Carolina López-Ruiz
Biographic Data
| ID | 457170 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Carolina López-Ruiz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Carolina |
| FAMILY NAME | López-Ruiz |
| SIGNATURE | LÓPEZ-RUIZ C |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0588-3709 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 62 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 37 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 48 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Exploring Mediterranean Connections and Iron Age Entanglements
Despite the conventional association with sophisticated metallurgical technologies, the Iron Age has long fallen between the two academic poles of prehistoric and classical archaeology. The more recent invention of a self-consciously ambivalent terminology of ‘proto-historic’ and ‘proto-urban’ features represents an attempt by mostly European archaeologists to give the Iron Age socioeconomic substance in its own right, while at the same time also…
Beyond “Volute Capitals”: Materials, Meaning, and Adaptations of a Phoenician Motif
The stylized volute motif is attested throughout the Levant and in areas of Phoenician settlement or cultural influence. Much of the debate of this motif has focused on the volute’s appearance in Israelite monumental architecture (the so-called Proto-Aeolic capital). This article provides a fresh discussion of the motif’s depiction within Phoenician art and iconography through various media, including ivory and sculpture. The architectural versio…
Not Exactly Atlantis: Some Lessons from Ancient Mediterranean Myths
From “Monkey Island” to “Fire Gates”: A Phoenician name for Pithekoussai
The island of Pithekoussai, modern Ischia, was the base of Euboian settlement in central Italy before the foundation of Cumae across the Bay of Naples ca. 740 BC. The general assumption, therefore, is that the island’s ancient name is Greek. But its etymology puzzled ancient writers, such as Strabo and Pliny, as well as modern scholars. The feminine ending in -oussa was often applied by Greek speakers to new places they encountered, including isl…
Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean
Long before Greeks dominated the ancient Mediterranean, Phoenicians were the lords of the sea. Setting out from their Levantine cities, they introduced their alphabet, art, technology, and gods to places as far as off as Iberia. Carolina López-Ruiz highlights the enduring Phoenician imprint, displacing the Hellenocentric model of the ancient world
The sphinx
Sphinxes of the Orientalizing period adorned vases, ivory plaques, and metal bowls sat atop columns, and were surely represented in materials that are now lost, such as textiles, wall paintings, and woodcarvings. The image of the sphinx was favored by elites across the Iron Age Mediterranean because of its association with royalty in the Near East. This chapter argues that this link is reflected in Greek mythology and language too. Most famously,…
The God Aion in a Mosaic from Nea Paphos (Cyprus) and Graeco-Phoenician Cosmogonies in the Roman East
This essay offers a new interpretive angle on a fourth-century CE mosaic from Nea Paphos in Cyprus, in which the central panel depicts the god Aion presiding over the contest between Kassiopeia and the Nereids. The mosaic, which has other mythological scenes, two of them focused on Dionysos, has been interpreted in an allegorical Neoplatonic key or else as encrypting an anti-Christian polemic narrative. Here I propose that Aion and the other cosm…
Phoenicians and Carthaginians in the Western Imagination
Already in antiquity and throughout western history, Phoenicians provided a model of constitutional balance and good governance, an example of economic expansion, and an example of literate culture. As Orientalist narratives gained favor in the nineteenth century, however, Phoenician civilization was relegated to the margins, and negative stereotypes such as their alleged sensuality and depravity were emphasized. As pseudo-scientific racist theor…
The Archaeology of Phoenician Cities
This chapter deals with the archaeology of the Phoenician cities of the motherland, highlighting mainly recent results from Lebanon. It gives an overview of the available archaeological evidence resulting from surveys and excavations. The chapter presents the physical characteristics of the Phoenician cities: their location, size, distribution, and results of the investigation of their harbors. It discusses in detail the recent findings regarding…
The Alphabet and its Legacy
The alphabet employed by the Phoenicians was the inheritor of a long tradition of alphabetic writing and was itself adapted for use throughout the Mediterranean basin by numerous populations speaking many languages. The present contribution traces the origins of the alphabet in Sinai and the Levant before discussing different alphabetic standardizations in Ugarit and Phoenician Tyre. The complex adaptation of the latter for representation of the …
Phoenicia in the Later Iron Age: Tenth century bce to the Assyrian and Babylonian periods
A coherent history of Phoenicia between 1000 and 550 bce is difficult to write. The internal development of individual city-states is almost completely unknown. We can only get a glimpse of their foreign relations. Owing to geographical constraints, Phoenician cities were split into a northern group, from Arwad to Byblos, and a southern one, essentially Tyre and Sidon. These two cities may have been associated in one political unit from the ninth…
Malta and Gozo
