, Frankfurt a. Main, 2012. Im Zusammenhang mitder Ägyptologie vgl. Voss, Der lange Arm des Nationalsozialismus,in: Bickel et. al., op. cit., 273–275.

Bespr. von Uroš Matić, Münster, E-Mail: urosmatic@uni-muenster.de

1 cf. Garrett G. Fagan and Matthew Trundle (ed.), New Perspectiveson Ancient Warfare (Leiden: Brill, 2010).2 Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph (Cambridge MA: Harvard Uni-versity Press, 2007).

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the problem of the lack of reference to trophies beforethe Persian wars but this question is further discussedin detail by Matthew Trundle in his paper “Commemorat-ing Victory in Classical Greece: Why Greek Tropaia?”(pp. 123–138). He argues that Greeks adopted tropaiafrom the Persians as a result of pitched battles when itbecame less clear how to determine the victorious. Thereis no evidence for triumphal returns in the Greek warfare,rather the preoccupation with the award for valor andthe choice of sanctuary to give the spoil to. Tropaia werethus the visible signs of triumph erected, if not immedi-ately, than soon after the battle and are not attested be-fore the Persian wars. This leads Trundle to interpretthem as Persian influence.

While the Classical sources show a specific negativecultural attitude (view of the elite?) towards victory cele-brations, Hellenistic and Roman sources show positiveattitude towards such victorious boastings, however hav-ing entirely different background in ideology, being thecelebrations of rulers. Jeremy Armstrong in his paper“Claiming Victory: The Early Triumph” (pp. 7–21) arguesthat the Roman triumph was more than a victory celebra-tion but rather a religious and political institution witheconomic association and origins in small scale localizedwarfare. He argues that the later Roman triumph origi-nates in the display customs of highly individual andmobile warlike elite of central Italy in VI–V century B.Cknown as “condottieri” in modern scholarship. This canbe noticed e.g in the personal nature of distribution ofspoils preceding the triumph and personal dedication onthe Capitoline (pp. 8–9). When the early Roman triumphis contextualized in clan warfare, aspects such as the im-portance of the ritual liminality and the physical andsymbolical bringing of a military leader and his army bythe triumphus from outside the community to the com-munity’s core, become much clearer. Armstrong explainsthis by the mobility and relative independence of warlikeelite from the community. According to Armstrong therewas a gradual transformation and change from displayof individual wealth in funerary customs of VII–VI cen-tury B.C to early triumph as a public display (pp. 18–19).Bearing in mind that funerals are no less public than thetriumphs, an interesting question to answer would be:how does the change Armstrong noticed correlate tochange in power relations and transformation from aclan based to a state society? Andrew Erskine in his pa-per “Hellenistic Parades and Roman Triumphs” (pp. 37–56) examines the Hellenistic processions free from ana-logy with the Roman triumph. He argues that previousscholars as a result of work in this analogy, put too muchemphasis on victory celebration which is actually absent

from the sources about Hellenistic parades. While Romantriumph could not exist without victory Hellenistic par-ades could. This is because for them military success wasembedded in royal ideology (pp. 37–38). The processionof Ptolemy II Philopater incorporated myth, gods and thewhole cosmos, presenting the royal power over spaceand time, human and animal world (pp. 42). Throughthese parades Hellenistic monarchs were bringing king-dom in public, thus transforming abstract into visible(pp. 53) and therefore materializing kingship and ideol-ogy. It can be said that if Roman triumph concentratedon event, Hellenistic parade was presented as timeless(pp. 54). Therefore it can be concluded that it is the ideol-ogy of kingship which primarily influenced the characterof public presentation.

