American Journal of Archaelology

AMERICAN JOURNAL
OF ARCHAEOLOGY
THE JOURNAL OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA
Volume 106

No. 1 January 2002
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2001
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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
Volume 106
No. 1 January 2002

ARTICLES
Eileen Murphy, Ilia Gokhman, Yuri Chistov, and Ludmila Barkova:
Prehistoric Old World Scalping: New Cases from the Cemetery of
Aymyrlyg, South Siberia 1
Gloria Ferrari: The Ancient Temple on the Acropolis at Athens 11
Ezequiel M. Pinto-Guillaume: Mollusks from the Villa of Livia at
Prima Porta, Rome: The Swedish Garden Archaeological Project,
19961999 37
Rabun Taylor: Temples and Terracottas at Cosa 59
ESSAY
Christina Riggs: Facing the Dead: Recent Research on the Funerary
Art of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt 85
NECROLOGY
Nancy C. Wilkie: William Donald Edward Coulson, 19422001 103
REVIEWS
Review Article
Barbara Burrell: Out-Heroding Herod 107
Book Reviews
Blench and Spriggs, eds., Archaeology and Language. Vol. 1, Theoretical
and Methodological Orientations (J.S. Smith) 111
Gove, From Hiroshima to the Iceman: The Development and Applications of
Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (R.A. Housley) 112
Ramage and Craddock, King Croesus Gold: Excavations at Sardis and the
History of Gold Refining (D. Killick) 113
Pye and Allen, Coastal and Estuarine Environments: Sedimentology,
Geomorphology and Geoarchaeology (P. Goldberg) 114
Borbein, Hlscher, and Zanker, eds., Klassische Archologie:
Eine Einfhrung (W.M. Calder III) 115
Hrke, ed., Archaeology, Ideology and Society: The German Experience
(R. Bernbeck) 116
Chamay, Courtois, and Rebetez, Waldemar Deonna: Un archologue
derrire lobjectif de 1903 1939 (A. Szegedy-Maszak) 118
Donald and Hurcombe, eds., Gender and Material Culture in
Archaeological Perspective, and
Donald and Hurcombe, eds., Gender and Material Culture in Historical
Perspective (J. Gero) 118
Price, ed., Europes First Farmers (K.J. Fewster) 120
Barclay and Harding, eds., Pathways and Ceremonies: The Cursus
Monuments of Britain and Ireland,
Ruggles, Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland, and
Burl, Great Stone Circles (K. Jones-Bley) 121
Hitchcock, Minoan Architecture: A Contextual Analysis (J.C. Mcenroe) 123
Hallager and Hallager, eds., The Greek-Swedish Excavations at the
Agia Aikaterini Square Kastelli, Khania 19701987. Vol. 2, The Late
Minoan IIIC Settlement (L.P. Day) 124
Bowman and Rogan, eds., Agriculture in Egypt from Pharaonic to Modern
Times (C.E.P. Adams) 125
Potts, The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient
Iranian State (P. Amiet) 126
Burns, Monuments of Syria: An Historical Guide (A.H. Joffe) 127
Coleman and Walz, eds., Greeks and Barbarians: Essays on the Interactions
between Greeks and Non-Greeks in Antiquity and the Consequences for
Eurocentrism (I. Malkin) 128
Fossey, ed., Boeotia Antiqua. Vol. 6, Proceedings of the 8th International
Conference on Boiotian Antiquities (Loyola University of Chicago, 2426 May
1995) (D.W. Roller) 130
Splitter, Die Kypseloslade in Olympia: Form, Funktion und Bildschmuck.
Eine archologische Rekonstruktion. Mit einem Katalog der Sagenbilder in der
korinthischen Vasenmalerei und einem Anhang zur Forschungsgeschichte
(M.D. Stansbury-ODonnell) 131
Radt, Pergamon: Geschichte und Bauten einer antiken Metropole, and
Wulf, Altertmer von Pergamon. Vol. 15, Die Stadtgrabung, pt. 3, Die
hellenistischen und rmischen Wohnhuser von Pergamon: Unter besonderer
Bercksichtigung der Anlagen zwischen der Mittel- und der Ostgasse
(B.A. Ault) 132
Vlizos, Der thronende Zeus: Eine Untersuchung zur statuarischen Ikonographie
des Gottes in der sptklassischen und hellenistischen Kunst (G. Waywell) 134
Neils and Walberg, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. USA 35: The Cleveland
Museum of Art 2 (J.M. Padgett) 135
Tomei, Scavi francesi sul Palatino: Le indagini di Pietro Rosa per Napoleone
III (18611870) (L. Richardson, jr) 137
Steinby, ed., Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae. Vol. 5, TZ. Addenda et
corrigenda (L. Richardson, jr) 138
Bejor, Vie colonnate: Paesaggi urbani del mondo antico (A.B. Griffith) 139
Bergmann, Chiragan, Aphrodismas, Konstantinopel: Zur mythologischen
Skulptur der Sptantike (N. Hannestad) 140
Gilli, I materiali archeologici della raccolta Nyry del Museo Civico Correr di
Venezia (P. Biagi) 141
Cabanes, ed., LIllyrie mridionale et lpire dans lantiquit. Vol. 3, Actes du
3
e
colloque international de Chantilly (1619 octobre 1996)
(V.R. Anderson-Stojanovic) 142
Davidson, Roles of the Northern Goddess (N.L. Wicker) 144
Sasse, Westgotische Grberfelder auf der iberischen Halbinsel am Beispiel der
Funde aus El Carpio de Tajo (Torrijos, Toledo) (S. Noack-Haley) 145
BOOKS RECEIVED 146
American Journal of Archaeology 106 (2002) 110
1
Abstract
Evidence for three definitive cases of scalping have
been identified among the corpus of human skeletal
remains excavated from the Iron Age south Siberian cem-
etery of Aymyrlyg in Tuva. The osteological evidence for
scalping that is apparent in these individuals is presented
here, as are the results of a recent reexamination of a
previously known south Siberian case from the royal burial
in Kurgan 2 at Pazyryk. These four Iron Age Siberian
cases of scalping are important in part because they sup-
port the literary references pertaining to the practice
contained in Herodotuss Histories, written in the fifth
century B.C. Osteological evidence for scalping in pre-
historic Old World contexts, including cases previously
reported only in German and Russian publications, is also
reviewed.*
The term Scythian world is applied to a group
of archaeological cultures that date from approxi-
mately the seventh to the second centuries B.C. and
are located in the zone of the steppes, forest-
steppes, foothills, and mountains of the Ukraine,
Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and the northern
part of China.
1
The cultures comprising the Scyth-
ian world are, therefore, wide ranging. The Greeks
referred to the nomads of Eurasia and Central Asia
as the Scythians, while the Persians designated all
nomadic tribes of the Eurasian steppes (including
the Scythians) as the Saka.
2
The Scythian period
culture in Tuva is called the Uyuk Culture, a name
that derived from the Uyuk river basin, where the
first scientific excavations of monuments of this
culture occurred.
3
The Uyuk Culture was bordered
by two other Scythian period cultures, the Pazyryk
Culture to the west, and the Tagar Culture to the
north.
4
The history of the Central Asian nomads is in-
separable from that of the nomadic and semino-
madic tribes of the Eurasian steppes. Their materi-
al culture and political and economic practices were
markedly similar.
5
The common material culture
apparent among all the tribes of the Scythian world
is known as the Scythian Triad, and consists of weap-
ons, horse harnesses, and objects decorated in the
Animal style of artwork.
6
Although the artifacts of
the Scythian Triad display marked similarities, oth-
er components of the Scythian world (such as dwell-
ings, burial customs, ceramics, and adornments)
differ considerably among the various cultures.
Consequently, it is not possible to envisage a single
Scythian culture but rather a variety of cultures of
the Scythian world,
7
and the Scythian empire was
not a centralized state, but rather a confederation
of powerful nomadic clans.
8
During the late third and early second century
B.C. several significant social changes occurred
among the nomadic tribes of the steppes. In the
west the Sarmatians succeeded the Scythians, while
in the east the Xiongnu, who are often presumed
to be the ancestors of the later Huns, had emerged
as a strong nomadic power. This period in the his-
tory of the steppe nomads thus is referred to as the
Hunno-Sarmatian period.
9
As a result of their in-
creased prosperity from pastoralism, the develop-
ment of an iron industry, and military prowess, the
24 Xiongnu tribes dramatically rose in strength,
resulting in the emergence of the powerful Xiong-
nu empire.
10
According to the historical sources
the Xiongnu initially engaged in a lengthy strug-
Prehistoric Old World Scalping:
New Cases from the Cemetery of Aymyrlyg,
South Siberia
EILEEN MURPHY, ILIA GOKHMAN, YURI CHISTOV, AND LUDMILA BARKOVA
*

We would like to acknowledge Dr. Colm Donnelly, School
of Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queens University Belfast,
for his comments on the text. We are also grateful to Professor
Don Brothwell, Department of Archaeology, University of York,
for drawing our attention to the Alvastra case in Sweden. We
would also like to thank Dr. Rupert Breitwieser, Institute for
Ancient History, University of Salzburg, for informing us of
the case of scalping from Regensburg-Harting in Bavaria.
1
Clenova 1994, 499.
2
Abetekov and Yusupov 1994, 24.
3
Mannai-Ool 1970, 8.
4
Mandelshtam 1992, 179.
5
Abetekov and Yusupov 1994, 23.
6
Moskova 1994, 231.
7
Clenova 1994, 5001.
8
Vernadsky 1943, 51.
9
Zadneprovskiy 1994, 457.
10
Ishjamts 1994, 153.
EILEEN MURPHY ET AL. 2 [AJA 106
gle against other nomadic tribes, particularly the
Wu-sun and the Yeh-chih, as well as with the Chi-
nese,
11
and for several centuries the Xiongnu em-
pire acted as a rival power to the Han empire of
China. At its greatest extent the Xiongnu empire
is thought to have stretched from Korea to the Al-
tai, and from the border of China to Transbaika-
lia.
12
At the end of the third and the beginning of
the second century B.C. the populations of Tuva,
the Transbaikalia area, the Minusinsk Basin, and
the Altai are all considered to have experienced
the impact of Xiongnu military force.
13
The Hunno-Sarmatian period culture in Tuva is
referred to as the Shurmak Culture. The older
Scythian period Uyuk Culture in Tuva does not
appear to have totally disappeared from the archae-
ological record, however, and a large proportion of
its characteristicsits funerary monuments, burial
rituals, and grave goodsseem to have become as-
similated into the new Shurmak Culture.
14
Artifacts recovered from Scythian period funer-
ary monuments in Tuva indicate that the economy
of the highland-steppe peoples was based upon a
seminomadic form of pastoralism, which was com-
bined with land cultivation and hunting and gath-
ering. The Scythian period tribes of the mountain-
steppe regions of Tuva would have made vertical
shifts seasonally, with the construction of perma-
nent structures undertaken in the lowlands dur-
ing the winter months.
15
This form of economy
would have involved regular repeated seasonal
migrations within the borders of a relatively defined
territory.
16
The Shurmak Culture in Tuva is consid-
ered to have had a similar seminomadic pastoralist
economy to that of the preceding Uyuk Culture but
with a greater degree of mobility.

As was the case for
the Scythian period, the existence of tribal burial
grounds in Tuva of Hunno-Sarmatian period date
indicates that cyclic migration continued in this
era; tribes alternately moved through their land
along fixed routes and maintained set camp sites
during winters.
17
A large variety of weaponry was
contained in the burials of both the Uyuk and Shur-
mak Cultures, indicating the important role that
warfare played in society.
the cemetery of aymyrlyg
The cemetery complex of Aymyrlyg is situated in
the Ulug-Khemski region of the Republic of Tuva
in south Siberia (fig. 1). The site was excavated
between 1968 and 1984 by archaeologists of the
Sayano-Tuvinskaya expedition team from the Insti-
tute for the History of Material Culture in St. Pe-
tersburg. Dr. A.M. Mandelshtam directed the exca-
vations from 1968 to 1978, and Dr. E.U. Stambulnik
continued the research until the mid 1980s. The
majority of burials excavated by Mandelshtam were
from the Uyuk Culture of the Scythian period (ca.
seventhsecond centuries B.C.), with the greatest
proportion dating to the third and second centu-
ries B.C. Most of the burials from the later years of
the program, under the direction of Stambulnik,
originated from the Hunno-Sarmatian period (ca.
first century B.C.A.D. second century).
The most common form of interior structure in
Scythian period funerary monuments was the rect-
angular log house tomb. Invariably, the numbers of
individuals buried within an Aymyrlyg log house
tomb could be considerable, with as many as 15 skel-
etons being recovered from individual examples.
Stone cists of Scythian period date were also com-
monly encountered at Aymyrlyg.
18
Burial in a com-
posite wooden coffin or, less frequently, in a hollowed
out log or wooden block was characteristic for the
Hunno-Sarmatian period. The majority of these buri-
als contained a single individual, although several
double and triple burials were discovered.
19
Some 1,000 human skeletons were recovered
from the Aymyrlyg cemetery, and the skeletal re-
mains are now stored in the Department of Physi-
cal Anthropology of the Peter the Great Museum
of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkammer)
in St. Petersburg. A recent paleopathological ex-
amination of the skeletal remains identified three
cases of scalping in this corpus.
20
The osteological
characteristics of these three cases and a further
Scythian period example from Kurgan 2 at Pazyryk,
also in south Siberia, are analyzed below.
siberian cases of scalping
Scalping may be defined as the forcible removal
of all or part of the scalp from the head. The proce-
dure involves the incision of the skin overlying the
skull with a sharp object in a circular pattern
21
to
enable the easy removal of the soft tissues from the
cranial vault.
22
The practice has been undertaken
throughout the past among different world cul-
tures, usually in order to retrieve human trophies
11
Litvinsky and Guang-da 1996, 29.
12
Phillips 1965, 112.
13
Davidova 1996, 159.
14
Mannai-Ool 1970, 108.
15
Vainshtein 1980, 51.
16
17
Vainshtein 1980, 96.
18
19
Stambulnik 1983, 347.
20
Murphy 1998.
21
Axtell and Sturtevant 1980, 467.
22
Hamperl 1967, 630.
PREHISTORIC OLD WORLD SCALPING 3 2002]
as indicators of success and bravery in warfare. It
has also been suggested that scalping may have
been undertaken for therapeutic or magico-reli-
gious reasons.
23
The first case from the Aymyrlyg cemetery with
clear evidence for scalping is a Scythian period male
with an age at death of 2535 years. Healed frac-
tured nasal bones were apparent. Unfortunately,
the context for this case was uncertain, and only
the skull was available for analysis. Numerous small
sharp cut marks, with an appearance that was indic-
ative they had been made using a metal tool, were
apparent on the surface of the cranial vault. The
cut marks ranged in length from 4 mm to 62 mm,
and followed the circumference of the skull. The
characteristics of the cut marks suggest that the
objective of the scalper had been to carefully re-
move a circular area of skin from the superior and
posterior aspects of the cranium. The cut marks on
the occipital and the posterior regions of the pari-
etals ran in a horizontal direction, parallel to one
another. The superior margins of the cut marks
were generally beveled, which may indicate that the
person who had made the marks had been posi-
tioned superior to the skull, and that the skin had
been peeled off in an anterior direction. No signs
of healing were associated with the scalping cut
marks, and it is therefore probable that the proce-
dure may have occurred either immediately prior
to death or during the perimortem period.
23
Owsley 1994, 3378.
CHINA
KAZAKHSTAN
MONGOLIA
RUSSIA
Aymyrlyg
Pazyryk
Ob
Yenisey
Km
0 100 200
Fig. 1. Map showing the location of Aymyrlyg and Pazyryk
Two Hunno-Sarmatian period individuals exca-
vated from the Aymyrlyg cemetery also displayed
clear evidence of scalping. Both individuals were
buried in the same tomb, and it is therefore proba-
ble that they had been scalped concomitantly. The
cut marks apparent in Skeleton XXXI. 87. Sk. 1, a
1725 year old male individual, and in Skeleton
XXXI. 87. Sk. 2, a 3545 year old male, were practi-
cally identical in morphology and location (figs. 2
3; hereafter termed Sk. 1 and Sk. 2). This may indi-
cate that a single individual had carried out both
procedures. In both cases numerous small sharp
cut marks were apparent on the surface of the cra-
nial vault. The cut marks again followed the cir-
cumference of the skull, and their morphology sug-
gested that the objective of the scalpers had been
to carefully remove a circular area of skin from the
superior and posterior aspects of the cranium. The
cut marks on the occipital and the posterior regions
of the parietals ran in a horizontal direction, paral-
lel to one another. The superior margins of the cut
marks were generally beveled, which may indicate
that the individuals responsible for making them
had been positioned superior to the skull, and that
the skin had been peeled off in an anterior direc-
tion. The cut marks on the frontal bone and the
anterior aspect of the right parietal also displayed
beveled superior margins, which may suggest they
had been made in the opposite direction.
Evidence of sword injuries was also present in
the remains of both Hunno-Sarmatian period indi-
viduals. A sword cut was present on the neural arch-
es of the 11th and 12th thoracic vertebrae in Sk. 1,
which indicates that the attacker had been posi-
tioned behind the individual. A sword cut was also
apparent on the right femur of Sk. 2. It is probable,
therefore, that both individuals had been em-
broiled in a single episode of violence, which pos-
sibly involved armed combat and, perhaps follow-
ing their defeat, they had been deliberately and
methodically scalped. Based on the clear evidence
for weapon injuries and lack of signs of healing
associated with the scalping cut marks of either in-
dividual, it is possible that the scalping procedures
occurred immediately prior to death or during the
perimortem period; the victors of the attack may
then have taken the scalps as war trophies. A spear-
head and a variety of knives were recovered from
the burial, possibly indicating the warrior status of
the two men. The circumstances of the formal buri-
al accorded to the two individuals also suggest that
the bodies had been retrieved by their relatives and
friends and had then been buried as befitted their
status in life.
A high status male individual with battle-axe in-
juries from Kurgan 2 at Pazyryk in the High Altai
also displayed evidence for scalping (fig. 4). Ser-
gei Rudenko, the excavator of the kurgan, provid-
ed a detailed description of the mummified indi-
vidual. He concluded that the scalp had been re-
moved from the cranium after death, and stated
that the skin above the forehead had been cut
through from ear to ear and then torn backward to
expose the skull as far as the neck. Prior to burial a
scalp from another individual had been attached
to the anterior aspect of the cranium with horse-
hair.
24
Three perforations caused by blows from a
battle-axe were visible on the parietals. Similar bat-
tle-axe injuries were apparent on numerous Scyth-
ian period individuals from Aymyrlyg and, in prac-
tically all cases, these injuries would have resulted
in death.
25
The Pazyryk mummy is currently housed in the
Department of Archaeology in the State Hermit-
age Museum of St. Petersburg. A recent reexami-
nation of the mummy by the current authors has
identified the injuries and postmortem alterations
described by Rudenko. In addition, however, a
number of small cut marks, clearly indicative of
scalping, were also discovered to be present on the
skull. As has been postulated for the two Hunno-
Sarmatian period individuals from Aymyrlyg, it is
probable that the Pazyryk male had been scalped
in the aftermath of an incident of combat, with his
scalp removed as a war trophy. Again, it would seem
that his body had been retrieved and formally bur-
ied by his kith and kin.
Within the New World, the remains of a number
of scalped individuals have been discovered asso-
ciated with grave goods. In contrast to the Siberian
examples, these individuals show no signs of hav-
ing met a violent end but were given mortuary treat-
ment and deliberate burial. This finding may sug-
gest that their scalps had been removed for other
cultural purposes apart from warfare. It is known
that a number of Native American tribes regarded
a scalp to have a supernatural or religious signifi-
cance.
26
Among the Pueblo tribes, scalps were re-
lated to sacrifices and ceremonies conducted to
bring rain. Scalps were also used for therapeutic
reasons among Native American tribes; the Nava-
ho, for example, believed that chewing on a scalp
24
Rudenko 1970, 221.
25
Murphy 1998.
26
Owsley 1994, 337.
would cure a toothache.
27
Conversely, however, the
retention of the scalps of dead warriors as battle
trophies appears to have been widely practiced
throughout many geographic regions of the world
including Europe, America, and Africa.
28
Numer-
ous individuals from both the Scythian and Hun-
no-Sarmatian periods formally buried in tombs at
Aymyrlyg displayed evidence of weapon trauma, a
finding that further attests to the warfaring nature
of these tribes.
29
osteological evidence for scalping in
the old world during prehistory
A number of scholars have provided overviews of
the historical references to scalping, which indi-
cate that scalping was practiced throughout both
the Old and New Worlds.
30
Historical references to
the activity in the Old World are contained in a
number of classical sources, perhaps the earliest
and most quoted of which is Herodotuss descrip-
tion of scalping among the Scythians, written in the
fifth century B.C.
31
The majority of the archaeologi-
cal evidence for scalping, however, has been ob-
tained from New World contexts,
32
and a large cor-
pus of material has been investigated.
33
This evi-
dence indicates that scalping was practiced in the
Americas as early as the fifth or sixth centuries A.D.
34
Osteological evidence for Old World scalping is
much less frequent. In addition to the four cases
from Siberia reported here, a small but significant
corpus of cases has been discussed in English, Rus-
sian, and German reportscases that indicate that
scalping has occurred during prehistory at a range
of geographic locations across the Old World. Indi-
vidual case studies
35
and reviews of scalping evi-
dence in both northern Europe
36
and Russia
37
have
Fig. 2. Cut marks indicative of scalping on the frontal bone and right parietal of Sk. 1. (Photo by E. Murphy)
27
Allen et al. 1985.
28
Burton 1864.
29
Murphy 1998.
30
Reese 1940; Anger and Diek 1978.
31
Reese 1940, 7.
32
Roberts and Manchester 1995, 85.
33
Larsen 1997, 119.
34
Owsley 1994, 337.
35
Glob 1969, 93; Fischer 1988, 3940; During and Nilsson
1991; Ortner and Ribas 1997.
36
Anger and Diek 1978.
37
Mednikova 2000.
been published, and this information is synthesized
below. The following literature-based review pre-
sents summaries of possible cases of scalping in
order to raise awareness of these little-known pur-
ported cases of prehistoric Old World scalping. The
current authors have not physically examined these
crania and, as such, it is difficult to be certain of
their authenticity. This is particularly true for ex-
amples that are not accompanied by published il-
lustrations or photographs.
The earliest cases are of Neolithic date and in-
clude a cranium that dated to approximately 4500
B.C. and was recovered from Dyrholmen Bog, Rand-
ers in Denmark during excavations in the 1920s
and 1930s. The disarticulated remains of a variety
of animals and at least 20 individuals were retrieved,
including the cranial vaults of at least nine people.
A series of shallow cut marks were visible on the
frontal bone and on one of the parietals of a child
of approximately 10 years of age, and these marks
were interpreted as evidence for scalping.
38
A sec-
ond Neolithic cranium that displayed evidence of
scalping, dated to ca. 3000 B.C., was recovered from
the Alvastra pile-dwelling in Sweden during exca-
vations in 1917. The individual was male, aged ap-
proximately 20 years, and his head appeared to have
been decapitated since only the skull, atlas, and
axis were recovered. Cut marks were identified on
the cranium but were found to be restricted to the
frontal bone where they followed the curve of the
bone. The cut marks may have been made using a
stone tool.
39
Finally, the disarticulated remains of at
least three individuals associated with Neolithic
pottery sherds, stone tools, and animal bones were
recovered from Atzenbrugg in Austria, and a num-
ber of the human skull fragments displayed cut
marks that were interpreted as evidence for scalp-
ing.
40
A greater range of case studies has been report-
ed for the Bronze Age in Europe and the Middle
38
Anger and Diek 1978, 1667.
39
Anger and Diek 1978, 16872; During and Nilsson 1991.
40
Fig. 3. Cut marks indicative of scalping on the occipital and left parietal of Sk. 1. (Photo by E. Murphy)
East. The skull of an adult male, with an age at death
greater than 40 years, was recovered from a shaft
tomb at the Early Bronze Age (ca. 32003000 B.C.)
site of Bab-edh-Dhra in Jordan, and displayed evi-
dence of scalping associated with healing. The le-
sion extended from the mid-region of the frontal
through both parietals and onto the occipital. It
had an irregular margin and was associated with a
groove that was indicative of healing. No deliberate
cut marks appear to have been associated with the
lesion, and its irregular margin suggested that the
scalp was torn, rather than cut, from the skull. It has
been suggested that this damage may have been
caused by an animal predator, and that no human
agent was involved.
41
A number of German exam-
ples of scalping during this period have also been
reported. During the 1860s five bog bodies were
retrieved from the Tannenhausener Bog, near
Hamburg, associated with jewelry that was consid-
ered to be of Early Bronze Age date. Hair was visible
on the back and sides of each individuals head,
but in all cases it appeared to have been severed
from the anterior aspect of the skull where sharp
cuts were evident.
42
In addition, the remains of sev-
en scalped headsand in some cases their de-
tached scalpswere reported from among a cor-
pus of skulls discovered within a Bronze Age sanc-
tuary in Bentheim. A number of the heads displayed
cut marks that were considered to be definite evi-
dence of scalping.
43
Maria Mednikova has assembled a corpus of cas-
es of scalping from Bronze Age Russia. A cranium
41
Ortner and Ribas 1997.
42
Fig. 4. View of the right side of the head of the scalped male individual from
Kurgan 2 at Pazyryk. The removal of the skin of the head and neck is clearly
evident, as are two perforations, which were made using a pointed battle axe.
(Photo by Y. Chistov)
43
recovered from the Kalinovskaya Kurgan in the Al-
exandrovskova region of the Northern Caucasus
displayed cut marks on its surface that included a
variety of overlapping lines, geometrical patterns,
and triangular and rectangular shapes.
44
Two fur-
ther possible cases of Bronze Age Russian scalping
have been discovered in the Pepkino Kurgan, lo-
cated in the upper basin of the Volga River. The
remains of 27 individuals were discovered in the
kurgan, many of whom displayed injuries caused
by weapon trauma. Burials 12 and 26, both of whom
were adult males, displayed cut marks on their right
parietals.
45
A number of possible cases of scalping that date
to the Iron Age have been recorded in northern
Europe. These include the remains of three par-
tially preserved bodies recovered from Wennigst-
edt in Germany in 1866. None of the individuals
had retained their hair, and cut marks were visible
on their skulls, which were interpreted as evidence
for scalping.
46
A female bog body from Borremose
in Denmark is reported to have had her face crushed
and the back of her head scalped. Although no cut
marks were evident on the cranium, the scalp ap-
peared to display evidence of having been torn from
the skull.
47
Another possible case of scalping origi-
nated from Strandby in Denmark, where the crania
of an adult male and female were discovered. Cut
marks that ran vertical to the hairline were visible
on the female cranium, and were considered to be
indicative that the individual had been scalped.
48
A
human skull recovered from Karlstein in Germany
in 1886 was reported to have displayed sharp cut
marks on its frontal bone. A copper coin that dis-
played the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who reigned
from A.D. 117138, was retrieved from the mouth
region of the skull.
49
Finally, the skulls of a Roman
man and woman dating to the period between the
second and fourth centuries A.D. were recovered
from the well of a villa discovered at Regensburg-
Harting in Bavaria. Both skulls appeared to have
been bludgeoned on their frontal bones. In addi-
tion, the woman seems to have been killed by sever-
al sword blows. A series of cut marks were also evi-
dent on her frontal bone, and these have been in-
terpreted as evidence of scalping.
50
conclusion
The Greeks considered scalping to be so typical
an activity of the Scythians that they invented a spe-
cial verbaposkythizeinto denote the process.
51
Herodotuss description in his Histories, written in
the fifth century B.C., is generally accepted as the
earliest historical reference to the practice.
52
The
heads of vanquished enemies were carefully pro-
cessed with the skin being stripped from the head
by making a circular cut around the ears; the skull
would then have been shaken out. Herodotus also
related how the flesh was scraped from the skin
using an ox rib, cleaned and worked by the warrior
until supple, then used as a form of handkerchief.
The handkerchiefs were hung on the bridle of the
warriors horse as symbols of battle prowess.
53
This
description corresponds perfectly to the evidence
for scalping obtained from the remains of the Scyth-
ian and Hunno-Sarmatian period steppe nomads
from south Siberia discussed in this paper.
An understanding of the Greek fascination with
scalping may be gleaned from an examination of
another unusual practicecannibalismascribed
to the Scythians by Herodotus.
54
This practice was
viewed as a topos by Herodotus and a practice that
was to be associated with foreigners. In his discus-
sion of cannibalism, Arens has shown how the as-
signment of bestial practices to ones enemies or
even neighbors, to contrast their lack of culture with
ones own, is a nearly universal cultural practice,
especially when it also employs the usual dispar-
agement of the cannibal as sexually promiscuous.
55
Indeed, Herodotus combines incest with cannibal-
ism in his description of the Massagetae. It is there-
fore possible that Herodotus provided such a de-
tailed description of scalping in his Histories since
he was trying to dehumanize the Scythian tribes by
portraying them as violent and warfaring in nature.
Whereas it is possible that Herodotuss description
of cannibalism arose from a misunderstanding of a
funerary practice,
56
the cases of scalping from Ay-
myrlyg and Pazyryk are physical proof that the tribes
of the Scythian world did indeed practice scalping.
The four cases of Siberian scalping presented
here may not appear to reflect the apparent wide-
spread nature of this practice as described by Hero-
44
Mednikova 2000, 623.
45
Mednikova 2000, 634.
46
47
Glob 1969, 93; Anger and Diek 1978, 1834.
48
49
50
Fischer 1988, 3940.
51
Rolle 1989, 82.
52
Reese 1940, 7.
53
Slincourt and Burn 1972, 291.
54
Murphy and Mallory 2000; 2001, 16.
55
Arens 1979.
56
Murphy and Mallory 2000; 2001.
dotus. This situation, however, may simply reflect
the approach of physical anthropologists working
on Russian material. With the exception of the cas-
es highlighted by Mednikova, the majority of Rus-
sian physical anthropologists have concentrated on
obtaining craniometrical and osteometrical infor-
mation from archaeological human remains, and
paleopathological analysis has only been undertak-
en by a small number of scientists. Indeed, the pa-
leopathological analysis on the human remains from
Aymyrlyg represents one of the few full studies of
this nature on a large cemetery population of Scyth-
ian period date.
57
It is quite probable that many
more cases of scalping will become apparent in the
remains of individuals from the Scythian period
when more of their skulls are carefully examined
for the characteristic pattern of cut marks.
The four cases of scalping evident among these
seminomadic pastoralists from south Siberia are
currently among the earliest definitive osteologi-
cal examples for this practice in the ancient world.
While confirming the accuracy of Herodotuss his-
torical account of scalping among the Eurasian
steppe nomads of the Scythian period, the osteoar-
chaeological information from Aymyrlyg has also
indicated that scalping continued into the suc-
ceeding Hunno-Sarmatian period of the Xiongnu.
Eileen Murphy
school of archaeology and palaeoecology
the queens university of belfast
belfast bt7 1nn
northern ireland
eileen.murphy@qub.ac.uk
Ilia Gokhman
department of physical anthropology
museum of anthropology and ethnography
(kunstkammer) russian academy of science
3 university embankment
st. petersburg 199034
russia
ilia.gokhman@pobox.spbu.ru
Yuri Chistov
department of physical anthropology
museum of anthropology and ethnography
(kunstkammer) russian academy of science
3 university embankment
russia
yuri.chistov@pobox.spbu.ru
Ludmila Barkova
department of archaeology
the state hermitage
34 dvortsovaya embankment
russia
ilia.gokhman@pobox.spbu.ru
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11
The Ancient Temple on the Acropolis at Athens
GLORIA FERRARI
Abstract
This article concerns the Archaic temple of Athena
that was set on fire in the Persian sack of Athens and its
function in the monumental reconstruction of the
Acropolis under Pericles. A new analysis of archaeologi-
cal, epigraphical, and historical sources leads to the con-
clusion that the temple was neither destroyed in the
assault nor taken down at a later date, but that, as Drpfeld
argued, it remained standing until well into the Roman
period. Further, it is argued that the old temple was the
core of an extensive choreography of ruins that is the
background against which the new Periclean buildings
acquire their meaning.*
It is in that golden stain of time, that we are to look
for the real light, and colour, and preciousness of
architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed
this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame,
and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have
been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of
the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting
as it is than that of the natural objects of the world
around it, can be gifted with even so much as these
possess of language and of life.
1
The discovery of the archaic temple of Athena
on the vast empty terrace at the center of the Acrop-
olis came as a surprise.
2
In 1885 Wilhelm Drpfeld
recognized in the structure at the northeastern end
of the terrace, whose massive retaining wall runs
under the Porch of the Maidens of the Erechtheum,
a large poros temple. What remained after the work
of clearing the area, which had begun in earnest
with Ross in 1834, was completed by Kavvadias in
1886,
3
were its foundations, preserved, in one point,
to the level of the stylobate (fig. 1). Apparently, no
building ever had encroached on the place of the
temple in antiquity, except for the Porch of the
Maidens, perched on the north foundation of its
peristyle (fig. 2). Drpfeld immediately recognized
in the great Doric building the temple of Athena
Polias, which had stood on the Acropolis at the time
of the Persian invasion and sack of Athens in 480
B.C.E., and identified it with the arkhaios naos men-
tioned in literary and epigraphical sources.
4
There
finally was an answer to the question of the origin of
pieces of entablature built into the north wall of
the citadel, in correspondence to the foundations:
this was the temple to which they had once be-
longed.
5
But the discovery also played havoc with
the understanding of the sacred topography of the
Acropolis that was current, as enshrined in Jahn
and Michaelis, Arx Athenarum.
6
On the basis of Stra-
bo (9.16), who mentions only two temples on the
Acropolis, it had long been assumed that those two
were the Parthenon and the Erechtheum and that
the latter was the reconstruction of the archaic tem-
ple of Athena Polias, which the Persians had de-
stroyed.
7
One had to reckon now with the fact that
the archaic temple was not rebuiltnot on the same
*
I thank T. Jenkins for calling my attention to the Ruskin
passage and for much assistance besides in both technical and
scholarly matters. A. Cohen, P.E. Easterling, M. Flower, A.
Hollman, M. Jameson, N. Luraghi, G. Nagy, and J.C. Wright
contributed valuable suggestions and corrected mistakes. I am
especially grateful to my colleagues at the University of Chica-
go, T. Cummins, L.M. Slatkin, and Wu Hung, for insights into
the relationship of monuments to social memory. My greatest
debt is to D.H. Sanders, who brought to the project exacting
standards, immense patience, and commitment.
1
Ruskin 1849, 172.
2
That the area occupied by the temple was the site of a struc-
ture, however, had been seen before. In Michaelis (1871, pl.
1) its perimeter is drawn in outline and tentatively identified
as that of the Cecropium; see Korres 1996, 78. Burnouf (1877,
1634, pl. XII) describes the structure as a terrace in blocks of
Acropolis limestone: Lautre moiti est remblaye jusq la
base de lrechthum au moyen dun pav (18) compos de
plusieurs assises de blocs polygonaux superposs. [. . .] Les
blocs dont se compose le pav proviennent du rocher mme
de lAcropole et ont d tre obtenues quand on a form les
diverses esplanades consacres Minerve ou Diane. A ouest
de lrechthum, ce pav se termine par un mur de vingt-qua-
tre mtres de longueur, dont langle sest croul et qui se
continue en retour dans la direction de langle occidental du
Parthnon. According to Harrison (Harrison and Verrall 1980,
496) Btticher discovered this pavement in 1862. I thank M.
Jameson for this reference.
3
On the work of clearing the Acropolis of post-ancient struc-
tures, see Mallouchou-Tufano 1994. For earlier records of Athe-
nian monuments, see Korres 1998.
4
Drpfeld 1885, 275; 1886a; 1886c; Kavvadias and Kawerau
1906, col. 32.
5
On the discoveries and the debate over the assignment of
architectural members in poros found on the Acropolis to the
Old Temple of Athena and the archaic predecessor of the
Parthenon, see Korres 1997, 21825.
6
Jahn and Michaelis 1880.
7
See the comments in Dinsmoor 1942, 185. As Jeppesen
(1987, 1112) observes, the communis opinio, which prevails to
this day, was founded as early as 1676 by Jacob Spon.
GLORIA FERRARI 12 [AJA 106
site, which, moreover, was left untouched by the
comprehensive reconstruction undertaken by Per-
icles. This was clearly a case such as the one Dins-
moor envisioned, where archaeology turns up a
piece of the past that does not fit neatly within the
given current historical reconstruction:
8
The archaeologist, engaged primarily in the study and
interpretation of the material products rather than
the verbal records of mans past, that is, the illustra-
tions of the written text rather than the text itself, the
monuments rather than the documents, often finds
that he is in the enviable position of dealing with the
unbiased evidence of contemporary witnessespro-
vided that he can interpret itas contrasted with the
textual tradition which is so often retrospective and
sometimes mistaken or willfully prejudiced. Yet illus-
trations and text form an inseparable whole; the one
must fit the other; and the arbitration of differences
is often delicate.
In the figure of the unbiased contemporary wit-
ness, Dinsmoor evoked the old hope of the anti-
quarian that the truth about the past lies precisely
in its tangible, unprocessed remains. In the event,
the case of the Drpfeld temple, as some call it still,
demonstrated instead the tenacity of established
constructs and their ability to resist intrusions that
would threaten their very foundation. Drpfeld took
his discovery to show that the archaic temple was
repaired in the years immediately following the
Persian sack and that it remained standing, al-
though without its peristyle, to the end of antiquity
and beyond.
9
His proposal found few, if distin-
guished, supporters.
10
Frazer and Michaelis stood
by the old explanation, arguing that the Drpfeld
temple was not the ancient temple of Athena Po-
lias but a new temple with respect to the arkhaios
naos, which lay still under the Erechtheum.
11
These
attempts to reestablish the orthodox view of the
matter were soon dismissed but, already in 1901,
Bates had offered an interpretation that accommo-
dated the new discovery and required only minor
Fig. 1. Plan of the arkhaios naos by W. Drpfeld. (After Wiegand 1904, fig. 117)
8
Dinsmoor 1942, 185.
9
Drpfeld 1887a; 1887b; 1890; 1897. Drpfelds final for-
mulation of the hypothesis of the survival of the temple is
briefly stated at the end of his 1919 article, p. 39: the Peri-
clean plan for a total reconstruction of the archaic temple and
adjacent buildings and shrines only got as far as the Erech-
theum; in actuality the temple was retained and repaired after
the fire in 406 (for which see infra, n. 26).
10
Harrison and Verrall 1890, 5029; Cooley 1899; F. Dm-
mler, RE II s.v. Athena, col. 1952; Schrader 1939, 3956.
11
Frazer 18921893, 16774; Michaelis 1902, 111.
THE ANCIENT TEMPLE ON THE ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS 13 2002]
adjustments to the traditional account.
12
The Drp-
feld temple was the temple of Athena Polias burned
by the Persians. This burned temple, he argued,
was never rebuilt, in keeping with the oath the al-
lied Greek forces took on the eve of the decisive
battle at Plataea, when they pledged never to re-
build the shrines of the gods destroyed by the bar-
barians.
13
Bates connected the provisions of the oath
to the fact that, after 479, some of the destroyed
temples were left in ruins for a generation and re-
built after 450. He found the explanation for this
state of affairs in the so-called Congress Decree,
mentioned in Plutarchs Life of Pericles (17.13). As
the Spartans grew wary of the growing power of Ath-
ens, Pericles introduced a bill to convene the Hel-
lenic states that had fought the Persians to a con-
gress in Athens. Its agenda would be to discuss what
to do about the sanctuaries that had been burned
by the barbarians, the sacrifices that had been vowed
to the gods in the course of the struggle, and the
peace among the Greek states and safe navigation.
It was his intention, according to Bates, to persuade
the allies to revoke the oath because the Acropolis
with its burnt ruins had come to be an eye-sore to
the Athenians, and Pericles desired to clear the
ground and build a new temple. When the initia-
tive failed, Pericles unilaterally took the decision
to rescind the part of the Oath of Plataea that con-
cerned the temples: at Athens the Acropolis was
cleared of its ruins and the Parthenon begun.
14
Batess reconstruction of events left substantially
intact the understanding of the history of the Acrop-
olis that existed before the discovery of the Drp-
feld temple. As before, the Erechtheum could be
seen to be the successor of the ancient temple of
the Polias, in name as well as in fact, and the place
where the ancient temple had stood continued to
be viewed as an empty terrace of no particular in-
terest. Thus by 1942the date of Dinsmoors sweep-
ing reconstruction of the historical topography of
the Acropolisthe waters had closed over Drp-
felds discovery. The questions it had raised remain
unanswered. Why, given the spirit of grandeur that
informed the Periclean rebuilding of the Acropo-
lis, was the principal cult of the city served by such
a small edifice, less than half the size of the archaic
12
Bates 1901.
13
Lycurg. Leoc. 81; Diodorus 11.29.3; cf. Isoc. Paneg. 4.156.
14
Bates 1901, 322, 326.
Fig. 2. Early 20th-century aerial view of the foundations from the south. (Courtesy of the Fine Arts Library, Harvard
College Library)
temple and lacking a peristyle, as well as pedimen-
tal sculptures? Why was the temple not rebuilt on
its original location, as customary? And why was the
terrace on which it had stood left unencumbered
by new construction? I wish to return here to the
most vital part of Batess argument, one that he sup-
pressed in the end, namely, that the ancient tem-
ple of Athena Polias was never rebuilt indicates
compliance with the Oath of Plataea. If the fact that
the site of the ruin was left untouched is given
appropriate emphasis, instead of being swept aside,
a different explanation of the Periclean architec-
tural plan and of the events surrounding it becomes
possible. The thesis of this article is that after the
Persian sack the temple was left standing and made
into a monument to barbarian sacrilege and Athe-
nian righteousness. Far from being unsightly rub-
ble, the ruin at the heart of the Acropolis func-
tioned as the point of relay to which the other build-
ings responded. The argument moves from a dis-
cussion of the Oath of Plataea to consider literary
and archaeological evidence for the existence of
the war memorial.
The debate over the authenticity of the Oath
began in antiquity. In the fourth century B.C.E.
Theopompus of Chios, who was no friend of the
Athenians, denounced it as a sham, of a piece with
other Athenian claims, such as the Peace with the
Mede, the decisive role of Athens at Marathon, and
other impostures the city of the Athenians perpe-
trates and fools the Hellenes.
15
Indeed, a recita-
tion of ancestral glories, with a pronounced anti-
Peloponnesian flavor, is the context in which we
encounter the Oath of Plataea for the first time, in
Lycurguss prosecution of Leocrates for treason
(81).
16
The relevant section of the speech opens
with a reference to the attempt to withdraw the
night before the battle of Salamis by the Spartan,
Corinthian, and Aeginetan commanders (70).
Alone among the Hellenes, the Athenians forced
them to stay and fight, and prevail upon the barbar-
ians. The heroic sacrifice of Codrus for the city, in
the face of the first Peloponnesian invasion of Atti-
ca ever, is later recounted at length (8487). As
much as these stories, the Oath of Plataea lent it-
self to a self-aggrandizing, boastful discourse about
the Athenian past, and that is all that may be said
with confidence about it. But, in order to be effec-
tive, the Oath had to appear to be true. Its power to
bear witness to the piety and courage of those men
of old is stressed in the phrase, which in Lycurguss
speech follows its recitation (82): They stood by
this oath so firmly, fellow men, that they had the
favor of the gods on their side to help them; and,
though all the Hellenes proved courageous in the
face of danger, your city won the most renown. The
rhetorical force of this statement depends upon its
being common knowledge that, in the event, the
Athenians did what they said they would do: fol-
lowed leaders, buried dead comrades, punished
collaborators, and made war memorials of the
burned shrines. For this reason Lycurguss state-
ment is hard to reconcile with the current view that
the Acropolis was cleared of the debris of the Per-
sian destruction and the Oath of Plataea essential-
ly discarded. How could he say so boldly that the
ancestors had stood firmly by the oath, when it
would be so very apparent to anyone looking in the
direction of the Acropolis, the Parthenon towering
over it, that it was not so. How could the Oath of
Plataea play a role in the fourth century construc-
tion of the geste of Athens, unless the scarred walls
of the ancient temple of the Polias were there to
bear out the truth of the claim?
Most scholars of the Acropolis now would agree
that the ruin was part of the Acropolis landscape
for some time, if only as part of a temporary, make-
shift arrangement. Fifth- and fourth-century sourc-
es mention a structure called tout court Opisthodomos,
which housed the treasuries of Athena and of the
Other Gods.
17
The word normally signifies the rear
chamber of a temple, but this structure is called an
oikos, an oikema, and part of the Acropolis, as though
it were detached.
18
A decree dated around 420
B.C.E., which contains the provision that a column
be erected behind (or south of) the Opisthodomos,
15
FGrH 115 F 153. Connor (1968, 7881) pointed out that
the wording of the fragment does not justify the widespread
notion that Theopompus made an outright denial of the oath
and the peace. He further notes (88) that the Oath, the peace
with Persia, and Marathon each plays an important role in
Athenian panegyric and propaganda in the fourth century.
The debate continues in modern time, with scholars firmly
positioned on one side or the other, but those who believe in
the oaths historicity seem now to have the upper hand, after
Siewerts monograph on the subject. Siewert (1972, 1028),
however, argues that the promise to make memorials of the
burnt shrines was not part of the original oath, because that
clause is omitted in the Acharnae inscription and some tem-
ples were rebuilt immediately after the battle of Plataea.
16
Michael Flower points out to me that Diod. Sic. 11.29
indirectly may preserve the earliest surviving version of the
oath, which he drew from Ephorus of Cyme, although Styl-
ianou (1998, 4950, 11012) concludes that the publication
of Ephoruss history is contemporary or slightly later than Ly-
curguss speech, falling in the late 330s and the 320s.
17
Harris 1995, pt. II.
18
olo: Harpocration s.v. ooo; scholia to Demos-
thenes 13.14. o: Demosthenes 24.136, with scholia.
o do: Suidas, s.v. ooo.
seems to confirm that this Opisthodomos was a free-
standing building.
19
The solution to the puzzle of
how an independent structure might be called rear
chamber was proposed first by Ernst Curtius and is
still in favor: this was the western part of the archaic
temple of Athena, the one discovered by Kavvadias
and Drpfeld. After the Persian sack, only the
opisthodomos of the temple was repaired and con-
tinued to serve as treasury, retaining its old name.
20
Scholiasts and lexicographers tell us that the
opisthodomos was located precisely where one
would expect it to be if, indeed, it was once the rear
chamber of the temple of Athena Polias: behind
the temple of the Athena called Polias.
21
On the
unwarranted assumption that the cella of the ar-
chaic temple had been razed by the Persians or
torn down soon after the sack, the temple of Athe-
na mentioned in reference to the Opisthodomos
was identified in the Erechtheum. From no signif-
icant viewpoint on the Acropolis, however, this
Opisthodomos would appear to be behind the Ere-
chtheum and, in effect, anyone looking for it there
would find himself in the Pandroseum.
22
If the Cur-
tius hypothesis is correct, the temple in question
should be the eastern half of the Drpfeld temple,
the cella that housed the ancient image.
While there is no evidence that the archaic tem-
ple was ever taken down, there is some to the con-
trary. The temple of Athena Polias is last men-
tioned by Pausanias (1.27.1) in the second century
after Christ. Before him, Strabo had stated that there
were on the Acropolis the ancient temple of the
Polias, in which is the lamp that is never extin-
guished, and the Parthenon made by Ictinus, in
which is the Athena, the work of Pheidias in ivo-
ry.
23
Strabo may be using the expression ancient
temple, arkhaios naos, in a purely descriptive and
generic sense. In that case he draws a distinction
between an old and venerable structure (which,
therefore, cannot be the Erechtheum) and the Clas-
sical Parthenon. Or arkhaios naos has here a con-
ventional, nondescriptive meaning and functions
as the name of a particular building (which, in this
case, may be the Erechtheum). But the label
arkhaios naos to designate the temple of Athena
Polias occurs in sources concerning events that
range from the late sixth century to Hellenistic
times.
24
The earliest mention occurs in reference
to Cleomenes attempt to seize the Acropolis in
507/6 B.C.E. The penalties inflicted upon his Athe-
nian supporters were inscribed on a bronze stele
set up next to the arkhaios naos (Schol. Ar. Lys.
273). The most important testimony is given by the
decree of the Praxiergidae, containing the provi-
sion that a stele be set up behind the ancient tem-
ple.
25
This inscription dates to the years 460450,
that is, to the time intervening between the Persian
sack and the Periclean reconstruction, 30 years or
more before construction of the Erechtheum be-
gan. What might be called arkhaios naos on the
Acropolis at this time, except the temple of Athena
Polias in which the last defenders of the city had
taken refuge? And the old temple of Athena, the
palaios neos, which was set on fire in 406 B.C.E., can
hardly be any other.
26
The literary and epigraphical testimonia coher-
ently support Drpfelds contention that the archaic
temple continued to exist into late antiquity. If the
Opisthodomos continued to stand as a separate
structure, it is not only possible but likely that the
19
The earliest mention of the Opisthodomos occurs in a
decree dated 440420 B.C.E.,

