Page - 244 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

244 UlrichMüller emphasises the fact that, while ports were spaces of transcultural encounter, they were also places of exclusionand inclusion. The term ‘mediascape’ refers to the electronic and print media, but also describes visual culture. ‘Mediascapes’ create an imageof adistant culture. For theMiddleAges, ‘mediascapes’ cannot be interpretedpurely in thewayAppadurai suggested. Thus,writtenor oral narratives, butalso theperceptionof the foreignordifferent,will beanexpressionof ‘mediascapes’ in this context. Unique testimonies are the statements ofWulfstan or At-Tartûschi. But it is also the peopleandtheobjectsconnectedwiththemthatcanbeunderstoodasanexpressionof ‘medias- capes’. On one hand,medieval badges or fibulae can be understood as an indicator of strong social affiliations,on theotheras ‘socialmedia’withwhich thepersonwearing themexpresses certain (world)-views. Ultimately, then, these ‘harbourscapes’ were spaces of absolutely direct communication. This is recorded in all the various historicalmaterial. The verbal communica- tion between the different actors – thosewho, for example, took LowGerman as their lingua franca – is hardly accessible via archaeological means. However, both implicit and explicit knowledgeandits transferralcansometimesbeobserved, forexample,whendealingwithques- tions of port construction,maritime technology, or navigation. The examples givenhereprovide adiachronic andhistorical perspective on just howcom- plex thedevelopment fromasimplehithe toanactual portwas.Aworkingmodel that reduces thenumber of steps in that development, aswell as its different forms,maybe seenas accept- able. However, such simplified images have a long-lasting impact on both scientific and non- scientificperceptions. Incontrast to this, the ‘harbourscapes’modelunderstands thatharbours, functioningas subspacesofurbanconstellations, are theexit-, inter- andend-stationsof inten- sivemaritimemovement. The space of theharbour connectswater and land. But the port as a place of encounter neither begins nor ends with the quays. These ‘harbourscapes’ create an area for social, culturalandpoliticalprocessesof transformation,whichmanifest themselves in concreteurban locations. They represent aparadigmof connectivity inmotion. IllustrationCredits Fig. 1: DrawingbySusanneBeyer, IUFGCAUKiel. Fig. 2: Courtesyof theMuseumfürArchäologie SchlossGottorf/WikingerMuseumHaithabu. Fig.3: AfterKalmring 2010, 453 fig. 324. Fig.4: AfterRösch 2018, 241 figs. 83. 85. Fig. 5: AfterRösch 2018, 272–273. Fig.6: DrawingbySusanneBeyer, IUFGCAUKiel. Fig. 7: After Schalies–Rieger 2019, 61. Fig.8: Schalies 2014, 164 fig.4. Bibliography Primary sources Helmold 1973:Helmold vonBosau, ChronicaSlavorum=AusgewählteQuellen zur deutschenGeschichtedes Mittelalters 19,Neuübertragenunderläutert vonHeinzStoob (Darmstadt 1973). Secondary literature Appadurai 1990:A. Appadurai, Disjuncture andDifference in theGlobal Cultural Economy, Theory, Culture andSociety 7, 1990, 295–310.