Malta and Gozo are small offshore islands with a millennial history of maritime exploitation, from pioneer farmers to predatory pirates. Settled by the Phoenicians some time in the eighth century bce until they were occupied by Rome in 218 bce , Malta and Gozo offered these Levantine seafarers an ideal place to reside and exploit. The chapter draws on a whole range of evidence and offers a synthesis of earlier studies to show how the islanders ma…
Metallurgy and other Technologies
Metallurgy and other technologies were a crucial component of the Phoenician political economy and expansion to the western Mediterranean. Technological prowess was one of the outstanding features of Phoenician culture remembered in ancient documentary sources. The archaeological record bears this out, and provides a complementary perspective to the texts, in particular for the metals that were major drivers and products of the Phoenician colonia…
Pottery and Trade
This chapter focuses on the economic activity surrounding Phoenician ceramic production and distribution, in contrast with the traditional focus on ceramic typologies or other formal or chronological aspects. Given the limited data available, however, it is difficult to analyze the complex issues surrounding production to their full extent. Therefore, this chapter does not offer definitive answers. Instead, the chapter identifies diverse factors …
Phoenician Identity in Modern Lebanon
This chapter looks at the influence of Phoenician culture on the identity of modern Lebanon. Legitimizing identity through archaeology has generally been a popular approach to celebrate power and identity. Lebanese generations have made use of Phoenician history, archaeology, and myths to foster a proud and unique identity after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and the various ongoing cultural movements reflect a symbiotic relationship between pra…
Carthage after the Punic Wars and the Neo-Punic Legacy
This chapter provides a brief introduction to how the historiographical development of Roman studies, since mid-twentieth century decolonization, has altered our understanding of the developments which took place in North Africa following the destruction of Carthage in 146 bce . The reader is introduced to literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources of evidence, which have traditionally been used to argue for either cultural change or contin…
Phoenician Exploration
The Phoenicians were famous for their seafaring prowess and long-distance travel and commercial reach. From the beginning of the Iron Age until the fifth century bce , the Phoenicians explored much of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coasts of Africa and Europe, going as far north as the British Isles and as far south as tropical West Africa, as well as farther west into the Atlantic waters and around the African continent. Although there is so…
Levantine Art in the “Orientalizing” Period
The “Orientalizing period” represents a scholarly designation used to describe the eighth and seventh centuries bce when regions in Greece, Italy, and farther west witnessed a flourishing of arts and cultures attributed to contact with cultural areas to the east—in particular that of the Phoenicians. This chapter surveys Orientalizing as an intellectual and historiographic concept and reconsiders the role of purportedly Phoenician arts within the…
North Africa: From the Atlantic to Algeria
The Phoenician presence in modern-day Morocco and Algeria started no later than the beginning of the eighth century bce , with the city of Lixus on the Atlantic and its temple of Melqart, one of the oldest in the Phoenician diaspora. There was a process of intensification during the second half of the seventh century bce , with sites springing up along the main river valleys or on small islands close to the coast, such as Mogador and Rachgoun. Th…
Birth and Prospects of a Discipline
In this third introductory chapter, the author looks back at the formative years of the study of the Phoenician and Punic worlds, taking a cue from a paper written fifty years ago by the person who can arguably be called the most influential scholar in the field during the second half of the twentieth century, Sabatino Moscati. Against the background of Moscati’s work, in particular the limitations of and opportunities provided by his field proje…
Cyprus
This chapter concentrates on the Phoenician presence in the island of Cyprus in the Iron Age (from the eleventh until the end of the fourth century bce ). After a brief overview, it addresses the question of identification of the Cypriot Qarthadasht and the issue of a supposed Phoenician colonization in Cyprus. The political and cultural history of the Cypro-Phoenician kingdom of Kition also receives particular attention. At the same time, the wi…
Agriculture
Agriculture played a crucial role for the Phoenicians. Systematic study of the rural Phoenician world goes back only a few decades, thanks to archaeological surveys and excavations of non-urban structures and settlements. Despite our increasing knowledge of the subject, it is still difficult to define a single model. Still we can speak of some constant features. The chapter gives a view of coastal settlements producing an easily exported agricult…
The Punic Wars (264–146 bce)
The chapter provides a narrative in broad strokes of the period between 264 and 146 bce . The sources for the period are heavily biased in favor of the Romans, but the Romans did loom increasingly large in the Carthaginians’ world. In their treaties, our main source for their self-representation, the Carthaginians emphasize their overwhelming but beneficent power, their control of movement around the Mediterranean Sea, and their Phoenician identi…