IG 1
3
.207.1415: |o
: | o|| o ooo. In
AristophanesPlutus (119193) there is talk of restoring Plutus
to his old residence, always standing guard over the
opisthodomos of the goddess. The latest reference to the build-
ing is in a speech of Demosthenes of 353/2 (24, 136). Most of
the literary and epigraphical testimonia are collected and dis-
cussed by White 1895. See also Harris 1995, 401.
20
Curtius 1890, 163. The hypothesis of Frazer (18921893,
1626) and Michaelis (1902, 246) that the Opisthodomos is
to be sought in the Parthenon, was endorsed by Paton (1927,
4734) and most recently by Hurwit (1999, 1434).
21
Scholion to Aristophanes Plutus 1193: o o o
o o6o . Harpocration, s.v.
ooo, scholia to Demosthenes 13.14: o o o
. Scholion to Aristophanes Plutus 1193, Suidas,
s.v. ooo o o o. Photius,
s.v. ooo o o o.
22
Cooley 1899, 399400.
23
Strabo 9.1.16: : o i, o
d_o o o6o, : o o d|o _o,
o o, o :o o, : o o o o o
:6o .
24
Most are discussed in Dinsmoor 1932, passim (esp. 311
13). For the fourth-century B.C.E. records of the treasuries in
the arkhaios naos, see Harris 1995, pt. VI and appendix V. I
follow Michael Jameson in believing that a damaged passage
in a decree of ca. 34325 B.C.E. (IG 2
2
.334.910) is most easily
restored to refer to the old temple, as it is in the corpus, but
runs into the difficulty that animal sacrifice in the Classical
period was not performed indoors. It may be that the build-
ings ruined state, with part of the temple open to the skies,
allowed it to be the site of sacrifice (pers. comm.). The latest
epigraphical mention of the ancient temple of the Athena
Polias occurs in an Athenian decree of the second century
B.C.E., IG 2
2
.983.56.
25
IG 1
3
.7.6: o| o o o d_|o.
26
Xen. Hell. 1.6.1: o : o :[
, o o o :
:, | :ooo, d_oo o
|.
cella of the archaic temple also survived, torn from
its rear chamber, charred and battered but such
that it could be repaired and continue to house the
ancient wooden statue.
27
In the wake of the Persian
sack, the two parts of the temple were repaired,
under the supervision of a board of overseers in
charge of works on the Acropolis. The Periclean
reconstruction of the Acropolis made the scarred
building its core and framed it with splendid re-
constructions of buildings damaged in the sack. To
the south, the Parthenon is the grandiose reincar-
nation of its predecessors on the same site. The
Erechtheum is likewise the successor of the shrine
mentioned by Herodotus (8.55), whose orientation
it follows, rebuilt on a larger scale and lavishly orna-
mented.
28
But the temple of Athena Polias re-
mained the temple on the Acropolis, standing where
it always had, adjoining the shrine of Pandrosos, of
which the shrine of Erechtheus was part.
Such a reconstruction is in agreement with an-
cient descriptions of the place, which leave no doubt
that the temple of Erechtheus, although close to
the temple of the Polias, was not identical with it.
29
Herodotus (8.55) speaks of a temple, , of Erech-
theus, which was within the sacred precinct of the
Acropolis, i, and also housed the tokens of the
contest between Athena and Poseidonthe olive
and the salt sea.
30
In Euripides Erechtheus, Athena
instructs Erechtheuss widow to build his precinct,
, a stone enclosure.
31
Cicero (Nat. D. 3.49)
claims to have seen both the shrine, delubrum, and
the priest of Erechtheus. Pausanias (1.26.56) de-
scribes first a building called the Erechtheum,
then another, which he calls the temple of Athe-
na Polias; the Erechtheum is mentioned as well
in the Plutarchian (Life of Lycurgus, 843E) (:
_ ). The serpent, which guarded the Acrop-
olis, was housed in the sanctuary of Erechtheus,
according to one source, in the temple of the Po-
lias according to Eustathius, who is obviously ex-
trapolating.
32
The testimony of Philochorus locates
the olive tree, which, according to Herodotus, was
part of the precinct of Erechtheus, next to and be-
low the temple of Athena Polias.
33
From this one
may conclude that the one was adjacent to the oth-
er. The testimonia, such as they are, are easily rec-
onciled with the archaeological remainsprovid-
ed that we recognize in the little Ionic temple the
Erechtheum and acknowledge the presence of the
ancient temple of the Polias on its terrace. Far from
being vague and confused, Pausaniass description
of the site (1.26.627.1) follows the logic of the ter-
rain, moving from the Erechtheum to the temple of
the Polias, then offering some observations about
the Pandroseum before describing the sculptures
placed on the terrace of the temple. There are two
reasons why an explanation of the surviving evi-
dence along these lines has been tenaciously op-
posed, one having to do with a matter of fact, the
other with the misguided perception that the ruin
was an eyesore.
The linchpin in the argument that the Erech-
theum effectively replaced the archaic temple even
in name, and became the temple of Athena Polias
that was called arkhaios naos, is provided by a ste-
le dating to 409/08, which gives an account of con-
27
Korres (1994, 42, 467) allows for the survival of the cella
until the completion of the Erechtheum.
28
Casanaki and Mallouchou (1983, 92, cited by Hurwit 1999,
1445) mention remains of a temple, which preceded the
Erechtheum on the same site. See also Korres 1997, 229, 242.
29
The argument that Athena and Erechtheus shared the
same temple on the Acropolis has long relied on the descrip-
tion of the Athenian contingent in the Catalogue of Ships,
Iliad 2.54651: o d l_o :o oo
| o _o oo, o o |
o 6, o do | d :
o : o o | o do
i6o | oo o :o.
o : o o at line 549 is taken to mean that Ath-
ena established the cult of Erechtheus in her own temple. The
adjective , however, may refer not to the grammatical sub-
ject but to a person who is at the moment specially prominent
(Leaf 1900, 561), as it does at Iliad 24.422 (o o o
6 o o o), for example, and Iliad 6.500 (i
o o o o : o ). For the nonreflexive use
of o and in Homer, see Chantraine 1953, 155. In line
with all other testimonia concerning the cult of Erechtheus, I
understand Iliad 2.549 to say that Athena installed Erechtheus
in his own temple.
30
Herodotus (8.55) uses the term metonimically to
refer to various parts of the precinct: the temple, the salt sea,
and the olive tree, which surely stood in the open. Dionysius
of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. 14.2), who echoes his description,
appropriately corrects into , sacred enclosure or
precinct. Jeppesen (1987, 3844) subjects Herodotuss de-
scription of the Acropolis to close scrutiny and correctly points
out that the word is used inappropriately in the passage
in question. The testimony of Philochorus (FGrH 328 F 67)
makes it impossible, however, to detach the Erechtheum from
a location adjacent to the temple of Athena Polias, as Jeppes-
en and Robertson (1996, 3744) propose. The latter identi-
fies the temple of Erechtheus in what now is called Building
IV.
31
Austin 1968, fr. 65, 901.
32
Hesychius, s.v. oioo o o o6o
6o. oi i , oi o : o io o
_. Eustathius at Odyssey 1.357, p. 1423, 8: o ,
o :, oioo 6, [ oo,
o : o o oo oo.
33
Philochorus (FGrH 328 F 67) reports an ominous event of
306, in which a dog entered the temple of the Polias, plunged
into the Pandroseum, and lay down on the altar of Zeus Herkeios,
under the olive tree.
struction work on the Acropolis. In the heading of
the inscription, which contains extensive, unmis-
takable references to the Erechtheum, the board
of supervisors, which drew the report, has the title
of epistatai of the temple on the Acropolis in which
(is) the ancient statue.
34
This, at first sight, ap-
pears to be unshakable proof that the Erechtheum
housed the venerable image of the Polias. Because
it contained the arkhaion agalma, the reasoning
goes, the building then came to be known as the
arkhaios naos, although in itself it was brand new,
indeed under construction.
35
This explanation is
problematic in several respects. The ancient im-
age should not be in the Erechtheum in 409/08,
because the little temple was then being built and
was still roofless.
36
The difficulty is overcome by
the hypothesis that a temporary shelter was con-
structed for the allegedly homeless statue on or
near the site of the Erechtheum, which would lat-
er arise, as it were, all around the image. And it
would be this temporary shelter that documents
such as the decree of the Praxiergidae call the
arkhaios naoslong before the foundations of the
present Erechtheum were laidbecause it con-
tained the ancient image.
37
The fact that it enjoys wide endorsement is not
enough to make this series of inferences credible
against the weight of the archaeological, epigraph-
ical, and literary evidence examined above. And
the single fact on which the whole edifice rests is
not as unquestionable as it seems. Strictly speak-
ing, what the building accounts from 409/08 allow
us to say is that the epistatai of the temple that
housed the ancient image were in charge of the
construction of the Erechtheum. That the Erech-
theum and that temple are one and the same is a
reasonable inference, which, however, contradicts
all other available evidence. One may then consid-
er an alternate interpretation: that the charge of
the overseers of the archaic temple, with its statue,
extended to other shrines on the Acropolis, or at
least shrines that might be considered part of its
temenos,
38
namely, the Pandroseum, Cecropium,
and Erechtheum. Accordingly, the reconstruction
of the Erechtheum should be seen as part of a larg-
er and more important project: the restoration of
the ancient temple and of the Acropolis as a whole.
The board named in the building accounts of the
Erechtheum bears an uncanny similarity to an earli-
er Athenian board of overseers. An Eleusinian de-
cree dated around 450 B.C.E. contains the amend-
ment of one Thespieus, who proposed the estab-
lishment of epistatai in charge of the property of the
goddesses on the model of those in charge of works
on the Acropolis who supervised the temple and
the image.
39
The imperfect tense, :6o, im-
34
IG

1
3
.474.1: |:|6 o o o : : ho o
d_o d.
35
Paton 1927, 4656. For a recent summary restatement of
this widely accepted explanation, see Hurwit 1999, 2002.
36
The possibility that the wording of the inscription may be
understood in a proleptic sensethe temple in which the
ancient image (will be)was raised by Caskey (1927, 2989)
and quickly dismissed. The presence of the archaic statue in
the temple under construction has been inferred from the
following passages in the building accounts: IG 1
3
.474.75,
mentioning unsmoothed areas in an area in front of the
statue, o o o d6o; IG 1
3
.275.26970, regarding
the painting of ceiling coffers above the beams which are over
the statue, u o d6o. As Drpfeld (1919, 1516)
and Paton (1927, 4567) observed, neither passage implies
that the statueany statuewas physically in place as work
was going on, only that its placement had been determined in
the plan and served as a convenient point of reference.
37
Dinsmoor 1932, 318: the poros temple being uninhabit-
able and likely to remain so, it is probable that the Ancient
Image would have been moved to a point outside the temple,
probably sheltered under a baldachino in the open precinct
just to the north. See also Dinsmoor 1947, 109 n. 4. For a
restatement of this argument, see Harris 1995, 2014. This
hypothesis is akin to an earlier one, put forward by Weilbach
(1917, 11112), according to which the ancient statue was
moved from the ancient temple, which was undergoing re-
pairs, to the Erechtheum, still under construction. The paral-
lel adduced in support of this scenario is the shelter built over
the omphalos at Delphi, while the new fourth century temple
was under construction (Bourguet 1932, no. 32, 811). Note
that, in that case, the temporary structure was the means of
dealing with an object that could not be detached from its
location. This situation is precisely the opposite of that envi-
sioned for the ancient image of Athena, which would have been
removed from its ancient seat to the construction site. The
probability of the argument may be shaken further by inscrip-
tions, whose date precedes the completion of the Erechtheum,
that speak of the removal of objects from the arkhaios naos
and thus require us to believe that the temporary shelter for
the statue functioned also as treasury. These are IG 1
3
.341.l2,
dated to 406/5 or 407/6, and IG

1
3
.403.18, 21 of 416/5. The
latter would be given greater weight in this context, were it
not for the fact that the arkhaios naos and Parthenon to which
it refers may be those in the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron.
38
On the division of the Acropolis into temene marked off by
avenues of circulation and terraces, see Korres 1994, 3940.
The possibility that Herodotus viewed the entire area of the
northern sanctuary, including the Pandroseum, as one sanc-
tuary is broached by Dinsmoor 1947, 110, n. 4, but in an effort
to identify the temple of Erechtheus with that of the Polias.
39
IG 1
3
.32.1013: oo||| :|| ||o _
o o |||o 6 ho : o : || |o||
:|6|o|| o o o d||6. The Athenian board
may be mentioned as well in a decree which probably refers to
the temple of Athena Nike, IG 1
3
.64.1921: :||o
ho :6 |o d_o o : ho | | |||| o d_o
d. See D. Lewis, IG 1
3
.463 (commentary on IG 1
3
.474);
Mark 1993, 10810.
plies that this Athenian board had accomplished its
task or had done so in the past and continued to
accomplish it; in any case, it was already in existence.
The decree thus attests the existence of a board di-
recting building projects on the Acropolis and, more
specifically, charged with the oversight of what could
be called the temple and the statue, without fur-
ther qualifications, in the years preceding the be-
ginning of construction on the Parthenon.
40
The un-
warranted assumption that the archaic temple of the
Polias had been dismantled, or was reduced to a
useless ruin, coupled with a desire to identify in the
temple and the statue mentioned there Parthenon
and Parthenos, has driven some to special plead-
ing.
41
No other candidate, however, is as likely as that
temple, with its ancient statue, here, as in the Hek-
atompedon inscription, given as simply the temple.
42
If the Eleusinian body reflects its model in any mea-
sure, the charge of this Athenian board was broad,
extending to financial matters and building projects
other than the temple itself.
43
The second decree
of Callias (IG 1
3
.52 B) offers a case in point, in that it
concerns completion of several different works well
under way. The decree contains provisions for the
completion of marble statues, gold figures of Victo-
ry, and the Propylaea (35), as well as works involv-
ing the Acropolis as a whole (512), to be con-
ducted under the supervision of the treasurers of
Athena,
44
the architect, and a board of epistatai (10:
d o | :|o ), who may or may not be iden-
tical with the treasurers.
45
The Thespieus amend-
ment and the second Callias decree demonstrate
that there existed in Athens in the fifth century
boards with broad powers of oversight over building
activities on the Acropolis, in addition to boards that
had charge of a single project.
46
The epistatai who
supervised the construction of the Erechtheum are,
I suggest, successors of those earlier boards with
broader capacities, and supervised construction af-
fecting not only the Erechtheum but the archaic tem-
ple as well. The records reveal traces of activity con-
cerning the temple of the Polias: Xenophon tells us
that the old temple suffered a fire in the archon-
ship of Callias, in 406 B.C.E. and, indeed, the Ere-
chtheum building accounts register parts of the
temple that had been burned.
47
More support for the hypothesis presented above
may be gleaned from the fragmentary inscriptions
themselves, which record stages of construction and
expenditures. Among them, the one most exten-
sively preserved is the opisthographic stele IG 1
3
.474
(fig. 3) mentioned above.
48
The text is laid out in
two columns, under the following heading (17):
|6 o o o : : ho o d_o
d o|-
| , X6 , ()
, d_o|
|o _, _o
,
6| d o o ho |o
_o d o -
| o o ho l, :_
h, : o-
|o d_oo, oo
, : |o
h| o6 o o o
:6.
40
Since

its publication by Kourouniotis (1932) the identifi-
cation of the temple mentioned in the Thespieus Decree has
been intensely debated in connection with the date of the
decree. The criteria for dating that are routinely applied to
epigraphical texts of the fifth century yield a date around 450,
which is retained in IG 1
3
.32. Accordingly, Picard (1933, 13)
and Vallois (1933, 195200) identified the temple as the ar-
chaic temple of the Polias and the statue as the Promachos.
41
On those grounds, Mattingly (1961, 171; 1984, 347) ar-
gued for a date in the 430s; see also Meritt and Wade-Gery
1963, 11114.

Cavanaugh (1996, ch. 2), who herself favors the
later date, gives a useful critical survey of the controversy. To
argue, as Mattingly does, that the Eleusinian decree does not
refer to the temple of the Polias because there is no evidence
of the restoration of that temple before 450 is an instance of
circular reasoning. One may note, in addition, that the Par-
thenon and the chryselephantine statue most probably were
under the supervision of not one but two distinct boards of
epistatai; see Boersma 1970, 56; Hurwit 1999, 310. This diffi-
culty is addressed in Shear 1966, 11113, 2267; Miles 1998,
42 n. 20.
42
On the sense of o o in the inscription, see Dinsmoor
1947, 119, 121; the expression may be used in the same way in
Antiph. 6.39 and Xen. Hell. 2.3.20.
43
The Eleusinian epistatai had control of all the property of
the goddesses and supervised all building projects in the sanc-
tuary. According to Meritt and Wade-Gery (1963, 114) and
Shear (1966, 1506) the two boards were radically different in
their capacities. In this regard, the board of the naopoioi at
Delphi comes to mind. The board was created to oversee the
fourth-century reconstruction of the temple of Apollo but it
continued to exist after the completion of the temple and its
competence extended to other building projects in the sanc-
tuary; Bourguet 1905, 1069; Bousquet 1988, 174.
44
Bradeen 1971, 473.
45
With Meritt (1934, 2679) and Cavanaugh (1996, 34) I
believe that the epistatai mentioned in the Callias Decree at
line 10 are not the same as the tamiai of line 10.
46
IG 1
3
.457.34 (the gold and ivory Parthenos); IG 1
3
.462.2
(the Propylaea); IG 1
3
.472.2 (the statues of the Hephaesteum).
47
Xen. Hell. 1.6.1 (supra, n. 26); IG 2
2
.1654.26. According
to Caskey (1927, 416) the mention of parts of the temple
damaged by fire in the Erechtheum building accounts refers
to parts of the Erechtheum itself. In his view, the fire started
in the archaic temple and extended to the adjacent Erech-
theum; see also Paton 1927, 4605.
48
The largest fragment, IG 1
3
.474.2, which had been built
into the steps of a house on the Acropolis, was removed by
Richard Chandler in 1765 for the Society of Dilettanti and later
presented to the British Museum. More fragments remained
on the Acropolis and were later identified as parts of the same
stele (IG 1
3
.474.37).
Fig. 3. Facsimile of IG 1
3
.474 by Chandler. (After Chandler 1774)
The overseers of the temple on the Acropolis in
which(is) the ancient statue, Brysonides of Kephisia,
Chariades of Agryle, Diondes of Kephisia, architect
Philokles of Acharnai, secretary Etearchos of Kyda-
thenaion, recorded as follows works of the temple in
the state in which they found them to be, in accor-
dance with the decree of the people proposed by
Epigenes, complete and incomplete, in the archon-
ship of Diokles, Kekropis holding the first prytany, in
the session of the council in which Nikophanes of
Marathon was secretary.
The report that follows has a distinctive struc-
ture. Each column lists the piece or pieces under
consideration, their state (unplaced, undressed,
or otherwise unfinished), size, and number, this
last given by a numeral placed to the left of the
column in correspondence to the relevant passage
(fig. 3 and appendix). A first section, column I,
lines 892, lists architectural members to be set in
place or to be finished, specifying in each case their
position on the building to which they belong (see
appendix). There follows an inventory of blocks
that lay on the ground (lines 93237) whose des-
tination is unspecified, except in a few cases.
These are arranged, instead, according to their
state of completion into finished, incompletely
carved, and in the rough. The first section, quot-
ed above, in turn, is subdivided into two parts, the
first (A) headed by o o 6 6|o
h, of the temple these we found to be
incomplete (8), to which corresponds (B) o
oo o h6o, of the whole remaining
ergon (40). Each of these two parts contains refer-
ences to architectural pieces that are unplaced
(10, 22, 29, 33, 80, 82) and to pieces that are in
place but unfinished (3639, 4475, 7892). Of
these two parts, (A) concerns only construction
: o o o oo, at the cor-
ner towards the Cecropium (l. 9), involving place-
ment of wall-blocks, wall-capital, and a large sec-
tion of the epistyle. (B) details the state of con-
struction on all sides of the Erechtheum.
What one knew of the Acropolis in the 18th cen-
tury, before the discovery of the temple of Athena
Polias, required that both (A) and (B) be under-
stood as referring to one and the same building: the
Erechtheum. Accordingly, the corner towards the
Cecropium was identified at the southwest end of
the structure, the wall above the Porch of the Maid-
ens, whose location is given as towards the Cecropi-
um (6263) as well. A first difficulty arises from the
fact that, at that point, substantial portions of the wall
would remain to be built, while the Porch of the
Maidens just below lacked only a few finishing touch-
es. Its wall and orthostates had been smoothed (56
63) and all that remained to be done was the dress-
ing of three ceiling blocks and the carving of the
rosettes over its epistyle (8392). The challenge pre-
sented by lines 4043 is of a more serious kind. The
Eleusinian stone is the frieze of the Erechtheum.
As others before him, Caskey transcribed X as
d_leads or beginswhose subject is ho
o o, governing the genitive o
oo o h6o. On what grounds is all the
remaining work set off against the other construc-
tion that was described as pertaining to the temple?
The use of ergon in the collective sense of sundry
building activities, rather than a specific piece or
building project, as is the case in other documents
of this kind is surprising. Moreover, the inscription
states that the Eleusinian stone had been set in place,
:, in the third person singular. In reference to
three slabs of the frieze, one would expect the use of
the third person plural :, since agreement
between noun and verb is observed without excep-
tion in all other parts of the inscription. The numer-
al III in the left margin then is key to the claim that
only a minimal portion of the frieze had been erect-
ed. This is in fact the foundation of the hypothesis
that o o o, used in a collective
sense immediately above, had more effect upon the
verb than the numeral III in the margin, which was
really its subject.
49
Far from being certain, however,
the position of this numeral, indeed, its very exist-
ence, has been an unresolved crux since the discov-
ery of the stone.
50
But the most telling feature mili-
tating against Caskeys reading is that the passage
gives neither the position, nor the number, nor the
dimensions of the slabs of the frieze that remained
unplaced. If that were the case, one would expect
that information to be provided, as it is throughout
the text.
Let us consider, at this point, the possibility that
the inscription plainly says what it seems to say, that
the frieze was set in place under the overseers who
prepared the report. Lines 4043 then may be trans-
lated as follows:
49
Caskey 1927, 301, n. 1.
50
The numeral appeared under erasure at the left of col-
umn I, line 42, in a first facsimile published by Chandler 1774
reproduced here in fig. 1who, however, omitted it in the
transcription of the text given at p. 37. Several scholars de-
clared Chandlers transcription inaccurate; see Mller 1820,
40; A. Boeckh, CIG 1.160 (p. 261); Rose 1825, 145. In 1816
William Wilkins produced a new facsimile, in which he claimed
to correct several of Chandlers erroneous readings (Wilkins
1816, 198; 1817). The two facsimiles diverge on several points,
including the position of the numeral at the level of column I,
line 42, and readings in the corresponding section of column
II, ll. Wilkins drew the III, which Chandler had placed to the
left of line 42 of column I, to the left of line 41 of column II.
The remaining ergon all around begins with the
Eleusinian stone against which the figures (are to be
placed), and it was set in place under the present
overseers.
This reading eliminates the most obvious diffi-
culties: : agrees in number with o, the frieze
as a whole, which is its subject; the specifications of
the blocks are lacking because none remained to
be placed. Taken at face value, the statement oblig-
es us to identify in the loipon ergon and the naos two
different buildings, since no frieze could be in
place on a wall that lacked masonry courses as well
as wall-capitals and a long stretch of the epistyle.
The following tentative interpretation of the in-
scription and of the activities to which it refers may
be put forward. In the first prytany of the year 409/
08that is, at the beginning of the yearthe
epistatai of the temple of Athena Polias produced
a report of the state of projects, erga. The report
comes at the end of a period of tenure of indeter-
minate length, during which they had supervised
an indeterminate amount of construction, includ-
ing the placement of the frieze on the Erechtheum.
It is therefore likely that they entered office in 410/
09. Further, it is probable that what they describe
here are not the conditions of the erga before con-
struction was resumed, but the conditions in which
they left them, as they found them to be at the time
they made the report. In any case, we should ex-
pect that, in addition to the descriptive account,
with which they had been charged by the decree of
Epigenes, the board also must account for the activ-
ities and expenditures they had overseen. And,
indeed, a fragment from the lower part of the re-
verse of the stele (IG 1
3
.474.5) contains the names
of two workmen, presumably in reference to pay-
ment for services. The expenditures for the erec-
tion of the frieze are detailed on fragments of an-
other stele (IG 1
3
.475.89), which also dates to 409/
08, and may well be part of the same report. The
erga mentioned in the heading of the Chandler
stele are two: the temple and another ergon be-
sides. The text makes it clear that the second is the
Erechtheum; the first should be the temple of Ath-
ena Polias. The conclusion is at hand that lines 10
39 of column I contain specifications of repairs yet
to be made at the northwestern corner of the build-
ing, where the destruction produced by the Per-
sian attack had been greatest. The statue mentioned
in the building accounts in the context of the con-
struction of the Erechtheum (IG 1
3
.474.75, 269
70) should be not the ancient image of the Polias
the arkhaion agalma to which reference is made in
the heading (IG 1
3
.474.1)but a second statue.
This should be an image of Erechtheus, which his
temple housed, as one would expect.
51
The interpretation just proposed requires a dras-
tic shift in our perspective on the monuments, rel-
egating the Erechtheum, for all its suggestively viv-
id presence on the Acropolis now, to the role of
ornate and elegant appendage to the temple of the
Polias. The idea that the Erechtheum should be
understood in relationship to the archaic temple
finds comfort in the size, plan, and architectural
decoration of the Erechtheum itself. It is often said
that its curious plan is the product of the sacred
topography of the Acropolis and responds to the
need to encompass, in one complex, the shrine of
Pandrosus, the marturia of the contest of Athena
and Poseidon, the heroon of Cecrops. But the inti-
mate relationship of the Erechtheum to the archa-
ic temple of the Polias also deserves consider-
ation.
52
Its south wall partially rests on the archaic
temples peristyle north foundation, which it fol-
lows not in a parallel course but with a slight north
south slant, imposed by the orientation of an earli-
er shrine on the same site. The east wall of its cella,
excluding the pronaos, is aligned roughly with the
east peristyle of the archaic temple. This may be
coincidenceor it may indicate that the plan takes
Further, at column II, line 44 Chandler read O and, to
the left of it, I, while Wilkins gave O. Following
Wilkinss reading, Rose (1825, 2001) connected the numer-
al III to O on line 44, to arrive at the meaning: of
three others. Boeckh retained Chandlers reading, citing,
however, Mllers notes, regarding the O at line 44 of
column II, to the effect that an examination of the stone was
inconclusive. A third facsimile was produced by Koehler for I G
1.322, in 1873, confirming Wilkinss readings, although Kirch-
hoffs transliteration of the text follows Chandlers. Koehler
was denied permission to take a squeeze of the inscription (IG
1 p. VI) but he did check his readings against the stone. The
controversy died down after C.T. Newtons and E.L. Hickss
apparently definitive publication of the inscription, (Newton
and Hicks 1874, no. 35). They followed Chandlers version and
remarked that at the left of column I, line 42 faint traces of a
numeral, composed of more than one stroke, may still be seen
on the marble. It is quite possible that III was more distinctly
visible in the time of Chandler (p. 91). The last facsimile was
produced by Caskey 1927, pl. 47, on the basis of photographs
and visual inspection. He reproduced the faint traces, which
Hicks had seen, as an unqualified III to the left of column I,
line 42, although noting Wilkinss variant reading (p. 283) and
acknowledging the possibility of another letter at the end of
O on line 44 of column II by a dot.
51
This may or may not be the statue of Erechtheus by My-
ron in Athens, which Pausanias (9.30.1) mentions in passing
in his description of Boeotia as the sculptors best work. A
bronze group depicting the fight between Erechtheus and
Eumolpus stood on the terrace of the Polias (Paus. 1.27.4).
52
On the relationship of the Erechtheum to the archaic
temple, see Rhodes 1995, 346.
into account, in some way, the shape of the old tem-
ple, raising a screen against its battered north side.
The west wall of the Erechtheum is in alignment
with the back wall of the cella of the archaic temple,
that is, with the rear wall of the Opisthodomos. And,
as Dinsmoor noted, the Caryatid Porch is exactly
calculated to fit the awkward angle between the
south-west corner of the Erechtheum and the north-
east corner of the Opisthodomos.
53
The Porch of
the Maidens is perhaps the element most sugges-
tive of an explicit link of the dainty classical struc-
ture to the bulk of the poros temple. The eccentric
position of the Porch, now the forlorn appendage
at the end of a blank wall, has been explained in
relation to the heroon or tomb of Cecrops below.
54
But the Porch corresponds only partially to the al-
leged site of the Cecropium, from which the maid-
ens move forward in stately procession toward the
site of the destruction.
To be sure, if the north wall of the cella of the
archaic temple were standing, it would come very
close to the Porch, and block it from view. But what
was the shape of the ruin? No clear answer is pos-
sible, given the lack of records documenting the
clearing of the site, conducted by Ross and Pittakis,
and the findspot of most pieces of architecture and
sculpture.
55
To this add that debate continues con-
cerning major details of the architecture of the tem-
ple, which is in need of a new study that takes into
account the unpublished pieces of columns and
capitals that are visible on the Acropolis ground.
Drpfelds remains the fundamental reconstruc-
tion of the building into a Doric temple as with a
peristyle of six columns on the fronts and 12 on the
sides.
56
The bipartite cella had shallow porches at
either end, either distyle in antis or tetrastyle am-
phiprostyle.
57
The eastern chamber, in correspon-
dence to the monumental altar, was subdivided into
three aisles by two rows of columns, the western
one into three rooms. The structure was in poros
but marble was employed extensively in the entab-
lature, for the metopes, raking geisa, simas, water-
spouts, roof tiles, pedimental sculptures and, pre-
sumably, akroteria.
58
Two statuary groups that sur-
vive in fragments were assigned to the pediments:
a Gigantomachy
59
and an old-fashioned composi-
tion of two lions devouring a bull.
60
Schrader ar-
gued that in addition a continuous frieze of mar-
ble, fragments of which were found scattered
throughout the Acropolis, ran above the porches
and perhaps around the entire cella, in the same
position as the frieze of the Classical Parthenon.
61
How many incarnations of the temple of Athena
Polias succeeded one another on the very same spot
cannot be determined on the basis of the evidence
at hand.
62
The presence of two bases for wooden
columns in the foundations of the cella, however,
arguably points to the existence of at least one pre-
decessor, Late Geometric or Early Archaic in date.
63
The last temple of the Polias has been dated to the
last quarter of the sixth century, largely based on
the style of the sculptures conjecturally attributed
to its pediments.
64
What was left? It is unlikely that the assault either
leveled or evenly damaged the building; it is more
probable that the fire caused the roof to collapse
and affected certain parts of the structure more
than others.
65
Since the south wall of the Erech-
53
Dinsmoor 1932, 322.
54
Scholl 1995.
55
On excavations on the Acropolis 18331884, see Kavvadi-
as and Kawerau 1906, 118; Beschi 1982.
56
The description in Wiegand 1904, 11526, substantially
consists of quotations from Drpfeld 1886a, supplemented by
additions made by Drpfeld in 1902, including at fig. 117 an
original, unpublished plan, which rectifies the lacunose plan
that had appeared in Drpfeld 1886c. The reconstruction by
Riemann (1950), who arrived at a revised set of measurements
for the temple through an analysis of its system of proportions,
relies entirely on data provided by Drpfeld (Riemann 1950,
13). Childs (1994, 2, fig. 1b, 5 n. 21) publishes a new drawing
of one of the capitals by Tasos Tanoulas, which shows that the
old measurements are incorrect, and points to the need for a
new study of the evidence.
57
Drpfeld 1886a, 343. Drpfeld 1886c, pl. I, reconstructed
the cella with porches in antis, Drpfeld 1904, pl. VI, as am-
phiprostyle with four Ionic columns. The latter solution has
won broad acceptance; see Dinsmoor 1932, 316, fig. 1; Plom-
mer 1960, 130. Riemann 1950, 1617. Dinsmoor (1975, 90
1) entertained both possibilities. According to Korres (1996,
80), recent investigations show that the porches were proba-
bly prostyle, but not Ionic.
58
Schmidt (1920) identified in the figure of Nike Acropolis
Museum 694 one of the corner akroteria.
59
Studniczka 1886, 1989. Schrader 1939, 34577, although
outdated, is an indispensable source; new fragments were iden-
tified by Sthler (1972, 88101; 1978); see further Knell 1990,
3942; Moore 1995.
60
Schrader 1897, 103; 1939, 37786.
61
Schrader 1905; 1939, 38799.
62
The question of the existence of an early sixth-century
predecessor of the arkhaios naos, to which the so-called H-ar-
chitecture belongs, is not directly relevant here. For a synopsis
of the century-old debate and a fresh analysis of the evidence,
see Korres 1997.
63
Nylander 1962; Brouskari 1997, 205 fig. 142.
64
Sthler (1972, 10112) proposed a date near the end of
the century, through an analysis of the style of the pedimen-
tal sculptures. Childs (1994) extends Sthlers argument to the
architecture; contra, Croissant 1993. Dinsmoor (1947, 1167)
pointed to the use of the toothed chisel for dressing the foun-
dations as evidence that construction took place after 540
530; Plommer (1960, 1312) disputed this criterion.
65
Paton (1927, 4478) observed that walls and columns
would be harmed but would not be brought down by the fire.
According to Herodotus (9.13) the Persians tore down what
theum, with its Porch, impinges upon its founda-
tion, we know that, at the very least, the northeast-
ern section of the peristyle was gone. Indeed, blocks
of Kara limestone embedded in the foundations
for the west terrace ramp of the Parthenon may
come from its foundations, but this need not mean
that the entire peristyle was removed. As Paton ob-
served, The total length of the limestone founda-
tions is but little less than the length of the stylo-
bate removed to make room for the Erechtheum.
Second, there is no indication of the use elsewhere
of blocks from the stylobate, as, for example, in the
walls of the Acropolis or in the foundations of the
Propylaea. Hence it seems probable that the stylo-
bate remained undisturbed, except for the remov-
al of the blocks in question, at least during the fifth
century.
66
A minimal estimate of how much of the temple
was taken down consists of an inventory of materials
from the temple that come from contexts securely
datable to the fifth or the fourth centuries. In addi-
tion to the Kara limestone blocks from the founda-
tions of the peristyle just mentioned, these are: (1)
two sections of entablature built into the north wall,
amounting to lengths of three epistyles from the
flanks and four from the fronts, respectively, togeth-
er with two capitals and an undetermined number
of column drums;
67
(2) fragments of architecture
and column drums deposited in the construction
fill of the same stretch of the north wall, west of the
Erechtheum.
68
The specific date of this spectacu-
lar deposit and, with it, that of the wall, are open to
question. Published reports make no mention of
Classical materials. The only firm chronological
datum consists of coins recovered in the upper fill,
scattered but concentrated in the same area.
69
The
latest coin, a wreathed owl of the 470s or 460s, pro-
vides a terminus post quem for the deposit.
70
How
far the reuse of architecture from the arkhaios naos
extended over that part of the north wall that
stretches from the gate of the northern ascent to
the north entrance to the Erechtheum is a matter
of conjecture, since the wall has suffered much
damage and repairs.
71
To cover the whole length
and the return over the gate to the northern ascent
would require roughly the equivalent of one long
side and part of one front.
72
It may well be that, as
Drpfeld believed,
73
only the amphiprostyle cella
was preserved, but the archaeological evidence al-
lows as well for the possibility that over half of the
peristyle remained in place. The pronaos sur-
vived, if we can trust a late reference to it (Lucian
Piscator 21).
Did the pediments and their sculptures survive?
Is it coincidence that no fragment attributed to the
pediments either was built into the north wall or
buried in its back fill? Pieces of the Gigantomachy
come from an arc stretching from the north wall,
east of the Erechtheum, to the south side of the
Parthenon, with a concentration in the area south-
east of the Parthenon.
74
None has a record of prove-
nience from a closed deposit. Hurwit and Linden-
lauf now have shown that the deposit that included
the head of the Athena, long thought to be an in-
stance of Perserschutt, also contained later materi-
als.
75
There is no record of provenience for the frag-
ments of the other pedimental group of lions at-
tacking a bull, except for the torso of the right lion,
which was found in 1836 in trenches dug between
the southeast corner of the Parthenon and the
Acropolis wall.
76
Assuming that these pedimental
sculptures indeed belonged to the arkhaios naos,
all that can be said is that none come from the elu-
sive Perserschutt or were buried in the course of
the Periclean reconstruction of the Acropolis. With
the frieze the situation is both analogous and clear-
er. Again, the fragments were strewn over a wide
area, from the area northwest of the Erechtheum
buildings were left standing in the second sack of the city by
Mardonius. One would expect, however, that if a second as-
sault on the Acropolis temples took place, Herodotus would
give it special emphasis, particularly in view of his account of
Xerxes attempt to atone for the impiety of the first sack (Hdt.
8.55).
66
Paton 1927, 445; see also Drpfeld 1887a, 312; 1911, 41;
Kavvadias and Kawerau 1906, 125/26, pl. 6.
67
Penrose 1851, 735, pl. 40, figs. 12; Penrose 1888, 98
102, pl. 46; Drpfeld 1886a, 341; Middleton 1900, pl. 5 no. VI,
pl. 6 no. VIII.
68
Kavvadias 1886; Kavvadias and Kawerau 1906, 23/24, 77/
7879/80; for a recent analysis of the deposit see Lindenlauf
1997, 704.
69
Kavvadias 1886, 78 n. 1.
70
Svoronos (1898, 375) excluded this coin from the closed
deposit as intrusive on the following grounds: absence of trac-
es of burning; its post-Persian date; the fact that the excava-
tors reported finding 35 coins, while the number of coins in
the Museum that were attributed to the deposit had risen to
37. The evidence of the coin has been questioned ever since;
see Thompson et al. 1973, 14 no. 2; Lindenlauf 1997, 71 n.
193. For the date of the wreathed owls, see Kroll 1993, 5.
71
Kavvadias and Kawerau 1906, 71/72.
72
Korres (1994, fig. at p. 43) reconstructs the display of the
entablature along the full stretch of wall; see also Penrose 1851,
frontispiece and, for a discussion, Korres 1996, 812.
73
Drpfeld 1887a, 25, 312; 1904, 102, pl. VI; 1919, 12.
Drpfeld (1890, 425) considered as well the possibility that
the peristyle was rebuilt and only taken down with the con-
struction of the Erechtheum.
74
Proveniences in Schrader 1939, 3456.
75
Brunn 1864, 835; Hurwit 1989, 4752, 63 n. 74; Linden-
lauf 1997, 958.
76
Schrader 1939, 377; Ross 1855, 11112.
and the east wall,
77
to the south wall,
78
and in the
foundations of Turkish houses south of the Par-
thenon.
79
Benndorf recorded that one piece had
been built in a wall below the Propylaea.
80
On the
back of the largest fragment runs an inscription
dated to Late Antiquity that provides a terminus
ante quem for the removal of the frieze from the
temple and its reuse.
81
The distribution of the sur-
viving pieces of the frieze, and the fact that none
were found in deposits that contained pedimental
sculptures led Schrader to argue, in agreement with
Drpfeld, that the cella survived into the late em-
pire, with its frieze in place.
82
As it stands, the archaeological record is utterly
inconclusive and offers little that either confirms or
disproves the hypothesis I have built on the basis of
epigraphical and literary sources that the old poros
temple was the temple of Athena Polias that Pausa-
nias saw. The detachment of the opisthodomos from
the naos implies that the central section of the ar-
chaic temple was substantially destroyed. The gap
would open to view the Porch of the Maidens, from
the processional way that leads to the east of the
Acropolis, bounded by terracing on either side, at
the point at which the slope of the path approached
the level of the terrace of the temple of the Polias.
From that perspective the Porch would appear dra-
matically framed by the disiecta membra of the archa-
ic templethe opisthodomos to the west and the
neos of Athena Polias to the east. Even with its west-
ern half gone, what remained of the cella would be
larger than the eastern room of the Erechtheum.
These are the conjectural premises upon which a
model of the Acropolis that plots the archaic tem-
ple at its center was created, in an attempt to un-
derstand its relationship to both the Parthenon and
the Erechtheum, and to gain a sense of its visual
impact on the site (figs. 46).
83
From a reexamination of critical pieces of evi-
dence, one may move to attempt to reconstruct the
process leading to the construction of the Periclean
Acropolis. In the years that followed the Persian
invasion, the south wall of the Acropolis was rebuilt
to an unknown extent.
84
A board of overseers of
works on the Acropolis was established, which su-
pervised the repair of the temple of Athena Polias
and shrines attached to it, and perhaps building
operations throughout the sanctuary. Wholesale re-
building of the predecessors of the Parthenon and
the Propylaea followed the transfer in 454 of the
treasury of the Delian League to Athens.
85
Plutarch
describes the next step: construction on a grandi-
ose scale, raising charges of megalomania and mis-
use of funds among the allies. His account leaves
no doubt about two points: Pericles direct involve-
ment in the project,
86
and the appointment of a
coordinating authority in charge of all works, name-
ly, Phidias. We have every reason, therefore, to ex-
pect that a comprehensive plan for the renewal of
the Acropolis was drawn up at that time. The Con-
gress Decree indicates that the matter of the de-
stroyed temples was deemed important and that
77
Acropolis 1342, in two fragments from different locations;
Schrader 1939, 388.
78
Brunn 1859, 197: allegedly discovered near the south
Acropolis wall.
79
Ross 1855, 923.
80
Benndorf 1870, 1563.
81
Benndorf 1870, 1564; Schrader 1905, 313.
82
Schrader 1905, 31320; 1939, 3956.
83
The virtual reality model of the Acropolis that is the source
of figures 46 was created by Learning Sites, Inc., under the
direction of Donald H. Sanders, Ph.D., President. The model
was obtained by collating the several different available plans
of the site, published drawings and measurements of the mon-
uments, and photographs and notes of the excavations around
the Old Athena Temple. Since no two plans of the major mon-
uments agree as regards the horizontal relationship among the
buildings and their exact size, the result must be regarded as
approximate and conjectural in a broad sense, but not in the
overall relationship of the main buildings or their architectur-
al details, nor in the positioning of the Erechtheum to the
Old Athena Temple, which is precisely based on the excavat-
ed archaeological remains. Principal sources used for the mor-
phology of the Acropolis: Kavvadias and Kawerau 1906; for the
Old Temple of Athena: Drpfeld 1886b; Wiegand 1904, fig.
117; Penrose 1851, pl. 40, figs. 12; for the terrace of the tem-
ple: Stevens 1940; for the Parthenon: Korres 1994; for the Ere-
chtheum: Paton 1927; for the Propylaea: Tanoulas 1994. The
pose of the statue of the Promachos is based on the figure that
appears on bronze imperial coins with the representation of
the Acropolis; see Lacroix 1949, 2814.
84
Shear 1966, 60.
85
The notion that there exists a cause-and-effect connec-
tion of the peace with Persia and the Congress Decree, on the
one hand, and the beginning of construction of the Parthenon
was set out by Busolt (1897, 446) and further developed by
Bates (1901) and Wade-Gery (1945, 2223). The hypothesis
is predicated on an act for which there is no evidence, namely,
the revocation of the Oath of Plataea, which the peace would
have made possible and for which the Congress Decree fur-
nished the occasion. As Walsh (1981) has argued, like the Peace
of Callias, the Congress Decree should be dated to the 460s
B.C.E., and neither is directly related to the Acropolis recon-
struction. Plutarchs account of the decree (Pericles 17) has the
purpose of demonstrating Pericles megalophrosune and is ut-
terly unrelated to the section that concerns the reconstruc-
tion of the Acropolis (1214). Moreover, as Walsh notes (pp.
534), Plutarch states clearly that nothing whatsoever came
of Pericles initiative (Pericles 17.22-23: :6_ ou, ou
o i ).The authenticity of the events described
by Pausanias has been questioned; see Podlecki 1998, 70.
86
Plut. Pericles 13.4. Other sources state that Pericles him-
self supervised the works: Philoch. FGrH 328 F 121; Strabo
9.1.12. On the difficult question of reconciling Pericles role
with that of the boards of epistatai, see Shear 1966, 246.
Pericles had given it consideration. Under the cir-
cumstances, it is unlikely in the extreme that the
fate of the ruin was left to chance and makeshift
arrangements. The archaic temple itself, that un-
biased contemporary witness, should now be al-
lowed to give its testimony about the Periclean plan:
the temple of the Polias would not be rebuilt. For,
even if the argument that it continued to stand is
rejected, there remains the fact that its site was left
untouched.
Once the import of that decision is acknowl-
edged, the temple can be seen to be the center-
piece of an extensive choreography of ruins, of
which other parts have been recognized for some
time. Column drums and part of the architrave of
the archaic predecessor of the Parthenon were built
into the south wall of the Acropolis.
87
Pieces of the
entablature of the archaic temple of Athena Polias
were built high up into the north wall of the Acrop-
olis, not randomly but in correspondence with the
location of the temple.
88
In the same position and
further to the east, column drums from the unfin-
ished predecessor of the Parthenon, also burned
by the Persians, remain an impressive sight to this
day.
89
The display of ruins on the north wall would
be visible for a long way from the processional route
at the Panathenaea, coming into progressively
sharper focus before the procession turned west-
ward to the entrance ramp of the Propylaea.
90
Upon
entering the Acropolis the visitor confronted the
colossal bronze Promachos, built with the spoils of
Marathon (Paus. 1.28.2), which stood in front of
the terrace of the ancient temple (fig. 5). The tem-
ple of Athena Polias contained the most legendary
(and possibly inauthentic) Persian spoils: the cui-
rass of Masistius, Mardoniuss sword (Paus. 1.27.1
2). And on its terrace stood ancient statues of Ath-
ena, intact but blackened and too fragile to survive
87
Korres 1997, 219.
88
Penrose 1851, pl. 40, figs. 12; Kavvadias and Kawerau
1906, 71/72; Hurwit 1999, 142, 159.
89
Tschira 1940.
90
Drpfeld 1886b, 166; Rhodes (1995, 323) writes, The
rebuilt north wall of the Athenian Acropolis . . . represents a
specific monument consciously constructed from the ruins of
the Persian sack to commemorate that specific event, to warn
of the Persian threat, to kindle the anger of the Athenians
against them, and, probably, to symbolize the Athenians self-
less sacrifice of their city to the general defense of the Greek
mainland. See also Shear 1966, 367; Hurwit 1999, 142. On
the relevance of the subject of the north metopes of the Par-
thenon to the theme of sacrilege and wrongful conquest, see
Ferrari 2000.
Fig. 4. Model of the Acropolis, aerial view from the northwest. (Courtesy of Learning Sites, Inc.)
a blow, which had felt the Persian fire, still there
for Pausanias (1.27.6) to see over 600 years after
the event.
The decision to rebuild the Acropolis shrines,
except for the ancient temple, fits a pattern of se-
lective compliance, which suggests that the clause
concerning the burned temples in the Oath of Pla-
taea may have been produced by the decision to
make them into war memorials, rather than the oth-
er way around. We learn from Plutarch, who makes
no mention of the oath, that in the years immedi-
ately following the Persian invasion at least two tem-
ples were rebuilt.
91
Moreover, the Telesterion at
Eleusis was rebuilt, and there is evidence of an ear-
lier reconstruction of the temple, although it is un-
certain if it is pre- or post-Persian in date.
92
As had
been done in Athens, at Eleusis parts of the an-
cient temple were re-employed in highly visible
positions, built into the peribolos wall of the sanc-
tuary and into a new bridge over which the proces-
sion of initiates crossed the Rheitoi.
93
In the Agora,
the Metroon and the temple of Apollos Patroos
would not be rebuilt until much later,
94
and else-
where many other temples were not built anew, but
continued to function down to the time of Pausani-
as, still displaying the scars of the destruction. Pau-
sanias mentions the temples at Haliartus, the orac-
ular shrine at Abae in Phocis, the temple of Hera
on the road to Phalerum, and the temple of Deme-
ter at Phalerum.
95
Among the Ionian sanctuaries
that had been sacked, he singles out the temples of
Hera on Samos and that of Athena in Phocaea, a
wonder to behold, damaged by the fire as they were
(7.5.4).
91
These are the temple of Athena Area at Plataea, Aristides
20.3, and the Telesterion of the Lycomedae at Phyla, Themis-
tocles 1.3.
92
Shear 1982, 12840.
93
IG 1
3
.79; Shear 1966, 12931.
94
Thompson and Wycherley 1972, 201.
95
Paus. 10.35.23. It is commonly assumed that these tem-
ples lay abandoned and in ruins for centuries, but nothing in
Pausaniass description suggests that this was the case. In the
course of the Sacred War, in 347, the Phocians sought refuge
in the temple of Apollo at Abae, presumably as suppliants. This
indicates not only that the structure was in good enough re-
pair to give them shelter but also that it retained its cult func-
tions. That the Thebans consulted the oracle at Abae before
Leuctra (Paus. 4.32.5) points to the same conclusion. Even after
it was set on fire a second time by the Thebans, the temple
Fig. 5. Model of the Acropolis, view from the Propylaea. (Courtesy of Learning Sites, Inc.)
The modern perception that the Athenians
would not allow the stout and damaged poros struc-
ture to disfigure the Acropolis all through the rest
of the classical ages will not die easily.
96
Under-
standing how the ruin functioned, and how it
might have been perceived in antiquity, depends
upon understanding the nature of monuments
such as these, or the genre to which the restored
temple bearing the marks of the injuries inflicted
by the Persian belongs. If, as I have argued, it con-
tinued to function into late antiquity, the building
was not allowed merely to survive, but was reconsti-
tuted as a monument. In that respect, it must be
considered as much an artifact of its time as the
Parthenon, although radically different in appear-
ance and with a different charge. What it lacked in
grandeur and modernity, the old building made
up by its ability to perform a most important task: to
keep memory alive. The modern viewer has no trou-
ble comprehending the monumentality of the sur-
viving Periclean buildings in terms of size, wealth
of materials, and quality of the workmanship. There
are other forms of monumentality, however, which
rely not upon iconic properties but on the ability to
engage the viewer in reflection about the events
that brought them into existence.
97
In semiotic
terms, these are indices rather than icons or sym-
bols.
98
For their indexical valence, buildings, bat-
tlefields, burial places, administrative records, bells,
rocks, and trees may be endowed with what Riegl
called intentional commemorative value, so long
as they bear the mark of an action that is judged
significant.

