Organisation of Exchange
“Exchange”, i.e. a transfer of material or non-material objects between two or more partners on the basis of reciprocity, belongs to the fundamental characteristics of ancient cultures. It can take place on various levels, as an exchange i) of commodities, ii) of techniques, and iii) of ideas. These categoriesc can overlap, and – although this may not have been the primary intention – an exchange of commodities might also include the transfer of techniques and/or ideas. For the partners involved, an exchange presupposes both a surplus (in the case of the commodities given in exchange) and a need (in the case of the commodity received in exchange). Accordingly, a threefold regulation is required, since the release, transfer, and reception of a commodity have to be organised.
A distinction is to be made between intracultural and intercultural processes of exchange. In intracultural exchange processes, ancient cultures are characterised by large number of religious, cultic and legal procedures, which constitute sheltered areas (e.g. as part of a religiously based right to hospitality) and a guarantee of claims. Their investigation is a worthwhile task. An example taken from the field of archaeology might include “biographies of objects and architecture”, in which not only the approaches bound up with the concept of an “exchange of gifts”, but also forms of “vertical” exchange between generations and epochs are to be investigated. A typical instance could be the phenomenon of “auratisation”, i.e. endowing an object with significance connected with its function as a burial offering or spoils in a building. This dimension of meaning can be worked out in a special way when the perspective of the analysis is shifted from the beneficiary as person to the object itself and the changing perception of this object, which is dependent on the surrounding culture, can be identified and elucidated.
Investigations of intercultural exchange processes are of especial importance for the entire School, since these allow a direct connection between the cultures of the Mediterranean, India, and China to emerge. Put succinctly, the Silk Road is the route along which not only commodities, but also technologies, religions, and ideas are exchanged between West and East.
This gives rise to a double perspective. The first perspective affects research topics which focus on exchange processes between East and West. Particularly worth investigating in this area are phenomena of asymmetrical exchange, e.g. in the so-called Gandhara art, which indicates a problem. For, although the spread of Buddhism from Gandhara to Central Asia and China – along the Silk Road – is a very well-researched process, the remarkable failure of Buddhism to spread to the West requires an explanation, especially since it might have been expected that (e.g.) the image programme of Gandhara art, with its recourse to a familiar inventory of forms quite similar to early Christian art, would have offered a suitable medium for communicating new ideas in the West. Focussing on exchange here thus brings to light surprising disproportionalities.
The second perspective concerns research on intracultural exchange processes and involves checking the comparative approaches (which are central for the School) against material in which the cultures studied encounter each other and are thereby confronted with the necessity of a mutual understanding of what is alien. The analysis of intracultural discourses and hermeneutics of the ‘other’ or what is alien can contribute to the examination, refinement, and further development of comparative methods in the School.