Three papers are discussing the issue of victory cele-bration and triumph in ancient Egypt and the Near East.These studies are particularly important as they repre-sent some of the pioneer work in these fields (Egyptologyand Assyriology). Giacomo Cavillier in his paper ?Ra-messes III‘ Wars and Triumphs at Medinet Habu: Be-tween Narration, History and Identity” (pp. 23–36) exam-ines the Medinet Habu reliefs and inscriptions viewingthem as “propaganda”. He argues for a change in pro-paganda scheme from Ramesses II to Merenptah andRamesses III influenced by a change in the politics inthe Near East at that time (pp. 24). Cavillier emphasizesthe idealized structure of reliefs and inscriptions of 20th

dynasty contextualized in temple layouts. One notablelack is the author’s definition of the word “propaganda”being that the notion itself has different connotationsand asks for a detailed explanation and theoretical fram-ing. The prevailing problem behind this term is the ques-tion of audience and media.3 Anthony Spalinger in hispaper “Egyptian New Kingdom Triumphs: A First Blush”(pp. 95–122) summarizes available information on tri-umphs in New Kingdom Egypt including primarily returnto Egypt and riverine voyage to Thebes and the accompa-nying hymns. He takes the riverine voyage to the templeof Amun at Karnak as a first event after the victory, re-turning the king to the sanctuary where he was given theweapon of victory from his father (god Amun). The kingis first encountered by citizens of Thebes and not highofficials what Spalinger sees as antithesis as the king isnot received first by the high officials who disagreed with

3 cf. John Baines, Visual and written culture in ancient Egypt (Ox-ford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 323–324; Richard B. Parkinson,“Individual and society in Middle Kingdom Literature”, in AncientEgyptian Literature: History and Forms, Antonio Loprieno (Leiden:Brill, 1996), 137–156.

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him before the war. Surrounding the king were his clo-sest followers, than the nfrw, and even more distant werethe “strong–armed” men. They were all flanked withchariotry on right and left of the Nile. The next eventwould be the presentation of awards to important perso-nage, normally, but not always, at the “Window of Ap-pearance”. According to Spalinger’s view public displayand celebrations were different. He also opens the ques-tion, but then carefully avoids the discussion, on the rea-lity behind smiting of the enemy scene, one of the mosthotly debated questions in Egyptology which was re-cently brought back to scholarly focus.4

The only assyrological contribution is by Davide Na-dali who in his paper “Outcomes of Battle: TriumphalCelebrations in Assyria” (pp. 75–94) discusses the displayof military achievement of the Neo-Assyrian kings inpublic spaces such as palaces, temples and open air ur-ban areas. He argues that there are two victory celebra-tions, the first one occurring immediately after the battleand conquering of the enemy city, and the second victorycelebration, being more spectacular and triumphant, oc-curs after the battle but away from the battlefield in thecapital city. Victory celebrations of Neo-Assyrian kings

are according to Nadali mediated through the palacewhich preserves, fosters and projects memory in the fu-ture through the images on the wall–panels (pp. 90). Heputs emphasize on the contextualization of these imagesin pursuit of reconstructing royal victory celebrations.5

One strictly technical lack of the publication are theaccompanying illustrations. The visual material is indeedexpected to be known by the interested and the expertsin the particular field and is easily consulted, but thereaders not directly familiar with them or with the parti-cular field are left without this valuable visual insight atthe same place where they read about it. This also hard-ens the following up of the provided argumentations ofat least three papers.

The order of the papers is not explicit as it is notstated why this particular order was given. Some criteria(temporal, spatial, theoretical, methodological etc.) intro-duced to order the papers would allow the reader tounderstand the publication as a whole and to comparedifferent contributions. The book nevertheless representsa valuable collection of papers on a not so widely re-searched topic and is clearly a stepping stone for furtherresearch as indeed the editors intended it to be.

4 For the same question recently revised and for the summary ofliterature on this issue see, Kerry Muhlestein, Violence in the Serviceof Order: The Religious Framework of Sanctioned Killing in AncientEgypt. BAR International Series 2299 (London: Archaeopress, 2011).

5 For these and other questions of violence and representation inAssyria see also, Zainab Bahrani, Rituals of War: The Body and Vio-lence in Mesopotamia (New York: Zone Books, 2008).

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