Phoenicians and Carthaginians in Greco-Roman Literature
The picture painted of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians in Greco-Roman literature is a paradoxical one. Distinct themes continue to characterize them from the archaic period to late antiquity, but their definition as a distinct group of people remains vague throughout. Military conflict with Greeks and Romans means that they are presented more positively by intellectuals than politicians, and more positively in the east than the west, but identi…
Seafaring and Shipwreck Archaeology
Perhaps no civilization in history is as associated with the sea as the Phoenicians, whose ships and seafaring ability allowed them to travel, trade, and establish colonies across the Mediterranean. Search and survey operations in the Mediterranean have resulted in the discovery of a limited number of Canaanite, Phoenician, and Punic shipwrecks, which have been found in both deep and shallow water. These assemblages provide valuable evidence of t…
The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean
The Phoenicians created the Mediterranean world as we know it-yet they remain a shadowy and poorly understood group. The academic study of the Phoenicians has come to an important crossroads; the field has grown in sheer content, sophistication of analysis, and diversity of interpretation, and we now need a current overview of where the study of these ancient seafarers and craftsman stands and where it is going. Moreover, the field of Phoenician …
Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean
Long before Greeks dominated the ancient Mediterranean, Phoenicians were the lords of the sea. Setting out from their Levantine cities, they introduced their alphabet, art, technology, and gods to places as far as off as Iberia. Carolina López-Ruiz highlights the enduring Phoenician imprint, displacing the Hellenocentric model of the ancient world
Colonial Encounters in Ancient Iberia: Phoenician, Greek, and Indigenous Relations
Situating ancient Iberia within Mediterranean colonial history and establishing a theoretical framework for approaching encounters between colonists and natives, these studies exemplify the new intellectual vistas opened by the engagement of colonial studies with Iberian history
New light on the warrior stelae from Tartessos (Spain)
The famous stelae from the Tartessos region of southern Iberia are compared with new discoveries from the Levant. Similarities of theme and iconography endorse the Phoenician connection, but show it to be more a cultural dialogue between east and west than an imposition by colonists
Exploring Mediterranean Connections and Iron Age Entanglements
Despite the conventional association with sophisticated metallurgical technologies, the Iron Age has long fallen between the two academic poles of prehistoric and classical archaeology. The more recent invention of a self-consciously ambivalent terminology of ‘proto-historic’ and ‘proto-urban’ features represents an attempt by mostly European archaeologists to give the Iron Age socioeconomic substance in its own right, while at the same time also…
Sardinia
Starting from the late ninth century bce , groups of Phoenician sailors and merchants landed on the island of Sardinia, searching for resources—metals in particular—to trade along the trans-Mediterranean maritime network they had begun to establish. The earliest permanent Phoenician settlement dates back to the first half of the eighth century bce , and by the end of the following century new Phoenician settlements appeared, mainly on the coasts …
Religion
Phoenician polytheism—its structure and rites—is not completely unknown to us. There were mythological traditions common to the area, as well as a structure common to the pantheons of the Phoenician cities. At the top there is a divine couple consisting of a male god and a goddess, his spouse, and a divine assembly. The same basic structure is detectable in the Punic world, Carthage and elsewhere, although with differences and innovations. In tur…
Funerary Ritual
This chapter explores the funerary rites in the Phoenician-Punic world from a comprehensive point of view, and it focuses on the common points arising from a large amount of data. The concern for burying their deceased and the belief in the soul’s afterlife show that the Phoenicians considered death as a transformation rather than as the end of a person’s life. Through our access to archaeological remains and written sources, we can reconstruct t…
Phoenician Literature
There was, without a doubt, a Phoenician and Punic literature. Very little of it is extant, but we have enough of it to gauge the great loss. Lacking the advantage of its own manuscript tradition and later cultures devoted to it, Phoenician literature was not systematically preserved, unlike that of the Greeks, Romans, and Israelites. What we have are small pieces that surface among the Classical literary corpus. Despite these unfavorable conditi…
The Tophet and Infant Sacrifice
This chapter introduces the major debates surrounding a type of archaeological site conventionally called a “tophet.” While study of these sites has continued almost unabated for the last hundred years, two major developments—apart from postcolonialism spurring efforts to reject child sacrifice as an Orientalist fantasy—necessitate a comprehensive analysis. The first is the availability of new archaeological data that has been carefully collected…
