B 05: Colonisation? Imperialim? Provincialisation? – Resources between conflicts und Integration im Phoenician-Punic West in the 1. Millennium BC

Summary

The Phoenicians/ Punics played a decisive role in the Mediterranean world of the 1^st mill. BC. By their founding of settlements and commercial outposts in Northern Africa, on Malta, Sicily, Sardinia and the Iberian Peninsula a movement of Phoenicians starting in the Levant and progressing towards the Western Mediterranean and the adjacent coastal Areas of the Atlantic can be traced. This process can serve as a prime example for a spatial development motivated by the search for resources. The project explores the socio-cultural dynamics in the target areas of this process, which may be divided into three major phases: a formation phase, during which several waves of movements resulted in the foundation of settlements of various type in the Western Mediterranean (10^th/9^th – 6^th/5^th cent BC); a phase of Carthaginian domination (6^th/5^th cent. BC – 146 BC) and a phase when the Punic areas were assimilated into the Roman domain (3^rd cent. BC – 1^st cent. AD).

Scientific Aims

During the initial phase of funding of the Collaborative Research Centre, the formation phase of the Phoenician West will be in the focus of interest. The study of the same regions under Carthaginian and later Roman domination provides a long-term perspective during the subsequent phases of funding.

The project explores a field of research, paradigmatic for the project division B MOVEMENTS and analyses the importance of resources for processes of spatial development within the context of ‘colonial’ activity. To achieve this, three closely connected primary aims are pursued:

1. The analysis of mechanisms of expansion, rule and trade: A central motivation for the expansion of Phoenicians into the West was the search for mineral raw-materials. They were understood as resources of major importance for the maintenance of political relations of the Phoenician mother country (for example as a part of tributes to the Assyrian Empire) or as raw-material for the production of luxury trade goods for the Mediterranean markets. The time span of a few generations saw the founding of settlements, first close to ore deposits in Spain and Sardinia, but subsequently in agrarian regions or places convenient for trade. By this a variety of ResourceComplexes was created, specific for each region. Sometimes the Phoenicians developed uninhabited land. More frequently they met with indigenous people, usually resulting in an initially peaceful interaction and coexistence. The Phoenicians integrated into existing regional and trans-regional trading systems and created a trans-maritime network of settlements, facilitating trade and exchange of raw-materials, end-products and information. Related to this, a system of hierarchised and partly specialised settlements with varying degrees of subsistence emerged as a result. The project will investigate the internal dynamics of these processes, in order to understand the formation and operating of this network and its relevant resources and ResourceComplexes.

2. Conceptualising of ‘colonial’ movements: the Phoenician expansion into the Western Mediterranean is characterised by the migration of groups of individuals and the related establishment of permanent settlements in an initially foreign environment. Thus, it may be seen as a colonial enterprise, resulting in a wide variety of interactions with the new surroundings, with the local ‘indigenous’ population or with competing colonialist groups. All this resulted in identifiable archaeological evidence. A comparative approach is chosen for the study of the effects of resource related activities on ‘colonialist’ as well as ‘indigenous’ societies and their respective environments and for the exploration of the interrelations between the participants in this process within the different regions. The intention is to scrutinise, newly conceptualise and even to overcome and replace traditional macro-historical interpretations, such as ‘colonisation’ or ‘orientalisation’.

3. The study of transfer and transformation of culture by the use of resources within ‘colonial’ interaction: aspects of cultural change and transfer of culture are of central importance for the genesis of specific ResourceCultures within the context of ‘colonial’ movements of different social or ethnic groups. The founding of permanent settlements in the target areas of the Western Mediterranean created cultural interfaces, allowing a permanent flow between Phoenicians and local cultures. These settlements not only conducted the exchange of trade goods and raw-materials, such as ores and timbers, but the exchange of knowledge and cultural beliefs as well. For a long time research envisioned this as a stable relation between Phoenician culture, assumed to be static, and indigenous people, open for ‘superior’ influence. Recently, influenced by post-colonial approaches, more complex interpretations are favoured. The newly founded settlements can be seen as zones of contact in which transfer and transformation of culture always affected both sides. Within the time span of a few generations hybrid societies emerged, distinct from their origins by specific cultural practices (such as technologies, patterns of consumption or burial rites). These societies will be described, analysed and compared by project B 05. A primary question is, to which extend resources played a major role in this process as the postulated motivation for expansion.

Impact for the Collaborative Research Centre

With this complex of questions the project provides a central field of research for the project division B. MOVEMENTS, focussing on the role of resources in the development of new ecological and political space and the creation of networks of communication and specific activities. Traditional research holds an out-dated point of view that always was rather assumed than proven. According to this view ‘colonial activities’ of Phoenicians, Punics and Romans were motivated by a demand of resources, understood as natural raw-materials only. ‘Colonialists’ and ‘locals’ were perceived as monolithic, unchangeable categories in analogy of the recent concepts of ‘First World’ versus ‘Third World’. In contrast the definition of resources, basic for the Collaborative Research Centre, understands resources as social and cultural constructs, facilitating an analysis of practical use as well as of symbolic acquirement, thus providing the chance for a comparative study of distinct regional and cultural contexts.

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