Such monuments are set up and main-
tained by an authority, with the aim to preserve a
remained standing, although the most frail of the buildings
burned by the flames (Paus. 10.35.3). Pausanias mentions the
temple of Demeter at Phalerum a second time in book 1.1.4,
with no reference to its destruction; the temple of Hera on
the road to Phalerum, which he describes as having neither
doors nor roof (1.1.15), still housed the statue of the goddess
by Alcamenes.
96
Frazer 18921893, 187.
97
Wu Hung (1995, 14) offers a useful distinction between
the conventional understanding of monument and monu-
mentality as the ability to memorialize and commemorate,
which even modest objects or natural features may come to
possess.
98
I refer to C.S. Peirces classification of the properties of
the sign into icon, index, and symbol, Elements of Logic 2479;
reprinted in Hartshorne and Weiss 1978, pt. II.
Fig. 6. Model of the Acropolis, view from the southeast. (Courtesy of Learning Sites, Inc.)
moment in the consciousness of later generations,
and therefore to remain alive and present in per-
petuity.
99
Their signifying power depends upon
the viewers ability to recognize which event is com-
memorated and, most importantly, to share a sense
of its value and to register its emotional impact.
Monuments with intentional commemorative val-
ue, that is, are grounded in a nations collective
memory.
100
Remains of buildings and natural fea-
tures are a particular subset of this category, and
one that is especially prone to disappearance.
101
With the demise of the community that ensured
their commemorative value, such traces become
ineffectual. In some cases, their size or other fea-
tures may elicit a strong response from a new race
of viewers, but that response will draw upon that
newcomers own experience and desires.
Loss of meaning through historical or cultural
distance accounts, perhaps, for the fact that paral-
lels for the monumentalization of the arkhaios naos
are found most readily in the past that we remember.
To draw a handful of examples from a wide range,
one may cite the Yuanming Yuan Garden near
Beijing, destroyed in 1860 by the British and French
armies, and later rebuilt incorporating part of the
ruin as a memorial;
102
the Alamo in San Antonio,
established as a shrine to the heroes of the battle for
Texas fought in 1836;
103
and the transformation of
the Nazi concentration camps into museums.
104
The
parallel most visually suggestive may be the Kaiser
Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin (fig. 7), which
offers a stark contrast between destruction and re-
newal.
105
The neoromanesque structure had been
severely damaged in the bombing of the city at the
end of World War II, and its bell tower reduced to a
burnt stump. A plan for the reconstruction of the
church that involved the removal of the ruin, ap-
proved in 1957, met with vehement protest on the
part of the Berliners.
106
Egon Eiermann designed a
new plan, in which the old church, blackened by
fire, would be surrounded with new, uncompromis-
ingly modern buildings. He phrased his understand-
ing of the necessity of the ruin thus: I want (subse-
quent generations) to understand those who expe-
rienced horrors, those for whom the ruin bears wit-
ness to the suffering they had to undergo. His com-
ments on the juxtaposition of old and new forms are
equally illuminating: contrasting in spirit, contrast-
ing in material, contrasting in form, but in such a way
that the new buildings make the ruin central; they
support it, and do not leave it hopelessly isolated.
107
In analogous fashion, I suggest, the scarred temple
of Athena functioned on the Acropolis as the focal
point of the Periclean building program.
For all their transience, the tangible remains of a
landmark event have a distinct advantage over mon-
uments that operate iconically or metaphorically
in addressing the collective consciousness of the
community. The affective power of the index has to
do with the matter of truth.
108
Unlike a descriptive
account, its tangible remains demonstrate that the
event indeed took place and, in turn, make a wit-
ness of each viewer. In kind, the arkhaios naos was a
marturion, like the salt sea and the marks of Posei-
dons trident and the olive tree, which were visible
proofs of the adjudication of the city to Athena. The
destruction embodied by the temple attested to the
truth of the sacrilegious violence of the Persians,
99
Riegl 1982, 2151, quotation from p. 38. In this land-
mark essay concerned with issues of historic preservation, Riegl
gives an analysis of different kinds of monuments according
to their capacity to function as memorials. He distinguishes
intentional commemorative monuments from ruins in gen-
eral and other objects that have age value. These need not
require special knowledge on the part of the viewer and their
appreciation is not restricted to a particular community of view-
ers (pp. 314). A third category comprises monuments with
historical value, which arises from the particular, individual
stage it represents in the development of human activity in
a certain field, e.g., the Parthenon (p. 34).
100
I speak of memory in the sense established by Maurice
Halbwachs, i.e., as the common patrimony of a society that only
remains alive so long as that social group survives (Halbwachs
1950). Further reflection on the relationship between mem-
ory and intentional memorials is prompted by Wu Hungs es-
say, presented at the symposium Ruins in Chinese Visual Cul-
ture, 17 May 1997, the University of Chicago (Wu Hung forth-
coming), which confronts the apparently monolithic category
of ruin.
101
Forster 1982, 6: The deliberate memorialRiegl called
intentional monumentis exposed to a kind of historical
double jeopardy: memory is all that sustains its meaning but its
physical form will have to survive the vagaries of changing
perceptions and values.
102
Barm 1996.
103
On the constitution of the old mission building into a
monument of Texas identity and the Hispanic reception of its
message, see Brear 1995, 24: the old mission itself became
part of the birthing process as it is reborn as a Texas shrine
from its former fallen self.
104
On the genesis of Holocaust memorials in post-war Ger-
many, see Koonz 1994, 25880.
105
Feireiss 1994.
106
Haupt 1994, 1920.
107
Cited from Pehnt 1994, 910.
108
The particular relation of the index to the fact of which
it is the trace is thus expressed by C.S. Peirce, Principles of Phi-
losophy, paragraph 558, in Hartshorne and Weiss 1978, pt. I:
Those whose relation to their objects consists in a correspon-
dence in fact, and these may be termed indices or signs. On
the compelling quality of the index, see Elements of Logic in
Hartshorne and Weiss 1978, paragraph 306.
the heroic resistance of the Athenians, and the sol-
emn oath taken on the eve of the battle of Plataea.
The importance of preserving the burned temple
should be measured by the role these events played
in establishing the magnitude of Athenss griev-
ance against Persia and her right to the leadership
of the Hellenes. The speech of Lycurgus that in-
cludes a recitation of the Oath of Plataea, and Theo-
pompuss complaint that it was all a liethe Oath,
Marathon, peace with the Medeleave one in no
doubt about the use that was made of these events
in Athenian self-aggrandizing rhetoric. A source
closer to the event, Aeschylus, significantly links
the sacrilegious destruction not only to the defeat
of Xerxes army but also to the necessity of memory.
The Persians, performed in 472, when Pericles was
khoregos (IG 2
2
.2318), put on stage for the citizens of
a devastated Athens the despair of the Persian
court. The ghost of Darius thus evokes the sacri-
lege (Persians 807812):
Ou o u : ,
u| do d o6,
o o 6 ou o |
oo ou 6 o
|o o i
:[ |6.
Fig. 7. Berlin. The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedchtnis-Kirche. (Courtesy of Bildarchiv Foto
Marburg)
There the highest of calamities is in store for them to
experience,
The price of hybris and godless designs,
They who, come to the land of Hellas, did not refrain
From despoiling the icons of the gods nor burning
temples.
Vanished are the altars, and the dwellings of the dai-
mones,
Uprooted from their bases, were turned over in de-
filement.
An appeal for remembrance then follows, after
the prediction of bloody defeat of Persia at Plataea
(823824):
109
o oo o d
o 6o .
As you behold such deeds and their rewards
remember Athens and Hellas.
An image, which is a standard feature of the an-
cient representation of the sack of the Acropolis,
the prodigy of the olive tree, may provide some
insight into the way in which the contrast between
the archaic Doric, poros temple and the new mar-
ble buildings might have been perceived. Hero-
dotus (8.5355) dwells on the fate of the helpless
last defenders of the sanctuary, a few of whom threw
themselves off the Acropolis wall, while the others
sought refuge in the cella of the temple and were
killed there. After murdering the suppliants, the
Persians plundered the sanctuary of the goddess
and set it on fire. The next day Xerxes, warned of
the gravity of the offense by a dream vision or by
his own conscience, sought atonement by dis-
patching the Athenian exiles in his following to
the Acropolis, to perform sacrifices. Upon their
return these men reported the following portent:
the olive tree in the precinct of Erechtheus, which
had burned with the rest of the sanctuary, had
grown a new shoot (|o : _o) a cubit
long. Pausanias (1.27.2) gives an enhanced ver-
sion of the same story, in which the tree grew a
new shoot two cubits high on the very same day it
burned. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom.
14.45) helpfully explains that by this sign the
gods wished to make it manifest to all that the city
would quickly recover and put out new shoots to
replace the old. Significantly, he compares the
prodigy to an ominous event in Rome: after a fire
destroyed a hut on the Palatine sacred to Mars,
the curved staff of Romulus, which was the symbol
of the foundation of the city, was recovered intact
from the ashes.
The parable of the olive relies on the common-
place metaphor of the polis as a tree that grows,
flourishes, and may be cut down. Herodotus (6.37)
offers another instance in which the destiny of a
city is cast in terms of the ability (or inability) of a
tree to produce new growth. When the people of
Lampsacus captured Miltiades, for instance, Croe-
sus threatened to destroy their city like a pine tree,
unless they released him. The Lampsacenes were
puzzled by the expression, until one of their elders
realized that the pine is the only tree that, once
cut down, never puts out shoot anymore but perish-
es utterly. As in the case of the olive tree burned
down by the Persians, the point is that the life of
the city resides in its ancient trunk, even down to
the stump. The figure is employed to great effect
in the first stasimon of Sophocles Oedipus at Colo-
nus (694701):
oo :o
ou :o
ou : 6 6
oo oo |o,
d_o uoo
:_ |
o 6 _o,
oo o :.
And there is one such as I know not by report on
Asian ground, or ever sprung forth on Pelops great
Dorian island, a growth unconquered, self-produc-
ing, terror of enemy spears, that flourishes mightily in
this land, gleaming, child-nurturing olive tree.
The reference to the portent of the olive with
|o (696) is indirect but unmistakable.
110
In
other ways, the imagery is as puzzling as it is sugges-
tive, because the epithets applied to the olive are
unsuited to a tree. The reader who takes them lit-
erally in reference to the tree is tempted to correct
d_o, unconquerable to d_oo,
not cultivated by human hands,
111
and to stretch
the meaning of uoo, self-producing, to
self-renewing.
112
The phrase :_ |
, terror of enemy spears, however, remains
opaque and impervious to such half-measures.
113
This passage is an instance of an enigmatic mode
that requires the reader to switch from a literal to a
109
Hall (1996, 1) points to the importance of memory as a
theme in the play.
110
Blakesley pointed out the connection, followed by Jebb
(1889, 119). On the olive tree of Athena as a political myth,
see Detienne 1973, 295: un arbre immortel, larbre fatal au-
quel sont lis et le destin dAthnes et la vie des Athniens.
111
Pollux 2.154.
112
Jebb 1889, 119; Kamerbeek 1984, 108.
113
Citing Philochorus and Androtion, the scholium at line
698 explained the expression in reference to the fact that the
sacred olive tree had been spared by the Spartans, when they
invaded Attica at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war.
metaphoric understanding of the text, and back
again.
114
_o and :_ | are
only metaphorically appropriate to the olive, but
may be said in a literal sense of the polis. And, in
reference to the city, growth, , and
plant, o, are figures of speech. The mildly
riddling quality of the passage depends on the
fact that the chorus ostensibly refers to the olive
tree but means the men who are the city itself:
unconquerable, born of its soil, terror to its ene-
mies. The pivotal word is uoo, which evokes
the Athenian claim to autochthony and, at the
same time, the regeneration of the olive tree. Such
word play relies on the profound familiarity on
the part of the audience both with the metaphor
of the city as a tree and with the omen of the olive,
that is, with the idea that the city drew its vitality
from old roots.
115
The figure of new, vigorous growth out of an an-
cient core is, I submit, a more useful template to
guide our understanding of the aesthetics of the
juxtaposition of the old-style poros temple and the
new, Ionizing buildings in marble than the anach-
ronistic perception of the ruin as an eyesore. The
portent of the olive tree signified that Athens would
survive and grow again. And the rich Periclean con-
structions, arising all around the archaic temple
darkened by the Persian fire were then, and are
still, the most visible manifestation of the citys most
bountiful, brief season.
department of the classics
204 boylston hall
harvard university
cambridge, massachusetts 02138
pinney@fas.harvard.edu
o o oop hp
: o o o oo
10 o o o 6-
|||| o 6o o, 6_o
hoo.
_ o 6o,
| 6o o, 6_o o
1 hoo.
: o 6o-
, 6o o, 6_o
o hoo.
o o h6o,
20 ||| 6o 6o, 6_o
o hoo.
oo o do, do-
||| o :, o
6o, ho o
2 hoo.
o o :o
|| o 6o, (6o -
6o.
o do |: o
0 | oo o o (o o,
6o o ho|o, 6_o
o hoo.
: d |o o|-
o, 6o o |oo
, 6_o |o.
: do o |
The following parts of the temple we found unfinished:
At the corner towards the Cecropium:
Four wall-blocks not placed,
four feet long, two feet wide,
one foot and a half thick.
One maschaliaia,
four feet long, three feet wide,
Five blocks of the wall-capital
four feet long, three feet wide,
One angle block,
seven feet long, four feet wide,
One moulded block not placed,
ranging with the wall-capital,
ten feet long,
one foot and a half high.
Two (moulded blocks) ranging within the epistyle,
four feet long,
one foot and a quarter wide.
One capital not placed,
for the metopon in the interior,
[three feet long], one foot and a half wide,
Five epistyle blocks not placed,
eight feet long, two feet and a quarter wide,
two feet thick.
Three epistyle blocks in position,
Appendix: IG 1
3
.474.892
116
114
For an analysis of such riddling expressions in Aeschylus,
see Ferrari 1997, 2438, 413. On Sophocles use of this mode
in the Oedipus at Colonus, see Easterling 1999, who defines it
as an oscillation, or shading between literal and metaphorical
meaning (96).
115
In this light, one wonders if the practice of having hand-
some old men carry young sprigs of olive in procession at the
Panathenaea meant to convey the same metaphor of native
superiority and endless renewal. On the thallophoroi see Ar.
Wasps 542543; Xen. Symp. 4.17.
116
Text and translation as in Caskey 1927, 28690, with the
addition of boldface for lines 8 and 40.
:6 o oo-
||| , 6o o oo -
, 6_o o.
40 o oo co hoo
: o d_ ho o
||| o o ho d o , :
: o :o , oo.
o o o : o o_o
4 o o o oo,
|||| o o
d : o :o -
o :6o o oo
h
0 :o ooo
: o o_o o o o
6o : o o
:.
6 6_
6|o
o o_o o o o
o 6_o
o : o6
o o oo.
60 o oo6 -
_o : o _o : |o
o : o6
o o oo.
d 6
6 |o d do
o o |o h6
o : o o_o :
o h6 6_o.
o o_o o :o 6_
70 o (o)o o o |||.
o : o oo|o
o ||.
6o
o ||.
7 o o o 6||o
o ||.
: o6 o
o o
o |oo o ||_o
S0 do.
:oo o
h6 o
: o6 o o |
oo
S o o o ooo o
: o oo :6-
||| do o o
oo , 6o ||
oo .
90 d 6_ d : o :-
o :_6
.
eight feet long, two feet and a quarter wide,
two feet thick, lacked the dressing
of their top surface.
All the rest of the work round about begins
with the Eleusinian stone against which the
figures (are to be fastened), and three blocks of it
have been placed under the present commissioners.
Of the columns on the wall
towards the Pandroseum,
of four columns in position,
one foot and a half
of the anthemion of each column
were uncut on the inner face.
One epistyle block, eight feet long,
on the south wall,
needed to have the cymatium
on its inner face added.
The following parts were unsmoothed
and unchannelled:
The south wall
unsmoothed,
except in the Porch
adjoining the Cecropium.
The orthostates unsmoothed
on the exterior round about,
except in the Porch
adjoining the Cecropium.
The upper part of all the bases
unchannelled.
The columns all unchannelled,
except those on the wall.
All the substructure round about unsmoothed.
On the wall within there were unsmoothed
eight tetrapodies of moulded stone.
On that in the Prostomiaion
twelve tetrapodies.
On the Parastas
[seven?] tetrapodies.
On that towards the image
[six?] tetrapodies.
In the Porch
before the Doorway
the altar of the Thyechos
not placed.
The rafters and cross-pieces
of the roof not placed.
On the Porch adjoining the Cecropium
the upper surfaces
of three of the ceiling blocks
over the maidens,
thirteen feet long,
five feet wide,
needed to be dressed.
The rosettes
on the epistyle
needed to be carved.
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37
Mollusks from the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta,
Rome: The Swedish Garden
Archaeological Project, 19961999
EZEQUIEL M. PINTO-GUILLAUME
Abstract
The Swedish excavations (19961999) of the garden
areas at the Villa of Livia, Prima Porta, Rome produced
1,905 terrestrial and 38 marine shells. The mollusk spe-
cies and their distribution throughout the garden areas
suggest certain gardening activities being practiced at
the villa. The presence of three of the land snail species
and all of the marine shells is economically important.
The mollusk samples are compared with documented shell
collections from other contemporary Roman sites, and
the ecological niches of the mollusk species in six dis-
cernible areas are described. These invertebrates sug-
gest certain aspects about the villas inhabitants, includ-
ing the use of mollusks as food, in garden related activi-
ties, for personal adornment, in building materials, or
their possible use in architectural ornamentation. Finally,
an attempt to reconstruct the ancient landscape of the
imperial villa and its surroundings has been made.
*
Some 12 km north of Rome at the locality of Pri-
ma Porta, on top of a hill overlooking the Tiber
valley, where the via Tiberina emerges from the via
Flaminia, lies the villa belonging to Livia, the con-
sort of Augustus.
1
The imperial villa is mentioned
by Pliny, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio as ad Gallinas
albas.
2
The hilltop seems to have been inhabited
since pre-Roman times. The archaeological exca-
vations of the garden areas of the imperial Roman
villa yielded a considerable number of mollusks.
Twenty-one mollusk species are present, of which
12 are terrestrial, one freshwater, and eight marine.
3
The study of this material is essential, since the
excavated site in question consists of gardens.
4
The point of departure for this study is a simple
idea, although often forgotten in the study of villas
in the Roman world: the mollusks. It is well known
and frequently verified that the classical archaeolo-
gist often ignores the implications of mollusks. Many
excavators collect the mollusks found but do not
analyze them. Through this study I stress the im-
portance of mollusk studies to archaeology and
garden studies in particular. That is to say, with an
approach focused on advancing the knowledge of
an essential problem: Roman culture. Reflections
made on the valuable information provided by these
invertebrates can possibly find new approaches for
the reconstruction of green spaces of the Roman
villas and their related surrounding environment.
Certainly, in relation to garden studies, the pres-
ence of land snails is crucial. It is these small ani-
mals that inform us about an areas degree of hu-
midity, the physical and chemical conditions of the
soil, the type of vegetation present, as well as the
degree of human presence. In the same manner
that the birds and plants depicted in the naturalis-
tic frescoes of the Villa of Livia allow us to imagine
the idyllic scene of the Roman villas gardens, the
land snails habitat provides vivid information about
the hortus, which was so pleasant to the imperial
family.
The Swedish Garden Archaeological Project is a
very important study of a Roman garden excavation
outside of the Mt. Vesuvius area, where many Ro-
man gardens have already been thoroughly stud-
ied. The excavations of the Villa of Livia gardens
took place between 1996 and 1999 and investigat-
ed two main areas: a peristyle located inside the
villa complex itself (henceforth, the small garden)
and a large terraced open space (ca. 0.5 ha) adja-
cent to the northeastern limit of the villa (hence-
forth, the garden terrace). The latter already had
*
I am indebted to Dott. Gaetano Messineo, Soprintenden-
za Archeologica di Roma. My deepest gratitude is addressed in
particular to Dr. David S. Reese, The Field Museum, Chicago,
whose help and comments I could not have managed without.
I am also grateful to Dr. Anders Warn, Department of Inver-
tebrate Zoology, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stock-
holm; Dr. Ana I. Porras, Universidad de Sevilla, Departamento
de Geografa Fsica, and malacologist Raimondo Villa, Sabazia
Anguilara. All drawings and photographs are by the author unless
otherwise noted.
1
Calci and Messineo 1984, 713; see also Messineo 1991,
21951; 19921993, 1121.
2
Pliny HN 15.136; Suet. Galb. 1; Cass. Dio 48.12.52.
3
The mollusks found in the first three years of the excava-
tions (19961998) have been treated in a preliminary report.
See Pinto-Guillaume 1998, 1620 and figs. 16.
4
Pinto-Guillaume 1998, 16.
EZEQUIEL M. PINTO-GUILLAUME 38 [AJA 106
been interpreted as such by Khler in 1959.
5
With-
in the garden terrace five particular areas have been
investigated (table 1 and fig. 1).
method
During four excavation seasons all mollusk shell
specimens were collected by hand in the field with-
in each excavated stratigraphical context. Having
observed that the channels in regio III presented a
high number of small land snail shells (8 mm or
less in diameter), both dry-sieving with a 5 mm sieve
and water-sieving and flotation were used to sam-
ple a 1 m section of the rear channel filling.
6
In the
laboratory the mollusk assemblages from each strati-
graphical context were visually examined and the
mollusks were identified.
The decisive point was to distinguish among the
mollusks recovered those that could convincingly
be demonstrated as being ancient rather than post-
ancient. All the snails considered to be ancient in
this paper were recovered from archeological con-
texts that have been interpreted as belonging to
particular periods of use of the Roman villa. The
majority of the ancient mollusks were found in
sealed deposits, within contexts identified as the
ancient garden soil, with the exceptions of those in
the channels and the refuse heap in the northeast
corner of the garden terrace (fig. 2). In these two
areas the mollusks were found mixed with pottery,
bones, and building debris. However, these two
particular areas otherwise have been interpreted
as ancient sealed deposits, where the mollusks cor-
respond with datable artifacts.
7
Nevertheless, some land snail species can bur-
row and are often present in the ancient contexts
as invasive deposits of modern mollusks. The two
species in this category for the material discussed
here are the Caeciliodes acicula and the Pomatias ele-
gans. Since the C. acicula burrows itself deep into
the ground and into the ancient deposits, I have
chosen to consider its presence as post-ancient.
Regarding the P. elegans, I have only taken into con-
sideration those specimens of this species that can
be convincingly demonstrated to be ancient by the
excavated archaeological contexts, sealed depos-
its, which in most cases are too deep to reach by any
post-ancient P. elegans.
8
the species encountered
The identified land snails found in the small
garden and the garden terrace of the Villa of Livia
belong to the families Pomatiasidae, Enidae, Fer-
ussaciidae, Subulinidae, Zonitidae, Helicoidea,
Helicidae, and Helicinae. The only freshwater bi-
valve belongs to the Unionidae family. The marine
shells include two gastropods of the families Muri-
cidae and Buccinidae and six bivalves of the
Spondylidae, Glycymerididae, Ostreidae, Cardi-
idae, Donacidae, and Veneridae families, all im-
ported from the Mediterranean Sea.
Terrestrial Gastropods (Land Snails)
The Elegant pomatias, Pomatias elegans (Mller
1774), family Pomatiasidae (fig. 3) is found in south-
ern and western Europe and all of Italy. The shell is
elongated, oval, and cone-shaped, with spirally
5
Khler 1959, 911; see also Calci and Messineo 1984, 36.
6
It is noteworthy that the results from the water-sieved sam-
ples did not differ from the rest of the assemblage collected by
hand within the same channel filling.
7
Liljenstolpe and Klynne 19971998, 12747; see also
Klynne and Liljenstolpe 2000, 22133.
8
I would like to clarify that even though I do describe some
of the relevant modern snails encountered, these post-ancient
mollusk deposits have not been taken into account in my re-
construction of ecological niches. When mentioned in the
summarizing tables on mollusk remains they are noted as mod-
ern intrusive deposits.
Table 1. Main Areas Excavated by the Swedish Garden Archaeological Project, 19961999
Excavated Area

Assumed Function Surface (m
2
) Location Cultural Sequence
Small garden*
Regio I*
Regio II
Regio III
Hanging garden*
Channels*
Garden portico*
Refuse heap*
Regio V
Regio VI
Peristyle
Garden
Garden
Garden
Ancient filling
Portico/garden
Waste area
Garden
Portico
54
25
90
85
34
78
37
60
31
SE area of the villa
Garden terrace: SW limit
Garden terrace: center
Garden terrace: NE corner
Garden terrace: NE to SE
Garden terrace: NE limit
Augustan, A.D. 40
Augustan, II c. A.D.
Augustan?
A.D. 5075
A.D. 5075
Livian, 30s B.C.
Augustan
Augustan?
Augustan
Note: All surface values are approximate.
* Areas taken into consideration for the reconstruction of the land snails ecological niches.
MOLLUSKS FROM THE VILLA OF LIVIA AT PRIMA PORTA 39 2002]
sculptured whorls. This species inhabits all types
of environments that have a highly calcareous soil.
In general, P. elegans favors shaded and moist habi-
tats, with broken ground and loose soil into which
it can burrow. Hence, it is largely a subterranean
species, which prefers a scrub habitat (low trees
and shrubs). When present in abundant numbers
it generally indicates some form of disturbance of
the soil surface.
9
It is noteworthy that most of the P.
elegans specimens found at the Villa of Livia have
the operculum preserved.
10
This species has also
been encountered at the Villa of Settefinestre in
Roman Etruria (table 2).
A species that rarely occurs at the site is the
Three-toothed ena, Chondrula tridens (Mller 1774),
family Enidae (figs. 45). This species has a large
distribution from central to southern Europe (Ita-
ly). The shell is oval, elongated, and has three dis-
tinctive teeth. It lives in dry habitats, such as on
slopes with fine rubble, but also under leaves and
bushes in rocky zones. The C. tridens is sometimes
subterranean and often is found in isolation rather
than in large groups.
The Tiny pin snail, Caeciliodes acicula (Mller
1774), family Ferussaciidae (fig. 4) is found through-
out the Mediterranean area and central Europe. The
C. acicula is a very small blind underground species.
The shell is small, slender, and almost transparent.
It has been recorded living at depths to 2 m and is
common in cultivated areas.
11
It is possible that the
specimens of this particular deep burrowing spe-
cies present in the gardens of the Villa of Livia are in
9
Evans 1972, 1334, 196, 201.
10
The operculum is a calcareous valve situated on the upper
body of certain species of snails, which serves to close the shell
when the animal is inside. In P. elegans the operculum is very
hard and frequently preserved, see Evans 1972, 47.
11
Evans 1972, 168.
Fig. 1. The Villa of Livia, Prima Porta, Rome. Overall plan showing the areas excavated by the Swedish Garden Archaeological
Project 19961999. (After M. Sabatini in Messineo 1991, 229, figs. 226227; courtesy of G. Messineo)
fact modern intrusive deposits. This species has also
been encountered at the Late Roman Schola Prae-
conum on the East Palatine hill in Rome and at Set-
tefinestre (table 2).
A very peculiar species is the Decollate snail, Rumi-
na decollata (Linn 1758), family Subulinidae (fig. 6).
Originating from North Africa, its distribution today
ranges over all of Europe and central Italy. This snail
is called decollate because it loses its brittle tip at
maturity. The shell is very high turreted and is usually
2235 mm long. R. decollata is present in a variety of
ecological niches: gardens, grasslands, and even dry
slopes. It is a syanthropic species and prefers nitri-
fied areas. The decollate snail is a predator that feeds
on young brown garden snails and slugs.
12
It is note-
worthy that although this species also eats decompos-
ing plant matter, it does not feed on live plants. R.
decollata is commonly used today as a biological con-
trol to fight back the common brown garden snail.
13
To establish with certainty whether or not the Romans
had acquired the knowledge to use the R. decollata
against the damaging H. aspersa is very difficult; how-
ever, animal species that were destructive for the Ro-
man household and garden are mentioned by the
ancient sources.
14
Pliny in particular points out that
slugs and snails are damaging species;
15
this informa-
tion is discussed in more detail below. Comparative
examples of R. decollata from gardens were found at
Pompeii (I.xiv.2) and Oplontis.
16
There are also sev-
eral specimens from the Republican period at Ficana
and from Settefinestre (table 2).
Snails of the Zonitidae family are often shade-
lovers. Within this family we find the genus Oxychi-
lus sp. (Fitzinger 1833) (figs. 4 and 7), which has a
high occurrence throughout the gardens of the vil-
la. Some species belonging to this genus are found
Fig. 2. Archaeological situation plan of regio III showing the four specialized areas excavated by the Swedish Garden Archaeological
Project 19961999
12
Dundee 1986, 323.
13
In 1998, two firms, Applied Bio Pest and Bugological Con-
trol Systems in California, U.S.A., were selling R. decollata for
this particular purpose.
14
E.g., Pliny mentions rabbits, moles, frogs locusts, mice,
snakes, scorpions, spiders, and centipedes as damaging species
(HN 7.104106).
15
Pliny HN 18.156 (as damaging to crops) and 19.177 (as
damaging to gardens).
16
Pompeii: Jashemski 1979, 254; see also Reese (forthcom-
ing c), 59. Oplontis: Reese (forthcoming c), 59.
in all of central Italy. The shell in most cases is thin,
transparent, and smooth. They usually inhabit shel-
tered, shaded places, feeding on algae and soil or-
ganisms. A few Oxychilus sp. have been found at the
Schola Praeconum (table 2). Another species
found that belongs to the same family is the Retinel-
la (= Aegopinella) pura (Alder, 1830) (fig. 8). In Italy
its distribution ranges from the Alps down to La-
tium. The shell is small, smooth, and low bulging
above. R. pura can live equally in different ecologi-
cal niches as can most of the zonitids; however, it
prefers damp, sheltered places where there is lime
(calcium carbonate) and a lack of disturbance.
17
The Hygromiidae family is represented by two
species. One of these is the Striped helicella, Cer-
nuella virgata (Da Costa 1778) (figs. 8 and 9). The
C. virgata has a Mediterranean distribution. The
shell is low or cone-shaped. This land snail prefers
to live in dry places and in dunes. It can also be
found in gardens, and in those instances could be
considered a pest. The second species is the Small
pointed snail Cochlicella barbara (Linn 1758) (fig.
7). Its distribution covers the entire Mediterranean
basin and all the European Atlantic coasts. It has a
grayish-brown, more or less high turreted, conical
shell with brown bands of varying width, usually less
than 10 mm long. The Small pointed snail is appar-
ently of Mediterranean origin, found occasionally
inland, present in gardens and abandoned humid
Fig. 3. Pomatias elegans found in the garden portico area
(regio III, context 30)
17
Evans 1972, 18990.
Table 2. Mollusks Present in Comparison with Other Roman Sites
Sources and (key): Prima Porta (PP). Villa of Livia (VL): Italian excavations 19981999; personal analysis, November 1999. Casa di
Livia, Palatine Hill (CL): Carettoni 1957, 74, 106; personal analysis, Antiquarium Palatinum, June 2000. Pompeii (PO): Jashemski
1979, 274; see also Reese (forthcoming c); personal observation made at Pompeii, Laboratorio biologico, October 2000. Herculane-
um (HE): Reese (forthcoming c), 267. Oplontis (OP): Jashemski 1993, 295; Reese (forthcoming c), 579. Settefinestre (SE):
Thomas 1985, 3023, 305, figs. 219220. Schola Praeconum (SP): Reese 1982, 915. Ficana (FI): Reese (forthcoming b), 6. San
Giovanni di Ruoti (Potenza) (SG): Reese (forthcoming a), 241, 243. Otranto (OT): Reese 1992c, 351. Villa dei Quintili, Monte-
porizio (VQ): De Grossi Mazzorin 1987, 234, table 1.
a
Present in modern intrusive deposits.
Type

PP VL

CL PO HE OP SE

SP FI SG OT

VQ
Terrestrial gastropods
Pomatias elegans
Chondrula tridens
Caeciliodes acicula
a
Rumina decollata
Oxychilus sp.
Retinella pura
Cernuella virgata
Cochlicella barbara
Campylaea planospira
Cepaea nemoralis
Helix aspersa
Helix aperta
Freshwater bivalves
Unio elongatus
Mediterranean marine gastropods
Murex brandaris
Pisania striata
Mediterranean marine bivalves
Glycymeris glycymeris
Spondylus gaederopus
Ostrea edulis
Cerastoderma edule
Donax trunculus
Venus verrucosa
Yes
Yes
1
50
51
6
Yes
2
3
6
17
2
Yes
Yes
42
2
18
1
1
14
46
6
Yes
96
5
47
11
5
4
12
Yes
Yes
Yes
115
11
119
95
580
41
32
2
747
192
76
13
1
17
1
5
6
5
1
2
1
2
2
3
3

areas. C. barbara is a minor pest for crops and pas-
tures. During the day it seeks shelter under ground-
cover plants. During the summer it remains inac-
tive under the shelter of ground debris or in crops.
A few specimens have been found at Schola Prae-
conum and at Settefinestre (table 2).
The flat-spired arianta, Campylaea (= Chilostoma)
planospira (Lamark 1822), family Ariantinae (fig. 10)
appears as the land snail species with highest oc-
currence at the site (table 3). In Italy, this species is
distributed from Veneto down to Latium and Cam-
pania. The shell is umbilicate, low spired, and
smooth. The habitats preferred by C. planospira are
slopes, rocky calcareous steps, rocks, walls, and un-
der leaf-litter. Although it can be found in gardens,
this species is not considered a pest. This land snail
was also present at Schola Praeconum and at Sette-
finestre (table 2).
The Helicinae family is represented by three
species. First, the Banded grove snail Cepaea nemora-
lis (Linn 1758) (fig. 11) occurs in most of Europe,
northern Italy, and Latium and is present in a large
variety of habitats, including woods, hedges, marsh-
es, and the like.
18
The shell is roundish or some-
what depressed and sometimes decorated with spi-
ral stripes (with a maximum of five stripes). The
Banded grove snail is a garden pest that feeds on a
large variety of plants. This land snail is known to
have been consumed by human populations, some-
Fig. 4. Oxychilus sp. (left), Caeciliodes acicula (middle), and Chondrula tridens (right) found in the channels
(regio III, contexts 219220)
Fig. 5. Helix aperta (above) and Chondrula tridens (below),
found in regio IV, context 410
Fig. 6. Rumina decollata found in the garden portico area
18
Evans 1972, 173.
times preferred to the H. aspersa because they have
less slime.
19
Of most relevance for this study is that
C. nemoralis lives in relatively large colonies and is
considered to be an indicator of a fresh and humid
climate.
20
Second, the common Brown garden snail
Helix (= Cryptomphalus) aspersa (Mller 1774) (figs. 8
and 12) is a species of apparently Mediterranean
origin, found throughout the Mediterranean ba-
sin and all of Italy. H. aspersa are large snails, over 30
mm in shell diameter, with a brown shell, usually
with alternating dark and lighter brown spiral
bands. It occurs in gardens, hedgerows, and waste
ground. It is syanthropic, that is, commonly associ-
ated with the presence of human activity.
21
Infesta-
tions of common garden snails damage a broad
range of seedlings and vegetables and are a signif-
icant pest of citrus crops. It usually feeds on leaves,
but it occasionally damages young fruit and removes
the bark from small branches. This land snail is
edible and can be considered to be the primary
syanthropic snail pest found in gardens. Some of
the comparative examples found in gardens are one
specimen at Pompeii (I.xiv.2) and five specimens
at the Villa of Poppaea, Oplontis.
22
For a chrono-
logical comparanda, an early Roman Republican
collection is found at Ficana. Also other individu-
als were found at the Schola Praeconum and Sette-
finestre (table 2). Third, the Green snail Helix (=
Cantareus) aperta (Born 1778) (figs. 5 and 8) is found
all over southern Europe. The shell is thin and
roundish, and it is noteworthy that young snails have
a yellow-green shell while in adult green snails the
shell can become dark brown. This color is uni-
form, however, without any bands of varying color.
H. aperta snails rarely exceed 25 mm in shell diam-
eter, and they are common and edible. This land
snail is found in a variety of habitats and does not
appear to be restricted to any particular soil or veg-
etation. They tend to be ground-frequenting and
thrive in open grassland situations. Since this land
snail can damage most vegetables, cereals, lupins,
and grasses, it is considered a pest.
Freshwater Pelecypods: Bivalves (Clams, Oysters)
The only freshwater bivalve found is the Unio elon-
gatus (Pfeiffer 1825) family: Unionidae (fig. 13).
The shell is oval and elongated. U. elongatus may
have been collected as food or for the decorative
qualities of its nacre (mother-of-pearl). This bivalve
is eaten today throughout the Mediterranean. This
specimen probably originated in the nearby Tiber
River. Comparative examples have been found at
Pompeii, the Schola Praeconum, and at San Gio-
vanni di Ruoti (Potenza) (table 2).
Mediterranean Marine Gastropods (Snails)
Two marine snail species were encountered. One
is the common Murex, Murex (= Bolinus) brandaris
(Linn 1758), family Muricidae (fig. 14). This edi-
ble species can be found in all of the Mediterra-
Fig. 7. Cochlicella barbara (above) and Oxychilus sp. (below),
found in the hanging garden area (regio III, context 202)
Fig. 8. Helix aspersa (above), Cernuella virgata (left middle),
Helix aperta (left bottom) and Retinella pura (right bottom),
found in the channels (regio III, context 185)
19
Ruiz Cobo and Smith (1977, July, http://148.88.8.181/
staff/gyaaq/science/gastropd.htm) mention this preference.
20
Gilaine 1979.
21
Evans 1972, 175; see also Reese (forthcoming c), 59; 1982,
95.
22
Pompeii: Jashemski 1979, 96; see also Reese (forthcom-
ing c), 57. Oplontis: Jashemski 1993, 295; see also Reese (forth-
coming c), 57.
nean Sea. Ancient sources account for this species
as one that was cultivated specifically for consump-
tion.
23
The shell is of considerable size with a mod-
erately high spire and distinct spiny varices. In an-
tiquity they were fished for food, ornamentation,
and as a source of pigment for producing a widely
used purple dye. These snails produce a thick yel-
lowish liquid that in the presence of sunlight turns
first greenish, then bluish, and finally a deep red-
purple; this product from M. brandaris was the basis
for purple dye used by the Phoenicians, Greeks,
and Romans.
24
The 17 M. brandaris specimens re-
trieved from the Villa of Livia would seem to be
food remains or decorative objects, since the num-
ber of specimens is too low to suggest their use in
connection with any activity related to an organized
extraction of dye pigment.
25
Comparative exam-
ples of similar specimens found in gardens are one
shell from Pompeii (I.xiv.2) and one shell from the
Villa of Poppaea at Oplontis.
26
A chronological com-
paranda can be found in the Roman Imperial
(Phase II) at Otranto (table 2). Other specimens
have been found at the Villa dei Quintilli, Monte-
porizio and at Settefinestre (table 2).
The other marine snail is the Small whelk, Pisa-
nia striata (Gmelin 1791), family Buccinidae (fig.
15). This species inhabits warm seas and is very com-
mon in the Mediterranean. It can be found in stony
bottoms down to 23 m in depth. The shell is gen-
erally elongated and spindle-shaped with spiral
Fig. 9. Plan of regio III showing the distribution of the pest land snail species Cepaea
nemoralis, Cochlicella barbara, Helix aspersa, Helix aperta, and Cernuella virgata. Each dot
represents one pest snail.
Fig. 10. Campylaea planospira found in the channels (regio
III, context 185)
23
Celsus 2.24.3; Columella Rust. 8.16.7; see also Andr 1961,
107.
24
Pliny HN 9.125142; see also Reese 19791980, 7983.
25
On this subject, see Reese 19791980, 835.
26
Oplontis: Jashemski 1993, 295; see also Reese (forthcom-
ing c), 57.
rings. Species of this family are mentioned in an-
cient sources as an easily digestible and nutritious
food source;
27
however, this species is probably too
small to be considered a frequent food source.
28
Mediterranean Marine Pelecypods: Bivalves (Clams,
Oysters)
The Dog-cockle, Glycymeris (= Petunculus) glycymer-
is (Linn 1758), family Glycymerididae (fig. 14)
can be found throughout Europe. The G. glycymeris
has a very characteristic thick circular-shaped shell.
This species is very common and lives buried in
sand or mud from the littoral zone down to deep
waters. Dead shells are often found on beaches or
in shallow waters. Even though this species is eaten
Species

Small
Garden Regio I Regio II Regio III Regio V Regio VI RNI
Campylaea planospira
Oxychilus sp.
Cepaea nemoralis
Pomatias elegans
Rumina decollata
Helix aspersa
Retinella pura
Cernuella virgata
Helix aperta
Chondrula tridens
Cochlicella barbara
Freshwater bivalves
Unio Elongatus
Total terrestrial and
freshwater shells
Marine gastropods
Murex brandaris
Pisania striata
Marine bivalves
Spondylus gaederopus
Glycymeris glycymeris
Ostrea edulis
Cerastoderma edule
Donax trunculus
Venus verrucosa
Total marine shells
3
1
52
2
55
3
1
1
0
49
60
22
40
6
6
6
2
1
192
6
1
1
2
11
642
233
76
3
3
60
11
28
1060
4
1
2
2
1
11
27
103
62
65
82
7
9
356
1
1
1
5
29
27
3
2
1
66
4
132
2
15
10
6
166
0
747
580
192
115
95
76
41
32
13
11
2
1
1905
17
1
6
5
5
1
2
1
38
HG CH PO RH
Key: HG = hanging garden, CH = channels, PO = garden terrace portico, RH = refuse heap.
Table 3. Summary of Ancient Mollusk Remains Showing Relative Number of Individuals (RNI)
Fig. 12. Helix aspersa found in the channels (regio III,
context 186)
Fig. 11. Cepaea nemoralis found in the hanging garden area
27
Pliny HN 9.130; see also Andr 1961, 106.
28
Pers. comm., D.S. Reese, September 2000.
today around the Mediterranean, at most archaeo-
logical sites the specimens of this shell appear to
have been collected dead from beaches.
29
Apart
from the archaeological evidence, ancient sourc-
es mention an occasion where G. glycymeris was
served as a first course at a banquet.
30
The name
Glycymeris means, in fact, sweet-sour.
31
The gar-
den excavations of the Villa of Livia have yielded
five valves, of which one is water-worn. It is proba-
ble that this last mentioned specimen was not used
as food but rather was already dead when collect-
ed. Comparative examples of valves found at
Pompeii, Boscoreale, and Herculaneum are not
considered to be food remains.
32
A chronological
comparanda from the Imperial period is found at
Settefinestre (table 2). There are also 10 valves
from the first century B.C. to the first century A.D.
at Paestum and one valve from the first century
B.C. from Albintimilium.
33
Other specimens were
encountered at the Villa dei Quintilli, Monteporiz-
io (table 2).
A very attractive bivalve found is the Thorny or
Spiny oyster, Spondylus gaederopus (Linn 1758),
family Spondylidae (fig. 15). It is distributed
throughout Eurasia. While its shell resembles an
oyster with thorns or spines, it is in fact relat-
ed to scallops. In the same manner as oysters, it
attaches its lower valve to the substrate. S. gaedero-
pus is edible; it was a significant food item on the
East Palatine hill in Rome from the first to the
fifth centuries A.D.
34
Even though S. gaederopus is
common at some Mediterranean archaeological
sites,
35
it is interesting to note that this species is
not easy to obtain. It usually lives hidden beneath
and behind rocks, in crevices.
36
This is an inter-
esting aspect to which I shall return. Relevant
comparative examples are valves from Pompeii,
Herculaneum, the Schola Praeconum, and Set-
tefinestre (table 2). Other specimens were found
at Carthage.
37
Another bivalve encountered is the Common
or flat oyster, Ostrea (= Peloris) edulis (Linn 1758),
family Ostreidae (fig. 15). The O. edulis lives in
warm and temperate seas. This species is found
from the low water mark down to about 80 m on a
firm substrate, to which the oyster attaches its low-
er valve. The Common or flat oyster has a thick
irregular shell with a scale-like surface. It usually
reaches between 70 and 100 mm long. It is com-
monly eaten throughout the Mediterranean; in
addition, ancient sources describe their use as
Fig. 13. Unio elongatus found in the hanging garden area
Fig. 14. Murex brandaris (left) and Glycymeris glycymeris (right),
found in the channels (regio III, context 186)
Fig. 15. Ostrea edulis (above left), Spondylus gaederopus (above
right), and Pisania striata (below), found in the channels
29
Reese (forthcoming b), 3; (forthcoming c), 28.
30
Macrinus 3.13.12.
31
Pers. comm., A. Warn, September 1998.
32
Reese (forthcoming c), 267.
33
Paestum: Reese (forthcoming d), 335. Albintimilium:
Lamboglia 1950, 87, fig. 39, no. 105.
34
35
Pers. comm., D.S. Reese, November 1998.
36
Pers. comm., A. Warn, September 1998.
37
Reese 1982, 93.
food and in medicine.
38
Evidence suggests that
the Romans began cultivating oysters by the first
century B.C.
39
Moreover, oyster farms are well
known from depictions on glass vessels.
40
At the
Villa of Livia a very peculiar O. edulis was found
attached to an amphora sherd. In spite of its sin-
gularity, this oyster was possibly brought to the vil-
la together with other bivalves as a food source.
41
This bivalve is common at classical farmsteads in
Molise and at Carthage.
42
There are also valves from
Pompeii, Herculaneum, the Schola Praeconum,
Settefinestre, and the Late Roman villa at S. Gio-
vanni di Ruoti (Potenza) (table 2). Other speci-
mens were found at Paestum and the Roman Villa
of San Potito-Ovindoli (LAquila).
43
Another bivalve yielded by the excavations is the
European, Edible, or Common cockle, Cerastoderma
edule (Linn 1758), family Cardiidae (fig. 16). It is
the most common bivalve in sandy shores and estu-
aries in Europe. It lives buried immediately below
the sand surface. The C. edule is eaten today both
raw and cooked throughout Europe. Comparative
examples particularly found in gardens are those
specimens from Pompeii (I.xiv.2).
44
A chronologi-
cal comparanda can be found in specimens from
the Republican period at Ficana and from the Au-
gustan cemetery (Phase I) at Otranto (table 2). It is
also found at Settefinestre and San Giovanni di
Ruoti (Potenza) (table 2). Other C. edule have been
collected at Knossos and Paestum.
45
In two places within the gardens fragments of
Wedge-shells were encountered. The Wedge-shell,
Donax (=Cuneus) trunculus (Linn 1758), family
Donacidae (fig. 17), is usually found living on the
shore, buried 1015 cm deep in the sand. The shell
has a triangular or elongated shape, posteriorly
shorter than anteriorly. They seem to have been a
common food item during antiquity at Morgantina
in Sicily and on the East Palatine of Rome,
46
and
they are eaten today around the Mediterranean.
47
Comparative examples from gardens include three
specimens from Pompeii (one valve in I.xiv.2; one in
the Garden of the Fugitives, I.xxi.2, and one valve in
the triclinium in the small north garden at I.xxi.3).
48
There are also similar specimens from Oplontis, the
Villa dei Quintilli at Monteporizio (table 2). Other
examples were found at Paestum and Jerusalem.
49
The Warty venus, Venus verrucosa (Linn 1758),
family Veneridae (fig. 18) is another bivalve fre-
Fig. 16. Cerastoderma edule found in the garden portico area
Fig. 17. Donax trunculus found in the hanging garden area
Fig. 18. Venus verrucosa found in the garden portico area
38
Pliny HN 32.5964.
39
Pliny HN 9.168; Columella Rust. 8.16.58; Verg. G. 1.204;
see also Andrews 1948; Andr 1961, 108; Eyton 1858.
40
Gnther 1897.
41
Pinto-Guillaume (forthcoming).
42
Molise and Carthage: Reese 1982, 93.
43
Paestum: Reese (forthcoming d), 335. San Potito-Ovin-
doli: Bknyi 1986, 90, table 1.
44
Jashemski 1979, 96 (as Cardium edule); see also Reese
(forthcoming c), 22.
45
Knossos: Reese 1992a, 4946. Paestum: Reese (forthcom-
ing d), 26.
46
47
Personal observation, Naples, October 2000.
48
Jashemski 1979, 96, 247; see also Reese (forthcoming c),
25.
49
Paestum: Reese (forthcoming d), 334. Jerusalem: Reese
1995, 2738.
quently found throughout the Mediterranean Sea.
The shell is strong and has a round triangular
shape with irregular radial ribs. The V. verrucosa is
an edible species. Comparative examples are three
valves in fountains at Pompeii and one valve dating
to the Neronian period from Knossos.
50
distribution and occurrence of
mollusks in the gardens
The small garden is a peristyle garden included
within the private quarters of the villa complex it-
self (fig. 1).
51
Twenty-six land snails were found in
this area. Two small deposits of H. aperta, which
proved to be modern, were unearthed at a depth of
ca. 15 cm. It is difficult to establish if this particular
species could have been present in this area dur-
ing the Roman period because of the fact that the
H. aperta presents a very soft shell with a low calci-
um content that decomposes and does not preserve
well. The other land snails yielded by this area are
a few specimens of R. decollata and P. elegans. Beside
this, the small garden produced only one marine
mollusk: a broken valve of G. glycymeris (table 3).
Regio I consisted of a set of trenches opened in
the garden terrace. These trenches extended from
the northeastern limit of the villa toward the center
of the garden terrace (fig. 1). Three land snails of
the H. aspersa and the C. nemoralis species were en-
countered in this area, and a fair concentration of
Oxychilus sp. also was found. Regarding the marine
shells produced in regio I, there were two M. bran-
daris, one fairly large water-worn valve of G. glycymer-
is, and an O. edulis fragment (table 3).
Regio II, located in the very center of the garden
terrace (fig. 1), yielded only three land snails. I
have noticed modern living C. nemoralis (July 1999)
and H. aperta (May 1997 and June 1998) wander-
ing in the central area of the garden terrace under
the sun, probably completing their daily reconnais-
sance.
52
The low occurrence of both land snail and
marine shell remains corresponds with the scarcity
of archaeological material in this area (table 3).
53
Located in the far northeastern corner of the
garden terrace is regio III (fig. 1). Here we found
the largest concentrations of ancient shell remains
with 1,674 land snails and 32 marine shells. Based
on the preliminary archaeological results, four spe-
cialized areas with differentiated characteristics are
defined within regio III (table 1). First, located in
the excavated northeastern section of regio III is
the hanging garden area, a series of apses and rect-
angular planting cassettes that were distributed in
a terraced fashion and provided with drainage fea-
tures (fig. 2).
54
Among the 192 land snails retrieved
in this area, Oxychilus sp., C. planospira, and P. elegans
predominate. The high concentrations of P. elegans
in the hanging garden and in the garden portico
(fig. 19) seem to indicate that these two areas not
only are highly carbonated, but also present a cer-
tain degree of disturbance in the soil. This evidence
could be indicative of clearance, for example. This
particular area, which has been identified as a plant-
ing terrace,
55
yielded the largest variation of ma-
rine shells: five M. brandaris, one O. edulis, one S.
gaederopus, one D. trunculus, one G. glycymeris, and
one freshwater bivalve, one U. elongatus (table 3).
Second, the channels, which are located imme-
diately to the southwest and below the above de-
scribed area, consist of a set of parallel channels
that apparently run along the entire length of the
garden terrace (fig. 2). Within the channels a total
of 1,060 land snails were encountered, of which
642 were C. planospira. The distribution of this spe-
cies throughout regio III shows that its concentra-
tion is almost exclusive to the rear channel (fig.
20). This high density of C. planospira is about four
times higher than in the rest of regio III. The great
quantities of ceramic material found within the rear
channel have shown that this channel was filled at
the same time and not gradually.
56
It is possible to
imply that the ceramic material was brought to the
channel from a kitchen refuse heap. If this theory
is correct, two scenarios are possible. The first hy-
pothesis is that the C. planospira lived in a pottery
dump, feeding off the organic waste from the kitch-
en, while the second hypothesis is that C. planospira
could have been eaten by the villas inhabitants.
Even though there is neither literary nor archaeo-
logical evidence for C. planospira being consumed
in ancient times, the question raised is an interest-
ing one. Did the Romans make an exception? It is
noteworthy that this species is not eaten today. In
addition to this species, a high number of Oxychilus
sp. was also found in the channels. Also present
50
Pompeii: Reese (forthcoming c) 389. Knossos: Reese
1992a, 4946.
51
Calci and Messineo 1984, 48; see also Messineo 1991, 230.
52
Pers. comm., A. Warn, October 1999.
53
Pinto-Guillaume 1998, 189; see also Liljenstolpe and
Klynne 19971998, 137; and Klynne and Liljenstolpe 2000,
226.
54
Klynne and Liljenstolpe 2000, 227 and figs. 89.
55
Khler 1959, 10; see also Klynne and Liljenstolpe 2000,
22731.
56
were 11 marine shells of the following species: M.
brandaris, G. glycymeris, D. trunculus, O. edulis, S. gaed-
eropus, and P. striata (table 3).
Third, descending toward the center of the gar-
den terrace, the next distinguishable area was oc-
cupied by a garden portico, which ran along all four
sides of the garden terrace (fig. 2). As mentioned
above, the P. elegans is one of the most frequent land
snails in this area. The garden portico area pro-
duced a total of 356 land snails. A high concentra-
tion of R. decollata was observed (fig. 21), as was a
low number of H. aspersa individuals. This possible
scenario has clear parallels in gardens of today: the
decollate snail feeding on young brown garden
snails. It is difficult to prove if R. decollata could
have been introduced by the Romans with the par-
ticular purpose of fighting back the mollusk spe-
cies that caused damage to the garden. We do know,
however, that the Romans possessed the knowledge
of how to control those animals that were damaging
to the household and the gardens.
57
The Romans
used ritual and magic practices as well as mechan-
ical, chemical, and biological methods to control
pests. The practice of fighting back pests by means
of using other life forms was not unknown to the
Romans.
58
Moreover, Pliny suggests how certain veg-
etables could be protected from damaging insects
by sowing other plant species among the vegeta-
bles.
59
Finally, in the same area, regarding the ma-
rine species, there are one S. gaederopus, one O. edu-
lis, one V. verrucosa, and one C. edule (table 3).
The last of these specialized areas in regio III is
the refuse heap, located immediately extra muros to
the east of the garden terrace (fig. 2). Here 66 land
snails were found, of which C. nemoralis and C. plano-
spira are the dominant land snails. Five marine shells
retrieved from this area belong to the M. brandaris
and S. gaederopus species. The shell remains encoun-
tered in the refuse heap are fewer in abundance
when compared to the channels or to the rest of
regio III. In addition to the scarcity of remains here,
the shells in this particular area also were very frag-
mented (table 3).
Only three land snails were found in regio V,
which is a long strip running north to south across
the garden terrace (fig. 1). The scarcity of individ-
uals seems to parallel the situation in regio II dis-
cussed above, where very few remains of ancient
land snails and no marine shells have been found
(table 3).
Fig. 19. Plan of regio III showing the distribution of the land snail Pomatias elegans. Each dot
represents one snail.
57
Varro Rust. 3.9.14-15 (lice, snakes, and hawks); Cato Agr.
Orig. 92, 95, 98 (weevils, caterpillars, and moths); Columella
De Arboribus, 145 (ants and mice); Verg. G. 1.17886 (weeds,
rodents, and other pests); 4.24250 (snakes), and Pliny HN
17.21863 (several different pests) are all important examples.
58
Ordish 1976, 34.
59
Pliny HN 19.1789.
Finally, regio VI consisted of two trenches, which
were opened on the eastern limit of the garden
terrace among a grove of poplar trees (fig. 1). This
area produced exclusively land snails, with a total
of 166 individuals. The most frequent species en-
countered here was Oxychilus sp. (table 3).
reconstructing ecological niches
Considering the complex activity of snails, it has
been difficult for scientists to define a specific niche
to a particular species.
60
In spite of this difficulty,
some observations can be made based on inherent
characteristics of the various species, such as habitat
preferences (shaded areas, open country, woodland,
etc.) and preferred levels of humidity or dryness.
The actual site of the Villa of Livia is located about
50 m above sea level on a hill. The immediate sur-
rounding area to the south and to the east is the
Tiber River valley. The geomorphology of this area
is characterized by a number of low hills, which are
RNI/Species Present
Small garden
3 Pomatias elegans
1 Rumina decollata
Regio I
52 Oxychilus sp.
2 Cepaea nemoralis
1 Helix aspersa
Regio III: hanging garden
60 Oxychilus sp.
49 Campylaea planospira
40 Pomatias elegans
22 Cepaea nemoralis
6 Helix aspersa
6 Retinella pura
6 Rumina decollata
2 Cochlicella barbara
Regio III: channels
233 Oxychilus sp.
76 Cepaea nemoralis
60 Helix aspersa
28 Cernuella virgata
11 Retinella pura
4 Chondrula tridens
3 Rumina decollata
3 Pomatias elegans
Regio III: garden portico
103 Oxychilus sp.
82 Rumina decollata
65 Pomatias elegans
62 Cepaea nemoralis
9 Retinella pura
7 Helix aspersa
1 Chondrula tridens
Regio III: refuse heap
27 Cepaea nemoralis
4 Cernuella virgata
3 Pomatias elegans
2 Rumina decollata
1 Helix aspersa
Partial shade, reduced woodland
Open areas/shrub, red. woodland
Open areas, dry walls, gardens
Indifferent, bushes, gardens
Shaded areas, shrub, red. woodland
Slopes, dry walls and gardens
Shaded areas near rocks and walls
Open areas, shrub, red. woodland
Open areas, under leaves, bushes
Open areas, under leaves, bushes
Open areas, shrub, red. woodland
Preferred Environs/Vegetation
Br, High CaCo
Ni, CaCo
Or, CaCo
High CaCo
High CaCo
Or, CaCo
CaCo
Br, High CaCo
High CaCo
High CaCo
CaCo
Ni, CaCo
CaCo
CaCo
Or, CaCo
High CaCo
High CaCo
CaCo
Ni, CaCo
Br, High CaCo
Or, CaCo
Ni, CaCo
Br, High CaCo
High CaCo
CaCo
CaCo
High CaCo
CaCo
High CaCo
Br, High CaCo