Not That Which Can Be Found Among the Greeks: Philo of Byblos and Phoenician Cultural Identity in the Roman East
Not That Which Can Be Found Among the Greeks: Philo of Byblos and Phoenician Cultural Identity in the Roman East
Love Rejected: Some Notes on the Mesopotamian "Epic of Gilgamesh" and the Greek Myth of "Hippolytus
New light on the warrior stelae from Tartessos (Spain)
The famous stelae from the Tartessos region of southern Iberia are compared with new discoveries from the Levant. Similarities of theme and iconography endorse the Phoenician connection, but show it to be more a cultural dialogue between east and west than an imposition by colonists
Mopsos and Cultural Exchange between Greeks and Locals in Cilicia
Colonial Encounters in Ancient Iberia: Phoenician, Greek, and Indigenous Relations
Situating ancient Iberia within Mediterranean colonial history and establishing a theoretical framework for approaching encounters between colonists and natives, these studies exemplify the new intellectual vistas opened by the engagement of colonial studies with Iberian history
Sacrifice and the City: Administration and Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age
López-Ruiz Carolina. Sacrifice and the City : Administration and Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age. In: ASDIWAL. Revue genevoise d'anthropologie et d'histoire des religions, n°8, 2013. pp. 59-82
Not That Which Can Be Found Among the Greeks: Philo of Byblos and Phoenician Cultural Identity in the Roman East
Not That Which Can Be Found Among the Greeks: Philo of Byblos and Phoenician Cultural Identity in the Roman East
Gargoris and Habis: A Tartessic Myth of Ancient Iberia and the Traces of Phoenician Euhemerism
The story of Gargoris and Habis in Justin's Epitome is usually read as a Greek-oriented version of a local myth from Iberia. The structure and motifs in the story, however, draw from Near Eastern traditions, i.e., of succession myths and “first inventors,” and a variety of euhemerism circulating in the Phoenician-Carthaginian sphere
Phoenicians and Carthaginians in the Western Imagination
Already in antiquity and throughout western history, Phoenicians provided a model of constitutional balance and good governance, an example of economic expansion, and an example of literate culture. As Orientalist narratives gained favor in the nineteenth century, however, Phoenician civilization was relegated to the margins, and negative stereotypes such as their alleged sensuality and depravity were emphasized. As pseudo-scientific racist theor…
The Archaeology of Phoenician Cities
This chapter deals with the archaeology of the Phoenician cities of the motherland, highlighting mainly recent results from Lebanon. It gives an overview of the available archaeological evidence resulting from surveys and excavations. The chapter presents the physical characteristics of the Phoenician cities: their location, size, distribution, and results of the investigation of their harbors. It discusses in detail the recent findings regarding…
The Alphabet and its Legacy
The alphabet employed by the Phoenicians was the inheritor of a long tradition of alphabetic writing and was itself adapted for use throughout the Mediterranean basin by numerous populations speaking many languages. The present contribution traces the origins of the alphabet in Sinai and the Levant before discussing different alphabetic standardizations in Ugarit and Phoenician Tyre. The complex adaptation of the latter for representation of the …
Phoenicia in the Later Iron Age: Tenth century bce to the Assyrian and Babylonian periods
A coherent history of Phoenicia between 1000 and 550 bce is difficult to write. The internal development of individual city-states is almost completely unknown. We can only get a glimpse of their foreign relations. Owing to geographical constraints, Phoenician cities were split into a northern group, from Arwad to Byblos, and a southern one, essentially Tyre and Sidon. These two cities may have been associated in one political unit from the ninth…
Malta and Gozo
Malta and Gozo are small offshore islands with a millennial history of maritime exploitation, from pioneer farmers to predatory pirates. Settled by the Phoenicians some time in the eighth century bce until they were occupied by Rome in 218 bce , Malta and Gozo offered these Levantine seafarers an ideal place to reside and exploit. The chapter draws on a whole range of evidence and offers a synthesis of earlier studies to show how the islanders ma…
Metallurgy and other Technologies
Metallurgy and other technologies were a crucial component of the Phoenician political economy and expansion to the western Mediterranean. Technological prowess was one of the outstanding features of Phoenician culture remembered in ancient documentary sources. The archaeological record bears this out, and provides a complementary perspective to the texts, in particular for the metals that were major drivers and products of the Phoenician colonia…
Pottery and Trade
This chapter focuses on the economic activity surrounding Phoenician ceramic production and distribution, in contrast with the traditional focus on ceramic typologies or other formal or chronological aspects. Given the limited data available, however, it is difficult to analyze the complex issues surrounding production to their full extent. Therefore, this chapter does not offer definitive answers. Instead, the chapter identifies diverse factors …
Phoenician Identity in Modern Lebanon
