Aegean Design in Near Eastern Palaces, Tell el-Dabʿa

Knowledge and Materiality in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Second Millennium BC

Wall paintings found in different Near Eastern palaces dating to the Middle and Late Bronze Age have set off a controversial debate among experts in the 1990s. These paintings seem foreign in Western Asia and the Nile Delta, whereas iconographical and technical features link them to the fresco paintings of the Aegean. The debate focused mainly on the hypothesis of "Minoan" itinerant craftspeople while other approaches were marginalized. However, especially new finds from Qatna as well as unpublished wall paintings from Tell el-Dab´a, studied within the framework of this project for the first time, indicate a chronological, technical, and iconographical diversity of the phenomenon and plead for a more multifaceted interaction within the Eastern Mediterranean than previously assumed. Therefore, the project has a comparative approach and will integrate different archaeological fields of study and analytical scientific methods. Instead of narrowing the focus on the origin of the craftsmen, the different kinds of knowledge involved in the production and consumption of these wall paintings will be studied and qualitatively differentiated. Thus, it can be discussed how and on which social levels the bodies of knowledge of the different regions of the Eastern Mediterranean were interwoven.