Ni, CaCo
High CaCo
Soil Type
a
Mesophilic
Meso-xerophilic
Hygro-mesophilic
Mesophilic
Mesophilic
Hygro-mesophilic
Stony soils/walls
Mesophilic
Mesophilic
Mesophilic
Mesophilic
Meso-xerophilic
Meso-xerophilic
Stony soils/walls
Hygro-mesophilic
Mesophilic
Mesophilic
Meso-xerophilic
Mesophilic
Meso-xerophilic
Meso-xerophilic
Mesophilic
Hygro-mesophilic
Meso-xerophilic
Mesophilic
Mesophilic
Stony soils/walls
Mesophilic
Mesophilic
Meso-xerophilic
Stony soils/walls
Mesophilic
Meso-xerophilic
Mesophilic
Meso-xerophilic
Mesophilic
Faunistic
Association
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
?
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
?
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
?
No
Yes
No
?
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Edible Pest
a
Or = organic; CaCo = carbonated soil; Br = broken soil; Ni = nitrified soil.
Table 4. Reconstruction of the Land Snails Ecological Niches
60
Cain 1983, 600, 612; see also Evans 1972, 87.
typical for the Latium region. The soil consists of
humus down to a maximum depth of 0.81 m; be-
low this we find an orange clayish layer that pre-
dominates over the entire hill. Thus, the geology
of the area, with its dark brown soils developed on
top of deposits of orange volcanic tufa, gives us an
idea of the general environmental conditions and
the possible presence of certain species. The char-
acteristics of the area in question would explain
the presence of P. elegans and C. nemoralis, which are
often connected with highly carbonized environ-
ments.
61
Since no snail is strictly dependent on a
particular species of plant and mainly feed on dead
animal and plant matter, we are unable to establish
the presence of a particular plant species. Howev-
er, the presence of some shade-loving species, such
as the two zonitids R. pura and Oxychilus sp., togeth-
er with P. elegans and H. aspersa can give us an idea
of which areas could have been shaded.
If we leave aside regio II and regio VI, which pro-
duced very few shell specimens, there are six ecolog-
ical niches worth being analyzed in detail. The first
of these is the small garden, which covered a surface
of ca. 54 m
2
. With a maximum excavated depth of ca.
0.45 m, the bottom reached was orange tufa clay. The
cultural sequence suggested for this area extends
from the Augustan period to ca. A.D. 40. In this first
ecological niche, which is a peristyle garden, the low
number of individuals together with the low diversity
of species indicates an open area with low vegetation
and a high frequency of human activity. The pres-
ence of R. decollata is noteworthy (table 4).
Regio I covered a surface of ca. 25 m
2
. With a
maximum excavated depth of ca. 2.2 m, the bottom
reached was orange tufa clay. The cultural se-
quence suggested for this is from the Augustan
period to the second century A.D. This second eco-
logical niche covers a larger surface, which opened
into the garden terrace. This area seems to have
been an open area with relatively moist conditions
yet the number of individuals is low and is domi-
nated by a single species. A high intensity of hu-
man activity is also evident. From the analysis of
these first two ecological niches we are able to sug-
gest that the low number of land snails is directly
related to their proximity to the villa and the hu-
man activities taking place there (table 4).
The hanging garden in regio III covers a surface
of ca. 85 m
2
. With a maximum excavated depth of ca.
1.6 m, the bottom reached was orange tufa clay. As
with the regio I area, the cultural sequence of this
area dates to A.D. 5075. This third ecological niche,
which is a series of planting cassettes, consists of an
open, partially shaded area with a soil that has high
levels of calcium carbonate and with intermediate
moisture conditions (table 4).
Fig. 20. Plan of regio III showing the distribution of the land snail Campylaea planospira.
Each dot represents one snail.
61
Pers. comm., A.I. Porras, January 2000.
Also within regio III, the channels cover a sur-
face of ca. 34 m
2
. With a maximum excavated depth
of ca. 2 m, the bottom reached was the ancient con-
crete floor; the cultural sequence dated to the third
quarter of the first century A.D.
62
The presence of
C. planospira is dominant in this fourth ecological
niche. The question of whether or not this species
was part of the Roman diet, as discussed above, re-
mains open. The high frequency of the three edi-
ble speciesH. aspersa, C. nemoralis, and some C.
virgatacould suggest that the material excavated
in this area was a landfill consisting of waste from a
kitchen.
63
This hypothesis is strengthened by the
11 marine shells belonging to five different spe-
cies found here. The presence of land snails C.
tridens, P. elegans, R. decollata, and R. pura could be
fortuitous (table 4).
The garden portico area, also located in regio
III and dated to the Livian period, 30s B.C., cov-
ered a surface of ca. 78 m
2
with a maximum exca-
vated depth of ca. 2.2 m; the bottom reached was
orange tufa clay. This fifth ecological niche is very
similar to that of the hanging garden discussed
above, since in both cases the same species occur.
The number of individuals, however, is about twice
as much in this area, and this increase could signi-
fy that this is a more organic area, possibly a vegeta-
ble or kitchen garden. This idea is strengthened
by the presence of P. elegans, which prefers to bur-
row itself into broken soil. The area occupied by
this portico was at some point in time an open gar-
den area having a high intensity of human activity
(table 4).
The refuse heap, located extra muros in regio III,
covered an area of ca. 37 m
2
and reached a maxi-
mum excavated depth of ca. 1.8 m; the bottom
reached was orange tufa clay. This cultural se-
quence dates to the Augustan period.
64
This last
ecological reconstruction, in contrast to the waste
filling from the channels, consists of building ma-
terial and pottery waste. Thus, it was not essentially
a site for the disposal of organic wastes. In spite of
this, it is important to point out that five sea shells
were found in this area (table 4).
the villas inhabitants and the
mollusks
Food
Table 5 summarizes data on the distribution and
possible uses of mollusks. We know from ancient
sources and archaeological evidence that the land
snails H. aspersa, H. aperta, and C. nemoralis were
Fig. 21. Plan of regio III showing the distribution of the predatory land snail Rumina
decollata. Each dot represents one snail.
62
63
It is noteworthy that the filling in the channels also pro-
duced great amounts of utilitarian pottery together with sea
shells and animal bones.
64
consumed as food. Snails were cultivated by the
Romans for consumption.
65
Furthermore, Lucretius
accounts for the preference of a simple country
diet
66
and Pliny the Younger describes a meal of
this type, which includes vegetables, eggs, and
snails.
67
In the case of the R. decollata it is possible
that the black color of the living animal does not
make it very attractive to be consumed as food.
68
The question if C. planospira possibly was imported
to the site to be consumed or if it came with other
waste material remains unanswered. All the other
land snail species described above seem to be too
small in size to be taken into consideration as a
food source.
Regarding the marine gastropod species, the M.
brandaris is mentioned in particular as food by
Pliny.
69
The presence of another marine gastropod,
the P. striata, is possibly fortuitous. This unique
specimen could have been caught to be eaten, col-
lected on the shore, or just come along with the
catch of the day.
70
Further, all of the bivalve marine species present
in these excavations were known to the Romans as
food sources: clams and oysters.
71
All six species
found in the gardens of the Villa of Livia are com-
monly eaten today throughout the Mediterranean.
72
Moreover, it is important to mention as compara-
tive examples that marine shells were also found in
the Italian excavations of this villa and also at Livias
House on the Palatine (table 2).
73
The S. gaederopus,
being a species difficult to obtain, would possibly
have been considered a more rare and exotic dish
than, for example, G. glycymeris.
Regarding the marine shells collected in the vil-
las gardens, it is important to note that G. glycymeris,
C. edule, and D. trunculus are species found buried
Species Ocurrence

Garden

Pest

Edible Adornment
Pomatias elegans (Mller 1774)
Chondrula tridens (Mller 1774)
Caeciliodes acicula
a
(Mller 1774)
Rumina decollata (Linn 1758)
Oxychilus sp. (Fitzinger 1833)
Retinella pura (Alder 1830)
Cernuella virgata (Da Costa 1778)
Cochlicella barbara (Linn 1758)
Campylaea planospira (Lamark 1822)
Cepaea nemoralis (Linn 1758)
Helix aspersa (Mller 1774)
Helix aperta (Born 1778)
Freshwater bivalves
Unio elongatus (Pfeiffer 1825)
Mediterranean marine gastropods
Murex brandaris (Linn 1758)
Pisania striata (Gmelin 1791)
Mediterranean marine bivalves
Glycymeris glycymeris (Linn 1758)
Spondylus gaederopus (Linn 1758)
Ostrea edulis (Linn 1758)
Cerastoderma edule (Linn 1758)
Donax trunculus (Linn 1758)
Venus verrucosa (Linn 1758)
Common
Rare
Rare (modern)
a
Common
Very common
Not common
Not common
Rare
Very common
Common
Common
Not common
Rare
Very common
Rare
Common
Common
Common
Rare
Not common
Rare
No
No
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
No
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
No
Possible
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Possible
Possible
Possible
Possible
Possible
Possible
Possible
Possible
Possible
No
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
No
Possible
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
a
Present in modern intrusive deposits.
Table 5. Mollusk Species Present, Showing Occurrence and Other Relevant Aspects
65
The Roman cultivation of land snails is described by Varro
Rust. 3.3.3; 3.14.1; 3.14.4 and by Pliny HN 9.1734; see also
Andr 1961, 1256; Brothwell and Brothwell 1969, 66; Reese
1982, 95; (forthcoming c), 58.
66
Lucretius, 2.301; 5.137; see also Andr 1961, 224.
67
Pliny the Younger, Ep. 1.15.2.
68
For an exceptional case, see Reese 1992b, 774; see also
Sloan and Duncan 1978, 6077.
69
Pliny HN 32.147.
70
Pers. comm., A. Warn, October 1999.
71
Tert. Cult. fem. 1.6; Celsus 2.245; see also Andr 1961,
1067.
72
Personal observation, Naples, October 2000.
73
Villa of Livia: Italian excavations 19981999, personal
analysis, November 1999. Casa di Livia: personal analysis, Anti-
quarium Palatinum, June 2000; see also Carettoni 1957, 74, 106.
in the sand or mud of shallow waters (21%). The
majority of the marine bivalves are from the littoral
zone, O. edulis and S. gaederopus found attached to
the substrate (29%). V. verrucosa is found deeper
buried in sand bottoms (3%). The greatest num-
ber of marine mollusks is represented by the gas-
tropods M. brandaris and P. striata, which are found
in deeper waters (47%). The fact that the gastro-
pod marine species encountered are not water-worn
indicates that these animals were not collected from
beaches but were taken alive from the water, proba-
bly for consumption.
Gardening Related Activities
In relation to activities carried out in the gardens,
two aspects of the distribution of mollusks should
be considered. The first is the presence of the R.
decollata, which is important as a predator species
and possibly was used for biological pest control. In
addition, the land snail species present in the gar-
dens of this villa that can be considered pests are
H. aspersa, H. aperta, C. barbara, C. nemoralis, and C.
virgata. An overall plan of all the studied garden
areas in regio III (fig. 9) illustrates that these dam-
aging species are well and evenly distributed
throughout the garden areas. It is noteworthy that
particularly in the garden portico area we find a
concentration of the R. decollata together with a
high occurrence of pest snails. This distribution
and the ecological reconstruction of the snails
habitat indicate the possible presence of a vegeta-
ble or kitchen garden (table 4).
The second aspect involves the use of the shells
of marine mollusks to improve the quality of the
soil. In regio III we see that the marine shells are
evenly distributed and present in all the planting
areas of the garden (fig. 22). These shells may have
been added to the soil in order to function as a
natural fertilizer, taking advantage of the high cal-
cium content of the shells. This is a technique that
is still practiced today in many parts of the world.
74
Personal Adornment
Most of the marine species present in the gar-
dens of the Villa of Livia have a very attractive shape,
which could suggest that these shells were perhaps
used as decoration. The shells could have been
collected and placed in a casual manner to serve as
decorative visual elements. No alterations, howev-
er, have been made to these marine shells with ex-
ception of the single P. striata (fig. 15), which has a
broken apex and could have been used for person-
al adornment.
75
Some of the Murex also have broken
apexes, but the breakage is not sufficient to allow
74
Pers. comm., landscape architect T. Wallin, September
1999.
75
Pers. comm., malacologist R. Villa, January 2000.
Fig. 22. Plan of regio III showing the distribution of seashells. Each dot represents one
seashell.
the passage of a thread from the apex through the
mouth of the shell.
Building Materials and Architectural
Ornamentation
During the 1999 restorations of the Villa of Liv-
ia by the Italian Soprintendenza, three D. truncu-
lus valves were found under the cappellaccio floor
in room 56 (fig. 1). It was suggested that the shells
had been included in the sand used for the mor-
tar mix of the floor (fig. 23).
76
In addition to these
shells, in regio III the presence of C. planospira
shells has been observed included in the mortar
on top of the wall (056) that runs between the two
channels (fig. 24). This mortar also contains a great
amount of pottery fragments and could have had
the same provenance as the filling material found
in the channels. Both the pottery and the shells,
which possibly come from a kitchen dump, were
used as aggregates in the preparation of this mor-
tar. Thus, the presence of the shells in the mortar
could be fortuitous.
It is noteworthy that the single specimen of U.
elongatus had traces of cement on its outer sur-
face. This shell could have been attached to a
wall as a decorative element in the architecture
of the garden. Many examples of Roman foun-
tains and nymphaea decorated with marine shells
have survived and can be observed today at
Pompeii and Herculaneum.
77
conclusion
My concern has been to examine the use of mol-
lusks to study the microenvironment of a Roman
garden. To do so, we must treat these invertebrates
together with their relationship to the inhabitants
of the villa as a whole, taking into consideration the
ecological and cultural aspects implied.
The consequences caused by the presence of the
mollusks at this Roman imperial villa are, then, not
difficult to summarize. The land snails H. aspersa,
H. aperta, C. nemoralis, and C. virgata were consumed
by those who inhabited the villa. Further, the ma-
rine species found are all edible and were possibly
brought to the villa for consumption. The marine
shells could also have been used as decorative ele-
ments, since the shells have very attractive forms.
The high concentration of R. decollata in regio III
would seem to suggest that this species was possi-
bly used as biological pest control against other
damaging land snail species. We have also seen that
sea shells could have been placed in the garden to
fertilize the soil.
The presence and distribution of mollusks with-
in these areas suggest that the various garden areas
of the Villa of Livia had, in fact, a different physiog-
Fig. 23. Three Donax trunculus valves found underneath the cappellaccio floor in room 56 of the Villa of Livia
76
Pers. comm., conservator A. Vernier, Prima Porta, Novem-
ber 1999.
77
Personal observation, October 2000; see also Reese (forth-
coming c).
nomy. The presence of the various species encoun-
tered at the site does not particularly indicate a
common humid area for the garden terrace. The
concentration of land snails in regio III (exclud-
ing the refuse heap), however, suggests that this
area seems to have been fertile, humid, and open.
Further, regio III seems to have had an intensity of
human activity that varies between medium for the
hanging garden and high for the garden portico
area. In contrast to regio III, regio II and regio V
yielded few mollusk remains and perhaps were
unpleasant habitats for land snails. It therefore
seems possible that the central area of the garden
terrace was an open space without trees, shrubs, or
any other type of shelter.
Taking into consideration the faunistic associa-
tion
78
of the terrestrial mollusks (table 4), we ob-
serve that only Oxychilus sp. falls within the hygro-
mesophilic species, which prefer a higher level of
humidity. Further, the mesophilic species present,
that is to say those land snails inhabiting sites or
habitats characterized by intermediate moisture con-
ditions, are P. elegans, C. nemoralis, H. aspersa, C. acic-
ula, and R. pura, species that are also often linked to
wooded surroundings. The third group is repre-
sented by the meso-xerophilic species living in
open, sunlit spaces with sparse vegetation and stony
and muddy environments: C. tridens, C. virgata, R.
decollata, H. aperta, and C. barbara. From all this, we
are able to imagine a fairly open area with little tree
cover for the gardens. Hence, this suggests an area
with wide open spaces allowing the sun to illumi-
nate the ground. Regarding the mollusks micro-
habitats, we have seen a diversity in the character of
the garden areas studied here: the hanging garden,
small garden, portico area, and channels. This di-
versity, as P. Grimal has noted, was common for all
Roman suburban villas.
79
Furthermore, the meso-
philic land snail species suggest that the imperial
villa was surrounded by woodland. This hypothesis
is strengthened by the presence of animal bones in
the gardens belonging to wild mammals that exclu-
sively inhabit woodland areas and that were not
hunted for consumption.
80
This woodland would
be characterized by trees, often small and particu-
larly short-boled in relation to their crown depth,
which form only an open or sparse canopy, with the
intervening areas being occupied by shrubs or
Fig. 24. Several specimens of Campylaea planospira included in the mortar found on top of wall 056, which
divides the two parallel channels in regio III
78
On this subject, see Girod 1997, 1259; 1998, 146.
79
Grimal 1969, 2645.
80
Among these are two carnivores: the red fox, Vulpes vulpes
and the eurasian badger, Meles meles. Pers. comm., osteologist
E. Sjling, January 2001.
herbs. Could this surrounding woodland have re-
sembled the ones Virgil saw on the slopes of the
Palatine hill and the Forum Boarium?
81
In sum, the mollusks provide a new tool with
which to examine evidence related to the villas
inhabitants. The mollusks may serve as transmit-
ters of cultural and environmental information and
thus make possible the identification of categories
of green spaces involved in the reconstruction of a
site. This work allows us to place in new terms the
study of mollusks present in archaeological excava-
tions, particularly in the villas of the Roman world,
and can lead to a better understanding of Roman
culture.
istituto svedese di studi classici a roma
via omero 14
00197 rome
ezechiele@altavista.com
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59
Temples and Terracottas at Cosa
RABUN TAYLOR
Abstract
The architectural terracottas of Cosa, found in great
quantities around the towns temples, were sorted into
an elaborate morphology in the 1950s. This morphology
is often cited as a basis for the chronologies and histories
of the temples and as a model by which to date other
Roman or Etrusco-Italic temples in north Italy. This ar-
ticle offers a criticism of the model applied to the molded
terracotta plaques and suggests a simpler chronology con-
stituting two major phases, one before the sack of Cosa
in 70 B.C.E. and the other dating from the Augustan
resettlement. The existence of an early Temple of Jupi-
ter, presumed to have been directly behind the
Capitolium, is questioned; and the square structure un-
der the Capitolium, known popularly as Cosa Quadrata, is
reinterpreted as the first and only temple on the Arx
during the first colonization from 293 to 197 B.C.E. The
terracottas found in the construction fill of the Capitolium
belonged principally to this structure, while the large
array of later subtypes in the area can be accorded to two
major phases of a lavishly decorated Capitolium. Temples
B and D are each reconstructed with a single major deco-
rative phase, which in the case of the latter may have
changed somewhat after the temple was remodeled.*
At the beginning of the 21st century, research at
Cosa is in a hiatus. Three long-awaited volumes in
its publication series appeared in the mid 1990s,
and another, on more recent excavations, is in
press.
1
No significant excavations or surveys are in
progress, but the campaigns of the 1990s have be-
gun to alter our familiar image of the town. Now,
more than half a century after Frank Browns exca-
vations began at this picturesque Tyrrhenian town
northwest of Rome, a scholarly assessment of the
achievements of the Americans first few decades
there has inevitably begun.
2
This article offers a reconsideration of Lawrence
Richardson Jr.s typology of the molded terracottas
3
(described in more detail below), and thus of its
implications for building phases of the towns four
identified temples. A thorough reexamination of
the terracottasor what is left of them after their
long sojourn in dusty cardboard cartons in the bow-
els of the American Academys Chiaraviglio an-
nexwould entail petrographic and chemical anal-
ysis as well as an exhaustive review of the 1960s ex-
cavation notes for the Arx, which were never prop-
erly published. My method, instead, has been to
examine the internal evidence from the relevant
published volumes, Cosa II and Cosa III, and to sug-
gest a simplified chronology that includes the re-
cently excavated material on the eastern height. I
make no chronological assessments on the basis of
style. In the following discussion I will refer to sub-
types by their Cosa II page numbers, preceded by
Richardsons first initial; for example, R202.
4
scholarship and excavation history
The history of Cosa begins in 273 B.C.E., when
the town was established as a Latin colony. It evi-
dently suffered badly from the first two Punic wars.
In 197 B.C.E. the decimated colony requested and
received a second deduction of 1,000 families from
Rome.
5
The surviving sources say almost nothing
about the towns history thereafter. The archaeo-
logical record suggests that its heyday was in the
second century, when an extensive building pro-
gram was undertaken in the town. Prosperity (if
that is not too strong a word) ended abruptly in 70
B.C.E. or thereabouts. The event precipitating this
disaster appears nowhere in the written record; it
was deduced first from the archaeological evidence
of a major destruction in the early first century, and
*

I especially want to thank Elizabeth Fentress for encour-
aging me to publish this essay, and for her generous mentor-
ing spirit over the six years of our acquaintance. I am only one
of many: she has given not only encouragement but tangible
responsibility to many students of the American Academys
Summer Program in Archaeology, as well as a much wider orbit
of young scholars working in Italy and Tunisia. Among other
things, she drew my attention to the comparative evidence at
Veii and Acquarossa cited in the text. I also am grateful to an
anonymous reviewer for the AJA for numerous helpful com-
ments on both style and substance.
1
Brown et al. 1993; Bruno and Scott 1993; Fitch and Gold-
man 1994. The volume on investigations of the 1990s, Cosa V,
is in press (Fentress forthcoming).
2
Scott (forthcoming); Fentress 1994.
3
Brown et al. 1960.
4
In some cases the same number is used for two entries
because they appear on the same page. These can be easily
distinguished from each other by their type or subtype. A type
of terracotta revetment is defined by its generally acknowl-
edged function and placement on the building, e.g., sima,
plaque, cresting, acroterion, etc. A subtype constitutes any sty-
listic category of a type, e.g., a cresting with figure-eights or a
plaque with crossed ribbons.
5
Vell. Pat. 1.14.7; Livy 32.2.7, 33.24.89, Periochae 14.
RABUN TAYLOR 60 [AJA 106
refined in the mid 1960s upon discovery of a coin
hoard containing freshly minted coins dating right
up to the period of the crisis. The date corresponds
well to the pirate raids elsewhere in Italy that pre-
cipitated Pompeys pan-Mediterranean anti-pirate
campaign of 67.
6
The town seems to have been aban-
doned thereafter until the early Augustan period,
when the Capitolium was reconstituted. But Cosa
had lost its reason for existence; it had long since
relinquished its role as a northern security outpost
along the Via Aurelia, and its influence on north-
Tyrrhenian trade had been relinquished to local
agricultural barons such as the Sestii.
7
An uneasy
subsistence continued for an indefinite period,
punctuated by occasional setbacks and recoveries,
such as a probable earthquake under Nero and the
subsequent rebuilding by a minister of Claudius.
8
The town, or at least its territory, has enticing per-
sonal links to at least two emperors, Nero and Ves-
pasian. Both had probably spent parts of their child-
hoods at nearby family estates, and there is epi-
graphic evidence that Nero was a patron of the col-
ony.
9
But the town never received extensive imperi-
al benefactions. Rutilius Namatianus reported in
the early fifth century that the town had been aban-
doned on account of a plague of mice. This amus-
ing anecdote merely confirms that the cat was al-
ready away: Cosa had been virtually uninhabited
since the late third century C.E.
10
It was shortly after World War II when Brown sin-
gled out Cosa as a promising beachhead for the
archaeological mission of the American Academy
in Rome. The sites identity was unequivocal, its
early history documented; and its remains, in an
olive grove cloistered within the original colonial
walls, were physically accessible. A survey of May
1948 revealed enough remains to establish a virtu-
ally complete grid pattern of the streets. The im-
portance of the port, too, was immediately recog-
nized. The survey results were published tenta-
tively, experimenti causa in 1951.
11
The seasons of
19481950, which concentrated on the rocky south-
ern promontory housing the Capitolium, resulted
in the most important and influential volume, pub-
lished in 1960, Cosa II: The Temples of the Arx.
12
This
study generated the model of a Roman colony that
has made its way into all subsequent surveys of Ro-
man architecture and urbanism; it has been cited
as well in countless historiographic contexts. Brown
formulated a vision of Cosa that simultaneously paid
homage to Rome, the mother city (one notes im-
mediately his unhesitating use of the term Arx with
a capital A), and appealed to American ideologies
of republican democracy and colonialism.
13
He at-
tached symbolic significance to the original colony
of 273. The most enduring image of Browns Cosa
is that of the original colonists hopefully tossing
their first fruits and handfuls of earth brought from
their native towns into the mundus, a ritual pit at the
crown of the citadel.
14
As early as 1950 emphasis shifted from the Arx
in the south to the Forum and nearby houses, where
it was to remain for decades. The 1950s through
the 1970s were busy times at Cosa. Many American
and Italian scholars still active today received their
archaeological apprenticeship at the site in these
years. This intensive activity was accompanied, un-
fortunately, by a paucity of published information.
After Doris Mae Taylors study of the black-glaze
pottery in 1957, no further monographs on the finds
at Cosa appeared until the mid 1970s, when Maria
Teresa Marabini Moevs and Stephen Dyson pub-
lished their studies of thin-walled and utilitarian
pottery, respectively. No monographs on architec-
ture and topography appeared. A general synthe-
sisthe first and lastfinally appeared in 1980.
Browns Cosa: The Making of a Roman Town distilled
the work of many seasons under a number of exca-
vation directors into a readable and cogent narra-
tiveperhaps too cogent, given the growing com-
plexity of the evidence. Brown reaffirmed the basic
model of the Arx he and his colleagues had estab-
lished in 1960, but revealed a rethinking of the
topography of the Temple of Jupiter, which I will
discuss below.
15
He also introduced a vision for the
Forum of Cosa that would profoundly influence Ital-
ian archaeology. Here Cosa was adduced as a tiny
model of Rome, its public spaces patterned loosely
after those of the metropolis.
Browns vision of Cosa went mostly unchallenged
through the 1980s, when attention was focused less
on the town than on its port, its territory, and the
nearby production villa of Settefinestre.
16
But in the
1990s, after Browns death, another series of exca-
6
Brown 1980, 735.
7
Carandini et al. 1985, 1016; Brown 1980, 6973.
8
Fentress (forthcoming).
9
Nero, by way of the Domitii Ahenobarbi: Brown et al. 1993,
2434. Vespasian: Suet. Vesp. 2.1.
10
De reditu suo 1.285 ff.; Brown et al. 1993, 245; Collins-Clin-
ton 1977.
11
Brown 1951.
12
Brown et al. 1960.
13
Fentress 2000.
14
Brown et al. 1960, 918.
15
Brown 1980, 256, fig. 25.
16
McCann et al. 1987; Carandini et al. 1985.
TEMPLES AND TERRACOTTAS AT COSA 61 2002]
vations under the direction of Elizabeth Fentress
encouraged a reassessment of the governing mod-
el, even as that model was being reaffirmed in the
Cosa volumes being published concurrently, espe-
cially Cosa III: The Buildings of the Forum. Where Brown
and his colleagues saw atria publica surrounding
two sides of the Forum, recent excavations suggest
they were private houses instead. And the chronol-
ogy and topographical reconstructions established
for the temples of the Arx, long a subject of quiet
discontent, are also receiving a second look.
17
Datable evidence for the first colony unfortunately
remains scant, particularly on the Arx.
18
A certain
amount of black-glaze ware sealed in the Capitoli-
um construction deposit can be dated back to the
third century, but another potentially informative
pottery type, Italo-Megarian ware, seems to have
appeared after 197.
19
Lamps are of little help in
dating third-century contexts; the truncated-cone
types deemed to be among the earliest at Cosa have
simply been dated according to Browns architec-
tural chronology.
20
Coins preceding the Roman
monetary reforms of ca. 214 B.C.E. are extremely
rare at Cosa, and the contexts in which they were
found have been attributed mostly to the recoloni-
zation.
21
On the basis of deposition of these materi-
als, no public building or building phase at Cosa
can be convincingly dated to the third century
B.C.E. except for the first phase of the Comitium
on the Forum and its adjoining structures to the
east.
22
The local construction materials and tech-
niques are themselves an extremely blunt instru-
ment for dating the buildings.
23
But one class of finds has been used to advance a
more refined chronology for the early site. These
are the architectural terracottas found in great abun-
dance in the vicinity of the temples. More than half
of Cosa II consists of a lavish catalogue, compiled by
Browns coauthors, Lawrence Richardson, Jr. and
Emeline Hill Richardson, of the dazzlingly diverse
array of terracotta relief plaques, antefixes, acrote-
ria, and sculpture found on the Arx. Lawrence Ri-
chardson developed an elaborate typology found-
ed on a model of cyclical stylistic development and
current knowledge of finds at other Italian sites.
His typology became the principal means of dating
the towns temples. Since subsequent work has re-
lied on the architectural chronology to provide con-
textual information for other finds, Richardsons
work has had a ripple effect on all subsequent work
at Cosa.
At the time, there was little hesitation about ap-
plying methods of connoisseurship to the task. The
triple criteria of archaeological context, fabric of
the clay, and style were deemed adequate in com-
bination for establishing the relative chronologies
of decorative programs of Cosas temples. But Ri-
chardsons confidence in the method must have
seemed excessive to some: The fabric of any sin-
gle series of revetments is never unique, and,
though in no period of the decoration is there
complete consistency of fabric among all the ele-
ments, the group united by fabric can be joined to
others on grounds of style. Thus a system is estab-
lished that is virtually infallible, and it is impossi-
ble for one using these criteria to confuse one
period with another or to misplace groups of re-
vetments.
24
By the time the Richardsons next contribution
emerged, in Cosa III, the physical and scholarly
landscape, both at Cosa and at large, had changed.
But Lawrence Richardson, understandably, did not
revisit the initial typology that he had so painstak-
ingly created more than three decades earlier, and
in which he had shown such unshakable confi-
dence.
25
Those who do not know Cosa well cannot
be blamed for perpetuating the model; even dis-
satisfied Cosa cognoscenti have been disinclined
to wrestle with its intricacies. But Richardsons stat-
ed premise is enough to give even the most casual
reader pause: the phrase virtually infallible has
never been welcome in the vocabulary of archaeo-
logical method.
problems with the connoisseurship
The Cosa architectural terracotta typology is
based upon two presumptions: the orderly, linear
nature of stylistic changes in a given geographic
region, and the notion that forms undergo recog-
nizable evolutionary cycles progressing from an in-
cipient, inferior phase to full maturity, often by
mediation of individual genius; then a baroque
or mannerist stage, which leads to degeneracy and
experimentation with new forms. This is a familiar
17
Fentress 1994, 2000, forthcoming; Scott 1992; Fentress
and Rabinowitz 1996.
18
A useful summary of Cosa chronologies appears in Fitch
and Goldman 1994, 127.
19
Taylor 1957, 7591; Marabini Moevs 1980, 1834. See also
Dyson 1976, 1935.
20
Fitch and Goldman 1994, 234.
21
Buttrey 1980, 312.
22
Brown et al. 1993, 246, 378.
23
E.g., the evident switch from purplish Vulci tufa and gray
nenfro tufa to a yellowish travertine from Tarquinia or Satur-
nia for worked stone.
24
Brown et al. 1960, 206.
25
The foreword of Cosa III acknowledges the problem; see
Brown et al. 1993, xxivxxv.
model, one that always is punctuated by a classical
moment at its summit. Richardsons classical mo-
ment was the mid second century, when, after the
little Temple D had risen on the northeastern slope
of the Arx, the great Capitolium was erected on the
nearby summit (figs. 13).
In the first set of revetments of the Capitolium we see
the flowering of the design first falteringly attempted
in the decoration of Temple D. This is the great clas-
sic style of the second century, perhaps the finest style
ever achieved in temple terracottas. It is interesting
that it springs almost, as it were, full blown into being,
that it is not the result of many experiments and re-
finements that we can follow, that even at Cosa, where
the finds of terracottas are so extraordinarily rich, it
is anticipated only in the designs of a single decora-
tion and that only a few years earlier. On the face of
things we must presume that these designs do not
originate in or near Cosa; they are the work of a
brilliant artist and beautifully executed; the depth of
the relief is as thoughtfully studied as the use of space
and color. And for the first time the relationship of
one series of plaques to another is satisfactorily re-
solved; the whole decoration fits together in propor-
tion and balance. The man who made these matrices
was more than simply skillful, he was brilliant, and
probably he was working in or near Rome together
with the first great Roman architects.
26
Extravagant claims of this sort invite any number
of criticisms. Perhaps the most serious is that of
circularity: a forms temporal relationship to other
forms determines its quality, or its quality establish-
es its place in time. If certain forms are deemed
classical because they seem more beautiful, grace-
ful, or restrained than others, then all forms that
are found, by archaeological context, to fall to ei-
ther side of the ideal chronologically must neces-
sarily be judged debased or crude, even if they
are not. Those of an apparently similar aesthetic
must be deemed roughly synchronic, if archaeo-
logical context allows that possibility. Richardson
takes the perceived unity beyond synchronicity to a
single workshop, and even a single man. It is al-
most an axiom of the methodology that when one is
dealing with a relatively anonymous artistic genre,
the classical moment is traced to a single man or
group of men; but the periods of emergence and
decline are rarely distilled into individual schools
or personalities.
Modern critics will smile at this positivistic
morphology, which reflects patterns of thought ex-
tending back more than two centuries; but we should
not criticize a method strictly for its lack of moder-
nity. The fact is that whatever its merits and short-
comings in the assessment of painting and sculp-
ture, such an approach has never been effective in
accounting for the development of nonfigural art in
antiquity. Richardson is too rarely troubled by the
complexities of the commerce of forms or the va-
garies of fashion. Never mind the difficulty of dis-
tinguishing incipient inferiority from degenerate infe-
riority; the standards of taste overallthat is, what
is superior and what is inferior, regardless of se-
quenceare little short of arbitrary, especially if we
consider the uncertainty of each plaque series
position in relation to the others. The criteria for
Richardsons judgments are unabashedly subjec-
tive, and not always supported by the evidence. For
example, he leaves no doubt about his preference
for the family of pierced crestings with triskelia and
figure-eights, which according to his chronology
first appeared on the Arx with the initial construc-
tion of the Capitolium around 150 B.C.E. A good
example is R210 (fig. 4). In his scheme it repre-
sents a more mature style than those with a serpen-
tine ribbon around staggered circular holes, which
he dates to the earliest phase of monumental build-
ing on the Arx, ca. 240220 B.C.E.; for example,
R159 (fig. 5): Aesthetically it marks a vast advance
over the earlier crestings of Cosa, and while we may
not find it so interesting in design as such late ar-
chaic crestings as those of Segni and Satricum, the
immense popularity of crestings of this design in
this period is proof that the Romans universally
considered it highly successful.
27
In other words, the triskelionfigure-eight de-
sign is part of the classical moment that supplant-
ed the staid older design. Unfortunately for this
paradigm, it is now known that the triskelionfig-
ure-eight motif dates back to the fifth century B.C.E.
in Orvieto, and was adopted soon thereafter in oth-
er Etruscan centers, evidently to be abandoned lat-
er.
28
And one is left to wonder why, if the new style
was so popular in the second century B.C.E., the
old style was found in a burn layer next to the Cap-
itolium dating probably to the raid of 70 B.C.E. (see
below). R189, a closely related subtype associated
with the first phase of Temples B and D (fig. 6),
also seems to have remained in place until final
destruction. It is identical to the cresting on the
famous pediment of Talamone, which at present is
dated to the second quarter of the second century
but has been dated as late as ca. 80 B.C.E.
29
At any
26
Brown et al. 1960, 225.
27
Brown et al. 1960, 227.
28
Strazzulla 1987, 142; Comella 1993, 445, tav. 4a, 17a, 18a.
29
von Freytag 1986, 2325, Taf. 8.9, Beilage 1.
Fig. 1. Plan of the known structures on the Arx and zones of excavation in 19481951. (Brown et al. 1960, 2; courtesy of the
American Academy in Rome)
rate, the Talamone temple was probably destroyed
in the same pirate raid that devastated Cosa in 70.
30
Other equally subjective, and problematic, assess-
ments are not far to seek. For example, Richardson
supposes that the standard cymation (Lesbian
leaf) in the upper registers of revetment plaques
30
Brown 1980, 74.
31
The term revetment is sometimes used indiscriminately
of architectural terracottas in general, even though many types,
Fig. 2. View of Temple D on the Arx of Cosa from the forecourt of the Capitolium. (Photo by the
author)
Fig. 3. View of the Capitolium of Cosa from the south. (Photo by the author)
such as antefixes and crestings, are freestanding and have no
revetting (i.e., covering) function whatever.
32
Comella 1993, 50, tav. 68, 10b, 1921.
preceded the inverted form,
31
which appears in a
number of plaque subtypes at Cosa. Evidence from
other sites has undermined this presumption as
well.
32
And Richardsons claim that the double an-
themion pattern on some plaques is clearly a fore-
runner of the well-known family of looped-pal-
Fig. 4. Pierced cresting subtype from the Capitolium area.
R210. (Brown et al. 1960, 210; courtesy of the American
Academy in Rome)
Fig. 5. Pierced cresting subtype from the Capitolium area.
Academy in Rome)
Fig. 6. Pierced cresting subtype from Temples B and D.
Academy in Rome)
Fig. 7. Looped palmette plaque subtype from the Temple D
area. R191. (Brown et al. 1960, 190; courtesy of the American
Academy in Rome)
33
Brown et al. 1960, 167. See Comella 1993, 48 and esp.
Strazzulla 1987, 15563: Si tratta di uno dei modelli pi diffu-
si, attestato sin dal tardo arcaismo e presente, nel corso del V
sec. a.C., nei maggiori centri di area etrusca e laziale, a Cervet-
eri e Pyrgi, Orvieto, Ardea e Segni. Da tale periodo in poi la
riproduzione del modello continua sempre pi generalizzata e
senza soluzione di continuit, con pochissime variazioni che
riguardano, nellanthemion, la forma delle palmette, pi o meno
corpose o regolari, ed i riempitivi, solitamente fiori stilizzati e
losanghe, pi raramente elementi floreali di tipo naturalisti-
co.
34
Strazzulla 1977; 1987, 151, 153 n. 2.
35
Andrn 1939. See Stopponi 1979. This study presumes
three phases, when in fact two phases separated by a great deal
of time seem more likely. See also Forte 1991, where two phas-
es are reconstructed, but again with insufficient reason.
36
E.g., Scott 1992.
mette designs is mistaken, at least with regard to
the specific context of Cosa (fig. 7). Looped pal-
mettes are known from early contexts at other Etr-
uscan and Etrusco-Italian sites, beginning in the
archaic period and appearing more or less contin-
uously with minor variations thereafter.
33
Maria Jos Strazzulla has recognized that this con-
tinuous recourse to subjective stylistic analysis is in-
defensible.
34
The only way that we will advance our
knowledge of the development of styles and tastes
for these highly abstract and subtly variant creations,
she suggests, is by the painstaking comparison of
archaeological contexts that can be dated by inde-
pendent means. Although Cosa looms large in any
study of Etrusco-Italian architectural terracottas,
even its abundant information, much of it drawn
from nonstratigraphic contexts, can provide only a
few widely spaced chronological termini.
Strazzullas warnings have not prevailed. Some
recent terracotta studies not only take the Cosa ty-
pology as gospel, but continue to rely on subjective
principles that have burdened the study of Etrus-
co-Italian temple decoration since Arvid Andrns
monumental two-volume work opened up the pos-
sibilities of comparative stylistic analysis of temple
terracottas.
35
Whatever progress has been made on
dating by style is confined almost exclusively to the
realm of freestanding and pedimental sculpture.
36
As to the molded terracottas applied to the build-
ings in decorative series, their design from the fifth
to the first centuries B.C.E. was remarkably conser-
vative throughout Etruria. It constantly drew inspi-
ration from the canon of Classical or Archaic archi-
tectural motifs, returning to them again and again,
often with only slight variations. When significant
mutations are evident, it is often impossible to de-
termine which form preceded the other, much less
the vagaries of taste that underlay the change.
The typological criteria are not the only matter
for concern. It is argued in Cosa II that molded ter-
racottas from many different periods coexisted on
the same building, constituting a veritable patch-
work of styles. There are two objections to this: first,
such eclecticism would be an affront to the very
principles of the evolution of taste that Richardson
adduces. A new style is not a style at all unless it has
unity, and unity can only be achieved by supplant-
ing the old style. I do not suggest that entire deco-
rative programs were ordinarily changed at once,
only entire series; for example, on any given facade
a full set of open cresting plaquesthe highest of
the three decorative bands covering the angled
wooden beams that frame the top of the pediment
probably would have been replaced at one time,
even if the raking sima directly below it remained
in place. Second, most of Richardsons plaque sub-
types do not have the same dimensions, and plaques
in a new style would not have fit in the gaps left by
the old ones. Thus the complete replacement of
series was not just an aesthetic desideratum, but a
practical necessity. Antefixes present an evident
exception to both principles. Although they too
existed in programs, eclectic replacements seem
to have been quite acceptable. This would account
for the many antefix subtypes found at Cosa that
are represented by five or fewer fragments.
A truly exemplary dimension of Richardsons work
is the careful description and classification of the
terracotta fabrics. Conclusions based on fabric type,
however, should be drawn only with the greatest cau-
tion. In the future, scientific analysis of the fabric of
Etruscan and north Italian terracottas may help us
to locate clay production centers or at least to group
the terracottas according to the types of clay and
mineral matter preferred by individual ateliers.
37
But we must not be overly optimistic about the re-
sults. Clay formulas vary not only geographically and
chronologically, but according to the individual
tastes of artisans. The wide variety of fabrics found
in discarded fragments at the architectural terra-
cotta workshop at Selvasecca is testimony to this fact.
38
Thus we cannot surmise, as Richardson does, that a
fabric without pozzolana temper is older than one
that includes pozzolana, or that two fabrics pressed
in the same mold are not contemporaneous. There
are too many variables at work, not least the likeli-
hood that many ateliers were served by several clay
and sand quarries. Lacking extensive geological and
geographical data, we may safely draw only one con-
clusion from fabric analysis: fragments of identical
fabric come from the same workshop at roughly the
same time. About dissimilar fabrics we can say very
little, at least until we adopt the painstaking meth-
ods of forensic geology.
the received history of cosas temples
The following is a brief history of the temples of
Cosa as it appears in Cosa II and Cosa III.
The founding of Cosa in 273 B.C.E. is associated
with a single identified structure, a small orthogo-
nal building found directly under the cellae of the
Capitolium (fig. 8). Because it was next to a deep
pit that bore traces of organic matter, it was thought
to be an open-air auguraculum linked to the Roman
founding ritual, during which the first fruits of the
new colony were buried in an adjacent mundus, or
ritual pit. This structure was on a wholly different
orientation from the Capitolium itself, but was
aligned with the original altar of the Capitolium.
The excavators of 19481951 surmised that the
first genuine temple was not built until after the
First Punic War. To this temple, they believed, be-
longed a large number of architectural terracottas
found in the construction levels of the Capitolium.
Among these were two subtypes of antefix featur-
ing an identical form, one with a bust of Minerva
and the other with Hercules. Because both deities
were offspring of Jupiter, it was concluded that the
early temple was dedicated to that goda tenuous
identification, given the promiscuous use of Her-
cules and Minerva imagery throughout Italy in a
wide variety of contexts. Rich terracotta finds in a
narrow trench dug south of the Capitolium led fur-
ther to the suggestion that the Temple of Jupiter
lay immediately south of the excavated area (fig.
9). The date ascribed to this as yet unseen struc-
ture was 240220 B.C.E., roughly the interval be-
tween the first two Punic Wars. The Temple of Ju-
piter was thought to have survived until the early
first century B.C.E., when a burn layer was deposit-
ed just south and east of the Capitolium forecourt.
Richardson ascribed three decorative phases to the
Temple of Jupiter: the initial phase (240220
B.C.E.), consisting mainly of terracotta subtypes
sealed in construction contexts of the Capitolium;
a redecoration (170160 B.C.E.); and a third phase
of unspecified date. Two oddities of the proposed
redecoration of 170160 should be pointed out:
according to Richardson, the old terracottas were
put in storage, later to be reused in the first phase
37
Some success has been achieved at Bassano del Grapa in
Venetia, where a furnace site has been associated with terra-
cottas found in the region; see Strazzulla 1987, 65.
38
Andrn and Berggren 1969; Andrn 1974, 146.
of the Capitolium, both as building material and as
decoration; and a new raking sima was introduced
onto the Temple of Jupiter, but with the old crest-
ingin fact, none other than R159, the serpen-
tine-ribbon subtype also found in 1995 on the east-
ern heightreused on top of it (fig. 5).
When the area south of the Capitolium was fur-
ther explored in the 1960s, no trace of the conjec-
tural Temple of Jupiter was found, only a terrace of
rubble containing hundreds of terracotta frag-
ments, which evidently was created for defensive
purposes after the sack of 70 B.C.E.
39
Explorations
west of the Capitolium seemed to reveal the foot-
ings for a small temple, and these were duly as-
signed to the Temple of Jupiter (fig. 10).
40
Brown
never published this phase of excavations in the
serial of record, the Memoirs of the American Academy
in Rome, but he did give a brief account of the exca-
vations in the 1967 Bollettino darte.
41
The second and third temples built at Cosa were
thought to be Temple B on the Forum (ca. 175
B.C.E.) and Temple D on the Arx (170160 B.C.E.)
(fig. 9). Russell T. Scott has recently revised the
construction dates, suggesting that both temples
were built more or less concurrently after the recol-
onization of Cosa in 197.
42
Brown assigned Temple
B two decorative phases over its lifetime. The sec-
ond was a repair phase dated to roughly 100 B.C.E.;
evidently it was thought that the temple escaped
serious damage in the sack of 70. Temple D, howev-
39
Brown 1980, 734. The sack has been associated with a
coin hoard found at the House of the Treasure in 1966; But-
trey (1980, 82) dates the hoard to 7371 B.C.E.
40
Brown 1980, 25.
41
Brown 1967.
42
Scott 1992.
Fig. 8. Plan of the structure and pit discovered under the cellas of the Capitolium. (Brown et al. 1960,
12; courtesy of the American Academy in Rome)
er, was damaged in the sack; its second phase in-
volved not only a redecoration but a substantial re-
modeling and lengthening of the pronaos in the
first quarter of the first century B.C.E.
On the grounds of numismatic evidence, the
construction of the Capitolium was dated to ca. 150
B.C.E. (figs. 1112). Scott now proposes that it was
built in the second quarter of the second century,
and it may even be possible to associate it with the
building program of Temples B and D. A large vari-
ety of terracottas found in the vicinity remained
unassigned, and so Richardson conjectured multi-
ple phases of decoration on this temple:
Phase I: initial decoration, ca. 150 B.C.E.
Phase II: first repair, ca. 120 B.C.E.
Phase III: first redecoration, ca. 100 B.C.E.
Phase IV: second repair, ca. 75 B.C.E.
Phase V: second redecoration, ca. 50 B.C.E.
a reinterpretation of the evidence
for temples b and d
Richardson suggests that the relative delicacy of
terracotta decoration virtually dictated that new
decorative phases be introduced roughly every 25
years. But this rule patently does not apply to at
least one of the three known temples in Cosa. That
is Temple B, which during its lifetime underwent
no significant program of architectural redesign
(figs. 1314). Its catalogue of major architectural
terracottas runs as follows:
Two main antefix subtypes: one with silenus/maenad
theme (17 and 8 fragments respectively) and one with
palmette-decorated shell (9 fragments); additionally
a few fragments of other kinds; one strigilated sima
subtype (30 fragments); two subtypes of open crest-
ing, one with triskelia and figure-eights (39 fragments
concentrated to the south), and one of serpentine
ribbon (66 fragments concentrated to the northwest;
three fragments of a second serpentine subtype, iden-
tical to the larger cresting of Temple D and the ped-
iment of Talamone, can safely be ignored); one sub-
type of crossed-ribbon revetment plaques (139 frag-
ments) and one subtype of looped-palmette plaques
(34 fragments).
43
Although Temple B lasted at least two and a half
centuries, and perhaps longer, one is hard-pressed
to reconstruct two phases for any of its registers,
43
Brown et al. 1993, 15466.
Fig. 9. Plan of the southern sector of Cosa. Buildings that carried terracottas are shaded. (Illustration by the author)
despite Richardsons efforts. The two cresting sub-
types, relatively sequestered from one another in
situ, evidently belonged to opposite pediments,
while the single sima subtype, found on both sides
of the temple, supported both crestings. The tem-
ple had only one looped-palmette subtype, which
was used sparingly, perhaps just on the raking cor-
nices, and one far more abundant rectangular re-
vetment subtype, which must have been used on
most or all of the horizontal beams. Not counting
antefixes, then, Temple B had a total of five series, a
modest level of diversity even for so small a temple.
The example of Temple B is important for a num-
ber of reasons. First, it shows that terracottas could
remain in place for a very long time, or be replaced
by units made in the original molds. Second, the
sequestered deposits of the two cresting subtypes
reveal that the two pediments could carry different
decorative schemes concurrently and permanent-
ly. And third, as the only temple on the republican
forum, Temple B did not lack importance; thus it
cannot be considered a marginal anomaly. All of
these issues would suggest that the more complex
typologies for the three known temples of the Arx
should be simplified.
Yet we are faced with an undeniable problem.
The sheer number of types and subtypes of terra-
cottas found on the Arx must be accounted for some-
how. One option is to accept Brown and Richard-
sons contention that many of them belonged to a
Temple of Jupiter of the third century. Twelve
years elapsed between the founding of the colony
and the outbreak of the First Punic Warenough
time for the colonists to build temples of a size com-
mensurate with the colonys modest beginnings.
44
It is certainly possible that a small temple could
have disappeared without leaving significant archi-
tectural traces. The ancient soil layer on most of
the Arx was minimal. Because this is so, archaeolo-
gists do not have the benefit of some of the usual
signposts of robbed buildings, such as foundation
courses and their trenches. Maximum exposure of
the foundations made complete spoliation easy: the
lower courses of targeted buildings were not sunk
into the earth, but rested directly upon the living
rock, where they could easily be removed without a
trace. Leveling and drafting marks in the limestone
bedrock may have been obliterated by subsequent
pitting. But if the first colony had prospered
enough to build substantial temples on the Arx,
one would expect to encounter at least some coin
and pottery evidence to corroborate significant ur-
ban activity at Cosa in the early third century. And
the sites of these buildings should underlie black-
glaze deposits of the second century, but no such
stratigraphic relationship has been identified any-
where on the Arx.
45
Instead, the first colony seems
to have quickly degenerated into a ghost town.
44
Strazzulla 1977, 423.
45
I am grateful to Elizabeth Fentress for this information.
Fig. 10. Actual-state plan of 1968 with the proposed position of the Temple of Jupiter directly west of the Capitolium. The
hatched area represents the hypothetical footings for the temple. (Scott 1992, tav. II; courtesy of R.T. Scott)
How, then, to account for the terracottas in the
construction phases of the second-century tem-
ples? A number of architectural terracottas were
found in the rubble fill of the Capitolium, and large
quantities, both roof tiles and plaques of various
kinds, were found lining its cistern like bricks (fig.
15).
46
Although these were used as building mate-
rial in the first half of the second century B.C.E.,
they need not have come from earlier temples at
Cosa, at least not exclusively. First, it is now recog-
nized that elaborate architectural terracottas were
not the exclusive domain of temples. Investigations
at Acquarossa have shown that private dwellings
could carry similar decorative schemes, and even
the famous archaic structure at Poggio Civitate near
Murlo is often thought to have been a secular or
quasi-secular building.
47
Could some of these ter-
racottas on the Arx have originated on early pri-
vate or nonsacred buildings in the town, which re-
main unexcavated? There is no reason to discount
the possibility.
Second, it is possible that the new colonists of
the early second century, eager to build quickly and
prolifically, ordered a large overstock from nearby
workshops representing enough variety to ensure
that they would suffice for several temples. Broken
or excess terracottas, of which there must have been
many, were simply used as bricks or even fill. The
Capitolium cistern would have been lined late in
construction, probably after completion of the roof
and its catchment system. Some of the leftover ter-
racottas from the Capitolium decoration, along with
wasters broken during the decoration and tiling
phases, may have made their way into the lining.
Such a scenario could account for the fact that ter-
racottas of the same type and fabric were found in
two contexts of different dates, the construction
phase of the Capitolium and the burn layer at its
corner associated with the sack of 70 B.C.E. The
simplest reading of this evidence is that the tem-
ple retained at least some of its original decoration
until the sack, and that it came from the same batch-
46
Brown et al. 1960, 15169.
47
Olofsson 1986; stenberg 1975; Ridgway and Ridgway
1994.
Fig. 11. Browns reconstruction of the Arx of Cosa ca. 150 B.C.E., after the completion of the Capitolium. (Brown
et al. 1960, 109; courtesy of the American Academy in Rome)
es as the factory seconds used to line the cistern a
century earlier when the temple was built. Howev-
er, it is harder to account for the terracottas in the
Capitolium construction layer in the same way; thus,
some of the sealed terracottas in these contexts
possibly came from a third-century source.
A more general way to explain the multiplicity of
terracottas is to account for all the surfaces to which
they could be attached. It is usually assumed that
only the outward-facing surfaces of temples were
decorated with painted terracottas. But transverse
beams under the eaves, and exposed beams on the
interior, may also have received similar treatment.
The inner surfaces of the wall-plates, for example
the large longitudinal beams resting on top of the
cella walls and carried forward to the columns
could have been below ceiling level, and may have
been decorated with terracotta plaques. The Capi-
tolium, having three cellae and four wall-plates
extending out to the front colonnade, would have
presented six registers within the cellae, and an
equal number under the ceiling of the pronaos (fig.
16a, b). The inside of the architrave over the front
row of columns also should have been decorated
(fig. 16c). There is the additional possibility that
the eaves, or the undersides and ends of project-
ing beams, were revetted. Some variations of the
addorsed-palmette, double-anthemion, and
crossed-ribbon plaque subtypes have four straight
edges, and could have been used in this way (figs.
1718).
48
Furthermore, the Capitolium and per-
haps the other temples as well had decorated wood-
en doorframes, despite the denial in Cosa II.
49
At
Lo Scasato at Falerii Veteres, a plaque series with
90-degree returns was found intact enough to al-
low a reconstruction of nearly an entire doorframe,
48
The decoration of the Capitolium at Luni, which has been
reconstructed, unconvincingly, with two phases of revetments,
has two addorsed-palmette subtypes with four straight edges;
see Forte 1991. Though they are reconstructed as outer ar-
chitrave revetments, they may instead have been used for
the undersides of the beams. At Punta della Vipera, a small
square plaque type was found that would suit secondary
beams or the undersides of primary beams; see Stopponi
1979, 2567, fig. 4.4.
49
Although no evidence of frames was found, the hinge
sockets were not flush with the jambs, but behind them, in-
side the cellas. Thus wooden frames would not have impeded
the operation of the doors. They may have been fairly narrow
and unobtrusive, since the nail holes in the plaques are toward
the inside edges.
Fig. 12. Richardsons reconstruction of the first decorative phase of the Capitolium. (Brown et al. 1960, 206;
courtesy of the American Academy in Rome)
now on display at the Villa Giulia in Rome.
50
Plaques
of similar subtypes were found on the Arx of Cosa,
but are assigned, somewhat perversely, to the ends
of longitudinal beams (columina), even though such
U-shaped configurations are too large and would
hardly have served to protect the wood surface from
the elements (fig. 12).
51
A revision of Richardsons typology may therefore
be characterized as follows: there were fewer deco-
rative phases than presumed, but with a greater num-
ber of series coexisting in any given phase. Let us
briefly apply this principle to Temple D on the Arx
(figs. 11, 19). Richardson reconstructs two phases
for this temple.
52
But one could argue that most of
the forms found in reasonable quantities around
Temple D belong to a single decorative scheme that
was only slightly altered when the temple was length-
ened at some unknown time in the second century
B.C.E. Two subtypes of antefix were found in the
area (17 and 8 fragments respectively). These would
satisfactorily account for the eaves and the pediment.
Two subtypes each of strigilated sima and pierced
cresting were found around the temple in signifi-
cant numbers. The larger sima and cresting (repre-
sented by 15 and 40 fragments respectively) were
concentrated toward the front, and may therefore
be assigned to the facade (figs. 6, 20). The other
two (37 and 29 fragments respectively) may have
been on the back pediment. Three looped palmette
subtypes were found in the vicinity, but only two in
large quantities, 60 and 73 fragments (figs. 7, 21).
Looped palmettes are usually associated with the
raking cornices of pediments, just below the simas;
53
accordingly we have one set for each pediment. The
third subtype, represented by only 16 fragments,
could have decorated the horizontal pediment cor-
nices. Two addorsed palmette subtypes were found
in moderate numbers, 23 and 22 fragments respec-
tively (figs. 1718), and can be assigned to two sets
of horizontal beams, perhaps the architraves and
the wall-plates. But the looped palmettes, since they
were found in greater quantities, belong on some
of the horizonal beams as well. One subtype may
have been introduced when the temple was length-
ened, a measure that would have called for longer
wall-plates on either side.
50
Comella 1993.
51
Brown et al. 1960, 2204. Accepted by Stopponi 1979,
257.
52
Brown et al. 1960, 182204.
53
A clear oblique cut at the end of a series is visible in the
looped-palmette set from Lo Scasato at Falerii. See Comella
1993, tav. 6, 19.
Fig. 13. Reconstructed plan and elevations of Temple B on the Forum. (Brown et al. 1993, 56;
Fig. 14. Richardsons reconstruction of a proposed first decorative phase of Temple B. (Brown et al. 1960, 180;
Temple D, then, had a maximum of nine decora-
tive series (not including the antefixes) at one time,
hardly an excessive number when we consider all
their possible positions. The only two subtypes that
might seem aesthetically incompatible with each
other (and this perhaps only by modern standards)
are the pierced crestings, one of which is a serpen-
tine ribbon and the other a much more rectilinear
swastika meander (figs. 6, 22). Indeed, if we are to
presume a second phase, it would most likely be
for the crestings, which were the most delicate and
vulnerable elements in the decorative scheme. But
there is no need to presume this, especially in light
of the evidence from the contemporary Temple B,
which probably bore two cresting subtypes concur-
rently. Being on separate pediments, the two forms
would never have been seen in juxtaposition.
the capitolium and the
temple of jupiter
If Temples B and D needed little redecoration
over the course of 250 years, it seems gratuitous to
ascribe five decorative phases to the Capitolium,
which shows no evidence of significant architectur-
al redesign over its lifetimenot to mention three
phases to the Temple of Jupiter. Given the pow-
erful claim to simplicity that can be adduced for
both the smaller temples, a reassessment of the
Capitolium area seems in order.
First we must retire the Temple of Jupiter once
and for all. Some scholars have been reluctant to
dismiss this phantom fane, even as they have been
forced to displace it to the northwest. While it is at
least possible that a temple was footed on the lime-
stone bedrock west of the Capitolium, and equally
possible that some of the Arx terracottas belonged
to it, it is well to remember that the principal rea-
son for proposing a Temple of Jupiter in the first
place was to make sense of the burn layer at the
southeast corner of the Capitolium forecourt (lev-
el III), probably a result of the raid of 70 B.C.E.
(figs. 2324). This layer contained some fine terra-
cottas, including the pedimental figure of a sol-
dier in a muscle cuirass in the Cosa museum (now
attributed to Temple D),
54
and some of the archi-
tectural terracottas that Richardson believed were
the oldest.
The Temple of Jupiter, now putatively separated
from its burn layer by more than 30 m, appears to be
a chimera. Instead, the conflagration layer proba-
54
Scott 1992, 945, tav. VI.
bly belonged principally to the Capitolium. The
roof burned during the raid and the charred re-
mains, including pedimental sculpture and many
architectural terracottas, were swept off the south-
east corner of the forecourt, forming level III. At
some point thereafter a defensive terrace, level II,
was built up against the south side of the Capitoli-
um, covering the burn layer. Because the Arx and
its surroundings were short of soil, every imagin-
able kind of rubble was gathered up, including an
astounding array of terracottas, and dumped south
of the Capitolium. We cannot be confident that all
of the material originated nearby. One is remind-
ed of Nero transporting the rubble of Rome to the
Fig. 15. Pronaos of the Capitolium with the cistern in the foreground. The gap in the cisterns
upper lining is the place where Richardson extracted terracottas for his sample. (Photo by the
author)
Fig. 16. Hypothetical reconstruction of the principal timbers of the Capitolium and positions
for terracotta series. (Illustration by the author)
Pomptine marshes after the great fire of 64 C.E. A
coin from 84 B.C.E. was found in this layer,
55
along
with fragments of campana plaques that cannot be
dated much before the mid first century.
56
Brown
suggested in 1967 that the level dated to 7060
B.C.E.
57
But there is little evidence that the town
remained inhabited in the decades after 70; more
likely, the terracing is part of the recolonization ca.
2520 B.C.E. Being one of the first projects follow-
ing the resettlement, the terrace layer could not be
Fig. 17. Addorsed palmette plaque subtype from the Temple
D area. R193. (Brown et al. 1960, 194; courtesy of the
Fig. 18. Addorsed palmette plaque subtype from the Temple
Fig. 19. Richardsons reconstruction of a proposed first decorative phase of Temple D. (Brown et al. 1960, 183;
55
Buttrey 1980, cat. 105.
56
Twelve campana plaques in all, i.e., terracotta revetment
plaques featuring human or animal figures, often in a mytho-
logical setting; see Brown et al. 1960, 296300.
57
Brown 1967, 37.
expected to preserve any evidence from the lacu-
na. Campana plaques were very popular in the ear-
ly Augustan period, and their modest representa-
tion in the terrace level suggests that they were just
beginning to be used at Cosa when the terrace was
formed. It is strange, however, that nothing whatev-
er underlay this level along most of the Capitoli-
ums south side. It is also puzzling that fragments of
all sima and cresting subtypes from around the Cap-
itolium were found in this deposit, with the single
exception of cresting R159 (see below). Either the
Augustan rebuilding of the temple used decades-
old forms, or else it dispensed with simas and crest-
ings altogether. One is left to suppose that level II
only seemed homogeneous, and that it may in fact
have comprised two or more depositions.
A survey of the major plaque types concentrated
around the southern Arx yields the following data:
3 antefix subtypes, 1097 fragments (with many oth-
er subtypes represented by 5 or fewer fragments); 6
strigilated sima subtypes, 1083 fragments; 7
pierced cresting subtypes, 16103 fragments; 10
rectangular revetment subtypes, 6232 fragments;
58
11 looped-palmette revetment subtypes, 7474 frag-
ments; and 6 campana plaque subtypes, 13170 frag-
ments.
These are all the major subtypes that Richardson
associated with the multiple phases of the Temple
of Jupiter and the Capitolium, now collapsed to-
gether into a single area study. I omit subtypes rep-
resented by five or fewer fragments; they are either
accidental or only marginally relevant to the larger
decorative schemes. I also omit small moldings and
revetments, which cannot be located on the build-
ings with any precision, and four columen frame
plaque types. These last purportedly decorated the
ends of the principal longitudinal timbers of the
roof, but actually they were doorframes.
Any scholar examining the chronology of the Arx
terracottas should bear in mind the following five
58
Richardson combines the final two plaque subtypes in a
single entry, recording 464 fragments for both together; see
Fig. 20. Strigilated sima from the Temple D area. R188. (Brown
Fig. 21. Looped palmette plaque subtype from the Temple
Fig. 22. Pierced cresting subtype from the Temple D area.
Academy in Rome)
Brown et al. 1960, 27881. Thus 232 represents the average
for each subtype.
Fig. 23. Section drawing of stratigraphy immediately south of the Capitolium. (Brown et al. 1960, pl. LXX 2; courtesy of
the American Academy in Rome)
points. First, on the Arx, the scatter of the fragments
is always significant, but rarely decisive. The site
has been disturbed repeatedly, most recently when
it served as an antiaircraft position in World War II.
Greater numbers of subtypes associated with the
Capitolium are found immediately to its south,
sometimes in upper levels and sometimes in the
thick, undifferentiated debris layer, level II. Clear-
ly the area was seen as a convenient dumping
ground, both for sweepings around the Arx and for
debris from all over Cosa.
Second, the disturbance extends to the north
slope of the Arx, where hundreds of unlocalized
terracotta fragments were found. Many were proba-
bly dumped there, but many others would have fall-
en down the hill in a northwesterly direction by
natural erosion. Because of this fact, decoration
from the north and west sides of the Capitolium
should be somewhat more heavily represented
here than that from the south and east.
Third, the east side of the Capitolium had by far
the fewest fragments, for the obvious reason that
the forecourt of the temple had to be kept clear of
debris. Conversely, the west endbeing the back
of the templemay have seen some dumping of
debris originating on other sides of the building.
Fourth, the Capitolium had at least two decora-
tive phases, one before the conflagration and one
after; and fifth, the six campana plaque types are
interchangeable and should not be seen as belong-
ing to six separate registers. They all must date to
the phase after the fire, and probably to the Au-
gustan renaissance.
Because an unknown number of subtypes of re-
vetment plaques could have been attached to the
Capitolium at any given time, it is probably fruitless
to try to extrapolate from them. More informative,
because of their confinement to the raking pedi-
mental beams, are the strigilated simas and pierced
crestings found in this area. Various details might
assist in matching a sima subtype to a cresting sub-
type, such as similar lateral dimensions and size of
the tenon at the bottom of the cresting relative to
the mortise at the top of the sima into which it was
fitted. Unfortunately, most of the simas are too frag-
mentary for a standard width to be established, and
there seems to be no close correlation between
mortise and tenon depth.
A tabulation of the subtypes and findspots of si-
mas and crestings found in the vicinity of the Cap-
itolium is available in the appendix. The list is not
comprehensive; it simply represents what was exca-
vated in the campaigns of 19481951 and pub-
lished in 1960. A vast quantity of terracottas was
turned up in subsequent excavations of level II.
Especially lamentable is Browns bare mention in
1967 of a construction layer below this level west of
the Capitolium, chock full of terracottas, which ac-
Fig. 24. Actual-state plan of the Capitolium with trenches of 19481951. (Brown et al. 1960, pl. LXV; courtesy of the American
Academy in Rome)
cording to him proved the preexistence of his pro-
posed temple in the area.
59
These were not cata-
logued systematically, and apparently many of them
were subsequently discarded or lost. Browns lan-
guage is interesting: Nel riempimento (i.e., the
Capitolium construction fill), fra gli scarti della
costruzione e della decorazione del Capitolium
sono stati rinvenuti numerosi frammenti della dec-
orazione primitiva del tempio demolito (i.e., of Ju-
piter), simili a quelli trovati nel terrapieno. Evi-
dently Richardsons chronology was not holding up,
for Richardson himself would never have suggest-
ed that the Capitoliums own decoration had been
found in its construction layer. Brown was evidently
trying to preserve the typology without drawing at-
tention to its weaknesseswhile simultaneously
trying to uphold the hypothesis of a pre-Capitoline
Temple of Jupiter.
For now the data from Cosa II must suffice. Per-
haps the most significant information to be drawn
from this compilation is the inequity between the
total number of fragments for sima and cresting
subtypes. Any temple would have required identi-
cal linear measurements for each, since they formed
two tiers of decoration along the raking beams fram-
ing the pediments. Yet in the Capitolium area 251
sima fragments are tabulated, compared to 440
cresting fragments, a ratio of 4:7. Even when we con-
sider the greater delicacy of the crestings, and the
likelihood that they broke into smaller and more
numerous fragments, the disparity is striking. It
extends even to the numbers of subtypes. When we
combine sima R209 and sima R240, which are actu-
ally a single subtype represented by two fabrics (fig.
25), the ratio of simas to crestings stands at 5:7. Such
a ratio is actually quite satisfactory; cresting series
are more inclined to degrade and, because of their
position at the top of the raking register, easier to
replace. The most significant data for determining
the decoration history of the Capitolium reside
among the simas, which should only have been re-
placed wholesale during major restorations or re-
buildings.
What temples then, if any, should we envision on
the Arx before the construction of the Capitolium
and Temple D? Evidently none ever existed to the
south. The proposed footings to the west seem
dubious; I have been unable to find the traces of
cuttings. The terrain is extremely uneven here, and
the single block of masonry that Brown could find
to associate with it was not in situ, but had slittato
giu nellavvallamento dal piano di appoggio
60
hardly evidence to suggest a precise point of ori-

