This chapter considers the problem of ‘heavy freight’, a problem posited by Anthony Snodgrass in the 1980s concerning how Greeks might have moved heavy goods like marble around the Greek world. A dataset of freestanding marble statues is presented, where the size and the shape of these statues is used to consider how much marble might have been used in the Greek world during various economic production processes. After estimating the scale of the industry, this chapter uses spatial network modelling to consider some of the routes along which marble might have been transported on the sea, using a rules-based system that ships will always have gone the most direct route from-anchorage-to-anchorage. The shape of these networks is then discussed in light of their implications for our understanding of the whole of the Greek world.

In the year when France commemorated the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of its territory from Nazi rule by the Allied Forces, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal initiated a commemoration of the contribution that the Tirailleurs sénégalais made to this military victory. Inviting the heads of different African states whose colonial subjects had joined the colonial army of Tirailleurs, the Day of the Tirailleur was celebrated on 23 August 2004 to commemorate the day of the landing at Toulon. In the Senegalese media, the ‘blood debt’ of France to its African liberators was widely debated, and the discrimination in pensions that African veterans have experienced since political independence was widely condemned. During the day, a statue of the soldiers Demba and Dupont was unveiled at its new location to recognize the contribution Africans have made to France’s military history. This colonial statue was first inaugurated in 1923 to recognize the role played by Tirailleurs in the First World War; it is now recycled to remind France of its colonial debt. The Day of the Tirailleur reminded France of its obligations towards the Senegalese migrants in France whose legal status was very much debated at the time. By reinstating a colonial statue and recycling the social capital made by sacrifice, the Senegalese government appropriated and reinterpreted African history, recycling its colonial legacy as a technique of repair.

The Prologue discusses the fall of the statue of General Louis Faidherbe in Saint-Louis, Senegal. The statue was placed in the main square of Saint-Louis in 1886 but was toppled in 2017. Although the perpetrators of this act of iconoclasm were unknown, the toppling of the statue was acclaimed by some of the town’s population. The mayor of Saint-Louis nonetheless restored the statue to its former position, defending the colonial heritage of a city that owes its existence to the French empire. However, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, the statue of Faidherbe once again became the subject of heated debates in the national media. Considered by some as the founder of modern Senegal, others denounce Faidherbe as a perpetrator of colonial violence. The Prologue examines how the legacy of this key figure in the history of colonialism is assessed today. Considering the question of responsibility as key to this debate, the Prologue questions the usefulness of the categories of perpetrators and victims in the history of colonialism. Following Michael Rothberg, it studies the decolonization of heritage using his concept of implicated subjects.

Relations with Assyria dominated from the tenth to the late seventh century. Marduk’s reputation was tarnished as Babylon lost power. Tribes of Chaldeans and Arameans moved into the Sealand, where some settled, becoming literate and powerful. Iron gradually replaced bronze. Fine stone carving continued. Warlike Assyrian kings venerated Babylon, incorporated its gods into their pantheon, and treated the city separately from the rest of Babylonia; but Assyria and Babylon clashed east of the Tigris at Der. Chaldeans intermittently took the throne. Tiglath-pileser III, the first Assyrian king to become king of Babylon, took part in the New Year festival; Sargon II, the second, deposed a Chaldean and deported many disloyal groups, but invested in the city. When Sennacherib ruled Assyria, various rulers of Babylon and interference from Elam ended when he sacked Babylon, which remained kingless for seven years. His patricidal son Esarhaddon made some restitution. At his early death, Esarhaddon’s elder son took the throne, dominated by his younger son, Ashurbanipal, whose library at Nineveh included many Babylonian texts. Betrayed by his brother under Elamite influence, Ashurbanipal sacked Babylon. Royal records end, and three subsequent kings are poorly attested. Nabopolassar, a Babylonian general working in the Assyrian army, defected and took the throne of Babylon.