Images and Monuments of Near Eastern Dynasts, 100 BC - AD 100
Andreas J. M. Kropp
Just got this today, upon first glance first class, just what I am looking for for my research. I have taken the liberty of coping full synopsis, as it is an important work in my opinion, often neglected study.
Extensive cross-regional coverage
Applies methods of Classical archaeology to areas so far neglected and traditionally covered by other disciplines
Full coverage of foreign-language literature (especially French, German, and Italian)
Fully illustrated throughout
This book is an archaeological and art-historical study of the images and monuments of Roman 'client' kings in the Near East from the Taurus to Edom (modern South East Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan) in the important transitional period between the downfall of the Seleucid empire and Rome's establishment of provincial administration across the entire region. In this volume, Kropp treats royal portraits, tombs, palaces, coins, and temples as historical documents and aims at uncovering royal identities and ideological aspirations. In particular, he focuses on the six major players: the Kommagenian, Emesan, Ituraean, Nabataean, Hasmonaean, and Herodian dynasties.
The images and monuments discussed show an endless variety of eclectic styles, shapes, and types - a result of individual, deliberate choices from an array of cultural and artistic options, such as Hellenistic, Roman, and Persian. The study of their origins and importance therefore places monuments, like the Khazneh at Petra or the Temple at Jerusalem, in their proper context and allows a more nuanced understanding of their creation as expressions and constructions of royal personas.
Also this title came today:
Temples and Sanctuaries in the Roman East: Religious Architecture in Syria, Iudaea/Palaestina and Provincia Arabia
Again I have provided synopsis
This lavishly illustrated volume presents a comprehensive architectural study of 87 individual temples and sanctuaries built in the Roman East between the end of the 1st century BCE and the end of the 3rd century CE, within a broad region encompassing the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan. Religious architecture gave faithful expression to the complexity of the Roman East and to its multiplicity of traditions pertaining to ethnic and religious aspects as well as to the powerful influence of Imperial Rome. The source of this power lay in the uniformity of the architectural language, the inventory of forms, the choice of styles and the spatial layout of the buildings. Thus, while temples have an eclectic character, there is an underlying unity of form comprising the podium, the stairway between the terminating walls (antae) and the columns along the entrance front - in other words, the axiality, frontality and symmetry of the temple as viewed from outside.