gin. Yet this large polygonal block of limestone,
prepared as if for the podium of a temple, must
have belonged somewhere. Its most likely point of
originand the likely source for many of the terra-
cotta fragments in the Capitolium fillwas an ear-
lier temple on the Capitolium site itself. The so-
called auguraculum or Cosa Quadrata (a fabrication
derived from an augural space known in Rome as
Roma quadrata) under the south and central cellas
of the Capitolium could instead be the footing for
a small temple cella, which at roughly 7.5 m in width
was about the same size as that of Temple B on the
Forum (fig. 9). As can be clearly seen in Browns
illustration, the original structure was oriented to
conform to a small natural plateau of bedrock. Tem-
ples of square plan are not unknown in an Etrusco-
Roman context; for example, a square structure,
perhaps a temple in its own right, adjoins the tem-
ple on the Piazza dArmi at Veii; but much better
known is the archaic square temple in the Area
sacra di S. Omobono in Rome.
61
The orientation of
the Cosa structure has been presumed to carry deep
meaning, but the simplest interpretation is that it
merely follows the natural pattern of planes and
fissures in the rock, which are immediately evident
in Browns illustration. I argue elsewhere that Ro-
man auguracula were oriented strictly according to
the points of the compass, not to a landmark.
62
Rath-
er than an auguraculum it was probably the colonys
first temple, situated naturally where it would com-
mand the most authority over its surroundings. Its
altar would have sat directly over the mundus, prob-
ably a votive deposit, as also was the case with the
first altar of Temple D.
63
There is no need to suggest that anything grand-
er than this little temple adorned the Arx in the
third century. We may conjecture that like Temples
Fig. 25. A single sima subtype of two different fabrics found
in the Capitolium area. R209 and R240. (Brown et al. 1960,
209; courtesy of the American Academy in Rome)
59
Brown 1967, 389.
60
Brown 1967, 39.
61
Colonna 1991.
62
Taylor (forthcoming).
63
Brown et al. 1960, 323.
B and D, it carried two cresting subtypes, and per-
haps two simas as well. Simas R158 and R254 sug-
gest themselves (figs. 2627). Both were discovered
in relatively small numbers. One fragment of R158
was sealed in the construction level of Temple D.
Fragments of sima R254 were found evenly scattered
around the Capitolium, including its interior.
That leaves four sima subtypes for the Capitoli-
um, a reasonable number for a building that prob-
ably had only two major decorative phases. The best
represented subtype is R271, numbering 83 frag-
ments (fig. 28). With 19 fragments found on the
west side and 15 more down the north slope, it
seems to have been on the west pediment. Rich-
ardson correctly matches it with cresting R272,
which is overwhelmingly weighted toward the west
end (fig. 29). These two types may form a pair since
they have, respectively, an unusually thin mortise
and tenon. They may be post-conflagration (thus
Augustan or later), for neither appears in either
the burn layer or in Augustan masonry.
Another cresting subtype, R210 (fig. 4), can prob-
ably be assigned to the west pediment; a majority of
its 103 fragments were found to the west or on the
north slope. Its tenon would not have fit the mor-
tise in sima R271, so we might assign it another
sima subtype, R172 (fig. 30). The position of this
sima on the building is uncertain, but nearly a third
of its fragments were found on the north slope. This
pairing is probably pre-conflagration: two fragments
of sima R172 were found in the burn level.
Sima R209/R240 (fig. 25) is probably too well
represented to have belonged to the earliest tem-
ple, but the presence of a single fragment mortared
like a brick into the votive pit under the first altar of
Temple D suggests that it was in use at the begin-
ning of the second colonization. Perhaps we can
assign it to the east pediment of the Capitolium.
Fig. 26. Sima subtype from the Capitolium area. R158. (Brown
Fig. 27. Sima subtype from the Capitolium area. R254.
(Brown et al. 1960, 254; courtesy of the American Academy
in Rome)
Fig. 29. Cresting subtype from the Capitolium area. R272.
in Rome)
The third most numerous cresting, R240 (with 83
fragments, fig. 31) was found in abundance all
around the Capitolium, and clearly belongs to it.
Two crestings of lesser numbers, R159 (fig. 5) and
R234 (fig. 32), were found in the burn level and
may therefore have been on the building when it
was destroyed. The burn level seems to have been
barely nicked in the 19481951 campaigns, and lit-
tle is said about it thereafter. These subtypes may
yet be found in greater numbers if the burn level
finds are ever collected and tabulated.
the architectural terracottas of the
eastern height
In 1995 the foundation of a small structure on
the eastern height was excavated (figs. 9, 33). The
discovery of 13 miscellaneous terracotta fragments
(to be published in Cosa V) may indicate that this
was a temple, although there is no other conclusive
evidence to suggest such a function. What is most
interesting to remark here is that these terracottas
represent a full range of types except for acroteria;
among these few finds were fragments of an ante-
fix, a sima, two crestings, and at least one revetment
plaque type. All were of known subtypes associated
with other buildings. According to Richardsons
typology, they came from Temple of Jupiter phase I
(240220 B.C.E.); Temple B phase I (ca. 175 B.C.E.);
Temple D phase I (170160 B.C.E.); Capitolium
phase III (ca. 100 B.C.E.); and Temple D phase II
(10075 B.C.E.). The presence of all these various-
ly dated subtypes in the debris of a newly investigat-
ed structure may further undermine the old typol-
ogy. They seem to confirm that a wide but finite
array of terracottas was in use in a single period,
early in the second colonization. This structure too
seems to have been built during that energetic burst
of construction following 197, Cosas first and fin-
est renaissance.
conclusion
I have offered a simplified chronology of the tem-
ples at Cosa revolving around four historical fulcra:
the founding in the early third century B.C.E., the
refounding in the early second century, the sack of
70 B.C.E., and the final refounding under Augus-
tus. The initial founding of the colony produced a
single temple on the Arx, the one underlying the
cellas of the later Capitolium. This was not an open-
air auguraculum, as Brown suggested, but a roofed
structure. It probably carried a modest number of
terracotta registers represented in the finds around,
under, and inside the Capitolium. Browns Tem-
ple of Jupiter, purported to have been built around
240, never existed. I have suggested that the many
terracotta subtypes assigned to it can be envisioned
either on this original temple or on the many wood-
en surfaces of the Capitolium. The existing tem-
ples at Cosa are all products of the second refound-
ing. The structure on the eastern height, whether
or not it is a temple, seems to have been built and
decorated at this time; all of the scant terracottas
found in the disturbed environs of this building
have parallels on other temples at Cosa. Temple B
on the Forum offers no strong evidence of a remod-
eling phase, and it appears to have retained its orig-
inal decorative program throughout its life. Tem-
ple D on the Arx was built more or less contempo-
raneously, but suffered damage in the sack of 70.
Thereafter, probably under Augustus, it was length-
ened. Its original decorative scheme may have re-
in Rome)
in Rome)
mained largely intact, supplemented only by one
or two additional subtypes. The Capitolium, also
built at roughly the same time, was damaged in the
raid as well. The Augustan reconstruction was on
the same general plan as before, but with an exten-
sive redecoration, including new simas and crest-
ings on both pediments.
I have intentionally avoided stylistic analysis in
this reevaluation. Some will find this embargo too
harsh; after all, morphologies on the basis of style
have been a useful tool for historians of ancient art
for centuries. But every scholar today is aware of
their dangers. No rule of change is absolute, and a
universal etiology of taste that can account for the
intervention of individual preferences, the recur-
rence or retention of retrograde fashions, and the
vast potential for sheer historical accident will for-
ever escape us. In some genresparticularly non-
figural ones like the majority of terracottas at Cosa
the arc of change (if such a thing ever existed)
registered rather as a jagged stock market index.
Each stylistic reversal has been disengaged causal-
ly from the others, and we have no adequate tools to
reconstruct their relationship. Until we do, it is best
to abandon style as a criterion for dating republi-
can-era archaeological contexts. This is not to sug-
gest that terracottas are useless as interpretive tools.
I have used them as such, for example, in reinter-
preting Cosa Quadrata as a temple rather than an
auguraculum. But unless they belong to reasonably
well-defined classes compiled from numerous sites
around Italy (as often is the case with campana
plaques) their usefulness lies more in their con-
text and quantity than in their appearance.
department of history of art
and architecture
harvard university
sackler museum
485 broadway
cambridge, massachusetts 02138
rmtaylor@fas.harvard.edu
Appendix:
Subtypes by Cosa II Page Number
The following is a list of the published Cosa ter-
racottas organized by type and subtype. Further in-
formation on each entry can be found in Cosa II on
the page indicated by the Richardson number (e.g.,
R172). I include the total number of catalogued
fragments of each subtype; this number is then sub-
divided into quantities of fragments according to
findspot.
Sima Subtypes
R158. Total, 32: Capitolium construction
(sealed), 3; around Capitolium (disturbed), 15;
level II, 1; Temple D (sealed), 1; around Temple D
(disturbed), 5; north slope (disturbed), 4; Au-
gustan masonry, 1; misc., 1.
Fig. 33. The Republican-era structure on the eastern height. (Photo by the author)
(sealed), 1; Capitolium (surface), 10; burn level
(level III), 2; level II intermediate, 7; level II lower,
7; around Temple D (disturbed), 4; north slope
(disturbed), 14.
R209. Total, 61: Capitolium interior (surface),
2; Capitolium forecourt (disturbed), 6; Capitolium
north (disturbed), 8; Capitolium south (surface),
3; level II, 10; Medieval graves (level I), 2; Temple
D altar (sealed), 1; around Temple D (disturbed),
1; north slope (disturbed), 26; Augustan masonry,
1; misc., 1.
R240. Total, 10: Capitolium interior (surface),
5; around Capitolium (surface), 4; north slope (dis-
turbed), 1. Note: A replacement for sima R209. Iden-
tical except fabric.
R254. Total, 20: Capitolium interior (disturbed),
north upper levels (disturbed), 2; Capitolium south
upper levels (disturbed), 6; Capitolium west, 2; lev-
el II, 1; north slope, 2.
R271. Total, 83: Capitolium pronaos (disturbed),
north (disturbed), 6; Capitolium south upper lev-
els (disturbed), 10; Capitolium east (disturbed),
5; Capitolium west (disturbed), 19; level II, 7;
around Temple D (disturbed), 10; north slope, 15;
misc., 2.
Cresting Subtypes
R159. Total, 18: Capitolium (sealed), 4; burn
level (level III), 2; Capitolium area (surface), 9;
Temple D area (surface), 2; misc., 1.
R210. Total, 103: Capitolium forecourt (dis-
turbed), 5; Capitolium north (disturbed), 4; Capi-
tolium south (surface), 4; Capitolium west (dis-
turbed), 19; level II, 12; Medieval graves (level I),
5; north slope (disturbed), 39; around Temple D
(disturbed), 11; misc., 4.
R234. Total, 18: Capitolium forecourt (dis-
turbed), 2; Capitolium south (surface), 1; Capitoli-
um west (disturbed), 2; burn level (level III), 1;
level II, 10; around Temple D (disturbed), 1; unac-
counted for, 1.
(sealed), 1; Capitolium interior (surface), 2; Capi-
tolium forecourt (surface), 14; around Capitolium
(surface), 20; Capitolium west (surface), 15; level
II, 7; around Temple D (disturbed), 7; north slope,
11; Augustan masonry, 2; misc., 3; unaccounted for,
1.
R255. Total, 57: Capitolium pronaos (disturbed),
north (disturbed), 1; Capitolium south upper lev-
els (disturbed), 20; Capitolium west (disturbed),
3; level II, 3; around Temple D (disturbed), 2; north
slope (disturbed), 19; Augustan masonry, 2.
R272. Total, 145: Pronaos/forecourt (disturbed),
7; Capitolium north (disturbed), 2; Capitolium
south upper levels (disturbed), 7; Capitolium east
(disturbed), 1; Capitolium west (disturbed), 99;
level II, 6; around Temple D (disturbed), 6; north
slope, 17.
R290. Total, 16: level II, 2; Medieval graves (lev-
el I), 1; north slope, 9; around Temple D (dis-
turbed), 3; misc., 1.
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85
Facing the Dead: Recent Research on the Funerary
Art of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt
CHRISTINA RIGGS
Abstract
In the 1990s, new scholarship, archaeological discov-
eries, and high-profile museum exhibitions marked a re-
vived interest in the funerary art of Ptolemaic and Ro-
man Egypt. Much of this art is characterized by the use
of naturalistic portraiture, especially in the form of
mummy portraits painted on wooden panels, and these
two-dimensional portrait representations have received
the bulk of scholarly attention. This article examines
recent research on the subject and broadens the field of
inquiry by addressing other forms of funerary art in use
during the periods in question. It explores two particular
issues, namely the mechanics of portraiture and the con-
tested chronology of the corpus, and suggests further
points for discussion so that the value of art historical
evidence can be better realized in considerations of self-
presentation and cultural identity.
*
Throughout the 1990s, Egyptology, classical ar-
chaeology, and related disciplines witnessed a re-
surgence of interest in Hellenistic and Roman
Egypt. Ongoing archaeological work has contribut-
ed to this revival by helping to fill the large gap left
in the record by earlier excavators whose primary
concern lay with Egypts pharaonic remains. Urban
and mortuary sites, from Alexandria to the western
oases and beyond, have yielded new evidence, while
previously published archaeological remains, mu-
seum objects, and texts have benefited from re-
newed scrutiny. In recent scholarship, a marked,
and mainly profitable, trend has emerged toward
recasting canonical thought on cultural processes
in melting pot societies.
As a result of ancient Egypts pattern of archaeo-
logical preservation and the evident importance of
equipping oneself for death, a pronounced com-
ponent of our material evidence for the Ptolemaic
and Roman periods derives from funerary artthat
is, those objects and monuments created expressly
to accompany or commemorate the dead. Within
the last few years, new studies and several high-pro-
file museum exhibitions have taken funerary art as
their focus, picking up the thread of influential
scholarship from the 1960s and 1970s.
1
An abun-
dance of relevant material, and the fact that much
of it combines Egyptian visual elements with Greek
and Roman (broadly speaking, Hellenic or Greco-
Roman) traits,
2
has provided fertile ground for spec-
ulation as to what happens when different cultural
traditions confront each other. The incorporation
of portraitsnaturalistically painted images of the
deceased individual on shrouds or, most common-
ly, wood panelsnot only preserves a rare corpus
of ancient painting but also presents modern, West-
ern viewers with a series of human likenesses which
tempt us to imagine that we can literally and figura-
tively come face to face with the past.
These mummy portraits, as they are known, have
received the bulk of attention in discussions of
Ptolemaic and Roman period funerary art, but they
were by no means the only form of mummy adorn-
ment and mortuary commemoration in use. New
freestanding or rock-cut tombs continued to be
made and were often designed to accommodate
multiple burials in niches or catacombs. Elsewhere,
the hallowed ground of pharaonic cemeteries and
temples was riddled with burial pits and shafts, and
earlier tombs were reused by the busy, well-regulat-
ed mortuary industry.
3
Mummification remained
the standard treatment for the dead, but cremation
and non-mummified burials are also attested and
may well be underrepresented in the archaeologi-
cal record, especially if they were the prerogative of
*
In preparing this article, I have benefited immensely from
discussions with Helen Whitehouse, who also provided several
bibliographic references and helpful editorial observations.
Additionally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to John
Baines and R.R.R. Smith for their valuable comments on an
earlier draft of the text. The opinions set forth remain my own
responsibility.
1
Such as Castiglione 1961; Grimm 1974; Parlasca 1966; Par-
lasca 19691980; Thompson 1972; Zaloscer 1961. Zaloscer
discussed the development of mummy portrait studies in an
article that appeared a few months before her death in De-
cember 1999: Zaloscer 19971998.
2
I use Hellenic here and throughout this article, rather
than Greco-Roman, to emphasize the strongly Greek charac-
ter of the elite culture of Egypt in the Hellenistic and Roman
periods.
3
For a case study of the choachyte profession at Thebes
during the Ptolemaic period, see Pestman 1993.
CHRISTINA RIGGS 86 [AJA 106
elites in the major urban centers now lost or inac-
cessible to excavation.
4
Funerary art presents a variation across regions
and over, not to mention within, generations. In
the 500 years between the second century B.C. and
the third century A.D., the range of funerary art
produced in Egypt encompassed the following:
1. portrait panels from mummies in the Delta,
the Fayum (fig. 1), and Antinoe;
5
2. commemorative shrines of uncertain prove-
nance;
6
3. painted shrouds from Hawara in the Fayum,
as well as Saqqara, Antinoe, Asyut (fig. 2), and
Thebes (fig. 3);
7
4. decorated tombs in Alexandria, Tuna el-Gebel,
Qau el-Kebir, Akhmim, and the western oa-
ses, including Dakhleh Oasis (fig. 4);
8
5. mummy cases of mud-mixture or cartonnage
from Akhmim (fig. 5);
9
6. wooden coffins from Abusir el-Meleq, Middle
Egypt, and Thebes;
10
7. plaster and cartonnage mummy masks from
the Fayum (fig. 6), Middle Egypt, Thebes, and
the western oases, including Bahria Oasis;
11
8. stelae from Terenouthis, Dendera, Abydos,
and elsewhere (fig. 7);
12
9. tomb sculptures from Tebtunis and Oxyrhyn-
chus.
13
The examples in the above list are a sample of
the diverse forms in which the artistic commemora-
tion of the dead was manifested, and although the
array of objects and monuments necessarily reflects
the happenstance of archaeological survival, the
geographic spread of the evidence is considerable.
This big picture of mortuary practices in Ptole-
maic and Roman Egypt has been eclipsed, howev-
er, by a scholarly output largely centered around
the mummy portraits themselves, thus skewing our
perception of contemporary funerary art and, by
extension, our view of contemporary society.
portraits or masks?
One self-acknowledged example of the academ-
ic bent for mummy portraits is the volume of pa-
pers that resulted from a colloquium on the funer-
ary art of Roman Egypt, held at the British Museum
in 1995 and published under the title Portraits and
Masks.
14
The volumes contents, like the phrasing
of its title, highlight the rather limited range of
objects that studies have tended to consider. In the
conventional nomenclature used for Roman Egyp-
tian funerary art, the word portrait refers to a two-
dimensional, painted image that represents some
specific individual and is naturalistic in that the
painting aims to replicate human features much as
they appear to the observer. A mask is the stan-
dard Egyptological designation for a three-dimen-
sional, sculpted or molded object made to fit over
the head and chest of a mummy. On the surface,
the two words are no more than easily understood
terms used as academic shorthand in studies of
Roman period funerary art: flat, painted images are
portraits and sculpted mummy head-coverings are
masks.
But set that fact aside for a moment and, for the
sake of argument, consider that in standard English
usage, we frequently say of a portrait that it reveals
something about the subjects personality as well as
his or her physical appearance. A mask, on the oth-
er hand, conceals its wearer, hiding the face in fa-
vor of the masks own features. The juxtaposition of
the words portraits and masks thus implies two
4
Venit (1999, 644) addresses variations in the treatment of
corpses at Alexandria. In his first season of excavation at the
Hawara cemetery in the Fayum, Petrie recorded one crema-
tion burial in a sealed lead urn: Petrie 1889, 11.
5
Portrait findspots are summarized by Borg 1996, 18390;
for portrait mummies excavated at Marina el-Alamein on the
Delta coast, see also Daszewski 1997.
6
Cairo, Egyptian Museum CG 33269, in Seipel 1999, 176
7 (no. 58); Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 74 AP 2022, in
Walker and Bierbrier 1997a, 1234 (no. 119).
7
Selection of excavated examples: Dublin, National Muse-
um of Ireland 1911:442 (from Hawara), in Parlasca 1966, 107
8, 167, 251, pl. 57,1; Cairo, Egyptian Museum JE 9/12/95/1
(Saqqara), in Bresciani 1996, 3559, frontispiece; Louvre AF
6486 (Antinoe), in Aubert and Cortopassi 1998, 123 (no. 73);
Louvre E 13382 (Thebes), in Aubert and Cortopassi 1998, 63
(no. 20).
8
Alexandria: Empereur 1998a, 154211; Guimier-Sorbets
and Seif el-Din 1997; Venit 1988, 1997, 1999. Dakhleh Oasis:
Osing 1982, 70101, pls. 2034, 3644; Whitehouse 1998.
Tuna el-Gebel: Gabra 1941; Gabra and Drioton 1954. Qau el-
Kebir: Steckeweh et al. 1936, 5564, esp. 578 and pls. 21
22. Akhmim: Kuhlmann 1983, 7181, pls. 3338.
9
Schweitzer 1998, esp. her troisime srie, 333; Smith
1997; Walker and Bierbrier 1997a, 305 (nos. 28).
10
Middle Egypt: Kurth 1990. Thebes: Horak and Harrauer
1999, passim; Walker and Bierbrier 1997a, 14950.
11
Grimm 1974 collects examples from throughout Egypt.
For newly discovered masked mummies in Bahria Oasis, see
Hawass 2000.
12
Terenouthis: most recently, el-Hafeez et al. 1985. Den-
dera and Abydos: Abdalla 1992. Of unknown provenance, the
stela of Besas illustrated in fig. 7 is Cairo, Egyptian Museum
CG 27541: Edgar 1903, 3940, pl. 24; Spiegelberg 1904, 69
70, pl. 23.
13
Tebtunis: Lutz 1927, 1920 (nos. 60 and 61), pl. 31.
Oxyrhynchus: von Falck 1996; Thomas 2000, esp. 5960, and
figs. 61, 6874, 79, 117, 118.
14
Bierbrier 1997.
FUNERARY ART OF PTOLEMAIC AND ROMAN EGYPT 87 2002]
classes of object that are related but mutually ex-
clusive: a mask is not a portrait, a portrait not a mask.
If the terminology we use reflects our assumptions
and affects our interpretations, such word choices
subtly suggest that the painted faces on panels and
shrouds tell us something more about the dead of
Hellenistic and Roman Egypt than do their coun-
terparts among contemporary coffins, mummy
masks, tomb paintings, stelae, and statuary.
The goal of the present article is to question and
help counterbalance this assumption by placing
recent research on funerary art from the Ptolemaic
and Roman periods in a broader perspective. The
body of work produced on this subject in recent
years is sizeable and important. Together, the books
and articles considered here have advanced, but
not exhausted, specialist knowledge of the field,
and they point the way forward for future work.
displaying the dead
In the summer of 1997, a British Museum exhi-
bition entitled Ancient Faces opened to public
acclaim. The culmination of more than two years of
curatorial research and conservation work, Ancient
Faces brought together the Museums extensive
collection of funerary art from Ptolemaic and Ro-
man Egypt, supplemented by loans from other
museums. An eponymous catalogue and the Por-
traits and Masks collection of symposium papers were
published in conjunction with the show to present
the most up-to-date information available on the
objects displayed.
15
Over the next two years, several
more exhibitions focused on Roman Egypt, and on
mummy portraits and other funerary art in particu-
lar. In Marseille, gypte Romaine was on view in
1997, with a section devoted to les hommes et la
mort.
16
The Louvre inaugurated a gallery of Ro-
man Egyptian funerary art with the special exhibi-
tion Portraits de lEgypte romaine.
17
A small 1997
show in LeidenSensaos: Eye to Eye with the Girl
in the Mummyspotlighted the burial assemblage
of an adolescent girl who died at Thebes in A.D.
109; her father Soter was the head of a prominent
local family known from numerous coffins, shrouds,
mummies, grave goods, and papyri.
18
Florence host-
ed a 1998 exhibition commemorating the centena-
ry of excavations at Antino, a polis founded in Egypt
by the emperor Hadrian and the findspot of both
panel and shroud portraits as well as plaster mum-
my masks.
19
In 1999, several panel portraits and oth-
er material from the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, trav-
eled to Vienna and joined the Kunsthistorisches
Museums own collection for the exhibit Bilder
15
Walker and Bierbrier 1997a; Bierbrier 1997. The exhibi-
tions second venue in Rome was accompanied by an Italian
catalogue (Walker and Bierbrier 1997b). For a critique of the
English edition from an Egyptological viewpoint, see Teeter
1999.
16
Muses de Marseille 1997, 14071, with an essay by F.
Dunand.
Fig. 1. Mummy portrait of a soldier, early third century A.D.
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum E.3755. (Courtesy of the
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
17
Aubert and Cortopassi 1998.
18
No exhibition catalogue, but see the museums Web site,
http://www.rmo.nl/engels/sensaos.html. The Soter family: Van
Landuyt 1995.
19
Del Francia Barocas 1998, with a section (458) by R.
Cortopassi on Antinos funerary portraits.
aus dem Wstensand, while Linz and Klagenfurt
hosted Mumie-Schaun, based around a coffin
and mummy assemblage normally housed in the
latter city.
20
An ambitious exhibition entitled Au-
genblicke, held in Frankfurt in 1999, had the add-
ed distinction of being organized by Klaus Parlas-
ca, whose scholarship on Roman Egyptian funerary
art has laid the groundwork for the subject.
21
Be-
tween 1999 and 2001, the traveling exhibition Keiz-
ers an de Nijl/Les Empereurs du Nil brought
Roman Egypt to audiences in Belgium, France, and
the Netherlands.
22
And in the spring of 2000, the
circle begun by the original British Museum exhi-
bition was completed when the Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art hosted a second Ancient Faces exhi-
bition, coordinated, like the original show, by Sus-
an Walker and incorporating additional objects
drawn from the collection of the Metropolitan Mu-
seum and other American and European institu-
tions.
23
The appeal of these exhibitions echoes the rap-
turous response that mummy portraits first received
in the late 19th century, when the archaeological
finds of Flinders Petrie packed Londons Piccadil-
ly Hall, and the collection of Theodor Graf awed
Viennese art circles.
24
Now as then, the naturalistic
portraits on panels and shrouds, generally removed
from their associated mummies, form the core of
the exhibitions and appeal to Western aesthetic
sensibilities, which value any perceived illusionism
in art and expect a portrait to capture the subjects
personality as well as his or her physical appear-
ance. The ultimate expression of this concern with
evaluating lifelikeness is the digital or actual re-
construction of mummies facesa fascinating ex-
ercise in its own right, for the sake of archaeologi-
cal knowledge, but in specific instances,
25
the prac-
tice invites comparisons between the pictorial im-
age and the mortal remains that may be unwarrant-
ed. For example, superimposing a three-dimen-
sional recreation of the portrait panel from the
mummy of Artemidorus onto a computer recon-
struction of his face (derived from a CAT scan) ef-
fectively tries to test the accuracy of the portrait and
the ability of the ancient artist; ironically, it also sec-
ond-guesses the very lifelikeness that modern ob-
20
Seipel 1999; Horak and Harrauer 1999.
21
Parlasca and Seemann 1999.
22
Willems and Clarysse 1999; Willems and Clarysse 2000.
23
Walker 2000.
24
See Montserrat (1998, 17280) for an intriguing consid-
eration of responses to Petries exhibition and to the publica-
tion of Grafs collection.
25
E.g., Filer 1997; Raven 1998.
Fig. 2. Shroud of a woman named Tasherytwedjahor, from
Asyut, probably first century A.D. Boston, Museum of Fine
Arts 54.993. (Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
26
The mummy of Artemidorus is London, British Museum
EA 21810, in Walker and Bierbrier 1997a, 567 (no. 32); the
computerized combination of portrait and facial reconstruction
is unpublished.
Fig. 3. Shroud of a boy named Nespawtytawy, from Thebes,
second century A.D. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1913.924.
(Courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
27
Cotter 2000; this article and two color photographs of
portrait panels featured on the front page of the newspapers
Weekend section.
Fig. 4. Portrait of a man named Petosiris, from his tomb at
Qarat el-Muzzawaqa, Dakhleh Oasis, first century A.D.
(Photo by H. Whitehouse)
servers, like their ancient counterparts, hope to see
in paintings of this genre.
26
In a similar vein, much
of the popular-press or museological emphasis on
portraits realism risks a facile line of questioning
(what did the deceased really look like?)

and feeds
an assumption that the modern viewer can, and
should, have such an intimate, immediate knowl-
edge of the ancient dead. In an article tellingly
headlined Expressions so Ancient, yet Familiar,
The New York Timess reviewer likened viewing the
Metropolitan Museum Ancient Faces show to at-
tending a party among friends and saw emotions of
despair, bafflement, anger in the mummy por-
traits themselves.
27
Although it is rewarding when
curatorial efforts receive a positive response from
the public, it is nonetheless the case that feeling
empathy for long-dead individuals says more about
ourselves than it does about the ancient society or
individual in question.
Criticisms aside, the recent exhibitions have been
invaluable in bringing the material culture of Hel-
lenistic and Roman Egypt to the wider attention of
the public and scholars alike, and encouraging
thoughtful interaction with many objects not stud-
ied or displayed before. In many of the shows, cura-
tors have been able to bring together objects from
the same archaeological site which are now scat-
tered among several museums. Well-illustrated ex-
hibition catalogues combine introductory essays
with descriptive entries to reflect some of the most
up-to-date information available on the objects. At
the same time, however, the catalogue format treats
a two-dimensional work more easily than any sculpt-
ed or three-dimensional piece, and in its presenta-
tion of the subject, an exhibition catalogue must
strike a compromise between appealing to a lay
audience and suiting its academic intent.
28
The
spate of museum shows and catalogues, with their
necessarily high profile and much-warranted pub-
licity, also has somewhat overshadowed the recep-
tion of other publications in wider academic cir-
cles, to the detriment of recent specialized studies
and archaeological reports. Over the past decade,
numerous articles and monographs have furthered
the study of Ptolemaic and Roman funerary art.
Some of these undertake an in-depth analysis of
one object or monument, such as Kurths study of a
coffin from Middle Egypt or the analysis of individ-
ual tombs in Alexandria.
29
Others identify a cohe-
sive group of objectsCorcoran explores Egyptian
religion and iconography by cataloguing intact por-
trait mummies in Egyptian museums, while Abdal-
la focuses on stelae from Upper Egypt.
30
Surveys of religious practices and editions of con-
temporary funerary texts are vital complements to
any consideration of the visual evidence, as are de-
mographic and social analyses.
31
New archaeologi-
cal research presents the mortuary record with the
benefit of modern recording standards and scien-
tific techniques, and the thorough excavation of a
necropolis like that recently discovered in Bahria
Oasis will continue to add to and alter many of our
perceptions.
32
There, the masked mummies in
rock-cut niches, accompanied by small grave goods,
28
For instance, in Walker and Bierbrier 1997a, four coffins,
a shroud, a mummy, and funerary goods belonging to the Soter
family are treated on two pages (14950), with two photographs.
Furthermore, the necessities of marketing an exhibit and its
catalogue perhaps unconsciously influenced publishers or
curators selection of cover illustrations, which favor mummy
portraits of girls and women: Walker and Bierbrier 1997a;
Walker 2000; Aubert and Cortopassi 1998; Parlasca and See-
mann 1999; Seipel 1999.
29
Kurth 1990; Guimier-Sorbets and Seif el-Din 1997; Venit
1988, 1997.
30
Corcoran 1995; Abdalla 1992. As a reviewer has pointed
out, the exact criteria for Abdallas selection are not clear: De
Meulenaere 1994.
31
Religious practices: Frankfurter 1998; Kkosy 1995. Mor-
tuary practices: Rmer 2000; Scheidel 1998; Dunand and Li-
chtenberg 1995; Dunand and Lichtenberg 1998, 97124 (ch.
6). Funerary texts: e.g., Smith 1993. Demography and social
contexts: Bagnall and Frier 1994; Montserrat 1996.
32
Reports of recent excavations include Dunand et al. 1992
and the tudes alexandrines series inaugurated by Empereur
(1998b). On the Bahria Oasis discovery, see Hawass 2000.
Fig. 5. Coffin for a man, from Akhmim, first century B.C. London, British Museum EA 29584.
(Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum)
apparently preserve an extensive mortuary setting
the more rare for having been undisturbed. Reex-
amination of earlier excavation records can also
yield fresh information about the context in which
funerary art was employed.
33
Yet the art itself is not
merely an adjunct to textual or archaeological evi-
dence. It offers a unique means of approaching
the inhabitants of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt and
evaluating their societys norms and values. This
premise underpins the most effective scholarship
in this area and forms the basis for the following
discussion.
portraiture
This section and the next consider two recur-
ring issues addressed in recent scholarship: first,
the lifelike naturalism of the mummy portraits;
and second, the dating of mummy portraits and
other funerary material.
Much heated debate has centered around wheth-
er the artists of the mummy portraits painted from
personal, first-hand observation of their subjects.
Borg and Parlasca devote sections of their books to
this question, and a prominent review of the Lon-
don Ancient Faces exhibition in The New York Re-
view of Books criticized the shows curators for sug-
gesting that the portraits were painted some other
way, even perhaps from the dead body.
34
A newspa-
per review of the New York Ancient Faces took an
opposing view, asserting that the portraits must have
been painted from the body seen just before or
after a death and could not have been studio prod-
ucts.
35
Regardless, the concept of a portrait atelier
and of sitting for an artist to have ones portrait paint-
ed is a Western, relatively modern one. Painting or
sculpting from a live model continues to be valued
even, or especially, in our photo-dependent era, to
the extent that submission guidelines for the an-
nual BP Portrait Award at Londons National Por-
trait Gallery specify that the entry must be a paint-
ing from life.
36
In actuality, being painted,
sketched, or sculpted during a face-to-face interac-
tion between subject and artist is not essential to an
image being called or considered a portrait.
There is little concrete evidence for exactly how
ancient artists captured an individuals image or
whether personal observation of the subject was
considered indispensable. Textual sources inform
us that lifelikeness was highly valuedPliny notes
that realistic portraiture indeed has for many gen-
erations been the highest ambition of artbut
realism and resemblance are subjective, socially
constructed notions.
37
Further, artistic naturalism
is still in service to the physical idealsof beauty,
or wisdom, or youthfulnessembraced by a given
culture. The fact that so many ancient commenta-
tors on art praised realism and lifelikeness does
not tell us exactly what they had in mind, or wheth-
er we, from a 21st-century vantage point, would
agree with their judgments if presented with the
33
E.g., Montserrat and Meskell 1997; Riggs 2000.
34
Borg 1996, 1915, esp. 193; Parlasca 1966, 59, 735; Fen-
ton 1997.
35
Cotter 2000, for The New York Times. Although the com-
parison is not explicitly made, observers like Cotter may have
in mind 17th-century deathbed portraits like Van Dycks Ve-
netia, Lady Digby on her Deathbed, now in the Dulwich Pic-
ture Gallery, London. For this portrait and the genre, see Sum-
ner 1995.
36
Information taken from the brochure for the BP Portrait
Award 2000, rule 5.
37
Natural History 35.52: Hic multis iam saeculis summus
animus in pictura, in reference to portraits of gladiators; see
discussion in Isager 1991, 13640. Gombrich (1996) explores
issues of artistic realism at some length and cites the example
(1996, 86) of a lion drawn from life by Villard de Honnecourt,
although the resulting image hardly fits our idea of how an
accurate portrayal should look. In addition, see Bryson (1983,
esp. 135, 535) concerning the cultural relativity of realism.
Fig. 6. Mummy mask of a woman named Aphrodite, from
Hawara, mid first century A.D. London, British Museum EA
69020. (Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, V& A
Picture Library)
same images they considered. Because post-Renais-
sance Western art has embraced classical arts ap-
preciation of portraiture and of realism (two sepa-
rate concepts, after all), it is understandably diffi-
cult to keep in mind that the production methods
for, and ultimate goals of, ancient portraiture need
not have been identical to our own. Methodologi-
cal soundness, however, requires such potential
differences between us and them to be acknowl-
edged and explored.
Official portraits required ease of identification
and the replication of certain very specific features,
and although careful study of imperial images re-
veals much about how they were created and dis-
seminated, it is less clear what procedures applied
in portraiture outside the most elite circles.
38
Cer-
tainly artists could and did paint from life, as dem-
onstrated by another passage from Pliny (NH
35.1478) in which the Hellenistic painter Iaia of
Kyzikos is said to have painted a portrait of herself
by using a mirror, presumably to consult her reflect-
ed image. Other textual and visual sources for
painters are silent on the artist/subject relation-
ship: the painter seated at an easel in a sarcopha-
gus scene displays finished portraits on the wall
behind him but no model is explicitly in evidence.
39
In a papyrus of the second century A.D., a sailor
named Apion writes from Misenum to his father at
home in Philadelphia, in the Fayum, to say that he
has sent a small portrait () of himself back
to the family.
40
Although his gesture suggests that
Apion had the financial wherewithal to purchase
this item and that he personally approved of an
image that would, in effect, replace him during his
absence with the imperial navy, his letter gives no
indication of how he obtained the portrait or what
it looked like, nor does the word imply a
specific medium, such as painting.
It is telling that the debate over painting from
life and the mummy portraits has arisen from the
best quality shroud and panel portraits with their
dark-eyed, rosy-cheeked immediacy. Mummy masks,
tomb paintings, stelae, and sculpture have not in-
spired similar inquiriesto put the matter in sim-
plistic terms, does anyone imagine that Petosiris
(fig. 4) posed while the wall of his tomb was paint-
ed or that Besas (fig. 7) spent a long afternoon while
the sculptor chiseled away?
41
But each of these is a
portrait image and is more naturalistic than not. It
is the painting medium, so similar to our Western
painted portraits and so attuned to our photoreal-
istic mindset, that can easily lead modern observ-
ers to respond to them with a particular immediacy,
inviting artificial distinctions. Painted portraiture
in naturalistic modethe word is used here to
describe an image that attempts to copy what a giv-
en person or object looks like to the artist and
vieweris not a universal or inevitable pictorial
development. If, as Norman Bryson has argued for
classical Western painting, naturalism attempts to
persuade the viewer that the subject of the paint-
ing is the same as the painted image itself, then
this denial of paintings role as a sign imparts addi-
tional potency to portraiture and other representa-
tions of the human form: [p]robably the most strik-
ing aspect of the encaustic portraiture of antiquity
is the credibility it lends to the idea of the bodys
endurance as persistent substrate to all cultural
enterprise: the work of culture seems only a matter
of costume and parure superadded to the recur-
38
Useful discussion of imperial portraiture: Smith 1996.
Nowicka (1993, 154) observes the poor papyrological documen-
tation for artistic production methods.
39
Roman period sarcophagus from Kerch on the Crimean
peninsula, now in The Hermitage, St. Petersburg; published
most recently by M. Nowicka in Blanc 1998, 6670 (no. 32). It
seems unlikely that the centrally positioned scene of the painter
is meant to be seen in direct spatial relationship to the con-
tent of the scenes on either side of it.
40
BGU 423; see Hunt and Edgar 1932, 3047 (no. 112).
Cited by Nowicka (1979, 24), with further references in her n.
30. The word in the papyrus has been restored on the basis of
[], so both the reading and the meaning remain hy-
pothetical.
41
Petosiris: supra, n. 8, Dakhleh Oasis; Besas: supra, n. 12, of
unknown provenance.
Fig. 7. Stela of a man named Besas, inscribed in hieroglyphs,
Demotic, and Greek, first century A.D. Cairo, Egyptian
Museum CG 27541. (Edgar 1903, pl. 34)
rent genetic pattern. In Brysons text, two mummy
portrait panels illustrate this point.
42
Any ancient portrait will have conformed to ide-
als that were current at the time it was produced
and that contributed to, or controlled, how the im-
age would be read by its audience. In part because
of these shared ideals, contemporaneous portraits
give an impression of sameness when seen along-
side each other, and workshops might well have
maintained a stock of sculpture or paintings that
artists could adjust for salient physical features and
costume details as required.
43
Viewing similarly
dated and provenanced panel portraits together,
for instance, one is hard pressed to say whether
three or more portraits do not show just one per-
sonwhich neither diminishes their artistic and
portrait quality nor detracts from their ability to
inform us about the subjects and their world.
44
The
degree of verisimilitude, or the likeness of image
and subject, does not define a portrait. Instead, it is
the intentional representation of an individual that
sets portraiture apart from other depictions of hu-
man physiognomy and form.
45
Furthermore, even
if the ancient actors assigned special prestige to a
perceived mimetic verism in the panel and shroud
portraits, it does not necessarily follow that these
particular objects had a higher material or social
value than other types of funerary art or other types
of portraits, such as busts and statues.
Ancient artists undoubtedly did rely on the phys-
ical presence of their subjects at some stage in the
creation of many portraits, in whatever medium, but
human images serving a portrait function could be
created by other means as well, employing sche-
matic types, for instance, or imaginative recon-
struction, as the posthumous portrayal of a histori-
cal or semi-legendary figure like Homer would have
required. The portrait genre itself does not neces-
sitate the artist-subject relationship to which we are
accustomed.
46
Thus the question with which this
section began, whether mummy portraits were
painted from life, does not lend itself to a yes or
no answer and is somewhat of a manufactured
debate, skirting around other issues pertinent to
the production and use of portraits in the Helle-
nistic and Roman worlds.
chronology
Establishing a chronology for Ptolemaic and Ro-
man period funerary art has been a foremost con-
cern of scholars in the field, but the wide range of
dates assigned to individual objects is a sign of con-
tinuing disagreement on the issue and of reliance
on formal or stylistic criteria inadequate to the
task.
47
Dating an object is valuable insofar as it al-
lows us to see diachronic developments or synchro-
nic trends, especially when the work in question is
of known provenance or has other contextual in-
formation. Fortunately, much of the corpus of fu-
nerary art displays reliable indicators of date, such
as the Roman hairstyles decisively analyzed by Borg,
or permits a range of dates to be narrowed by com-
parative study of the material.
48
Likewise, paleogra-
phy and the content of object inscriptions can sug-
gest or refine a date, sometimes requiring a rein-
terpretation of the pieces in question, as with the
earlier dating recently established for a series of
anthropoid coffins from Akhmim. These coffins, of
which some 40 examples survive for both adults
and children, were modeled in a mud and straw
mixture, which was then given a surface treatment
including paint, gilding, and textile or plaster ad-
ditions. Plundered around the turn of the last cen-
tury, the coffins are devoid of precise archaeologi-
cal context, but their Demotic inscriptions contain
Egyptian recitations for the dead and point to a
date in the first century B.C.
49
The Akhmim coffin
group highlights a persistent tendency to adopt a
low chronology for funerary and other material,
based in part on the fallacy that anything that looks
unusual or has a naturalistic appearance must
date to the Roman period.
50
Another case for redating is the shroud of a wom-
an named Tasherytwedjahor (fig. 2), preserved in
42
Bryson 1983, 167. The two portraits he illustrates (figs. 34
and 35) are National Gallery 3932 and 3931, respectively, for
which see Walker and Bierbrier 1997a, 945 (no. 85) and 86
7 (no. 76).
43
A suggestion also made by Nowicka 1993, 154.
44
Cf. the portraits illustrated in Doxiadis 1995, 569.
45
Intentionality underscores many definitions of portraiture,
e.g., Campbell 1996, 274; Brilliant 1991, 38, 127; Nowicka 1993,
913.
46
Variations in Western portrait painting are discussed by
Campbell (1996).
47
For instance, a female mummy mask in the British Muse-
um, EA 29476, has been dated to the second half of the sec-
ond century A.D., in Parlasca and Seemann 1999, 315 (no.
208), and to A.D. 100120, in Walker and Bierbrier 1997a, 136
8 (no. 208). Also in Parlasca and Seemann 1999, two male
mummy masks of identical manufacture are arbitrarily separat-
ed by a handful of years, with one mask dated to the begin-
ning of the first century and the second mask to around the
birth of Christ, presumably just a bit earlier than its counter-
part; no explanation for this is given: Parlasca and Seemann
1999, 3067 (nos. 202 and 203).
48
Borg 1996, plus her contribution in Doxiadis 1995, 229
35.
49
Smith 1997.
50
Terracotta figurines are among the objects whose tradi-
tional dates have been shifted earlier in light of new evidence:
Trk 1995, 22, with further references.
three fragments. The shroud represents the arms,
shoulders, and head of the deceased in the formal
language of Hellenic art, while the fields below
contain Egyptian scenes. Two Demotic inscriptions
name the deceased and her husband (or father
the reading is debated), who was a priest of Wep-
wawet at Asyut; the date of her burial is given as the
fourth (?) regnal year of an unspecified ruler. Based
on this date and a perceived similarity between the
womans hairstyle and those of Severan empresses,
publications of the shroud have placed it in the
reign of Septimius Severus, and specifically at A.D.
195/6.
51
However, the Demotic handwriting of the
inscriptions, each by a different scribe, bears ortho-
graphic and paleographic similarities to texts of
the late Ptolemaic period or the first century A.D.
52
Since the hairstyle worn by Tasherytwedjahor re-
veals her earlobes and narrows at the nape of her
neck, without indicating any gathering or folding
of the hair into the Scheitelzopf typical of Severan
styles, it also does not support a Severan date. The
hairstyle may simply be a variation of the neatly
dressed melon coiffure, or it may not be explicit-
ly based on a Roman imperial model. Tasherytwed-
jahors earrings are a fashion already attested in the
early first century A.D.,
53
and the position of her
arms and hands parallels a first-century A.D. shroud
portrait from Hawara.
54
Naturalistic portraiture in the Hellenic manner
was not an innovation under Roman rule but a de-
velopment that had, unsurprisingly, earlier roots.
What the beginning of Roman rule did introduce
to the Egyptian artistic milieu was the authoritative
and highly crafted imperial image, the influence
of which had almost immediate repercussions in
private portraiture throughout Roman territory.
55
The effectiveness of the Augustan artistic program
and the portrait commemoration of the Julio-Clau-
dian dynasty no doubt contributed to the use of
Roman hairstyles in funerary art in Egypt, where
they appear as early as the reign of Tiberius.
56
Fash-
ionable hairstyles continued to distinguish much
of the Egyptian corpus for as long as naturalistic
portraiture was used in conjunction with the pre-
served corpse. The most up-to-date research on
hairstyles in Roman sculpture informs Borgs
Mumienportrts, an authoritative study that employs
valid comparanda to restructure the chronology of
the panel portraits. Borg places the latest exam-
ples in the mid third century, convincingly reas-
signing to the second century A.D. several portraits
previously held to be of fourth century date.
57
Fu-
nerary art later than the Severan periodsome
shrouds from Antinoe, for instance, and the tomb
sculptures from Oxyrhynchusemploys minimal,
if any, Egyptian iconography and often is not specif-
ically associated with the mummification of the
dead.
58
The economic, political, and social alter-
ations of the third century A.D. transformed the
actualization of native religious practices and mor-
tuary customs, and those segments of the popula-
tion that had maintained the Egyptian funerary tra-
dition, and the visual codes it required of art, like-
wise will have adapted to the changing times.
59
Borg identifies no portrait panels as dating later
than the mid third century A.D., a downward revi-
sion of the chronology developed by Parlasca.
60
Within the narrow field of Roman Egyptian funer-
ary art, the ramifications of this chronological de-
bate have been strongly felt.
61
Parlasca disagrees
with the new dates proposed by Borg and others
and cites one panel that, judging by the promi-
nence of the female subjects Scheitelzopf hair roll,
should date to the late third or early fourth centu-
ry.
62
His strongly worded review of Borgs 1996 mono-
graph is largely devoted to the late chronology of
51
DAuria et al. 1988, 2401 (no. 154); Parlasca and See-
mann 1999, 228 (no. 137); Parlasca 2000, 178, fig. 7. Initial
discussion of the date of the shroud: Parlasca 1966, 1867. In
Demotic script, some numbers closely resemble each other,
leading to uncertainty in the specific readings.
52
I am indebted to Mark Smith for discussing this point with
me and suggesting possible paleographic comparisons, to Mark
Depauw for an additional opinion on the paleography, and to
Martin Andreas Stadler for further information on the shroud
inscriptions.
53
Compare a portrait panel inscribed in Demotic for Eirene
(Stuttgart, Wrtembergisches Landesmuseum inv. 7.2): Borg
1996, 30 (Julio-Claudian) pl. 1, 2; Walker and Bierbrier 1997a,
1156 (no. 111), as Trajanic.
54
Walker and Bierbrier 1997a, 412 (no. 15); Walker 2000,
389 (no. 1). The present mounting of the Tasherytwedjahor
shroud fragments in fig. 3 leaves no room for the folded floral
wreath that should be expected in the subjects right hand.
55
Zanker 1989, esp. 1023.
56
E.g., Hannover, Kestner Museum 1966.89: Borg 1996, 29
30, pl. 1, 1. For the pictorial propaganda of Augustus and his
successors, see Zanker 1988.
57
Borg 1996, 226.
58
Fourth-century A.D. shrouds from Antinoe: Parlasca and
Seemann, 748, esp. n. 15; Walker 2000,