This chapter looks at the influence of Phoenician culture on the identity of modern Lebanon. Legitimizing identity through archaeology has generally been a popular approach to celebrate power and identity. Lebanese generations have made use of Phoenician history, archaeology, and myths to foster a proud and unique identity after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and the various ongoing cultural movements reflect a symbiotic relationship between pra…
Carthage after the Punic Wars and the Neo-Punic Legacy
This chapter provides a brief introduction to how the historiographical development of Roman studies, since mid-twentieth century decolonization, has altered our understanding of the developments which took place in North Africa following the destruction of Carthage in 146 bce . The reader is introduced to literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources of evidence, which have traditionally been used to argue for either cultural change or contin…
Phoenician Exploration
The Phoenicians were famous for their seafaring prowess and long-distance travel and commercial reach. From the beginning of the Iron Age until the fifth century bce , the Phoenicians explored much of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coasts of Africa and Europe, going as far north as the British Isles and as far south as tropical West Africa, as well as farther west into the Atlantic waters and around the African continent. Although there is so…
Levantine Art in the “Orientalizing” Period
The “Orientalizing period” represents a scholarly designation used to describe the eighth and seventh centuries bce when regions in Greece, Italy, and farther west witnessed a flourishing of arts and cultures attributed to contact with cultural areas to the east—in particular that of the Phoenicians. This chapter surveys Orientalizing as an intellectual and historiographic concept and reconsiders the role of purportedly Phoenician arts within the…
North Africa: From the Atlantic to Algeria
The Phoenician presence in modern-day Morocco and Algeria started no later than the beginning of the eighth century bce , with the city of Lixus on the Atlantic and its temple of Melqart, one of the oldest in the Phoenician diaspora. There was a process of intensification during the second half of the seventh century bce , with sites springing up along the main river valleys or on small islands close to the coast, such as Mogador and Rachgoun. Th…
Birth and Prospects of a Discipline
In this third introductory chapter, the author looks back at the formative years of the study of the Phoenician and Punic worlds, taking a cue from a paper written fifty years ago by the person who can arguably be called the most influential scholar in the field during the second half of the twentieth century, Sabatino Moscati. Against the background of Moscati’s work, in particular the limitations of and opportunities provided by his field proje…
Cyprus
This chapter concentrates on the Phoenician presence in the island of Cyprus in the Iron Age (from the eleventh until the end of the fourth century bce ). After a brief overview, it addresses the question of identification of the Cypriot Qarthadasht and the issue of a supposed Phoenician colonization in Cyprus. The political and cultural history of the Cypro-Phoenician kingdom of Kition also receives particular attention. At the same time, the wi…
Agriculture
Agriculture played a crucial role for the Phoenicians. Systematic study of the rural Phoenician world goes back only a few decades, thanks to archaeological surveys and excavations of non-urban structures and settlements. Despite our increasing knowledge of the subject, it is still difficult to define a single model. Still we can speak of some constant features. The chapter gives a view of coastal settlements producing an easily exported agricult…
The Punic Wars (264–146 bce)
The chapter provides a narrative in broad strokes of the period between 264 and 146 bce . The sources for the period are heavily biased in favor of the Romans, but the Romans did loom increasingly large in the Carthaginians’ world. In their treaties, our main source for their self-representation, the Carthaginians emphasize their overwhelming but beneficent power, their control of movement around the Mediterranean Sea, and their Phoenician identi…
Phoenicians and Carthaginians in Greco-Roman Literature
The picture painted of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians in Greco-Roman literature is a paradoxical one. Distinct themes continue to characterize them from the archaic period to late antiquity, but their definition as a distinct group of people remains vague throughout. Military conflict with Greeks and Romans means that they are presented more positively by intellectuals than politicians, and more positively in the east than the west, but identi…
Seafaring and Shipwreck Archaeology
Perhaps no civilization in history is as associated with the sea as the Phoenicians, whose ships and seafaring ability allowed them to travel, trade, and establish colonies across the Mediterranean. Search and survey operations in the Mediterranean have resulted in the discovery of a limited number of Canaanite, Phoenician, and Punic shipwrecks, which have been found in both deep and shallow water. These assemblages provide valuable evidence of t…
History (59 works) · Ancient history (55 works) · Classical Antiquity Studies (47 works) · Phoenician (45 works) · Archaeology (44 works) · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History (33 works) · Geography (32 works) · Art (30 works) · Archaeology and Historical Studies (25 works) · History (18 works)