Revival or Reinvention? Local Cults and their Iconographies in Roman Syria

In many places of the Near East, images of local deities re-emerged in the Late Hellenistic and Roman Period. In most instances, however, the divine iconography was not rooted in ancient local traditions, but mainly based on Greek models. It appears that the agents responsible for their creation had a Hellenic or Hellenised audience in mind. Emphasis was put on the assurance of local identity, but at the same time a very much standardised expression of locality evolved. The focus was on comprehensibility and competitiveness, but not necessarily on distinctiveness. The persistence of ancient Near Eastern iconography was very much the exception and requires special explanation. At Doliche, for example, a low degree of integration in regional and trans-regional contexts during the Hellenistic period fostered the survival of Iron Age imagery.