1478 (no. 99). A
late third- or early fourth-century funerary sculpture from
Oxyrhynchus: Schneider 1992, 889 (no. 37).
59
Cf. Borg 1996, 2048; Frankfurter 1998, passim.
60
Borg 1996, 804, in contrast to Parlasca 19691980, esp.
his vol. 3 (1980); cf. the review of all three published volumes
by Jucker 1984.
61
Susan Walker neatly summarizes the debate, its origins,
and its effects in A note on the dating of mummy portraits,
Walker 2000, 346.
62
Parlasca and Seemann 1999, 36; Parlasca 2000, 1812, in
reference to Morlanwelz, Muse Royal de Mariemont 78/10,
the mummy portraits.
63
The weight of the evidence,
however, supports the reasonable conclusion that
adorning mummies with portraits, masks, and
shrouds became increasingly less common during
the course of the third century. Other chronologi-
cal disagreements exist as well: Parlasca rejects the
redating of the Akhmim coffin group to the first
century B.C. (or early first century A.D., conserva-
tively) by reverting instead to a second-century A.D.
date for a female coffin included in the Augenblicke
exhibition.
64
The nonspecialist might be left with
the impression that assigning dates to art, and es-
pecially funerary art, from Ptolemaic and Roman
Egypt is an uncertain business, but the uncertainty
generally arises from attempts to date material us-
ing ill-defined criteria of quality or style. Subjective
judgments still abound, including assumptions that
something of lesser quality must be earlier, or lat-
er, than a better example.
65
Only reliable meth-
ods, such as textual and paleographic evidence,
appropriate comparisons with Roman fashions and
portraiture, and similarities in manufacture and
decoration observed within a workshop corpus,
permit reliable conclusions and show the way for-
ward for future refinements to the chronology.
representing the dead
As the above remarks have shown, mummy por-
traits on panels were one of several options for rep-
resenting the dead in the Egyptian mortuary tradi-
tion as practiced in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt.
Naturalistic portraiture like that of the panels also
appeared in tomb paintings and in sculpted form,
on masks, coffins, stelae, and statuary. Many other
shrouds, coffins, and masks do not depict the de-
ceased in a lifelike manner at all but in an ideal-
ized form marking the deceaseds close association
with an Egyptian deity, or simply as a participant in
scenes of the Egyptian afterlife. Naturalistic por-
traiture did not replace or take precedence over
more traditional, idealized representations. At
Hawara, Petrie excavated one of the most extensive
Roman cemeteries yet discovered in Egypt, where
he found several dozen mummies bearing natural-
istic portraits or cartonnage masks with hairstyles
modeled on those of the ruling Julio-Claudian fam-
ily (fig. 6). Hampered by the speed with which the
excavation was conducted, and the large area it cov-
ered, Petries records are imperfect but nonethe-
less reveal the general layout and character of the
interments.
66
During the mid first century A.D.,
burial customs at Hawara accommodated both two-
and three-dimensional artistic treatments for the
head of the deceased, with varying degrees of natu-
ralism.
67
Masked and portrait mummies could be
deposited in a single grave, and the shrouds that
wrap the lower bodies of some mummies, in combi-
nation with either a portrait or a mask, are very sim-
ilar to each other in construction and decoration.
What these interrelationships demonstrate is that
the Hawara cemetery does not simply present evi-
dence for the concurrent use of masked and por-
trait mummies. The intertwining of mask, portrait,
and shroud usage indicates that the mortuary
sphere in which these goods were produced was
small and that the same artisans or workshops con-
tributed to burials that modern scholarship has
tended to treat separately, imposing a distinction
that the ancient actors do not seem to have made.
68
Mortuary practices operate on multiple levels of
meaning to mediate the communal and personal
experience of death and, in Egyptian thought, to
transform the dead for an eternal existence. Be-
cause funerary art is an active component of these
practices, the agency through which it was created
and employed should be a central consideration
in any interpretive effort. This is all the more true
when funerary art includes a prominent pictorial
representation of the deceased. Creating an image
of this sort necessitated the selection of appropri-
ate visual cues and provided an opportunity, per-
haps otherwise rare, to communicate the subjects
self-identity and whatever considerations influ-
enced the construction of that identity. The funer-
65
Perhaps the basis on which the male masks mentioned
above in n. 47 were dated?
66
Roberts (1997) compares Petries excavation records with
his published reports.
67
A mask that inserts a painting where the sculpted face
would be expected underscores this point: Manchester Muse-
um 1767, illustrated in Borg 1998, 73.
68
Thus the standard reference works (Parlasca 1966; Grimm
1974) focus on either the Hawara shrouds and panel portraits
(Parlasca) or the masks (Grimm). Similarly, Walker and Bier-
brier 1997a separates Portraits and mummies from Hawara
(at 3776) and Gilded masks from Hawara (at 7785).
for which see Parlasca 2000, fig. 8; Parlasca and Seemann 1999,
238 (no. 146), with further bibliography and a discussion of
the panels date. According to Walker (2000, 36), this portrait
panel is one of only two known to her that certainly postdate
the early or middle third century.
63
Parlasca 2000.
64
Amsterdam, Allard Pierson Museum 723, in Parlasca and
Seemann 1999, 335 (no. 229). The redating established by
Smith (1997) on firm paleographic and onomastic evidence is
ca. 50 B.C.A.D. 50. This is a conservative date range, and the
Demotic papyri used for paleographic comparison with the
coffin groups inscriptions favor the 50 B.C., or an even earli-
er, date; cf. Hoffmann 1995, 389.
ary art from Hawara illustrates this point. Given that
masks and painted portraits were both viable op-
tions for representing the dead at Hawara in the
first century A.D., it was presumably patron choice
that governed their use, with or without a shroud.
Factors contributing to this decision might include
some element of personal preference, or taste, or
some quality of the dead individual which we are
not always unable to discern from the information
available to us, such as his or her membership in a
familial, professional, religious, or other social
group, or the cause of the persons death. The costs
of various options, and how much a purchaser was
willing to spend on funereal outlay, are also likely
to have been considerations, although there is min-
imal evidence for the pricing of funerary equip-
ment, and the expense of a burial assemblage need
not have been directly related to the socioeconom-
ic status of that individual. In the absence of thor-
ough archaeological documentation for most of the
Ptolemaic and Roman cemeteries in Egypt, it is dif-
ficult to establish what a typical burial assemblage
was and how funerary art, in its original context,
related to other mortuary factors, such as spatial
distribution, body treatment (where mummies have
not survived), and the deposition of any other grave
goods.
69
The age and sex of the deceased do not seem to
have been decisive factors in choosing one type of
mummy adornment over another, since masks, por-
traits, and shrouds from Hawara were used for the
interments of males and females, adults and chil-
dren alike. At the same time, however, funerary art
of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods expressed an
evident concern for gender differentiation, main-
taining clear correspondences between the sex of
the deceased and any representation of him or her.
This apparent requirement extended to represen-
tations whose primary goal was not to provide a nat-
uralistic portrait of the deceased but to record his
or her assimilation to an Egyptian deity. Dead males
were identified with Osiris, dead females with
Hathor, an iconological interpretation supported
by funerary literature of the period and object in-
scriptions that prefix the name of the deceased with
Osiris or Hathor as appropriate. In the Theban
necropolises of the late first and early second cen-
turies A.D., shrouds identical to those from the Soter
family burials employ a life-size image of Osiris for
males (fig. 3) and, for females, an image to be un-
derstood as Hathor or as the deceased in the guise
of Hathor.
70
These shrouds represent the dead not
by replicating what a person looked like, or indeed
any individual characteristics, but by linking the
deceased to his or her divine counterpart.
To return to the question of agency, funerary art
presented options not only in regard to what type
of object or monument would be used but also in
relation to what pictorial representations the ob-
ject or monument would incorporate. The con-
scious and deliberate character of such represen-
tational choices is nowhere more evident than in
works of funerary art that combine visual elements
from the Egyptian and Greek or Roman reper-
toiressuch as a naturalistic portrait on an actual
or represented mummy, or contrasting figures mak-
ing offerings to a tomb owner (fig. 4). A 1961 arti-
cle by the Hungarian Egyptologist Lszl Castigli-
one addressed this phenomenon, which he termed
a dualit du style, and noted its particular preva-
lence in funerary art of the Roman period, specifi-
cally in the depiction of the deceased. Castigliones
choice of words, however, obscured his argument;
the word style is notoriously difficult to define
and cannot support the weight of meaning with
which scholars have tried to imbue it in this in-
stance.
The examples Castiglione collected, like the
examples presented here, do not combine differ-
ent styles: they employ two discrete systems of represen-
tation, the Egyptian and the Hellenic. From its ear-
liest inception, the Egyptian representational sys-
tem relied on a standard conceptualization of the
human form and used bordered areas to assert or-
der in compositions; both traits are especially evi-
dent in two-dimensional art. By contrast, the Hel-
lenic system, descending from the Classical Greek
tradition, sought to render the observable world
more nearly as the viewer sees it. The two systems
are pictorial languages, each with its own grammar
and vocabulary. Societies and their arts do not exist
in a vacuum: just as a person can learn another spo-
69
Petries (1911, 1) observation that perhaps two in 100 of
the mummies at Hawara bore panel portraits is vague at best.
On the fallacies of directly extrapolating social status from grave
goods and other mortuary characteristics, see for instance
Morris 1993, 1038.
70
Hathor had close and ancient ties to both Nut and Isis,
and the three can share iconographic traits; thus the floors of
Soter-group coffins employ an essentially identical female rep-
resentation where a depiction of Nut would be expected. Some
coffins depict a nw-pot hieroglyph over this figures head to
identify her as Nut: Horak and Harrauer 1999, 11 (Edinburgh,
Royal Museum of Scotland 1956.357A); Schmidt 1919, 231,
fig. 1329 (Louvre E 13016). For the Soter family, see Van
Landuyt 1995.
ken language, so artists and viewers alike can ac-
quire additional artistic languages with adequate
exposure and incentive. Thus Roman art devel-
oped an idiom that drew on the art of Classical and
Hellenistic Greece, exploiting athletic body types
and ideal faces, for example, to convey divinity and
youth.
71
In the funerary art of Ptolemaic and Roman
Egypt, the combination of the Hellenic and Egyp-
tian representational systems is often quite strik-
ing because the systems contrast so emphatically
and could be integrated in diverse ways. Two tombs
in Alexandria, studied by Guimier-Sorbets and Seif
el-Din (see n. 8), each juxtapose the two artistic
systems by depicting the abduction of Persephone
in one register, in Hellenic form, while the register
immediately above shows Anubis tending a mum-
my on a bier, in keeping with traditional Egyptian
form. In most dual-system objects or monuments, a
figure of the deceased following Hellenic repre-
sentational norms fills a prominent position. For
example, the arm-sling pose was a popular male
portrait type in the Greek East from the third cen-
tury B.C. onward: the subject supported his weight
on his left leg and wrapped a Greek mantle deco-
rously around his body so that his right arm, clasped
to his chest, held the draped garment in place. This
is the posture that dominates one wall of the Da-
khleh Oasis tomb of Petosiris (fig. 4), as opposed
to the other walls register-ordered Egyptian
scenes.
72
The arm-sling portrait type was also adopt-
ed for a coffin lid whose base bears a traditionally
formed ba-bird, and for the trilingual stela of Besas,
who is flanked by protective mummiform figures in
Egyptian profile view (fig. 7).
73
Poses from the rep-
ertoire of Greek and Roman funerary composi-
tionsthe deceased on a dining couch, or in the
act of burning incenseappear in combination
with Egyptian elements as well.
74
Nor are Hellenic-
based images limited to representations of the de-
ceased: witness the offering figure nearer Petosiris
in figure 4, or the depiction of Osiris on a group of
shrouds or wall-hangings from Saqqara.
75
Similarly,
the Egyptian representational system could accom-
modate subject matter that was Hellenic in origin,
as in a cartonnage fragment depicting a man wear-
ing a Greek tunic and mantle yet drawn according
to Egyptian conventions.
76
Content and artistic form do not always corre-
spond predictably, but in general, established Egyp-
tian artistic forms relay traditional Egyptian religious
iconography. Some scenes and symbolsAnubis
embalming a mummy, the weighing of the heart
seem intrinsically related to the manner of their
pictorial presentation. Egyptian iconography pre-
serves the key elements of the funerary cycle
through which the deceased, like Osiris and the
sun god, would overcome death, repel any dangers,
and be eternally rejuvenated in the afterlife. Like
the native temples, which were still being decorat-
ed into the mid third century A.D., the Egyptian
funerary tradition provided a functional prerequi-
site for preserving and passing down Egyptian art.
And although Egyptian art appears entirely typical
to a modern Egyptologist, to a viewer in Ptolemaic
and Roman Egypt its distinctive conventions were
not the sole or even the primary visual idiom, and
at some point the conventions themselves must have
come to signify a delimited religious sphere.
The dissemination of artistic forms through
building projects, coinage, publicly displayed ob-
jects (whether a statue or a shop sign), and ephem-
eral media now lost, all made the Hellenic visual
language a familiar part of lived experience. Some
scholars have gone to great lengths to posit a na-
tive Egyptian origin for a range of artistic develop-
ments, imagining that the countrys populace val-
ued and wished to perpetuate its pharaonic heri-
tage in much the same way as modern scholars
do.
77
Such formulations can be as inaccurate and
patronizing as the earlier pejorative views they seek
to replace.
78
The adoption of Hellenic art was an
ongoing process and an inevitable development,
particularly in an eastern Mediterranean society
that privileged naturalistic portraiture as a means
of self-presentation.
71
Hlscher 1987, 15, 34, 578; Smith 1996.
72
Whitehouse 1998, with discussion and further references.
73
Coffin: British Museum EA 55022, in Walker and Bierbri-
er 1997a, 36 (no. 10); cf. Berlin, gyptisches Museum 17016,
from Abusir el-Meleq, in Parlasca and Seemann 1999, 2123
(no. 120). Stela of Besas: supra, n. 12.
74
Reclining on couch: Terenouthis stelae such as Hannover,
Kestner Museum 1925.225, in Parlasca and Seemann 1999, 252
(no. 156). Burning incense: Abdalla 1992, 1034.
75
Including Moscow, Pushkin Museum I 1a 5747 and Ber-
lin, gyptisches Museum 11651: Parlasca and Seemann 1999,
246 (no. 153) and 2601 (no. 165), respectively.
76
Louvre E 25384: Aubert and Cortopassi 1998, 82 (no. 38);
also published by du Bourguet (1957) and illustrated in Cas-
tiglione (1961, 212).
77
For example, the language of struggle and competition
that Bianchi uses to characterize the ultimate triumph of Clas-
sical over Egyptian art (Bianchi et al. 1988, 80), or Corcorans
assertion that two rival cultures existed (Corcoran 1995, 2).
78
Such as McCrimmon 1945, 61: The Graeco-Egyptian
mummy . . . is a spectacle of ugliness, mediocrity, and incon-
gruity.
The intimate connection between self-presenta-
tion and the need to create a lasting image of the
deceased is a hallmark of the funerary art produced
in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, and the question
of who used such art is vital to any interpretation of
it. As Borg has demonstrated, the mummy portraits
display markers of Greek identity, which formed a
sharp contrast to Roman identity from the late Hel-
lenistic period into the mid second century A.D.
79
Features of the portraits, such as tunics, mantles,
and beards, would have been read in keeping with
the societal predilection for cultivating Greek lan-
guage, education, and values. This holds true for
other naturalistic representations of the dead as
well, whether on coffins, stelae, tombs, or statuary.
The fact that Greek identity could be framed with-
in the traditional sphere of Egyptian mortuary prac-
tices indicates the extent to which Greek-ness was
a desirable model for the self. At the same time, the
portraits and other forms of funerary art often point
to the deceaseds engagement with Egyptian cults
by means of iconography that seems to reveal more
than a divine assimilation. Studded stoles and flo-
ral bandoliers can mark priestly office, for exam-
ple, and the depiction of women in a knotted man-
tle and corkscrew curls, as worn by Isis in Roman
cult statues, recorded their cult affiliation.
80
Simi-
larly, the star-emblem diadem and contabulated
mantle seem to mark priests of Sarapis.
81
Using
Egyptian mortuary practices, and accompanying
them with highly decorated funerary art, may itself
signal that the people thus memorialized were par-
ticularly involved with native cults and temples. The
elaboration of Egyptian iconography and Demotic
or hieroglyphic texts on numerous objects suggests
that patrons and artists had recourse to specialist
knowledge of the kind that the religious infrastruc-
ture preserved and passed down. In short, the spe-
cific manner in which Egyptian and Hellenic art
interacted as a means of funerary commemoration
can be seen not simply as a passive reception of
dominant (Greek and Roman) visual forms but as
an active and considered response to the multiple
cultural factors that shaped selfhood in that time
and place.
What funerary art of any form or content does not
automatically indicate is the social rank and eco-
nomic means of the deceased, despite a common
assumption that the more numerous and more in-
trinsically valuable funerary goods are, the wealthi-
er and more important the dead person must have
been in life. Although mummification rites, a cof-
fin or stela, and space in a tomb represent a signif-
icant financial outlay, it is difficult to gauge how
people prioritized such expenditures. Art is chief-
ly endowed with status by the contexts in which it is
owned and used within a society. A costly burial,
perhaps with a gilded coffin or the best-quality
mummification available, might well have been the
prerogative of a local elite of some means, but in
the larger picture of Roman Egyptian social struc-
tures, the emphasis should lie on local, rather than
elite. There is no evidence that any of the officials
who administered Egypt, or any holders of Roman
or Alexandrian citizenship, were buried with the
varieties of funerary art that typify the corpus, for
example, a panel, shroud, mask, coffin, or tomb with
Egyptian features. Entrance to certain social orders,
like the gymnasium and metropolitan citizenship,
was tightly controlled, and again no firm links can
be made between members of these privileged ur-
ban classes and the extant funerary material.
82
Al-
though such links might well have existed, in the
absence of supporting evidence, it is a fallacy to
allege that the bulk, and best, of the funerary art
from Roman Egypt must have been used by the high-
est-ranking, and best, people of the community,
region, or country. That said, the costs implicit in
the combination of mummification, interment, and
funerary art point to a level of affluence among the
patrons. Further, decorated burials tend to occur
in cemeteries associated with urbanized areas,
where a wealthier, more hellenized population
existed alongside the skilled craft industries that
such burials required.
More than anything, the variety of the forms, ma-
terials, and representational styles observed in this
funerary art, along with its physical and chronolog-
ical spread, suggests that no blanket explanation
as to the social status of its owners can be sufficient.
79
Borg 1996, 15076; Borg 1998, 3459.
80
On stoles and bandoliers, see Whitehouse 1998, 261; cf.
Rosenbaum 1960, 134 (appendix II, no. 1), pl. 134. For the
Isiac affiliations of women and girls, in Egypt and elsewhere,
see Thompson 1981; Eingartner 1991; Walters 1988. The
mantle costume associated with Isis ultimately derives from
Egyptian sources; one explication of this is offered in Bianchi
1980.
81
Goette 1989. Borg (1996, 164) corrects his identification
of the contabulated garment, which is a mantle rather than a
toga.
82
Although Walker (1997) argues that the subjects of mum-
my portraits may have been metropolitan elites and members
of the gymnasium. Papyrological evidence for attaining mem-
bership in these groups is collected in Nelson 1979.
Some funerary assemblages have a conservative, non-
Hellenic character, such as the Soter group of cof-
fins, shrouds, and papyri from second-century A.D.
Thebes (e.g., fig. 3).
83
One little-explored consid-
eration is that such material purposely employed
native iconography to craft an alternative to the pre-
vailing social structure and its visual norms. In the
Soter group, Egyptian texts and representations
dominate, with archaizing formulations in the lan-
guage, the coffin shapes, and the large-scale fig-
ures of the deceased. Similarly, the names and (rare-
ly) titles of the three-dozen individuals associated
with the group suggest families of predominantly
Egyptian descent and with local concerns; one cof-
fin-owner held Egyptian priesthoods at nearby Cop-
tos.
84
If the design and deployment of the Soter
material was intended as an expression of Egyptian
identity and Egyptian values, in contrast to Hellen-
ic ones, it is probably not an isolated case among
contemporaneous funerary art. At the very least, the
celebration of native mortuary rites and the tradi-
tional decoration of burials provided a safe and
specific setting in which Egyptian-ness could be
emphasized by those who wished to do so.
conclusion
The popular appeal of exhibitions like Ancient
Faces and the scholarly achievement of the many
recent catalogues and publications concerned with
Ptolemaic and Roman funerary art have accentuat-
ed the interpretive potential of a large and varied
corpus of material. Fascination with this art is such
that the response at the close of the 20th century
has been as enthusiastic as the initial reception
these works, and the mummy portraits in particu-
lar, received at the end of the 19th century. It is
useful, however, to consider the full spectrum of
funerary art and related mortuary evidence with-
out unduly privileging one type of object or docu-
mentation. The range and quantity of the material
is extraordinary, and for much of it, multiple sourc-
es of informationarchaeological, visual, textual,
even physiologicalcan coalesce in a way that is
not often possible in scholarship on the ancient
world.
This corpus of funerary art offers us an unparal-
leled opportunity to see the inhabitants of Ptole-
maic and Roman Egypt as they presented them-
selves and wished to be seen within the parameters
of mortuary commemoration. In this way, reading
representations of the deceased, regardless of
whether those representations are naturalistic por-
traits, can provide a window into the self-identity of
the individuals portrayed. Funerary art may well
have been the most opportune, if not the only, ven-
ue in which some people could both record and
negotiate various aspects of identity: class, sex, pro-
fession, religion, family, and cultural ties. In doing
so, they drew on the artistic and religious traditions
then available, and the resultant visual imagery
dovetails their aspirations for this life and the next.
The interplay of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian cul-
tures was a dynamic process, and it is more useful
to look for the variety of ways in which this process
manifested itself than to characterize it as either a
jumbled mixture or a combative divide. As visual
evidence indicatesespecially that which can be
characterized as dual-systemthe actors were aware
of the multiple cultural derivations that contribut-
ed to their contemporary existence. Recent re-
search in this field demonstrates how far forward
scholarship on the funerary art of Hellenistic and
Roman Egypt has moved and also how much re-
mains to be done if the material is to be used to full
advantage in the study of this multifaceted society.
the queens college
oxford university
oxford ox1 4aw
united kingdom
christina.riggs@queens.ox.ac.uk
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103
William Donald Edward Coulson, 19422001
NANCY C. WILKIE
After a distinguished but
all too brief career in archae-
ology and classics, William
D.E. Coulson died in Thessa-
loniki, Greece on 24 June
2001 following a long illness.
He was buried in the Ceme-
tery of the Resurrection of the
Lord in Thessaloniki, Greece
on 26 June.
Born in England on 17 Sep-
tember 1942, Coulson moved
to the United States in 1956.
He was awarded a B.A. degree
in classics and modern lan-
guages (German and Rus-
sian) from Trinity College,
Hartford, Connecticut in
1964. While at Trinity he was
the recipient of numerous
academic awards. Among
them were the Melvin W. Ti-
tle Latin Prize (1962), James Goodwin Greek Prize
(1963), initiation into Phi Beta Kappa (1963), and
the George J. Mead History Prize (1964). In 1968,
Princeton University awarded him a Ph.D. in clas-
sics and classical archaeology. His dissertation was
entitled Studies in Chapters 34 and 36 of Pliny
the Elders Natural History. While at Princeton he
held the Wolfson Fellowship (19641965), the Rob-
bins Fellowship (19651966), and a University Fel-
lowship (19671968). During the academic year
19661967, he held the John Williams White Fel-
lowship in Classical Archaeology at the American
School of Classical Studies at Athens. Most recent-
ly, in 1992, the American College of Greece pre-
sented him with an Honorary Doctorate of Humane
Letters.
Coulson began his teaching career in 1968 in
the Department of Classics at the University of Min-
nesota, where he served as Chair of the Department
of Classical Studies from 1983 to 1987. During that
time he held research fellow-
ships from the National En-
dowment for the Humanities,
the American Council of
Learned Societies, the Smith-
sonian Institution, the Amer-
ican Philosophical Society, the
National Geographic Society,
and the Packard Foundation.
In 1987, Coulson moved to
Athens, where he served as
Director of the American
School of Classical Studies at
Athens for 10 years, until his
retirement in 1997. While Di-
rector of the ASCSA, he over-
saw the opening of the Wien-
er Laboratory, the construc-
tion of a new wing of the Ble-
gen Library, and the INSTAP
Study Center for East Crete.
He also helped to bring about
an expansion of the teaching program at the
School, including an increase in scholarship op-
portunities for graduate students enrolled there.
From 1970 to 1975, Coulson was a member of the
Minnesota Messenia Expedition, supervising ex-
cavations of Mycenaean and Dark Age levels at
Nichoria, Greece. His publication of the Dark Age
material from Nichoria continues to be one of the
standard reference works for that period of main-
land Greek archaeology.
1
Although his publications
on the Dark Age pottery of Greece are too numer-
ous to list, his monograph on The Dark Age Pottery of
Messenia,
2
and articles on The Dark Age Pottery of
Sparta,
3
Geometric Pottery from Volimidia,
4
and
The Protogeometric from Polis Reconsidered
5
deserve special mention.
In 1977, Coulson participated in excavations at
Tel Mikhal, Israel, and in the same year he joined
A. Leonard, Jr. in founding the Naukratis Project, a
program of excavation and survey conducted from
1
McDonald et al. 1983.
2
Coulson 1986.
3
Coulson 1985.
4
Coulson 1988.
5
Coulson 1991.
Photo by M. Mauzy, Photographic Archives, American
School of Classical Studies, Greece
NANCY C. WILKIE 104 [AJA 106
1980 to 1984 in the region of the ancient Greek
colony of Naukratis in Lower Egypt. His publica-
tions on Naukratis include numerous articles
6
as
well as two volumes
7
on the work of the project. At
the time of his death he was general editor of the
Ancient Naukratis series.
It was the Iron Age of East Crete, however, that
engaged the majority of Coulsons research activity
during the past 20 years. In 1978, he joined G. Ge-
sell and L. Day as a co-director of the Kavousi Project.
The numerous preliminary but detailed publica-
tions of their work at this site can be found in vari-
ous issues of Hesperia from 1983 on.
8
Most recently Coulson had begun work at the site
of Halasmenos near Monastiraki, also in East Crete,
with Metaxia Tsipopoulou of the KD Ephoreia of
Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities.
9
Excavations
there have revealed an important sequence of pot-
tery from 1200 to 700 B.C., a period of history that is
poorly documented on the island of Crete.
In addition to his publications on the Iron Age
of mainland Greece and Crete, especially the ce-
ramic sequences, Coulson also will be remem-
bered for his numerous publications on other as-
pects of Mediterranean archaeology. In particu-
lar, while he was Director of the ASCSA he orga-
nized several important conferences on a wide
range of topics and oversaw the publication of their
proceedings.
10
Throughout his life, Coulsons love of Greece,
his adopted country, and of Greek culture was al-
ways evident. Those of us fortunate enough to have
worked with him over the years will remember the
great pleasure he found in collaborating with his
Greek colleagues, whether in the field, the library,
or the museum. In addition to the more than 18
books and 145 articles, abstracts, and reviews that
he published during his lifetime, many in collabo-
ration with Greek or American scholars, are the
numerous publications in preparation that were
left unfinished because of his untimely death. His
voice will be sorely missed.
classics department
carleton college
northfield, minnesota 55057
nwilkie@carleton.edu
Works Cited
Coulson, W.D.E. 1985. The Dark Age Pottery of Spar-
ta. BSA 80:2984.
. 1986. The Dark Age Pottery of Messenia. Studies in
Mediterranean Archaeology. Gteborg: Paul strms.
. 1988. Geometric Pottery from Volimidia. AJA
92:5374.
. 1991. The Protogeometric from Polis Recon-
sidered. BSA 86:4364.
. 1996. Ancient Naukratis. Vol. 2, The Survey at
Naukratis and Environs, pt. 1. Oxford: Oxbow.
Coulson, W.D.E., D.C. Haggis, M.S. Mook, and J.L. To-
bin. 1997. Excavations on the Kastro at Kavousi: An
Architectural Overview. Hesperia 66:31590.
Coulson, W.D.E., and H. Kyrieleis, eds. 1992. Proceedings
of an International Symposium on the Olympic Games, 5
9 September 1988. Athens: Deutsches Archologisches
Institut Athen.
Coulson, W.D.E., and A. Leonard, Jr. 1979. A Prelimi-
nary Survey of the Naukratis Region in the Western
Nile Delta. JFA 6:15168.
. 1982a. Cities of the Delta. Pt. 1, Naukratis. Malibu,
Calif.: Undena.
. 1982b. Investigations at Naukratis and Envi-
rons, 1980 and 1981. AJA 86:36180.
Coulson, W.D.E., A. Leonard, Jr., and N.C. Wilkie. 1982.
Three Seasons of Excavations and Survey at Naukrat-
is and Environs. JARCE 19:73109.
Coulson, W.D.E., O. Palagia, T.L. Shear, Jr., H.A. Shapiro,
and F.J. Frost, eds. 1994. The Archaeology of Athens and
Attica under the Democracy: Proceedings of an International
Conference Celebrating 2500 Years since the Birth of Democra-
cy in Greece, Held at the American School of Classical Studies
at Athens, December 46, 1992. Oxford: Oxbow.
Coulson, W.D., and M. Tsipopoulou. 1997. Amerikani-
ki Scholi Klasikon Spoudon: Halasmenos. ArchDelt
47 (1992 Hronika):609.
Coulson, W.D.E., and N.C. Wilkie. 1986. Ptolemaic and
Roman Kilns in the Western Nile Delta. BASOR
263:6175.
Coulson, W.D.E., N.C. Wilkie, and J.W. Rehard. 1986.
Amphoras from Naukratis and Environs. In Recher-
ches sur les amphores grecques (BCH Suppl. 13), edited by
J.-Y. Empereur and Y. Garlan, 53550. Paris: cole
franaise dAthnes.
Day, L.P., W.D.E. Coulson, and G.C. Gesell. 1986. Kavou-
si, 19831984: The Settlement at Vronda. Hesperia
55:35587.
Gesell, G.C., W.D.E. Coulson, and L.P. Day. 1991. Exca-
vations at Kavousi, Crete, 1988. Hesperia 60:14577.
Gesell, G., L. Day, and W. Coulson. 1983. Excavations
and Survey at Kavousi, 19781981. Hesperia 52:389
420.
Gesell, G.C., L.P. Day, and W.D.E. Coulson. 1985. Kavou-
6
Among the 19 articles that Coulson published on the
Naukratis Project, the following are some of the most synthet-
ic and most accessible: Coulson and Leonard 1979; Coulson
and Leonard 1982b; Coulson et al. 1982; Coulson and Wilkie
1986; Coulson et al. 1986.
7
Coulson and Leonard 1982a; Coulson 1996.
8
Gesell et al. 1983; Gesell et al. 1985; Day et al. 1986; Gesell
et al. 1988; Gesell et al. 1991; Gesell et al. 1995; Coulson et al.
1997.
9
Coulson and Tsipopoulou 1997.
10
Coulson and Kyrieleis 1992; Palagia and Coulson 1993;
Coulson et al. 1994.
WILLIAM DONALD EDWARD COULSON, 19422001 105 2002]
si, 19821983: The Kastro. Hesperia 54:32755.
. 1988. Excavations at Kavousi, Crete, 1987.
Hesperia 57:279301.
. 1995. Excavations at Kavousi, Crete, 1989 and
1990. Hesperia 64:67120.
McDonald, W.A., W.D.E. Coulson, and J. Rosser. 1983.
Excavations at Nichoria in Southwest Greece. Vol. 3, Dark
Age and Byzantine Occupation. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.
Palagia, O., and W.D.E. Coulson. 1993. Sculpture from
Arcadia and Laconia: Proceedings of an International Con-
ference Held at the American School of Classical Studies at
Athens, April 1014, 1992. Oxford: Oxbow.
107
REVIEW ARTICLE
Die Palste der Hasmoner und Herodes des
Grossen, by Ehud Netzer. (Zaberns Bildbnde zur
Archologie.) Pp. 132, figs. 173. Philipp von
Zabern, Mainz 1999. DM 68. ISBN 3-8053-2011-6
(cloth).
Die Baupolitik Herodes des Grossen: Die
Bedeutung der Architektur fr die
Herrschaftslegitimation eines rmischen
Klientelknigs, by Sarah Japp. (Internationale
Archologie 64.) Pp. vi + 169, pls. 85, map 1. Marie
Leidorf, Rahden 2000. DM 139.80. ISSN 0939-
0561X; ISBN 3-89646-336-5 (cloth).
Caesarea Papers. Vol. 2, Herods Temple, The
Provincial Governors Praetorium and Gra-
naries, The Later Harbor, A Gold Coin
Hoard, and Other Studies, by K.G. Holum, A.
Raban, and J. Patrich. (JRA Suppl. 35.) Pp. 440,
figs. 365, col. figs. 7, tables 24. Journal of Roman
Archaeology, Portsmouth RI 1999. $99.50. ISSN
1063-4304; ISBN 1-887829-35-0 (cloth).
Herod the Great, King of Judaea from 40 to 4 B.C.E., is
a growth industry these days. Current excavations are
revealing the magnitude of his and his predecessors
building projects and tracing how the cities he founded
developed and decayed, while scholars scurry to fit the
new data into their own frameworks, whether of Helle-
nistic architecture, Roman client-kingship, or Near East-
ern history. Each of the three books under review uses a
different approach to throw one particular slant of light
on Herods foundations: the precedents, his achieve-
ments, and what became of them.
Ehud Netzers authority overshadows that of other
experts, as he has either led or participated in excava-
tions almost everywhere that Herod built, with full publi-
cations still appearing: his latest is an excavation report
on the Hasmonean and Herodian palaces at Jericho.
1
The book reviewed here, however, is not a primary ar-
chaeological publication but, like all Zaberns Bildbnde,
a well-illustrated summary written to appeal to a broad
public. It was translated into German from Hebrew; En-
glish and Hebrew versions of the same book, with some
additions, were published in 2001 by the Israel Explora-
tion Society, Jerusalem.
A basic premise of Netzers Palste der Hasmoner is
that one cannot understand Herods innovations with-
out looking at the tradition of palace and fortress build-
ing that he inherited from the Hasmonean dynasty be-
fore him. The sites covered are Jericho (a chapter is de-
voted to each of its seven palace phases and another to
its unusual hippodrome at Tell es-Samarat); Masada (two
chapters); Herodeion (one chapter on the upper palace
and another on the lower); and a chapter each on the
desert fortresses, the Promontory Palace at Caesarea Mar-
itima, and on Herods buildings in Jerusalem. There are
plenty of good, clear plans, isometric reconstructions,
and color photos.
Netzer approaches each site as an architect as well as
an archaeologist, weighing the possibilities of how build-
ings were set in the landscape, how they interacted with
one another, and how they functioned, down to conjec-
tures about features not preserved, like paths, roofs, kitch-
ens, and toilets. In an arid land, water was a primary con-
cern, and the provisions for gathering, channeling, stor-
ing, and even luxuriating in water are shown in each
case. For example, Jerichos well-irrigated royal estate
was famous for growing balsam, and even the earliest
palace there, dated to the time of John Hyrkanos (134
104), included baths in both the Hellenized and Jewish
traditions, plus twin swimming pools. The Jericho palaces
were agglutinative, with frequent modifications and ad-
ditions, though sometimes buildings were destroyed and
built over. It is interesting to see that the first palace
that Netzer attributes to Herod, on land made usable by
extension of the water channels ca. 35, also had two
types of baths, but this time the Jewish mikveh was joined
by the latest luxury: a full Roman bath suite, including a
caldarium with heated walls and floors. From then on,
there would be a Roman-style bath in just about every
palace Herod built.
The Hasmoneans also left Herod a series of desert
fortresses, which were not just defenses but treasuries
and strategic refuges. Herod built pools, peristyles, re-
ception rooms, and baths in these as well, until they too
became palaces; the best-known is Masada, whose two
Herodian phases are detailed here. Netzer sees the pin-
nacle of Herods architectural achievement in his multi-
story palace-towers, of which Herodeion provides the best-
preserved example. The chapter on Jerusalem has less
archaeological evidence to back it up, as many of the
buildings are known only from Josephuss descriptions,
but nonetheless it shows how Herod made spaces for
himself in his (often hostile) capital, and particularly on
Out-Heroding Herod
BARBARA BURRELL
1
Netzer 2001.
BARBARA BURRELL 108 [AJA 106
the Temple Mount, where he previously had little special
status. Unfortunately, Netzer does less well with the cit-
ies that Herod himself founded; there is nothing on the
residential buildings (admittedly not proven to be
Herods) next to the temple of Augustus at Sebaste, and
the chapter on the Promontory Palace (here Palast auf
der Klippe) at Caesarea is rather weak. It ignores the
public parts and urban situation of the palace, prelimi-
narily published by Netzer, K. Gleason, myself, and oth-
ers.
2
This was a missed opportunity to show how Herod
chose to present himself in a cityscape designed to his
own specifications.
There are some errors, presumably resulting from trans-
lation. First, all the dates given on page 125 are incor-
rect: the Antonia fortress in Jerusalem was not built in
das 3. Jahrzehnt v. Chr. but in the fourth decade, that is,
the 30s B.C.E., and so on; every one of the palaces is
dated 10 years late. On page 111, we read nicht alle
Sulen in situ gefunden wurden; in fact, not one column
was found in that peristyle. Though it was a wonderful
idea to group all the Roman bath facilities in the same
scale (fig. 172), they should have been individually
named. But these are quibbles. What makes Netzers book
so valuableand unusualis his consideration of what
functions each building served, and what spaces were
devoted to each function.
Sarah Japps Baupolitik Herodes des Grossen is a doctoral
dissertation (1996), with some features updated to 1999.
It arrives among a crowd of recent studies that also aim to
explain Herods building as a unified program, including
publications by Duane Roller
3
and Achim Lichtenberg-
er.
4
Incidentally, I would urge anyone else who is consid-
ering this topic to hold off, not just because of all this
competition, but because so much primary archaeological
material is still being discovered and published; one runs
the risk of being out of date before one reaches print.
Japps approach is comparative and art historical. After
a short introduction and a chapter setting Herod in his-
torical context, she documents what is known of his build-
ings, grouping them by type (city plans, theaters, tem-
ples, fortresses, palaces) rather than chronologically or
geographically. The next chapter traces each building
types possible antecedents. There is then a summary of
construction and decoration techniques, with some valu-
able considerations of where Herods builders came from,
and finally a statement of her conclusions (also summa-
rized in English). There is a catalogue (see below), but
no bibliography, and the footnotes are so abbreviated
that it is sometimes difficult to see which fact is being
documented. Occasionally the notes cite rather outdat-
ed sources, especially on areas outside the authors im-
mediate interest. There are usable plans of most of the
sites, plus photographs of their current states.
One of the problems that confronts anyone trying to
deal with the origins of Herods building is that the most
influential palace complexes of his day, at Alexandria and
Antioch, are not preserved to any extent. One must fill
these gaps with information from elsewhere, and as may
be expected from a student of von Hesberg, Japp sup-
plies abundant and illuminating Hellenistic precedents.
She is more reserved than some scholars about claiming
influences from the west; Herod was a careful and diplo-
matic client king who visited Rome and employed Roman
builders, but she does not see him as too concerned about
how his palaces compared with obscure Italian villas.
Also praiseworthy is her search for forerunners in the
wider world of the Near East. Sometimes, however, she
masses groups of earlier examples of particular architec-
tural forms, and makes them stand for eine lokale Tradi-
tion (e.g., 75). But these can be at a distance of thou-
sands of years and hundreds of miles from each other
and from Herod, with no transitional or intermediate
data to back up their continuity. For example, whether
Herods fortresses preserved influences from Iron Age
Judaea of up to a millennium before is questionable; but
to pile the storage facilities of the Ramesseum at Thebes,
the Palace at Knossos, and the Arsenal at Pergamon on
top of that, and call it eine orientalische Tradition (63)
rather than sheer functional similarity, is far-fetched.
Japp cites written evidence for Herods building, which
is almost entirely the testimony of Josephus, though she
does not examine it in detail. She also quotes Torah and
Talmud, though it is sometimes dangerous to apply pre-
cepts from other times to the specifics of the first centu-
ry B.C.E. This is clearest when she considers Jewish atti-
tudes about images. She herself assembles enough data
to show that a ban on images of living creatures was not
equally strict at all times and for all groups of Jews; yet
she believes that Herod, whom she otherwise sees as
punctilious about it even in his palaces, deliberately trans-
gressed by putting an eagle on his (otherwise aniconic)
coins and over a gate to the Temple Mount (45). It seems
more likely that images of birds and animals, like the
sculptures on the Tobiad palace at Iraq al-Emir, had seemed
acceptable until extreme groups made them a point of
contention.
It was a good idea to investigate whether private build-
ings in Herods realm copied those of the king. Japp
finds that few did. With rare exceptions, houses of Herods
day (and admittedly, few have been found and dated, and
many of those are in one small quarter of Jerusalem) did
not copy his structures, though they used a common dec-
orative vocabulary that included plaster and paint imitat-
ing stonework, and nonfigurative mosaic floors. Unfortu-
nately, she does not carry her reasoning through when
she reattributes Netzers First Palace of Herod at Jeri-
cho to a wealthy Jewish aristocrat. The complex has all
the features (Roman bath, huge columned and T-shaped
reception rooms facing out into a great colonnaded court-
yard) that characterize Herods later palaces, and which
local residences supposedly did not imitate. What is more,
since this is the earliest such complex at Jericho, if Japps
hypothesis were true, some nameless aristocrat would have
introduced all these features, while Herod copied them!
Appended to the book is a catalogue of all the building
projects that can be attributed to Herod within his realm,
2
Netzer 1996; Gleason 1996; Burrell 1996; Gleason et al.
1998.
3
Roller 1998.
4
Lichtenberger 1999.
OUT-HERODING HEROD 2002] 109
those outside it, and buildings not known to be by Herod
(farms, fortresses, private houses, estates, and graves)
that might have shown his influence. Sites are listed in
alphabetical order, which is not very useful, as almost all
have several names and variantsdo you alphabetize
names in German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, or Arabic? On
the whole, I prefer Lichtenbergers grouping of sites in
chronological and topographic terms, which makes for
more coherent reading. Japp is not as thorough as Roller
on the history, but she is better on the archaeological
remains, giving more precise details and critical analysis.
Nonetheless, one still finds oneself wanting further de-
tails of construction and context.
Japps final conclusion is that Herods buildings were
multifarious in order to fulfill the needs of his various
people, and to legitimate himself as king in their eyes
and the eyes of the Romans. This is certainly true, but it
does not go very far. It does not explain what makes
Herods buildings similar to each other, yet different from
all others. Japps strength is in amassing comparanda, but
she is less successful in showing where, and explaining
why, Herods buildings were original and unique.
Herod built Caesarea and its harbor Sebastos not only
for practical reasons, but, as Japp points out, to act as a
display-window for his realm. The site is therefore crucial
to his intentions and accomplishments, but it is also huge
and deeply stratified, with a long, complicated history of
excavations. Kenneth Holum, Avner Raban, and Joseph
Patrich, along with many collaborators, have now issued a
second volume of Caesarea Papers in the JRA Supplementa-
ry Series. This volume presents work of the Combined
Caesarea Expeditions (sponsored by the University of
Maryland and the University of Haifa), most of it done
between 1993 and 1995, when a project to make Caesar-
ea a more attractive tourist destination provided assis-
tance to this and other excavation teams.
Publication of collected preliminary reports is an ex-
cellent strategy, as it makes vital information available
promptly; but it means that this volume is not made to
stand alone, and often depends on earlier publications.
Fortunately, Lehmann and Holums long-awaited Greek
and Latin Inscriptions of Caesarea Maritima
5
now makes
looking up many of the inscriptions mentioned in this
volume easier, though it only covers finds up to 1992. A
synthetic final publication is still needed, of course; one
article of Caesarea Papers 2 may contradict the next one;
texts, plans, and photos are not always well-keyed to one
another; and terminology and illustrations can be incon-
sistent (e.g., KK 33 and 32 [76] become KK 1 and 2
[136]).
As the various Caesarea Papers involve multiple authors,
with many names repeated, I will discuss part 1 (field
reports) by the letter assigned to each section, and part
2 (specialist studies) by topics.
Section 1A summarizes recent work done on the site
of what has been convincingly identified as Herods Tem-
ple to Rome and Augustus. Though the frontal approach-
es to this Corinthian temple have not yet been clarified,
a lateral staircase may date as early as Herods time. The
temple platform went on to have late antique and Medi-
eval incarnations (a corpus of Islamic pottery found in
1987 is appended).
Section 1B documents a building referred to as either
the governors palace or the provincial governors prae-
torium. But both terms are hypothetical and even mis-
leading. The best-documented praetorium in Caesarea
was formerly Herods (Acts of the Apostles 23.35); the build-
ing published here was not only built far later, but prom-
inently features a public latrine, an amenity seldom found
in palaces. No documentary basis is presented for a gover-
nor actually residing here, though a proconsul may have
attached a bath after 560 C.E. Sadly, the mislabeling ob-
scures the true importance of the building as a Byzantine
office complex whose bureaucrats, their tips regulated in
an inscription not yet published, are named on mosaics
and on an important series of lead sealings, of a sort
rarely reported in full archaeological context.
Section 1C deals with recent underwater excavations
in the outer harbor. More details are revealed of how
Herods Sebastos was founded by sinking wooden cais-
sons filled (but not homogeneously) with imported poz-
zolana. An important find of Domitianic lead ingots, like-
ly from a shipwreck, indicates to these authors that the
outer harbor began to deteriorate as early as the first
century C.E., though stratigraphic excavation provided
no new dating material, and the authors of section 1E
(below) see a different picture.
The next two sections both study land excavations in
the inner harbor. Section 1D examines finds from sever-
al trenches and publishes the Islamic and Crusader pot-
tery by stratum, using the typology of section 1A. Parts of
the Herodian quay and what may be pre-Herodian harbor
structures were found, as well as the flushing channels
that helped keep the inner harbor clear of silt until they
went out of use by the early third century. After this, an
extension to the quay and new steps were built, but seem-
ingly for a much lower sea level than the authors calcu-
late; this requires further exploration. The study of the
shells of foraminifera (protozoans sensitive to water con-
ditions) indicates that the inner harbor was kept clear by
flushing or dredging until the third century, was then
shut off from most seawater by a wall or sandbar (probably
breached in the fifth century), and only filled with sand
in the seventh century.
This hypothesis is developed in section 1E, the most
unified in the book. It is not, as it might seem, an exten-
sion of the previous section, but a full publication of one
excavation in the inner harbor, especially a sondage and
sediment cores taken down to bedrock. An introduction
synthesizes the results and offers hypotheses to explain
them. Separate articles then present the Islamic and Cru-
sader phases excavated above the sondage, and many of
the finds from the sondage and cores: pottery, glass, sed-
imentology, diatoms, foraminifera (the latter two contra-
dicting one another about the inner harbors salinity,
but the diatom numbers were low, so probably not signif-
icant), macro-invertebrates, and plant remains, the last
both abundant and deserving of further study. One won-
5
Lehmann and Holum 2000.
BARBARA BURRELL, OUT-HERODING HEROD 110
ders why faunal analysis was not included; the amount of
animal bone was small, but that seems odd if the debris is
household refuse, as the authors hypothesize. Section
1E concludes that the inner harbor was kept clear up to
ca. 400 C.E., when it was blocked (as the foraminifera
paper of 1D mentions); after this, refuse was dumped in
the area. When the blockage was breached (by tsuna-
mi?), natural deposition turned the inner harbor into a
beach in the seventh century.
Part 2 consists of studies not necessarily related to
others in the book. Two articles maintain that Caesarea
was not previously named Demetrias, as has recently been
asserted. A hoard of 99 gold solidi from the end of the
fourth century, previously featured in a video, is pub-
lished in full, along with discussion of its archaeological
context; and another numismatic study focuses on Byz-
antine countermarks. The devices that relieved pressure
and released trapped air from Caesareas aqueducts shed
light on a problem in Vitruviuss text, and a study of the
reuse and adaptation of Roman statuary to Christian con-
texts in Caesarea emphasizes cultural continuity.
A petrographic analysis of concrete, cement, and plas-
ter samples from all dates and many areas of Caesarea is a
useful expansion from the ongoing studies of concrete
used in harbor construction, for example, in section 1C. A
list of radiocarbon dates for material from the harbor also
provides raw data, but the provenance of sample RT 1780
is missing, and even the most advanced calibration pro-
grams cannot give the 100% probability claimed for many
samples. A comparison between the animal use and butch-
ery practices of Byzantine and Islamic Caesarea produces
surprising results in a readable fashion, and the analysis of
post-Byzantine human burials shows that being a Crusader
(or a woman) could be hazardous to your health.
Like Caesarea Papers 2, this review has been rather an
omnium gatherum, but it only shows how many fields
one has to keep up with to appreciate the accomplish-
ments, and legacy, of Herod.
department of classics
university of cincinnati
410 blegen library
cincinnati, ohio 45221-0226
barbara.burrell@classics.uc.edu
Works Cited
Burrell, B. 1996. Palace to Praetorium: The Romanization
of Caesarea. In Caesarea Maritima: A Retrospective after
Two Millennia, edited by A. Raban and K. Holum, 22847.
Leiden: Brill.
Gleason, K. 1996 Ruler and Spectacle: The Promontory
Palace. In Caesarea Maritima: A Retrospective after Two
Millennia, edited by A. Raban and K. Holum, 20827.
Leiden: Brill.
Gleason, K., et al. 1998. The Promontory Palace at Caesar-
ea Maritima: Preliminary Evidence for Herods Praetori-
um. JRA 11:2352.
Lehmann, C., and K. Holum. 2000. Greek and Latin Inscrip-
tions of Caesarea Maritima. Boston: American Schools of
Oriental Research.
Lichtenberger, A. 1999. Die Baupolitik Herodes des Grossen.
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Netzer, E. 1996. The Promontory Palace. In Caesarea Mar-
itima: A Retrospective after Two Millennia, edited by A. Ra-
ban and K. Holum, 193207. Leiden: Brill.
. 2001. Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho: Fi-
nal Reports of the 19731987 Excavations. Vol. 1, Stratigra-
phy and Architecture. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society.
Roller, D. 1998. The Building Program of Herod the Great.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
111
BOOK REVIEWS
Archaeology and Language. Vol. 1, Theoreti-
cal and Methodological Orientations, ed-
ited by Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs. (One
World Archaeology 27.) Pp. xxi + 388, figs. 80,
tables 28. Routledge, London 1997. $115. ISBN
0-415-11760-7.
The attempt to link material culture traits and lan-
guage groups is a recurring theme in archaeological and
linguistic research. The volume under review is a thought-
ful contribution to this long-standing issue. Although
one contribution falters by equating language groups and
archaeological finds (i.e., the pottery and peoples prob-
lem), others show how bodies of archaeological, linguis-
tic, and even genetic evidence can complement each
other in efforts to better understand the human past.
Blench, in his General Introduction, is optimistic for
continued studies in this area. Differences between the
nature of archaeological and linguistic information, how-
ever, caution against making direct correlations (I. Pe-
jros, ch. 9). As most articles in the volume demonstrate,
archaeological and linguistic sources both need to be
seen in context before any discussion of common pat-
terns adds to fruitful interdisciplinary discussion.
This volume, the first in a series of four originating
from the third World Archaeological Congress held in
New Delhi in December of 1994, lays the foundation for
a series of case studies in subsequent volumes. It draws
primarily on case studies from island cultures and the
continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. For the
most part, the articles address issues relevant to both
parts of the title. Several, however, only address issues of
linguistics directly, sidestepping or omitting reference
to archaeology entirely.
Some articles come from the 80 papers delivered in
the five-day session at the conference. Other papers were
commissioned for the volume. Following articles about
the Prehistory of Language (pt. I) and Deep-Level
Linkages/Hypotheses (pt. II), the largest part of the
volume addresses Problems of Method (pt. III). A series
of thought-provoking case studies that consider Oral
Traditions (pt. IV) concludes the volume.
P.A. Bouissacs contribution (ch. 3) in part I is the only
article in the volume to address the material form of writ-
ten language. Although the linguistic content of his sourc-
es have not been demonstrated, he raises the issue of dis-
tinctions between symbol and script by arguing that pat-
terns in rock art may indicate paleographic writing systems.
The other two articles in this section (B.H. Bichakjian
[ch. 1], G. Gyri [ch. 2]) do not address material culture
directly, but rather present an evolutionary approach to
language. Gyris suggestion that language forms both
reflect and consequently restrict human views of and
adaptations to their physical environment implies that
language difference is significant archaeologically, for it
would play a role in how different human groups model
the world around them.
Time depth and the nature of linguistic versus archae-
ological reconstruction links the articles in part II. I.
Hegeds (ch. 4) points out that the time depth for the
degree of reconstruction in a proto-language is not the
same for all language phyla. Similarly, C. Renfrew (ch. 6)
addresses the importance of considering variation in time
depth from the perspective of both archaeology and lan-
guage; without greater chronological age for linguistic
evidence, his farming dispersal episodes do not corre-
spond with language distributions. M. Otte (ch. 5) ar-
gues for greater antiquity in Indo-European languages,
but his general equation of technological with proposed
linguistic complexity in the Upper Paleolithic does little
to support his contention.
In methodology (pt. III), the authors present a range
of approaches to the theme of the volume. I. Pejros (ch.
9) points out that all material objects do not link directly
to specific linguistic groups. Seen in context, however,
similar patterns may emerge. The advantage of context
and relational connection over studies simply of similari-
ty appears again in a contribution that favors the social
network model over the family tree model (M. Ross, ch.
13) in linguistic research. By contrast, the use of linguis-
tic similarity measures (A. Raman and J. Patrick, ch. 14)
accounts little for context, function, and variety.
Variation in the specifics of linguistic data (V. Shnirel-
man, ch. 10) has a direct bearing on interpretation and
meaning. For example, whether something is a tree ver-
sus a specific kind of tree is important for both archaeo-
logical and language study. Blench (ch. 11) addresses
variation caused by the human behavioral origins of re-
lated words in an intriguing case study of crabs, turtles,
and frogs, all of which were aquatic food resources in
Africa. L.A. Reids discussion (ch. 12) of the controver-
sial Tasaday in the Philippines underlines the sometimes
rapid shifting of linguistic and cultural identity. He de-
termines that the Tasaday are an authentic linguistic and
cultural group, rather than people pretending to live in
caves and use stone tools in exchange for financial com-
pensation.
Indo-European, with its heavy emphasis on written lan-
guages, accounts for two articles in the methods section.
J.P. Mallorys relatively uncommitted account (ch. 7) of
Indo-European homelands would serve as a good point of
departure for classroom discussions about the Indo-Euro-
pean problem. The dynamics of language shift is also a
key to the Indo-European question (J. Nichols, ch. 8).
Distinguishing among homeland, movement, and migra-
tion, her work on linguistic geography brings a new per-
spective to an old problem.
Case studies concerning archaeology and oral tradi-
tion form part IV. Some articles are more exploratory
than conclusive. J. Taki and D. Tryon (ch. 20) propose to
reconstruct the lost languages of Erromango, part of the
district of Vanuatu, an area in Melanesia. I. Zachrisson
(ch. 21) shows how archaeological, complemented with
philological, information can contribute to explanations
of the Saami past in Scandinavia.
BOOK REVIEWS 112 [AJA 106
Most articles avoid the pitfall of an absolute equation
of linguistic with archaeological data. Unfortunately, L.
Ashikhmina (ch. 15) falls into this trap in spite of a wealth
of archaeological and folkloric information about cultures
in the sub-Urals. Equations between ceramics and peo-
ples and a lack of proven equivalence in time depth be-
tween archaeological data and oral tradition detract from
her argument. The accounts of J. Garanger (ch. 17) and
D. Frimigacci (ch. 18) of apparent correlations between
oral tradition and excavated burials could easily have fall-
en prey to the same phenomenon. Instead, careful in-
vestigation of each source of evidence leads to compel-
ling arguments.
Questions of consistency in oral traditions and the
degree of time depth are important for anyone wanting
to use any form of oral tradition as a source of evidence
for past cultures. M. Sharpe and D. Tunbridge (ch. 19)
provide striking evidence for oral traditions reflecting
geographical changes as old as 10,000 years. J. Eboreime
(ch. 16), however, presents a case for deliberate varia-
tion in oral traditions as a result of shifting political agen-
das in Benin.
The format, content, and referencing of the volume
are well edited. The book is almost free of typographical
errors. Those present are minor and easily corrected by
the reader. Figures and tables are easy to read. More
diagnostic images for each case study would be helpful,
however, for readers not familiar with every culture area
and time period under discussion.
For archaeologists and historical linguists alike, this
first volume of Archaeology and Language serves as an in-
formative, optimistic, and yet cautionary interdisciplinary
resource. As much as scholars might want to find com-
mon patterns in linguistic and material data that contrib-
ute to reconstructions of the human past, the unique
characteristics of the two sources prevent their full inte-
gration in defining the subject. While this dynamic may
appear discouraging to some, it is this friction that makes
the comparative research as represented in this volume
worth pursuing.
Joanna S. Smith
department of art history and archaeology
columbia university
826 schermerhorn hall, mc 5517
new york, new york 10027
jss245@columbia.edu
From Hiroshima to the Iceman: The Develop-
ment and Applications of Accelerator Mass
Spectrometry, by Harry E. Gove. Pp. xiv + 226,
figs. 74, tables 5. Institute of Physics Publishing,
Philadelphia 1999. $99 (cloth); $27 (paper). ISBN
0-7503-0557-6 (cloth); 0-7503-0558-4 (paper).
Radiocarbon dating has developed a long way from its
early days. One of the main developments that occurred
in the late 1970s was the discovery that it is possible to
directly measure the
14
C content in atoms of an organic
substance rather than determining its content indirectly
from decay emissions. This was achieved through the
application of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), the
technique that is the central focus of this book. The
much-reduced sample size has allowed greater selectivity
in sampling of past cultural sites and objects, thereby
significantly enhancing archaeological chronologies. In
fact, AMS can measure other long-lived radionuclides in
addition to
14
C, but to archaeologists it is the application
to carbon that is of most interest.
As Gove clearly states (ix), the purpose of the book is
to provide potential users of AMS who do not have a
background in nuclear physics, as well as people who have
a general interest in science, with an understanding of
the technique, its power and its limitations. As would be
expected from an author who is a professor emeritus in
Physics, the science is comprehensively explained both
in terms of the general principles and in how different
aspects are measured or calculated. A sound education in
science is certainly helpful in understanding some sec-
tions of the bookespecially chapters four (the develop-
ment of tandem electrostatic accelerators) and five (in-
strumentation for AMS)but Gove is good at explaining
concepts from first principles. As an experienced AMS
user who has been around accelerators for a number of
years, I found the book often explained why certain
things were done the way they were that were not cov-
ered or so carefully explained in other publications.
It must be stressed that this book is semiautobiograph-
ical. The selected topics relate to events that the author,
or a member of his laboratory, had some personal involve-
ment in and so readers should not expect to see compre-
hensive coverageeven of those applications that he
has chosen to include. Gove was centrally involved in the
pioneering development of AMS and so the book is at its
best when describing the early events in the story of
AMS. He is particularly good at relating the events lead-
ing to the discovery and first measurement of
14
C by AMS
in 1977. The race to stake a claim (i.e., to be the first
physics group to publish their findings) makes lively read-
ing, and there are fascinating details like the individual
phone calls that spread news of the developments within
the world of physics and later the wider academic world.
Some of the cut-and-thrust of academic life on the fron-
tiers of science comes across when Gove relates behind-
the-scenes machinations with journal editors, referees,
and newspaper journalists. There were subsequent dis-
coveries concerned with other radionuclides, like chlo-
rine-36, but to an archaeological audience these will be
of lesser interest.
Application of AMS to various fields of study takes up
approximately two-thirds of the book. Of the ones Gove
has selected to discuss, most are of direct interest to ar-
chaeologiststhe initial peopling of the Americas, the
arrival of the Vikings and Columbus in the New World,
the Turin Shroud, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Tyrolean
Iceman.
The chapter on dating the Turin Shroud is easily the
bestwithout doubt Gove was a central player in the
whole episode (see his Relic, Icon or Hoax? Carbon Dating
the Turin Shroud [Philadelphia 1996]). Since the Turin
BOOK REVIEWS 2002] 113
Shroud adventure (28) was eventually to take up a fair
fraction of my time for ten years, (168) it is understand-
able that even a short summary would be authoritative
and informed. It is good that discussion is continued be-
yond the announcement of the outcome of the dating
in 1988, for it illustrates how AMS analyses can influence
subsequent enquiries. Attempts to undermine the 14th-
century dating are presented, but when arguments in-
voke scientific methodology (vis--vis miracles beyond
direct scientific scrutiny) Gove firmly outlines the rea-
sons why they are highly improbable.
Some of the chapters on other applications are less
satisfactory; these he seems to have selected primarily
because he was involved, as far as one can tell, almost by
chance. For example, in the chapter on the initial peo-
pling of the Americas, the account is characterized by
notable omissions. No mention is given of the
14
C dating
controversy concerning the possible contamination of
the charcoal samples from Meadowcroft in western Penn-
sylvania (although admittedly since they were non-AMS
measurements there is a case for leaving them out of a
book on the application of accelerator mass spectrome-
try). The same argument cannot, however, be used to
justify the exclusion of any discussion of sites like Pedra
Furada in Brazil. Here there is a comprehensive suite of
14
C measurements, many of them AMS, produced by the
Gif-sur-Yvette laboratory. The result of such selectivity is
an account that closely adheres to the view that the ini-
tial peopling started, if not with Clovis then only slightly
earlier, ca. 13,500
14
C years B.P. (he does discuss pre-
Clovis sites such as Monte Verde and mentions Monte
Alegre). The impression is not so much that the author
has written a balanced account, having examined and
evaluated all the evidence, but rather that chance in-
volvement has been the main criterion for selection. In
this sense the semiautobiographical nature of the book
has worked against the production of a more even-hand-
ed account.
On the whole the book should be accepted for what it
is, a personal account of the first 20 years of AMS. Where
it works best concerns those fields of enquiry whose de-
cisive events one person can encompass and be centrally
involved in. However, in fields where progress has de-
pended on a wider series of investigations by a larger
number of researchers, the effect of basing an account
on personal involvement is less satisfactory. In a sense,
the book reflects the strengths and potential pitfalls of
AMS over conventional radiometric
14
C, for AMS has giv-
en archaeologists more freedom in the choice of their
dating samples, but with it comes the responsibility to
ensure the material is representative of the event being
investigated. Selectivity is fine, but sampling must be
representative if the conclusions are to be valid.
Rupert A. Housley
university of glasgow
glasgow g12 8qq
scotland
united kingdom
r.housley@archaeology.gla.ac.uk
King Croesus Gold: Excavations at Sardis and
the History of Gold Refining, by Andrew
Ramage and Paul Craddock, with contributions by
M.R. Cowell, A.E. Gekinli, D.R. Hook, M.S.
Humphrey, K. Hyne, N.D. Meeks, A.P. Middleton, and
H. zbal. Pp. 272, figs. 197, tables 8. Harvard Uni-
versity Press, Cambridge 2000. $75. ISBN 0-674-
50370-8 (cloth).
Connoisseurs of coincidence will be greatly amused
that a major scholarly monograph on the gold of the
Lydian King Croesus, who reigned from 561 to 547 B.C.,
should have appeared just as the dot-com stock bubble
swelled to its most obscene dimensions. In the Greek
accounts of the supposed wealth of Croesus, a selection
of which are reproduced in this book, one finds the same
unsavory stew of greed, envy, hype, fantastic delusion,
and starchy moral disapproval (from those looking on
from without) that we ourselves had to endure during
the great dot-com debacle. Plus a change, plus cest le
mme chose?
As rich as Croesus is common English usage, but to
scholars his principal claim to fame is that he is thought
to have introduced the first bimetallic coinage of pure
gold and pure silver, replacing the coins of electrum (a
natural alloy of gold and silver) that the Lydians had first
struck in the seventh century B.C. This attribution comes
down to us from Herodotus, not always the most credible
of sources, but in this case he stands vindicated by a
remarkable archaeological discovery. In 1964 the Har-
vard-Cornell expedition to Sardis, site of the Lydian cap-
ital, began the excavation of a gold refinery, though it
was not recognized as such until 1968. The excavations
and finds from the Pactolus North (PN) refinery are effi-
ciently reported by A. Ramage in a chapter and two ap-
pendices, all profusely illustrated with photographs and
line drawings. The dating of this short-lived industrial
area is based upon finds of imported Ionian wares. Not a
specialist in Ionian ceramics, I must leave to others an
assessment of Ramages conclusion that the industrial
activity dates no later than the middle of the sixth
century B.C. (95).
Most of this monograph is taken up by the scientific
analysis and interpretation of the material evidence for
gold- and silverworking, and by a wide-ranging review of
known preindustrial processes for parting gold and silver.
The technical analysis is by the staff of the Department
of Scientific Research at the British Museum and by two
Turkish colleagues. Their specialist reports are used by P.
Craddock to reconstruct the technology of gold process-
ing at PN, and Craddock is also the author of two lengthy
chapters and three appendices. The first of the chapters
is an astonishingly erudite survey of historical and exper-
imental evidence for preindustrial methods of parting
gold and silver, taking in Mesopotamia, Central and South
America, Egypt, Greece, ancient India, the Islamic world,
China, Japan, and Europe before 1500 A.D. This is the
first coherent synthesis of historical accounts that have
frustrated scholars for many years, and it represents a
considerable intellectual achievement. One of his most
striking observations is that many societies that possessed
the technical means to part gold and silver (notably the
Etruscan, Mexican, and Andean civilizations) never made
much use of this ability; Craddock suggests that without
the concept of coinage, there was no motive.
His second chapter sifts the sections on goldworking
from the usual suspects (the Medieval European metal-
lurgical treatises of Biringuccio, Agricola, and Ercker).
Many of the processes described are similar to those em-
ployed by Lydian metallurgists, but others made use of
strong mineral acids, reagents that the Lydians did not
possess. Nor did the Lydians employ mercury amalgam-
ation and fire assaying, the early history of which Crad-
dock discusses in appendices. Though not strictly rele-
vant to Lydian gold processing, the inclusion of these
sections makes this volume an excellent introduction to
the whole early history of gold refining, broadening its
appeal beyond the boundaries of classical archaeology.
The technical analysts applied chemical analysis, scan-
ning electron microscopy, and optical petrography to both
the materials recovered from PN (native electrum, very
thin gold foil, pottery, and furnace ceramics) and to the
products of experimental reproduction. The results are
fully reported and liberally illustrated with striking mi-
crographs and x-ray maps, many in color. This is excellent
archaeometallurgy, in which good science is carefully in-
tegrated with the full range of archaeological and histor-
ical evidence. The process appears to have worked as fol-
lows. Alluvial electrum from the river Pactolus and recy-
cled electrum coins were beaten into foils about 0.05 mm
thick and packed in salt in porous earthenware cooking
pots, which were then heated in a wood-fired furnace to
between 600 and 800C, probably for several days. Chlo-
rine gas generated from the salt removed the silver in
the electrum foils as silver chloride vapor, which was ab-
sorbed in the walls of the pot and the hearth, raising the
gold content of the foil from 70% by weight to the coin-
age alloy of more than 99% purity. Most of the silver was
recovered by crushing the silver-impregnated pots and
furnace linings and smelting them with lead. The silver-
bearing lead was then converted into molten lead oxide,
from which the molten metallic silver would separate, at
ca. 1000C. The reconstruction is well justified by the
evidence, both archaeological and experimental, and any
remaining uncertainties, which are minor, are clearly in-
dicated by the authors.
This monograph is particularly noteworthy for its close
integration of archaeology, history, and scientific evi-
dence, and is fully deserving of the lavish publication
treatment accorded it. This includes no fewer than 16
pages of color plates, among which, rather oddly, are six
plates of out-of-focus or overexposed gold foils that serve
no obvious scientific purpose. It appears that editors at
Harvard University Press are no less in thrall to golden
baubles than were Croesus and his contemporaries!
David Killick
department of anthropology
university of arizona
tucson, arizona 85721-0030
killick@u.arizona.edu
Coastal and Estuarine Environments: Sedimen-
tology, Geomorphology and Geoarch-
aeology, by K. Pye and J.R.L. Allen. Pp. 470, figs.
255, tables 29. Geological Society, London 2000.
85, $142. ISBN 1-86239-070-3 (cloth).
This volume results from an interdisciplinary meeting
of the Geological Society of London held in 1998 with
the purpose of bringing together sedimentologists, geo-
morphologists, archaeologists, environmental scientists
and environmental managers to discuss recent research
and topical issues relating to the interactions between
natural processes, morphology and human activities in
coastal and estuarine environments. The collection of
papers reflects this mix, focusing on a better understand-
ing of coastal environments and human interactions, both
past and present. Specifically for archaeology, the ulti-
mate target is on managing and conserving archaeologi-
cal sites in these environments.
Roughly the first half of the book is devoted to de-
tailed studies of coastal and estuarine environments:
modern measurements of estuaries and coastlines (e.g.,
currents, sediment, and sedimentary transport); the ap-
plication of underutilized methodologies, such as ground-
penetrating radar (GPR) and nuclear magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI); and textural and geochemical evidence
for sourcing Aeolian sand deposits. The overwhelming
majority of the studies concentrate on the United King-
dom and France, with a scatter of papers from Germany,
the United States, and Canada.
Much of the second half of the volume, however, is
oriented toward a historical framework, examining Ho-
locene sea levels and associated sediments and archaeo-
logical sites. It is this portion of the book that is most
directly worthwhile to archaeologists. J.R.L. Allen, for
example, discusses compaction of sediments and its ef-
fect on sea level studies, stratigraphy, and landscape re-
constructions; the goal of this paper is to determine how
accurately one can pin down the location of resources
that would have been available in the past.
The paper by Long et al. details landscape and envi-
ronmental change for several estuaries in southern En-
gland. Their study presents stratigraphic, pollen, and for-
aminiferal data to document the evolution of Holocene
estuaries and sea-level changes. The Holocene develop-
ment of the marshes in the Gironde Estuary receives a
similar paleoenvironmental treatment from Mellalieu et
al., who use lithological and diatom data from boreholes,
as well as archaeological information, to reconstruct the
paleogeography of the marshes.
Although several articles in this second half of the
volume refer to archaeological data, only a few of them
(e.g., Gonzalez et al., Petzelberger, Bell, Coles, Firth,
and van de Noort and Ellis) refer to specific archaeolog-
ical details, sites, and human activities to document land-
scape changes and the ways in which humans influenced
their environment.
The volume is well edited. It is a difficult task to solicit
and maintain a coherent set of themes aimed at a broad
audience and carried out by practitioners with diverse
backgrounds (sedimentologists, geomorphologists, geoar-
chaeologists, and archaeologists). The editors have suc-
ceeded admirably, since most paperswhether modern
modeling studies or studies of paleoenvironmentsreit-
erate with different examples the recurring themes of
the volume: Holocene sea-level rise, geomorphology, and
paleogeography; climate change; shoreline changes and
associated past human interactions and impacts; and ar-
chaeological site management, present and future.
The book is well produced on heavy glossy paper, with
generally excellent diagrams and photographs, some of
which are in color. This comment may sound trivial, but it
is important, since it underscores the current tendency
among commercial publishers who produce similar collec-
tions of articles to turn out publications of poor quality
with blurry photos printed on paper that is essentially
newsprint.
In sum, the book contains a wealth of up-to-date data
on Holocene coastal environments; earth scientists work-
ing in coastal environments and governmental officials
forming policy for managing these environments and
their archaeological heritage will both find this an es-
sential volume. This is also true for archaeologistspar-
ticularly those from northwest Europewho are excavat-
ing or trying to preserve sites with such environments. It
provides archaeologists with an understanding of how
sites can be preserved or eroded by Aeolian processes or
sea-level rise, as well as the kinds of resources and envi-
ronmental conditions that have prevailed in the past,
and how these conditions might have changed during
the Holocene as sea-levels continued to rise. The infor-
mation presented hereeven if oriented toward north-
western Europeprovides the potential for researchers
from anywhere in the coastal world to gain insights into
present and past human and landscape interactions in
this important and ubiquitous environment.
Paul Goldberg
boston university
boston, massachusetts 02215
paulberg@bu.edu
Klassische Archologie: Eine Einfhrung, ed-
ited by Adolf H. Borbein, Tonio Hlscher, and Paul
Zanker. Pp. 383, figs. 11. Dietrich Reimer, Berlin
2000. DM 48, SF 49, S 350, 24.54. ISBN 3-496-
02645-6 (cloth).
Three of the most influential and admired contempo-
rary German archaeologists have cooperated to edit a
splendid introduction to classical archaeology and art his-
tory intended not only for what we would call graduate
students (that is, perspective members of the guild), but
for all readers who approach the subject from outside and
want to learn about its scholarly possibilities (19). Thus
the welcome note is early struck that archaeology is eas-
ily multidisciplinary and can connect profitably with fields
throughout the humanities. The attractive book with a
naked torso (male) on its front cover and the Parthenon
frieze, brightly painted, as Socrates saw it, on the back, is
well produced on fine paper with photographs and dia-
grams where needed. A concise and thought-provoking
introduction by the editors sets the stage: archaeology as
an academic discipline has done better in Germany not
least because it has long had archaeology departments; a
German archaeologist has never been an illiterate among
philologists nor a digger of ditches among explicators of
beauty.
Twenty-one contributors provide 20 essays, each con-
cluding with a brief bibliography for further reading, fa-
voring but not limited to German entries. Annotation is
minimal. The editors define archaeology as the science
of concrete, visually grasped witnesses of lost societies
(7). The essays are divided into four categories. Under
the first (Discovery & Classification, Preservation, Pre-
sentation) we have: S. von Schnurbein on excavations
and archaeological surveys, H.-J. Gehrke on historical
geography, H.-J. Schalles on classical archaeology and the
conservation of monuments, V. Brinkmann on forms of
digital publication, L. Giuliani on museums of antiquities
(past and future of an institution), and L. Schneider on
archaeology, tourism and society. The second category
(Art Works) includes: A. Borbein on structural analysis,
W.-D. Heilmeyer on art and its material, T. Hlscher on
works of art (images, functions, messages), M. Bergmann
on implicit messages, N.B. Kampen, the sole American
contributor, on gender studies, and P. Zanker on artistic
space and onlookers in imperial Rome. Under category
three (Cultural Fields) are found: D. Mertens on ar-
chaeological research of cities, G. Gruben on classical
construction research, R. Hgg on the archaeology of
sanctuaries, J. de la Genire on the archaeology and reli-
gion of archaic and classical Greece, B. dAgostino on the
archaeology of graves (death and funeral ritual), and M.
Gras on the archaeology of trade. Category four (New
Ways in other Countries) comprises: A.M. Snodgrass on
archaeology in the Anglo-Saxon countries (something
new in the West?), and F. Lissarrague and A. Schnapp on
tradition and renewal in French classical archaeology.
Space forbids me to work through each essay awarding
its author a mark. They vary from the solid and innova-
tive to occasional blather, with thankfully far more of the
former. Hgg and de la Genire (280312) eschew ob-
fuscation to show beyond doubt with concrete examples
the crucial role of archaeology in Religionsgeschichte. Lit-
erary sources are simply inadequate, especially for popu-
lar religion. It is a pity that there was no chance to discuss
the transition from paganism to Christianity. One thinks
of the role of Isis iconography in representations of the
Virgin Mary or of St. Demeter of Eleusis. The only con-
nection most American undergraduates today have with
classical antiquity is through Christianity, and aspiring
archaeologists should be prepared to teach courses in
the history of religion as well as Greek vase painting.
I much enjoyed Schneider on tourism (91106). Tour-
ism, thanks to lower costs for travel and longer vacations,
has become a mass industry, all too often with tourists at
the mercy of ignorant guides. The income from tourism
is the best bribe we have for governmental support of
the discipline. How much money does Cretan tourism
owe Sir Arthur Evans? Reconstruction of sites and instruc-
tion in what the masses want to see and hear parallel courses
in medical terminology as an argument for Latin. There
are jobs at travel bureaus for students trained in archaeol-
ogy. Schneider warns (96) that overspecialization and
emphasis on theory do not produce informed guides.
Occasionally the editors yield to the pressure of
Modewissenschaft. There is ample evidence for how
men and women get along with one another (Gender
Studies) in the 20th century. There is not in ancient
Greece. To draw convincing conclusions we need diaries,
letters, and memoirs. We have no idea how women react-
ed to the Aphrodite of Paphos (195). Were they amused,
angered, proud, or revolted? Nor am I convinced that
women better understand korai and men kouroi. There
have been splendid biographies of modern women by
men. If one is interested in gender studies, why become
a classical archaeologist?
Snodgrass is no fool; I doubt, therefore, that he is
seeking converts, but his description of the New Ar-
chaeology made me a determined defender of the old.
He alleges that we must learn from Mayan, Aztec, and
Incan digs (350) and must ask why? rather than dull
what, when and where? He uses terms that revealingly
defy translation into German (processual archaeology,
territorial symbolism, depositional contexts, Middle Range
Theory, assemblage, geomorphology, ethnoarchaeology).
Too often, as philological parallels confirm, such are the
refuge of the uninformed.
On the other hand, the determination of several au-
thors here to free archaeology from its self-imposed iso-
lation is much to be praised. Precise description of finds
and systematic cataloguing remain indispensable. Books
that contain such survive. But as well architects; museol-
ogists; economic historians; historians of religion, the
theater, or of aesthetics; indeed travel agents have much
to learn from archaeology. I hope that the book will en-
courage team-taught courses and convince administra-
tors, concerned first with profit making, that archaeolo-
gy is multidisciplinary and hence pays.
I think there are some serious omissions in a book
intended for budding archaeologists. We have scattered
digressions but deserve a chapter on the modern history
of the discipline! Of course it should emphasize German
contributions: Winckelmann, K.O. Mller, Schliemann,
Jahns monumental philology (sc., the use of artifacts to
elucidate literature), Drpfeld, Ernst Curtius, and Olym-
pia. There should be a chapter on smuggling, the illegal
trade in antiquities, and how archaeologists should han-
dle it (a bit at 825). I miss reference to A. Andrn, Deeds
and Misdeeds in Classical Art and Antiquities (Goterna
1986). Should professional archaeologists for a generous
fee authenticate a smuggled vase for an auction house? I
vividly recall Otto J. Brendel refusing to do so. And stu-
dents deserve a chapter on the detection of forgeries, if
only to protect them from falling victim to them. We
deserve discussion of Helbigs Praenestine fibula, Schlie-
manns Agamemnon Mask, or the Getty kouros. How
many of the portraits in the Glyptothek in Copenhagen,
authenticated only by Helbig, are ancient? Or the Bos-
ton Throne? Or endless cameos? It is wrong to hide such
matters from the uninformed.
I hope very much that a revised edition will appear;
regrettably, there is no index, and an English version for
the monoglots would find a market. The abiding message
of this splendid book is that archaeology is too important
to be left to the archaeologists. Tell that to your dean!
William M. Calder III
the villa mowitz
609 west delaware avenue
urbana, illinois 61801-4804
wmcalder@uiuc.edu
Archaeology, Ideology and Society: The Ger-
man Experience, edited by Heinrich Hrke.
(Gesellschaften und Staaten im Epochenwandel
7.) Pp. 433, figs. 40, tables 7. Peter Lang, Frank-
furt 2000. $52.95. ISBN 3-631-36707-4 (cloth).
This volume contains a collection of papers on the
political and social development of pre- and protohistor-
ical archaeology in Germany from the late 19th century
to the present; in all its detail and thoroughness, it is a
model history of a particular archaeology.
The book is an outcome of a German session at the
1990 Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) meeting in
Lampeter. While a few issues discussed will sound familiar
to those who read German publications, the contribu-
tions contain a wealth of new insights on the history of
German archaeology. Hrkes introduction provides a use-
ful framework for the following chapters and discusses in
a frank manner the political manipulations since German
reunification that led some authors to withdraw from the
volume. The remainder of the book is divided into four
sections: From Nationalism to Nazi Times, Post-War
West Germany, East Germany and Reunification, and
International Perspectives.
The two chapters by Veit and Fetten in the first sec-
tion discuss two major figures in pre-Nazi times, Gustav
Kossinna and Rudolf von Virchow. In his account of Ko-
ssinna, Veit points out that German scholars prefer to
focus on his methodology and not his racist ideas, where-
as anglophone postprocessualist archaeologists are usual-
ly more interested in the politically problematic aspects
of his work and neglect his concrete archaeological con-
tributions. In this connection, it is interesting to ponder
how fascist scholars in other fields, such as Heidegger,
have become fashionable in contemporary anglophone
archaeological theory. Frank Fetten contrasts von Vir-
chows and Kossinnas views of archaeology. This chapter
gains special relevance in a U.S. context because von
Virchows holistic perspective provides a historical back-
ground to the four-field approach in U.S. anthropology
that goes beyond the usual citations of Franz Boas. Von
Virchow, a specialist in anatomy and a liberal politician,
sought a connection between physical anthropology, eth-
nology, and Urgeschichte (primeval history), of which
prehistory was a major part.
Appropriately, the chapter on the Third Reich by H.
Hamann is by far the longest in the book. Many Ger-
man publications on the history of archaeology either
avoid this period or mention it only in passing. Archaeol-
ogy under the Nazis, however, became an attractive sci-
ence; it could be used to support speculative reconstruc-
tions of a Germanic past. In contrast, post-fascist Ger-
man archaeology has focused more on giving a precise
account of data without interpretation, a so-called ideol-
ogy-free approach.
Hamann discusses the roles of Nazi institutions and
individual archaeologists. He identifies several phases in
the development of archaeology within the 12-year peri-
od of Nazism, and these elucidate shifts in the power
structure, from the ruthless Amt Rosenberg to the SS
Ahnenerbe. Hamann identifies some archaeologists who
worked within the notorious SS as serious scholars. He
claims that some, such as Jankuhn, had already practised
ideology-free archaeology in the Third Reich. Apart from
details, the publications produced by the members of the
Ahnenerbe were beyond reproach (121). Such a state-
ment whitewashes people who belonged to an organiza-
tion committed to killing. While his paper is a laudable
attempt to come to terms with a dark past, Hamann
veers dangerously toward writing from a position of un-
derstanding; as Sartre pointed out, even the attempt to
understand fascists becomes an apology for their behav-
ior.
The third section contains an instructive paper by S.
Wolfram who outlines the dissonance between the need
for a continuity in staffing archaeological institutions
from Nazi to Postwar times and the silence concerning
past activities. Wolfram argues cogently that a focus on
presumably progressive research techniques became the
only outlet for further development in German archaeol-
ogy, but it was accompanied by a virtually complete re-
treat from theoretical discussions. As Bettina Arnold il-
lustrates in the concluding chapter of the volume, the
papers on post-war West Germany offer parallels to con-
temporary archaeology in the U.S. M. Schmidt analyzes
in detail archaelogists lack of attention to a large inter-
ested public, producing instead boring museum exhibits
and inadequate schooltexts, while tolerating misrepre-
sentations in public media. U. Sommer portrays the Ger-
man teaching of archaeology in the universities as be-
yond reform. In Germany, however, unstructured study
assumes that students will be motivated; in the U.S., much
classroom time is devoted to keeping students interest-
ed, with the result that the atmosphere is more school-
like than in Germany.
Two papers deal with the current status of women in
the profession and with the study of gender archaeology
in Germany. Mertenss statistics show the familiar declin-
ing slope: the percentage of women decreases with the
increasing rank of a position. The decrease, however,
sets in much earlier than in the U.S., with only 8% wom-
en among assistant professors! The planned abolition of
the Habilitation, a kind of second dissertation, may help
remedy this inequality. In another paper, Karlisch, Kst-
ner, and Brandt discuss the almost complete lack of inter-
est in gender archaeology in the academic establishment,
perhaps as a reaction against the publics fascination with
ancient matriarchies. Serious scholars fear being associ-
ated with such unscientific ideas.
Two authors from the German Democratic Republic
(GDR) present East German archaeology. Coblentzs con-
tribution is especially interesting since he knew not only
East German but also Nazi archaeology from the inside.
He compares the two regimes and their use of archaeol-
ogy, and finds the Nazi abuses immeasurably worse. In
the GDR, party membership was not a precondition for a
career in archaeology, and many bourgeois archaeolo-
gists were museum directors. Jacobss account of the post-
reunification Abwicklung (dismantling) of GDR institu-
tions is disillusioning: second-rate Western scholars were
imposed by Western evaluation committees, and East
German colleagues were dismissed for ideologically inap-
propriate teachingMarxism is now virtually a forbidden
paradigm. Jacobs draws a parallel between the Entnazifi-
zierung (de-Nazification) organized by the Allied Forces
after the Second World War to punish Nazi-party mem-
bers and collaborators and Entstasifizierung (de-Stasifica-
tion [the Stasi was the secret police of the GDR]); his
strong reaction to these recent investigations of honor
seems based on his characterization of both processes as
unjust. Coblentz would probably have argued that they
are simply not comparable.
The volume closes with three views from the outside.
Kinahan describes a German rock-art documentation
project in Namibia. Here, dry empiricism leads to the
denial of any Bushman authorship of the art, while re-
searchers and German politicians promote it as a founda-
tion for the new state of Namibia. Bloemers compares
German and Dutch archaeology, to the disadvantage of
the former. Normative statements, such as Dutch soci-
ety functions on the basis of national identity, individu-
ality, tolerance and consensus (381), are simplistic.
Granted that German archaeology is in a state of crisis, it
is nonetheless doubtful that solutions are as easily attain-
able as Bloemers claims. A certain naivet about the
healthiness of competition, risk-taking, and output per-
vades his discussion. Turning a Geisteswissenschaft into a
business affects profoundly all of its intellectual aspects,
from grants for long-term excavations to the restriction
of book production to those that sell. Resistance to
such changes is to be expected, and with reason.
Almost all essays in this collection share one unfortu-
nate weakness: a simplistic notion of ideology and its
relation to archaeology. Ideologies of Nazi and GDR times
are often referred to as the ideologies. Since ideolo-
gies play a large role in this volume, one might ask from
what ideological position the authors themselves argue?
Can they claim to be outside of such influences? Most
contributors clearly seem to think that all totalitarian
systems are basically identical. Nazi and communist re-
gimes are perceived as equally unfree. Their restrictions
on independent thinking and free research are concep-
tualized as a single contrast to present-day Germany. Few
authors remark self-consciously on this concept; Hrke
explicitly refers to Hannah Arendt, the philosopher on
whose ideas this doctrine was built. To be sure, the au-
thors do not see West German archaeology as ideology-
free, especially in their criticism of rampant empiricism.
But aside from locating themselves outside this approach,
they do not reflect on their own position. B. Arnolds
summary chapter is somewhat different; she compares
the language of Western archaeological vocabularies and
conference announcements to the language of business;
our ideologies are structured not by governments but by
economics.
For anyone who wants to understand the intellectual
history and present condition of archaeology in Germa-
ny, this book is fundamental; it presents a unique at-
tempt to examine a single disciplines history from multi-
ple perspectives. For the most part, the authors succeed
admirably in giving a fair and balanced but nevertheless
critical account of their topic.
Reinhard Bernbeck
binghamton university
binghamton, new york 13902-6000
rbernbec@binghamton.edu
Waldemar Deonna: Un archologue derrire
lobjectif de 1903 1939, by Jacques Chamay,
Chantal Courtois, and Serge Rebetez. Pp. 199, pls. 193.
Muse dart et dhistoire, Ville de Genve,
Geneva 2000. SF 68. ISBN 2-8306-0179-3 (paper).
Waldemar Deonna was born in Geneva in 1880. His
university studies, conducted both in Geneva and in Par-
is, included archaeology, epigraphy, and the history of
vase painting. He then went on to the French School in
Athens (19031907), and while there also traveled ex-
tensively in Greece and Turkey. After completing his
doctorate, with a thesis on ancient terracotta sculpture,
he returned to Geneva where he taught archaeology at
the University. In 1921 he was appointed director of that
citys Muse dArt et dHistoire, a post he held for 30
years. He died in 1959. During his long career, he pub-
lished an extraordinary number of books, catalogues, and
essays in both scholarly and popular journals. His topics
ranged from the history of ancient art to folklore, reli-
gion, and superstition, and his complete bibliography lists
over 800 titles. This is certainly un abondance extrme,
as Jacques Chamay says in the introduction to the present
volume, which documents yet another of Deonnas pur-
suits, photography.
Most of the 200 photographs assembled here (from a
total of over 3,500 in the archive) date from Deonnas
residence at the French School in Athens, and there are
also several from subsequent trips in the late 1920s and
again in the late 1930s. On the evidence of the pictures,
Deonna was not, and was not trying to be, a master pho-
tographer. Most of the sites are depicted in a more or less
conventional manner. Still, the images are nicely observed
and well composed, and they effectively convey the beauty
of the locations and Deonnas informed, and attentive,
response.
His archaeological training manifests itself in numer-
ous site studies, in places like Athens, Olympia, Delphi,
and Knossos, where there was ongoing archaeological
activity. Many of the pictures include some workmen,
with their wooden tools and barrows, and a number show
the renowned Wilhelm Drpfeld guiding groups of ele-
gantly dressed visitors around the excavations at Melos
and Troy. Other photographs clearly depict early tech-
niques of restoration and reconstruction, as of the Athe-
nian Treasury at Delphi. The scaffolding consists of rough-
hewn timbers, and ancient columns are often supported
by wooden staves bound with ropes or strips of metal,
with the assemblages resembling battlefield splints. In
addition, Deonnas interest in ethnography and folklore
led him to photograph the local inhabitants, who were
generally excluded from commercial travel views and from
photographs intended for scholarly documentation. Their
presence is a welcome reminder that even the most ex-
alted classical sites are still part of a living landscape.
This is a very fine publication. Its contents include
three brief but informative introductory textson De-
onnas life, his travels, and the composition of his photo-
graphic archiveand exceptionally good reproductions
of Deonnas interesting photographs. Such images, firm-
ly located in the early 20th century, are documents both
useful for the history of archaeology and affecting in
their evocation of older customs and methods.
Andrew Szegedy-Maszak
department of classical studies
wesleyan university
middletown, connecticut 06459
aszegedymasz@wesleyan.edu
Gender and Material Culture in Archaeologi-
cal Perspective, edited by Moira Donald and
Linda Hurcombe. (Studies in Material Culture.)
Pp. xxiv + 275, figs. 28, tables 17. St. Martins, New
York 2000. $55. ISBN 0-312-22398-6 (cloth).
Gender and Material Culture in Historical
Perspective, edited by Moira Donald and Linda
Hurcombe. (Studies in Material Culture.) Pp. xxii
+ 216, figs. 29, tables 15. St. Martins, New York
2000. $55. ISBN 0-312-22399-4 (cloth).
This pair of volumes, to be joined by a promised third
volume, originated from an international conference
held at the University of Exeter in July 1994, titled Gen-
der and Material Culture from Prehistory to the Present.
I remember how sorry I was to miss the event. In the mid
1990s climate of renewed interest in material culture
and how it structures social life, coupled with a now bur-
geoning literature on feminist and related gender ap-
proaches in prehistory (which was even more developed
in history), this conferences attention to material ex-
pressions of gender held enormous potential as a land-
mark intellectual event.
Of course the authors of these papers are not neces-
sarily intrigued by the intellectual possibilities that ex-
cite me, nor should they be held responsible for taking
gender literature in specific new directions. But what I
had hoped for is largely not here. These volumes fail to
take up the very materiality that they advertise so richly
in their titles, despite the fact that archaeologists are
experts in how material culture functions in social life,
and are perfectly poised to theorize material culture (Pitts
chapter in the history volume is an exception). More-
over, these volumes mostly fail to contribute to, or even
to apply, the rich theoretical literature about gender to
materials of the past. In the end, they offer few new
insights that warrant separating them from each research-
ers traditional subdisciplinary field of inquiry.
The archaeological volume on gender and material
culture contains the work of a widely international (En-
glish-speaking) set of investigators who report mostly on
European (German, Greek, several Scandinavian, West-
ern Baltic) studies, but also includes an Australian, a South
African, and a Mesoamerican project. Time periods range
from the European Upper Paleolithic through recent
Aboriginal occupations in Australia. Contributors are large-
ly trained as archaeologists although we also find a den-
tist, a biological anthropologist, and a womens studies
scholar. The history volume meanwhile is more completely
centered on Britain over the past 10 centuries, although
one study focuses on Italy, one on North America, and
one on Classical Greece, and contributors are mostly his-
torians and art historians but include a healthy sprin-
kling of archaeologists of one sort or another. The con-
tents of both volumes range broadly and are thoughtful-
ly organized into topic areas that reflect central loci of
engagement with gender.
The archaeology volume opens with Questioning Per-
spectives, a section for raising general issues. K. Mat-
thews explores whether an a-historical element in ho-
mosexual behavior can lead us to recognize homosexu-
ality in the archaeological record; S. Colley situates fem-
inist archaeology in the context of aboriginal studies in
Australia; D. Kokkinidou and M. Nikolaidou expose the
androcentrism in the history and context of Greek muse-
ums; and M. Baker argues that the politically correct use
of feminist discourse in the archaeology of the 1990s can
mask ongoing androcentric assumptions.
In the next section of the archaeology volume, four
authors (L. Senior, L. Hurcombe, C. Damm, and J. Moore)
take up questions of production and specialization, loosely
converging on asking whether the specialized activities
that women undertake are those that lend themselves to
being structured as multi-task work, conducted inter-
mittently to accommodate child care. Remarkably, none
of the authors here cites J. Browns much-read, much-
cited article A Note on the Division of Labor by Sex
(American Anthropologist 72 [1970] 10738), which presag-
es their argument by 30 years and has been roundly re-
futed since then.
The next section, Artifacts and Their Social Settings,
includes contributions by T. Tuohy, L. Wadley, L. Owen,
and a trio of C. Johnsson, K. Ross, and S. Welinder con-
sidering beads, blades, bones and buckles, combs, dag-
gers, fibulae, knives, needles, rondelles, sickles, twee-
zers, and more, plus a host of plant types from Artemisia
to Vaccinium. The materials are spatially distributed on
cave floors, in burials, and along stone tool edges. They
are compared against other archaeological data sets, eth-
nographic contexts, and historic precedents. Except for
Wadleys chapter, these are very conventional archaeo-
logical studies of frequencies and distributions, without
attention to what any of these materials might have meant
to their makers, owners, or users. In the final section of
the volume, M. Zvelebil, C. Meiklejohn et al., E. Rega,
and J. Gerry and M. Chesson take up Diet, Bodies and
Burials in an even more exaggeratedly humanless dis-
cussion of demographics and pathologies, collagens and
patterns of dental attrition.
The shorter history volume follows a similar pattern,
with less loosely defined sections containing still some-
what broadly grouped studies. Part 1 considers gendered
patterns of transmission and inheritance of material cul-
ture, including household and personal goods (S. Cavallo
on books, tools, jewelry, bags, and trunks), general wealth
from hunting dogs to pious gifts (J. Crick), as well as
specific items like clothing (L. Foxhall and K. Stears)
and clocks and watches (M. Donald). Part 2 approaches
questions of cultural and ethnic identity through gen-
dered patterns of shared clothes and adornments (S. Hides
and D. OSullivan), embroideries and other story-telling
designs (R. Geuter), and folk furniture in the home (M.
Vincentelli) and in the folk museum (L. Shen). The
final part 3 encompasses gender and technology, empha-
sizing cooking pots (N. Cox), architecture and garden
design (J. Crowley), the automobile (S. OConnell), and
implements used to assist in childbirth (S. Pitt). The his-
tory volume in general speaks from a more informed fem-
inist and sometimes theoretical position, not only as it
attends to gender but also as it addresses issues of mate-
riality: the stability and permanence of the object in con-
trast to human bodies and social relations.
A number of insights and ironies arise out of the side-
by-side nature of these two volumes. There is little over-
lap in the topics posed in each volume. The archaeology
volume, for instance, places a heavy emphasis on produc-
tion: which gender was responsible for producing which
classes of artifacts or behaviors? J. Moore asks outright
who made fires, while T. Tuohy asks who made long-han-
dled combs, and C. Johnsson et al. ask who harvested
corn with sickles. Other researchers pose similar ques-
tions about gender task assignments as aspects of larger
research agendas: L. Wadley wants to know who made
ostrich egg beads, and L. Owen questions who used
Magdalenian stone tools for processing plants. Interest-
ingly, in the history volume where the gender of produc-
ers presumably is or can be known and there is no need
to ask, who? made or did various productive activities,
questions about the relationships between gender and
production are not raised. Is this merely a matter of sam-
pling: participating historians happened not to include
scholars with an interest in production? Or once gender
can be identified, do historians find nothing more to
inquire about gender and production? More likely, here
is a fundamentally different way of posing questions in
the two disciplines, a different scale of research, where
[these?] archaeologists are focused more narrowly on the
immediate empirical instance, while [these?] historians
inquire about a broader view. The contrast in the types of
questions raised in archaeology and history suggests ways
that each discipline shapes the questions it puts about
how gender issues reverberate through the social world.
Many readers will probably join me in thinking that
the studies in the archaeology volume would be better
situated in journals or edited volumes dedicated to the
archaeology of specific regions or time periods. Since
these studies largely neglect to develop theoretically in-
formed inspections of earlier gender systems, they would
be better placed as parts of regional or temporal perspec-
tives, where gendered patterns can emerge from multi-
ple lines of evidence, and where chains of inference can
be forged by tacking back and forth between data sets.
This seems especially true for studies like Meiklejohn,
Petersen, and Alexandersens contribution on the Me-
solithic of the Western Baltic, or Gerry and Chessons
reconsideration of Mayan skeletal remains, since they
represent reconsiderations of earlier published data, iso-
lating the gender component of the research from the
main body of understandings about these sites, and thus
leaving the regional literature untouched by the new
interest in gender.
Most archaeologists should include a consideration of
gender in their research agendas, concludes L. Senior
(archaeology volume, 82), a statement that underscores
the routine, humdrum position of most of these chap-
ters, one that hardly supports the publication of a special
topical volume on gender where contributions are not
offered to the development of gender theory. Some of
the archaeological studies here are simply premature
(The limited amount of research undertaken here
[Moore, 131]; I hope to better document these innova-
tions in my future work [Senior, 76]), or even imma-
ture, given the six years between conference and publi-
cation.
Joan Gero
american university
4400 massachusetts ave., nw
washington, d.c. 20016-8003
jgero@american.edu
Europes First Farmers, edited by T. Douglas Price.
Pp. xi + 395, pl. 1, figs. 68, tables 4. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge 2000. $90 (cloth);
$31.95 (paper). ISBN 0-521-66203-6 (cloth); 0-
521-66572-8 (paper).
T. Douglas Price has written much about the transition
to agriculture in European prehistory, including his ex-
cellent contributions as co-editor of two volumes, Prehis-
toric Hunter-Gatherers (Orlando 1985) and Transitions to
Agriculture in Prehistory (Madison 1992), with J.A. Brown
and A.B. Gebauer, respectively. Both volumes have been
important landmarks in the study of the transition to
agriculture in prehistory, the first exploring the concept
of hunter-gatherer complexity at a time when it was an
issue overturning traditional ideas about the transition,
and the second presenting a sound region-by-region com-
pendium of what was at the time cutting edge research
on the origins of agriculture in Europe. So, with Europes
First Farmers, his third major publication on the subject
and this time edited alone, has he pulled it off again?
His preface states that the book is concerned with the
domestication of animals and plants in Europe between
7000 and 4000 B.C. He argues that it addresses a number
of central questions such as was the new [farming] tech-
nology introduced by migrants or was it an inside job
and what were the immediate and long term consequenc-
es of the transition from hunting and gathering to farm-
ing? The book attempts to explore these questions with
a region-by-region analysis of Europe, and it brings a fresh
perspective to some of these issues using breakthroughs
in genetics and in taphonomic and linguistic studies. Price
has chosen leading specialists to describe the transition
to agriculture in each region; most names are familiar,
like J. Zilho presenting the case for the Iberian penin-
sula, P. Woodman writing on Ireland, and R. Tringham on
southeast Europe. The lineup of worthy and well-known
authors makes this a weighty book, almost a state-of-the-
art showcase for the MesolithicNeolithic evidence from
Europethis is the books strength and it will be well
used at all levels of the academy as a reference for the
latest research into the issues and evidence it presents.
The books strength, however, is also its weakness. Even
though the readers confidence is inspired by contribu-
tors who can be trusted to produce academic research of
the highest caliber, there is an associated sense of satura-
tion or contributor-fatigue that is brought on by the
fact that these peoples names appear again and again in
edited books on the transition to agriculture. While this
leads to a reassuringly familiar recital of the evidence for
each of the regions of Europe, the overall impression is
that this book is less about the acquisition of new intel-
lectual territory than it is about consolidating the fron-
tiers of an already existing academic empire. It could be
argued that Prices collation is not so much about the
nurturing of epistemologically innovative thought about
the transition to agriculture, much of which has come
from the British-based postprocessual platform, but is more
about a reiteration of the dominant discourse, another
airing of the predominantly male narrative and the aca-
demic personalities who generate that narrative. For ex-
ample, Price, in opting for the showcase approach to
his book ignores many critical voices, not the least of
women academics who are underrepresented in the book.
Even some famous British male writers on postprocessual
appreciations of the transition to agriculture in Europe
are also missing, such as Christopher Tilley, Julian Tho-
mas, Mark Edmonds, and Mark Pluciennik.
By declaring the production of fresh generalisations
to be his epistemological goal, Price has automatically
excluded the theoretical dissenters from the established
school of thought, writers who are exploring the plurali-
ty of interpretation of the transition to agriculture in
Europe, those arguing for many different Neolithics,
and those seeking to make an ontological shift by ex-
ploring the role of agency in the transition to agricul-
ture. The large-scale structural approach of many of the
papers in the book is invited by Prices organizational
emphasis on a region-by-region analysis of Europe.
There is no doubt that the questions Price sets at the
beginning of his book are central issues, but they are not
new inquiriesindeed, their origins can be traced back
more than 60 years to Childe. If we have not managed to
answer these questions by now, is it possible that they are
the wrong questions? Rather than admitting this is an
ontic issue, it is treated as an epistemic problem, argu-
ingas is done so cogently in the papers in T. Douglas
Prices bookthat if only there were more sites, if only
the chronology could be perfected, if only taphonomic
process were better understood, if only our generaliza-
tions were correct, if only our models were improved and
refined and perfectedthen our questions would be an-
swered. If, instead, the question is turned on its head, it
must be accepted that archaeological patterning at the
regional scale addresses, by definition, only the large-
scale endpoint of behavior, and that a study at this level,
both epistemologically and ontologically, will only and
always pertain to large-scale structural transformation in
human behavior at the time of the transition to agricul-
ture in Europe. Such an understanding allows us, then,
to imagine that while the transition to agriculture in
prehistory was indeed about structural change, it was struc-
tural change brought about as the result of human agen-
cy, the creative action of men and women; and because
structure and agency are linked dualistically, then re-
gional scales of analysis only make sense as providing the
historical contingency to human endeavor. Standing
alone, the models as they appear in Europes First Farmers
seem incomplete and inadequate, as indeed do the gen-
eralizations on which they are based, however fresh
they may be.
Despite, perhaps even because of, its omissions, this
book is an important reflection of the current state-of-
play of one strand of research into the origins of agricul-
ture in Europe. To answer my own question at the begin-
ning of this review, I would say, that in that sense, yes, T.
Douglas Price has pulled it off again.
Kathryn Jane Fewster
university of wales
lampeter, ceredigion
wales sa48 7ed
united kingdom
k.fewster@lamp.ac.uk
Pathways and Ceremonies: The Cursus Monu-
ments of Britain and Ireland, edited by Alistair
Barclay and Jan Harding. (Neolithic Studies
Group Seminar Papers 4.) Pp. vii + 154, figs. 64,
tables 6. Oxbow Books, Oxford 1999. $45. ISBN
1-900188-42-2 (paper).
Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland,
by Clive Ruggles. Pp. x + 285, figs. 88, tables 18.
Yale University Press, New Haven 1999. $65. ISBN
0-300-07814-5 (cloth).
Great Stone Circles, by Aubrey Burl. Pp. 208, figs.
23, color pls. 37, b&w pls. 18. Yale University
Press, New Haven 1999. $30. ISBN 0-300-07689-4
(paper).
These three books, all dealing with great monuments
of Britain and Ireland, take three different approaches
to the study of the monuments, and all are valuable in
their own right.
The Cursus Monuments of Britain and Ireland is the
fourth proceedings of the Neolithic Studies Group, a
loose-knit organization of archaeologists interested in
the Neolithic of Britain, Ireland, and the Atlantic sea-
board. This volume consists of 14 papers by specialists
dealing with linear earthworksprobably the least stud-
ied and perhaps least understood of field monuments.
Several papers are condensed site reports, but all provide
insight into these monuments whose purpose is even
less clear than stone circles. Harding and Barclay provide
an excellent introductory chapter giving an overall de-
scription of the monuments and some of the problems
involved in their study, including a precise definition.
While a serious attempt at dating these monuments has
been made (Barclay and Bayliss), it has been disappoint-
ing because of the lack of datable material. Nevertheless,
combining the available radiocarbon dates with the cul-
tural material, it can be said that the cursuses belong to
the second half of the fourth millennium B.C. and were
built over a 200650 year period (25). Because of the
scarcity of datable material, Barclay and Bayliss suggest
an excavation of archives, which may well provide addi-
tional information. This, of course, is a resource that is
frequently neglected and underutilized. The purpose of
these monuments is taken up in articles by Harding,
Johnston, and Loveday, who propose various ritual and
ceremonial activities. Harding suggests there was no
constant or pre-set understanding of the cursus monu-
ments (34) and that they were related to social change,
such as the change from collective to individual burial
rites. He makes no suggestion that this change of burial
rite resulted from new people, but that it was a new and
different expression of power. Several papers deal with
the monuments on a regional basis and discuss them in
light of other monuments. During this section, I kept
wishing for a general map indicating the location of cur-
suses throughout Britain.
This collection of papers provides not only work on
known cursuses but also newly discovered monuments as
well as the lesser-known cursuses of Scotland and the few
in Wales. We are also given an overview of linear monu-
ments in Ireland, which greatly resemble the British cur-
suses, and a glimpse of monuments that might be related
in France, although this cannot, as yet, be confirmed.
This volume is a valuable addition to the expanding
corpus of works dealing with Neolithic field monuments
and should not be overlooked by anyone interested in
the British and Irish Neolithic in general. An index would
have been a good addition. In this day of computers, an
index is easy to generate and is of great value to the
reader. In a collection of papers that overlap in content,
it is particularly valuable.
Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland gives a com-
prehensive look at what is a controversial subject first
brought to the attention of the public and academic world
by Gerald Hawkinss 1965 publication Stonehenge Decoded
(Garden City, NY) but concentrates specifically on the
evaluation of the work of Alexander Thom, whose work
became so prominent in the 1970s and 1980s. Ruggles
has put together a balanced view of prehistoric astrono-
my providing not only a general background and history
of the subject in the first chapter but also boxes, which
might be seen as cheat-sheets, for the nonspecialist in
the areas of archaeology, astronomy, and statistics. These
are extremely useful for those not well versed in all of
these disciplines. Ruggles takes the view that astrono-
mers and archaeologists have been talking to each other
in two equally incomprehensible languages, and that it is
time for each to learn something of the others language.
In addition, however, he warns that we must be careful
not to project our own prejudices into the past . . . by
recreating it in our own image (11). While this latter
goal is admirable it is nearly impossibleor at the very
least extremely difficult. The former goal has a much
better chance of success, particularly with works such as
this one, written by a scholar who understands both lan-
guages. He has selected material from the major archae-
ologists dealing with prehistoric Britain and Ireland as
well as astronomers who have dealt with the subject of
prehistoric astronomyprominent among these is Ed-
win Krupp. Ruggless major thrust is the work of Alex-
ander Thom (ch. 2), who gathered data from several
hundred megalithic sites and analyzed these data as a
whole rather than site-specific analysis. Ruggles states
that Thoms evidence is cumulative in nature and can be
divided into four levels with each succeeding level test-
ing for greater precision.
While there is little doubt that ancient people were
interested in things astronomical, and there is some good
evidence for thisNewgrange probably being the most
outstanding example; there seems, however, to be little
evidence for the highest level of precision suggested by
Thom. Moreover, this interest in astronomy by ancient
peoples was not as widespread as Thom claimed. Ruggles
has checked many of Thoms calculations and found many
of them wanting. But, it is the lack of coherence in Th-
oms data that Ruggles finds the most worrisome. This,
along with Thoms use of sites located on 19th-century
maps that are not ancient sites and his use of sightings
on what are natural stone settings, shakes confidence in
Thoms work. It appears that Thom did not take into
account the archaeology, but it is equally true that ar-
chaeologists have ignored much of the astronomical work
that has been done.
Ruggless book is not just a criticism of Thoms work;
the author has carried out a project in Scotland on astro-
nomical alignments of megaliths, and he reports on his
findings. His project emphasized rigor and attention to
detail. He gives us full information not only on the sites
selected, but why they were selected, and, if they were
subsequently excluded, why. This same stress on rigor
was placed on another Scottish project examining re-
cumbent stone monuments. While Ruggles had conclud-
ed that Thoms work on lunar motions were not in fact
observed and recorded to high precision in prehistoric
times (67, original emphasis), he was able in his Scot-
tish project to begin to reveal patterns of low-precision
lunar alignment amongst a concentration of architectur-
ally similar monuments included amongst the datathe
short stone rows of Argyll and Mull (76). Similar conclu-
sions were made of a study of axial stone circles (which
bear a close resemblance to the Scottish recumbent mon-
uments) in counties Cork and Kerry in Ireland. This strikes
at one of the main conclusions of the book, that, while
there may have been some consistency in observation
and even measurement in small areas or within even a
single site, the suggestion put forth by Thom that there
was a megalithic yard uniform to 0.1 mm from Brittany
to the Orkneys cannot be accepted (ch. 2, fn. 52). Nor
can we accept his proposed calendar, which does not fit
an agricultural year (ch. 4, fn. 44).
This is really a very useful and informative book that is
well illustrated, and the appendices supply a great deal of
useful data. The text is full but readable. It is unfortu-
nate, however, that more information placed in the foot-
notes was not in the text proper. There are so many
extended footnotes (sometimes 20 per page) that the
reader is constantly flipping back and forth, which fre-
quently interrupts ones train of thought. Moreover, the
size of the footnote print is so small that eyestrain quick-
ly sets in. Nevertheless, Ruggless work is a must for any-
one interested in prehistoric astronomy.
Burls Great Stone Circles provides a less technical rein-
forcement to Ruggless thesis. That is, Burls conclusions
are much the same in terms of rejecting the overall high
precision thesis of Thoms work, but he agrees that there
are astronomical alignments on a much less exacting scale
than Thom proposed.
Aubrey Burl is undoubtedly the scholar most closely
associated with stone circles and henges. He has written
numerous books and articles, many basic research tools
in the field, and he has, in fact, co-authored work with
Thom (as has Ruggles). In this attractive volume, Burl
attempts to explain what stone circles are. His method of
explanation is in the form of a debate that uses twelve
attractive and informative [stone circles] in much more
detail than is normally possible (2). The purpose of this
debate is to remove some of the uncertainties about stone
circles and the problems they present in prehistory.
There is, indeed, a great deal of detail for most of the
stone circles presented, particularly in part 1 (four chap-
ters of which have been previously published in journal
articles). This first part discusses stone circles in three
different parts of England: south-central, northern, and
southwestern. They are not always the best known of the
stone circles, but each provides points of interest and
each comes with its own set of fables and superstitions.
One of the most popular of these superstitions is that
the stones were maidens turned to stone, although the
Rollright Stones were said to be men, specifically a king,
five knights, and an army. While some of these tales are
as early as the 16th century, Burl tells us that most of the
fables come from the 18th century or later. Each of these
first five chapters provides numerous quotes from the
antiquarians who wrote about the sites and the folklore
that is associated with the sites. Woodhenge is also in-
cluded in part 1, although it can only be classed as a
stone circle if we count the cement markers of the
postholesbut Woodhenge is included because it pro-
vides information that cannot be had from the stone
examples, that these monuments were carefully laid out
and set to a standard (of at least local) measurement.
The second part of the book details information about
Stonehenge and is devoted to a cornucopia of ques-
tions, primarily astronomical. The third part is poetic to
the point that it could be part of a novel. This book does
not rely solely on data (for those see Burls The Stone
Circles of the British Isles [New Haven 1976] and Prehistoric
Avebury [New Haven 1979]), but it is filled with a great
amount of history, facts, and folklore of stone circles,
and reveals the depth of knowledge of the subject by the
author. Although the photographs are beautiful, draw-
ings of the various sites and better labeling of the exist-
ing drawings would have been helpful.
Burls book should have wide appeal, first to the schol-
ars who want to broaden their knowledge of stone cir-
cles, and also to those who are more interested in what
might be called the romance of stone circles. In his
book Burl has revealed what less confident scholars would
hesitate to reveala true love of his subject.
Karlene Jones-Bley
indo-european studies program
university of california, los angeles
100 dodd hall
los angeles, california 90095-1451
kjonesbley@aol.com
Minoan Architecture: A Contextual Analysis,
by Louise A. Hitchcock. (SIMA-PB 155.) Pp. 267, figs.
33. Paul strms, Jonsered 2000. $38.90. ISBN
91-7081-192-X (paper).
In 1962, when J.W. Graham first published Palaces of
Crete (Princeton), Paul MacKendrick also published The
Greek Stones Speak (New York). MacKendricks title paint-
ed the perfect picture of archaeology as an empirical
discipline: sweep away the dust and the stones would tell
their own story. From the postmodern vantage of Louise
A. Hitchcocks Minoan Architecture, MacKendricks image
seems as remote as Kennedys Camelot. Hitchcock is keen-
ly aware that the facts do not speak for themselves; rath-
er, our readings of the past are complex narratives con-
structed in the present.
Drawing on the works of Ian Hodder and others, Hitch-
cock adopts what she calls a contextual approach to the
study of Minoan architecture. For Hitchcock, context
is not a static set of facts forming a background against
which the building is interpreted; rather, context is it-
self a form of text that is carefully constructed to tell a
story. She approaches Minoan archaeology as a project
of writing: crafting narratives and assigning meaning
(192), and presents her story not as a last word, but as
part of an ongoing discussion.
In the introduction, Hitchcock acknowledges that no
context can be complete and informs the reader that she
will focus on the interaction of three elements: architec-
tural form, spatial relations among rooms, and the arti-
facts associated with the rooms. Occasional ethnograph-
ic comparisons and comparisons with other cultures in
the ancient Near East provide supplementary informa-
tion. Each component of Hitchcocks context is capable
of shifting the readings of the others. For example, even
if two rooms at different sites were strikingly similar in
form, differences among the artifacts found in the rooms
would demonstrate that the two rooms were used and
experienced in distinct ways.
The rest of the book is divided into four chapters. The
first, Towards an Archaeology of Aegean Archaeology,
is a brief historiographical review of excavation reports
and interpretative frameworks ranging from the formal-
ist approach of Graham to more recent experiments with
semiotics and structuralism. The second chapter deals
with Courts, Cults and Entryways, the third with Stor-
age Areas and Workshop Spaces, and the fourth with
Halls in Minoan Buildings.
The organization of the book is not strictly linear, but,
as Hitchcock notes, a labyrinthine path resembling a
mental walk through one of the buildings being studied
(20). Along the way, she comes up with a number of
interesting interpretations. Most striking to me is her
discussion of the individuality and interdependence of
the Minoan palaces and villas. She presents evidence
that each site had a unique local religious cultthe bull
cult of a Minoan Zeus at Knossos and the cult of a water
deity corresponding to Poseidon at Kato Zakro are the
best examples. Hitchcock then cleverly links the idea of
local cults with Peter Days petrographic analysis of coarse
ware pottery that demonstrated regional economic/agri-
cultural specialization and an interactive trade network
connecting much of the island. For Hitchcock, these two
seemingly unrelated contextual strands intertwine to
explain the individuality of Minoan architecture: each
palace and villa is unique in terms of economy, ritual
use, and form, and each was linked to the others in an
interdependent economic, religious, and cultural net-
work.
Other aspects of the book fall short of the deep histo-
riographical reflection that Hitchcock calls for in her
opening remarks. For example, in chapter 1 Hitchcock
alerts us to the problematic nature of many of the terms
formulated by Evans and perpetuated by later scholars.
Yet she retains many of Evanss most spurious labels in-
cluding sacred grove, baetyl, porters lodge, lustral
basin, horns of consecration, the Minoan Goddess,
and pillar crypt. In arguments that are not so much
labyrinthine as circular, these features in turn become
part of the context for her larger interpretations. While
Hitchcock signals the debatable nature of many of these
features by framing them in quotation marks, in actuality
her readings seldom differ much from Evanss. Like Evans,
Hitchcock holds that religion and ritual permeated Mi-
noan life, and she preemptively dismisses any attempt to
question this assumption as presentist, that is, a mistak-
en attempt to impose todays secularism on the Other
of the past. Despite her postmodern stance, much of
what Hitchcock says seems remarkably traditional.
The book also has many mechanical problems. There
is no index. The 33 illustrations are mostly plans without
orientation, scale, or any clear relation to the text. Many
figures are illegible and others have hastily added room
numbers. The book has numerous typos, and many of the
parenthetical references do not match up with the sources
listed in the bibliography.
The final section of the book, Writing the Present
out of the Past, summarizes Hitchcocks major conclu-
sions and addresses a question that is fundamental to the
discipline: why, in the 21st century, should we bother to
write about Minoan archaeology at all? For Evans, the
answer was easy. He thought that he was adding the key
first chapter to the history of Western civilization. For
J.W. Graham, I suspect the answer had to do with finding
order and reason where few expected it. Forty years later,
when many regard the notions of Western civilization,
order, and reason with suspicion, Hitchcocks answer is
quite different: By writing histories that are open-end-
ed, plural, polyphonic, and Other it will be possible to
construct sets of new and diverse co-mingling historical
traditions representative of a multi-cultural society (197).
I admire her goal, but I am not sure that this book moves
us far toward it.
John C. Mcenroe
art department
hamilton college
clinton, new york 13323
jmcenroe@hamilton.edu
The Greek-Swedish Excavations at the Agia
Aikaterini Square Kastelli, Khania 1970
1987. Vol. 2, The Late Minoan IIIC Settlement,
edited by Erik Hallager and Birgitta P. Hallager.
(SkrAth, 4
o
, 47.) Pp. 231, pls.117, figs. 36, tables
15. Svenska Institutet i Athen, Aarhus 2000.
$59.60. ISSN 0586-0539; ISBN 91-7916-041-7
(cloth).
This excellent volume is the second in a series of sev-
en projected books publishing the results of the joint
Swedish-Greek excavations at Kastelli, Khania in western
Crete, conducted under the direction of Yannis Tzedakis
and Carl-Gustaf Styrenius. Only a small portion of the
large multiple-period site under the modern town was
explored, and the editors have chosen to publish their
findings by periods of occupation and use, rather than by
area, building, or type. The volumes have begun with the
latest period (Post-Minoan) and will end with the Pre-
and Proto-Palatial Periods, but clearly the most important
material belongs to the Late Bronze Age.
The architectural remains of the LM IIIC period are
not extensive, but they are better preserved than many
of those from earlier levels, and the associated pottery is
plentiful, if fragmentary. The publication of the LM IIIC
settlement is particularly welcome at this point, since
the period has in the past two decades elicited intense
scrutiny both because of the excavation of new sites of
the period (e.g., Kavousi, Halasmenos, Sybritos, and Knos-
sos) and because of renewed interest in the dynamics of
the collapse of Minoan civilization and the role of refuge
settlements in the history of the period. The settlement
at Khania presents a somewhat different pattern from
what is found farther east on Crete in LM IIIC, since it
was not a new settlement but rather continued in use
from the preceding periods until its abandonment around
the middle of LM IIIC, and it was clearly not a refuge
settlement. There is some evidence that Khania main-
tained connections with areas outside Crete longer than
other contemporary settlements, as well. Similarities to
other LM IIIC sites in pottery, architecture, and small
finds show that despite regional differences there was a
good deal of contact with the rest of Crete.
The remains and the finds of the LM IIIC settlement
are presented from the top down, rather than the bot-
tom up, thus placing in the foreground the process of
excavation and discovery rather than that of deposition
and site history. The Hallagers arrange their material by
area or room, and the catalogue of objects follows the
discussion of the architecture and stratigraphy of each
unit. This organization places greatest emphasis on the
context of the finds rather than on the objects or re-
mains themselves, an emphasis which seems entirely
appropriate for an excavation report and is to be com-
mended. The focus on context, however, seems a bit
out of keeping with the emphasis on excavation process
seen by the presentation of material from the top down,
although this is not a serious problem. Open areas, rub-
bish areas, and pits are discussed separately, and the
catalogue ends with unstratified material. Discussions
of the various finds by type come after the presentation
of the rooms and areas with their catalogues: the archi-
tecture (E. Hallager), pottery (B. Hallager), and other
objects under the categories of industrial activities and
personal adornment (M. Bruun-Lundgren and I. Wiman),
terracotta figurines and stone vases (M.-L. Winbladh),
and obsidians (E. Karantzali). Statistics on the pottery
and a discussion of the metals are presented as appendi-
ces. In the plates and figures, the plans, sections, and
photos of the architecture and features of the settle-
ment appear first. For the pottery and other finds, the
drawings are arranged according to type or shape, while
the photographs are presented by context. Thus it is
possible for the reader interested in context to see what
sorts of objects and pottery were found together and
for the user interested in a particular class of objects to
see those organized according to type. The arrange-
ment manages to satisfy both the needs of the archae-
ologist seeking contextual information at a glance and
those of the specialist looking for a particular type of
artifact.
The specialist studies vary in quality according to the
authors and nature of the remains. The discussion of
the architecture is clear and useful. Some of the walls
were reused from earlier structures, and it is difficult to
evaluate the architecture without knowing the material
from the earlier periods. Nevertheless, one can get a
clear picture of the building remains from this particu-
lar period. In LM IIIC the settlement was smaller than
in earlier periods, and the houses small and multifunc-
tional, with evidence for food preparation and cooking
(hearths, ovens, and fire areas), and some industrial
activities. The evidence for a possible shrine in the area
(animal bones and a possible snake tube fragment in
the north rubbish area) is not convincing. E. Hallager
does not compare the architecture extensively with other
known LM IIIC sites, but he consistently uses the build-
ings at Kastro, Kavousi as parallels, despite the fact that
most of the preserved architecture from that site is later
in date.
B. Hallagers chapter on the pottery is one of the most
useful and thorough parts of the publication, and the
first and most extensive publication of a corpus of LM
IIIC pottery since the publication of Karphi and Kastri,
Palaikastro in the 1960s. It is unfortunate that more nearly
complete pottery was not found in the excavations. She
includes a chart of shapes with names on which most
pottery experts can agree and which provides a useful
standardization of terminology. Here the only problem
is an insistence on abandoning the term champagne
cup, which is most useful (if inaccurate) and calls to
mind a particular shape of stemmed cup; she prefers
instead the term footed cup, which can have several
variations in shape. The pottery from the settlement is
discussed separately from the LM IIIC pottery found out
of context, so there is never any question about which
pieces are dated LM IIIC by context and which by style.
Within these two large categories, decorated pottery is
discussed first, then plain wares, coarse wares, and im-
ported pieces. Vessels are discussed by shape, first the
examples from Khania, then those known from other
LM IIIC sites on Crete. The pottery discussion is thor-
ough and up-to-date and will be a basic source on the
period for some time to come. There is a good deal of
imported pottery or pottery that imitates styles from
central Crete, the Cyclades, the mainland, and Italy,
although less than in previous periods. A bit less useful
are the sections on other objects, largely because there
is less material and it is therefore less easily analyzed.
Finally, the statistics given in the appendices help us
understand the nature of the pottery deposits, how much
was kept or thrown away, and what percentage of the
pottery in any given context was given over to particu-
lar shapes or was left over from earlier periods. There is
no attempt to determine such statistics as minimum
number of vessels in any context, as the material is so
fragmentary that such information would be meaning-
less. Finally, the analysis of the metals shows something
about the nature of LM IIIC metallurgy and about the
trade of metals in the eastern Mediterranean in this
period. The volume concludes with concordances of all
inventoried objects and Khania Museum numbers.
This volume is thus a useful addition to the series and
to our growing knowledge of LM IIIC Crete. The site
has been carefully excavated and recorded, and the pre-
sentation of the findings is thorough, sensible, and lu-
cid. There are few editing problems or errors in cita-
tion, and the illustrations are uniformly excellent. There
are two minor problems with the volume. First of all, the
decision to publish the site by period has forced the
editors to make absolute decisions about the dating of
every find and to present each as part of a particular
unit. This makes everything seem more definite than
can be the case and eliminates all the natural ambigu-
ity; archaeology is not quite a science, and the publica-
tion makes everything appear more absolute than is
possible. Also, until the entire series has been complet-
ed, it is difficult to understand one phase in relation to
those that have come before. It is particularly unfortu-
nate that at the moment the LM IIIB:2 pottery from
the Khania settlement has not yet been published, since
there are problems in defining the pottery styles of LM
IIIB and LM IIIC. Some of the questions and problems
will be solved in the forthcoming volumes. Finally, al-
though all the information is in the volume and clearly
presented, it is difficult to use and cite objects in it for
comparative purposes because of the cumbersome num-
bering system that includes the year excavated, a letter
designation for type of object, and a four-digit number.
It is difficult to keep such a long set of numbers in mind
in using the concordances and equally hard to report
them accurately in a citation. These are minor com-
plaints, however, and should not detract from what is a
model excavation report.
Leslie Preston Day
wabash college
crawfordsville, indiana 47933
dayl@wabash.edu
Agriculture in Egypt from Pharaonic to Mod-
ern Times, edited by Alan K. Bowman and Eugene
Rogan. (Proceedings of the British Academy 96.)
Pp. xxviii + 427, figs. 11, tables 20, maps 3. Ox-
ford University, New York 1999. $72. ISBN 0-19-
726183-3 (cloth).
The Mediterranean basin may have had its longue dure,
but Egypt certainly had what Claire Praux described as
lattache la terre. There has been much scholarly debate
concerning the level of continuity, both in administra-
tion and everyday life, in Egypt between the Ptolemaic
and Roman period. Bowman and Rogans fine volume
shows that, in the case of agriculture, this continuity in
some ways exists from the Pharaonic period to the early
modern. There was at once, however, continuity and di-
versity. Egypts constituent partsland and river
changed little through time, but this volume shows a
history of dynamism and change in agricultural prac-
tice. The agricultural year was punctuated by both the
Nile flood and the extensive maintenance work neces-
sary to ensure the effectiveness of irrigation. This truly
was a hydraulic society, for this pattern affected not only
rural life, but demanded the strong and highly bureau-
cratic centralized government (indigenous and foreign)
that has arguably been a feature of Egypt since early
times, albeit with periods of interruption.
The papers are organized chronologically rather than
by theme. Themes, however, run through the volume:
rural and village economies, land tenure, inheritance and
tenancy, irrigation management and land survey, topog-
raphy and toponyms, labor, trade and economy, bureau-
cracy and state control. The role of agriculture in deter-
mining different aspects of life in Egypt has changed
constantly during the past four millennia in terms of its
effect on the internal and external strength of the coun-
try, international export, and gradual incorporation into
the world economymany a general history has been
written with fewer patterns and less information. The
main strength of the volume is that it gathers together
work that not only uses different sources of evidence
and even methodology, but which would also appear in
disparate journals and books, making its access difficult
for scholars working in one particular period.
An excellent introduction by the editors sets the his-
torical scene and explains the importance of studying
such themes as agriculture, which transcend the con-
ventional boundaries of narrative political history and
enable us to make useful diachronic connections and
comparisons (7). Each paper focuses on particular groups
of documents, and this is another strength of the vol-
umethe important and often unique evidence of Egypt
is used to its full potential. The successive languages in
the archival evidence indicate the changing political
control and bureaucratic culture; the Pharaonic, Graeco-
Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic documents all paint
a rich picture of rural life. The archaeological record has
left little of value to the study of rural Egyptthe chang-
ing course of the river, and ironically agriculture itself,
has ensured this. To any study of rural landscapes, rural or
peasant economies, or state control of agriculture, how-
ever, this volume will be indispensable.
Space does not permit a detailed description of the
excellent contributions. It is perhaps best to isolate two
important themes in order to highlight the books con-
tents: the development of the agrarian economy and
rural-urban relations. Land tenure, tenancy, and labor
provision are bound closely together: papers by Thomp-
son, Rowlandson, Sharp, Banaji, Wilfong, Frantz-Mur-
phy, and Cuno raise important issues such as absentee
landowners, the structure of rural society, the village,
and the importance of nonagricultural activities. In his
study, Monetisation, Not Price Inflation, in Third Cen-
tury AD Egypt in Coin Finds and Their Use in the Roman
World, edited by C.E. King and D. Wigg, 32139 (Berlin
1966), Dominic Rathbone argues for an increasingly
monetized economy, but this appears to have begun its
development even before the Ptolemaic period, to have
accelerated under their rule (Thompson), and to have
continued into the Medieval period (Udovitch). Subsis-
tence agriculture and a redistributive economy were
quickly left behind, discrediting further the model of
M.I. Finley.
Urban-rural relations and settlement patterns are im-
portant themes addressed in papers by Eyre, Cuno, and
Hopkins, who consider village-to-village relations and
exchange, and relations between villages and towns.
Other issues are also discussed, such as the source of
labor for agriculture (certainly not restricted to rural
environments), the nature of Egypt peasantry (a more
socially diverse group than is often suggested), and the
organization of estates and households (Banaji and
Cuno).
Something must be said of Keenans excellent paper
on the fascinating topographical survey by Nabulsi, a
government official charged with a survey of the Fayum
(ca. A.D. 12431244). Geographical details, toponyms,
descriptions of villages, lists of taxes paid, and historical
asides combine to make this a valuable work to histori-
ans and archaeologists of the Graeco-Roman period.
In this volume there is much that should be of inter-
est to scholars working on Egyptian history of any peri-
od, much comparative material and food for thought.
There are gaps; we need, perhaps, a reappraisal of the
Cairo Geniza papers, and we need more on the Mamaluk
period, on technology and agriculture, and more on de-
mography. But there will always be gaps in such a book,
and these do not detract from its importance and con-
tribution to scholarship. Bowman and Rogan, and their
contributors, have given us a fine volume of lasting im-
portance.
Colin E.P. Adams
school of archeological studies
university of leicester
university road
leicester le1 7rh.
united kingdom
cepa1@leicester.ac.uk
The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and
Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State,
by D.T. Potts. (Cambridge World Archaeology.)
Pp. xxix + 490, b&w figs. 91, b&w pls. 31, tables
62, maps 11. Cambridge University, New York
1999. $37.95 (paper); $85 (cloth). ISBN 0-521-
56496-4 (paper); 0-521-56358-5 (cloth).
Entit histoirque complexe, lantique Elam reste diffi-
cile apprhender dans la diversit de ses tmoins.
Lauteur, bon archologue connu pour son indpen-
dance, a eu lambition, contrairement ses prdces-
seurs les plus rcents, E. Carter et M. Stolper, Elam: Sur-
veys of Political History and Archaeology (Berkeley 1984),
den assumer seul la globalit dans une forme dhistoire
totale associant troitement documentations histoirque,
crite, et archologique. Il sest attach mettre en oeu-
vre en la critiquant une impressionnante bibliographie,
rarement prise en dfaut. Sa critique se fonde dentre
de jeu sur une philosophie de lhistoire rejetant la longue
dure, et donc la continuit de lhistoire lamite, au
profit de la courte dure correspondant la suite des
priodes reconnues, que sparent des clipses parfois
totales. Ce choix sappuie sur la contestation de lexistence
mme de lElam avant le XVIII
e
sicle, puisquil est ainsi
dsign par ses seuls voisins de Msopotamie, mais jamais
par ses propres populations divises en mosaques poli-
tiques ou ethniques, changeantes dune poque lautre.
Larchologue sest fait surtout historien, en sattachant
par prdilection linformation crite, alors que la docu-
mentation archologique est sommairement analyse, le
plus souvent. Le cadre naturel est constitu par lIran du
Sud-Ouest, dont les composantes antiques sont difficiles
situer, en dehors des deux centres majeurs: Anshan
dans le haut-pays, Fars actuel, et Suse dans le bas-pays,
Khuzistan actuel (appel aussi Arabistan, ce qui nest pas
indiffrent). Car on regrettera labsence de gographie
humaine, sdentaires et nomades ethniquement dif-
frents: Arabes et Persans.
Les prcurseurs antrieurs aux premiers textes lisibles
ne peuvent tre considrs comme de vrais anctres des
Elamites historiques. La stratigraphie susienne, rfrence
majeure, permet de reconnatre une suite de priodes
archologiques appelant cependant une interprtation,
qui est mme refuse la troisime, avec son criture
originale, qui du coup perd son identit proto-lamite,
cependant traditionnelle. On entre dans lhistoire vers
le milieu du III
e
millnaire grce la Liste royale sumri-
enne qui intgre une dynastie lamite dite dAwan, avec
dj deux rois portant des noms lamites. Suse fut an-
nexe lempire dAkkad, mais aucune conclusion nest
tire du clbre Trait de Narm-sn rdig en lamite
et qui inaugure pratiquement une tradition linguistique
et religieuse, avec lnumration des dieux, appele
perdurer jusqu lpoque perse: ne serions-nous pas l
en pleine longue dure?
A propos du temps de lempire dUr et ensuite, lauteur
sest attach de faon mritoire et utile clarifier les
difficiles problmes poss par la chronologie des cor-
gences dune entit lautre, domines pendant toute la
premire moiti du II
e
millnaire par les sukkalmah, dans
une ligne fort complexe, matresse dAnshan restaur
lpoque archologique de Kaftari, puis progressivement
dsert. Et cependant la royaut dite dsormais dAnshan
et de Suse a symboliquement associ le haut et le bas pays
lpoque suivante, qui a t celle de lapoge de la
puissance lamite. Elle est reprsente le mieux dabord
Haft Tp non loin de Suse, avec un complexe con-
sidr comme un tombeau royal plutt que comme un
temple-tombe. Puis Choga Zanbil a t bti au XIV
e
sicle, par le roi Untash Napirisha. Les liens de ce grand
btisseur et de ses successeurs avec la dynastie kassite de
Babylone posent des problmes longuement tudis,
avant lpoque des grands conqurants qui concentrrent
leur pouvoir Suse, tout en difiant une construction
royale Anshan. Et les reliefs rupestres de Kul-i Farah
pourraient dater dune poque voisine.
La dernire priode, no-lamite, conscutive la
dfaite inflige par Nabuchodonosor I
er
la fin du XII
e
sicle, est divise en trois sous-priodes, essentiellement
partir des donnes archologiques de Suse, difficiles
coordonner avec celles des annales assyriennes, princi-
palement. Comme autrefois dj, lElam semble avoir
clat en plusieurs principauts, centres dsormais sur
Madaktu, Idalu, Suse et Anshan, avant que cette dern-
ire devienne, bien que dserte, la rfrence de la jeune
royaut des Perses. La rsurrection de Suse cette
poque, aprs le sac de la ville par Assurbanipal, est con-
nue par les archives trouves autrefois par J. de Morgan
sur lacropole susienne, et par une srie de sceaux-cylin-
dres ou dempreintes, caractristiques de la fin de lElam,
entre 647 et 539. Onomastiques lamite et iranienne
sont alors associes, et finalement se pose le problme
du destin des Elamites dans lempire achmnide. Lessor
des Perses dans un milieu lamite apparat comme li
celui dune ethno-classe dominante, Suse appartenant
dsormais un monde mixte, lamo-perse, qui navait pas
tre conquis. LElam a donc cess dexister en tant
quentit politique cette poque, bien que sa langue
soit reste en usage la chancellerie de Perspolis. Or
aprs la chute de lempire perse sous le coups dAlexandre
le Grand, un royaume dElymade, indpendant des Sleu-
cides puis des Parthes, connut une longue histoire, mal
connue mais incontestable, les scribes babyloniens du
temps des Sleucides relatant les incursions qui en ve-
naient comme lamites. Et mme finalement, aprs la
conqute musulmane, un vque nestorien put encore
se dfinir comme mtropolite dElam.
Dans lesprit de lauteur, une telle observation con-
firme sa thse de la diversit des acceptions du nom
dElam, travers une histoire essentiellement discontin-
ue. Il nvoque donc quen passant, comme un aspect
mineur, la dualit lamite-smitique ou susienne-anshan-
ite des Elamites, perue par lui comme aux temps les
plus anciens seulement (442)! Un certain manque
dintrt pour la langue lamite, dans son impression-
nante continuit, et pour lart (iconographie et style),
explique peut-tre les faiblesses que lon peut regretter.
Il parat correspondre la pauvret de lillustration, abon-
dante cependant, qui semble avoir t abandonne des
documentalistes peu motivs. Le lecteur nen trouvera
pas moins dans ce livre important une trs riche docu-
mentation, commente avec intelligence et classe avec
clart dans les nombreux tableaux. Daccord ou non, on
ne pourra dsormais manquer de sy rfrer, toujours utile-
ment.
Pierre Amiet
20, rue pierre demours
f-75017 paris
france
Monuments of Syria: An Historical Guide, by
Ross Burns. Pp. xv + 302, pls. 52, maps 79. I.B. Tauris,
London 1999. $24.50. ISBN 1-86064-244-6 (pa-
per.)
The world is shrinking fast, and modern eco- and ar-
chaeo-tourists need reliable guidebooks, just as their im-
perial predecessors once did. In this revised edition of a
1992 original, Burns has produced a useful and handy-
sized guidebook to fit the need.
As the title suggests, the book is predictably oriented
toward things that are good to see, primarily architec-
ture. Prehistoric sites are ignored, and the Bronze and
Iron Age primarily contribute their greatest hits, namely
Mari, Ebla, and Ugarit. Encouragingly, a few of the great
tells of northeast Syria, namely Tell Brak and Tell Halaf,
are also included. The book is strongest on remains from
the Hellenistic through the Mameluke periods. The en-
tries for Aleppo and Palmyra are therefore 15 pages, while
Damascus receives 35 pages. Emphasis throughout is on
visible architecture, especially city walls, castles, church-
es, and mosques.
Specialists might lament the omission of their favorite
site, but the book is sensibly geared toward the educated
layperson. A few quibbles also might be offered on the
historical sketch. The idea that the roots of the Hyksos
are still unexplained, but that they were pushed south
into Egypt by Indo-European pressure seems out of place,
as does the notion that the Israelites moved into Pales-
tine from somewhere to the east with consequences
still to be resolved 3000 years later. And it would be
churlish to point out that Hamas reconstruction is being
undertaken after the citys destruction by Hafez el-As-
sad. Still, those seeking in-depth historical discussions
can try to lug Horst Klengels Syria 3000300 B.C.: A
Handbook of Political History (Berlin 1992) around with
them. Those seeking a full upper body workout can carry
Rostovtzeff. For the vast majority of travelers, however,
this book will do fine.
The book contains an adequate number of illustra-
tions and maps of reasonable size, although a more de-
tailed road map would be useful. The addition of several
dozen color photographs is welcome. The descriptions
are clear and do not fall into Blue Guide levels of stone by
stone detail or historical pedantry. There is a useful glos-
sary of architectural terms, detailed timelines, and each
entry in the gazetteer is referenced to the concise but
adequate bibliography. There are also suggested itinerar-
ies. The book does not contain any helpful hints about
mini-buses, hotels, exchange rates, stomach maladies, and
the like that are the specialty of the Lonely Planet se-
ries, books which are all about getting to someplace and
not what to see or do once you get there. Overall, it
compares most favorably with the other modern guide-
books, including Ekrem Akurgals Ancient Civilizations and
Ruins of Turkey (Istanbul 1969), and William J. Murnanes
The Penguin Guide to Ancient Egypt (London 1996).
The next step will be to create a version for the Palm
Pilot, perhaps with a GPS reference tool to automatically
pull up gazetteer entries according to your location. Re-
member, you heard it here first. In the meantime, Burns
has made a useful contribution and deserves our thanks.
Alexander H. Joffe
boston university
boston, massachusetts 02215
alexjoffe@mindspring.com
Greeks and Barbarians: Essays on the Interac-
tions between Greeks and Non-Greeks in An-
tiquity and the Consequences for Euro-
centrism, edited by John E. Coleman and Clark A.
Walz. (Occasional Publications of the Depart-
ment of Near Eastern Studies and the Program
of Jewish Studies at Cornell University 4.) Pp. xviii
+ 310. CDL Press, Bethesda, MD 1997. $42. ISBN
1-883053-44-7 (cloth).
An express purpose of this book is to stimulate discus-
sion of the importance of Greek thought for European
attitudes toward non-Europeans and the recent debates
about multiculturalism. It is curious that much of Amer-
ican academic discourse still hides behind the term Eu-
ropean, as if America is exempt from the charge of
entrenchment of attitudes of superiority to non-Whites,
especially in relation to its own influence over Europe.
The term stimulate is left hanging: very few papers
mention the issue directly, and the European implica-
tion often remains muted. The book is a result of a con-
ference that took place in 1993, reflecting the antithet-
ical intellectual climate of the 1970s and 1980s when
binary images de lautre were de rigeur.
Jonathan Halls Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cam-
bridge 1997), published too late for this volume, stresses
the emergence of oppositional identity in the fifth
century in contrast to the earlier, aggregative identity.
It has become more acceptable to think of the binary,
Greeks/Barbarians, as a concept that was fully devel-
oped only in the fifth century, not earlier. Since it is not
self-evident that Greekness was a significant concept
in the Archaic period, no sweeping generalizations about
ethnic polarity in Greek civilizations may be applied with
much profit. This reviewer, accustomed to observe Greeks
between the Phasis (Georgia in the Black Sea) and the
Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) (Plato, Phaedo 109B), has
been moving away from such bipolar attitudes to a more
nuanced middle ground approach in which mutual per-
ceptions and creative misunderstandings form new
mental terrains and changing images of self and others
(see Richard White, The Middle Ground [Cambridge 1992]
and Irad Malkin, Introduction, in Ancient Perceptions of
Greek Ethnicity, edited by I. Malkin, 128 [Washington DC
2001]).
In Shaping Eurocentrism: The Uses of Greek Antiq-
uity, D. Held provides a useful survey of European atti-
tudes in relation to antiquity. The article has little of the
critical bite we find in Jennifer Tolbert Robertss Athens
on Trial (Princeton 1994, not cited) or the historiograph-
ical acumen of Pierre Vidal Naquets Politics Ancient and
Modern (Cambridge, Mass. 1995, also not cited). Did any
of the Europeans discussed (e.g., Diderot) define him-
self as such? There is no distinction here between any-
thing happening in Europe and European. L. Purdys
What We Should Not Be Learning from the Greeks is
mostly a very American discussion of curriculum; Europe
is almost irrelevant here. G. Holst-Warhafts Great Ex-
pectations: The Burden of Philhellenism and the Myths
of Greek Nationalism ties nicely the two elements of
her title, touching on a sensitive question in modern
Greece: was it Europe that gave it its national definition?
A Kurdish friend of mine from Syria once remarked bit-
terly, if Kurds had a Moses or an Aristotle, today they
would have a state of their own. Holst-Warhaft discusses
French and German attitudes to Greek antiquity as the
fountainhead of European civilization, and Byron appears
as typical rather than original (277). Whereas in Eu-
rope today nationalist particularism and the European
Union are at odds (incidentally, European ethnocen-
trism is an oxymoron), the origins of modern Greek
nationalism indeed signified both national awakening
and the revival of Greece as a natural part of western
European inheritance (original emphasis, 274).
The Bronze Age is discussed since continuities might
be implied (again, by the editors, not the authors). It is
impossible to discuss articulated attitudes to barbarians in
the Bronze Age, nor is it clear that Greeks is a legiti-
mate term here except as a scholarly convention, a heri-
tage of essentialist or Romantic Volkperspektive. C. Waltzs
complaint that Bernal has neglected Cypruss role in
international exchange (5) is convincingly discussed
through an examination of material and literary evidence.
The authors claim that Cypriots were middlemen between
mostly disconnected regions is perhaps plausible but ex-
treme (12) and rests on an argument from silence (14
5). R. Woodwards intelligent synthesis of linguistic con-
nections between Greeks and non-Greeks (Pelasgians,
the Greek arrival, lexical, and orthographic borrowings)
is very good and may serve as an introduction to the
subject and recommended reading. His claim that the
Greek alphabet was adapted from the Phoenician conso-
nant script by scribes who were accustomed to writing
Greek with the Cypriot syllabary (478) is treated fully
in his book, Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer (Oxford
1997). But it remains puzzling: if Cypriots were conserva-
tively adhering to their syllabary (it was the script of
their Mycenaean tradition [51], original emphasis), why
did their scribes learn the alphabet and help to export
it westward? On Greeks in Cyprus, I add Maria Iacovou,
The Greek Exodus to Cyprus, Mediterranean Historical
Review 14 (1999) 128.
M. Bernal, encouraged by Walter Burkerts The Orien-
talizing Revolution (Cambridge, Mass. 1992), now feels
confident to shift the onus to those who wish to deny
plausible lexical loans. These, he claims, give evidence
for long periods of contact between the ancient Near
East and Greece. Yet we remain with contacts and con-
nectionstwo words that mean very little and are al-
most always true. Without a qualified assessment of their
significance they have little use.
In a profound reassessment of the evidence from now
famous Bronze Age ship wrecks (Cape Gelidonia and Ul-
uburun), G. Bass shatters the image of a Mycenaean mar-
itime, commercial network; he notes that Mycenaean
ships are not depicted in Egyptian paintings and there is
no word for merchant in Linear B (83), and he wonders
if Mycenaean pottery was not carried by others (85). Raw
materials, elusive for the archaeologist, apparently were
exported westward (now suggested by the Uluburun ship
[91]). Bass reverses scholarly directions, laying emphasis
on Phoenicians and denies the Mycenaean nationali-
ty of the ships (but did ships have a nationality?). The
Odysseys Phoenicians now appear realistic, not anachro-
nistic. In any case, is the issue here one of Greeks and
Barbarians? Bass is silent on that.
Africahappily, this nebulous term (as in African
culture, influence) is mostly avoided. F. Snowden pro-
vides an excellent summation of his work on color preju-
dice of Greeks, reminding us that most slaves were whites,
that blacks often served as mercenaries, that Herodotus
considered Ethiopians handsome, that Greek environmen-
tal theoriesnot racial criteriaconsidered people liv-
ing at the edges as different (or inferior). E. Guralnicks
discussion of Greek-Egyptian contacts, mostly in the Ar-
chaic period, is careful and responsible, rich in angles and
implications. The distinctions between Egyptian and Egyp-
tianizing, and between Egyptian material and non-Egyp-
tian carriers are right on the mark, pointing to a wide
distribution of eighth to seventh century imports exca-
vated at Greek sites (131). Particularly intriguing are
Egyptian (or Egyptianizing) imports at Greek sanctuaries
(especially the Samian Heraion). Was Mut identified with
Hera? (133) Those wondering about the prominence of
Hera in Greek colonization should give this some thought;
however, the extraordinary variety of representations pre-
cludes our finding a specific, overriding pattern of for-
eign worship (134). And why has so much material been
neglected? The answer is not bias but the inability to
examine material in museums (e.g., the Pergamon Muse-
um in Berlin). One may add Franois de Polignacs obser-
vation (in R. Osborne and S.E. Alcock, Placing the Gods
[Oxford 1994]) that all types of carriers, not only Greeks
(implied, 145), could dedicate at the Samian Heraion,
which could serve as a point of convergence with its at-
tendant social prestige.
In From Solon to the Arab conquest, Anthony Preus
leads us, wisely and fairly, through several periods, culmi-
nating in the remarkable synthesis in Egypt where Greek
philosophy was transformed into a characteristically Egyp-
tian activity. In the period from Solon to Aristotle, one
notes travel, curiosity, and respect. How is one to assess
influence? Think, for example, of what travelers in the
1960s and 1970s brought back from India: we find plenty
of indiana but little profound influence on the major
concerns of western philosophical activity in the late 20th
century. Preus could have made more of the insulted
horror expressed by the likes of Josephus or Manetho,
that Greeks ignored Egyptian (or Jewish) wisdom; not quite
evidence for deep impressions. For the later periods Preus
is entirely convincing: Greek philosophy becomes Egyp-
tian philosophy. It happens very late, and the phenome-
non, on the whole, is very Hellenic. A far cry from the
charge that Aristotle stole ideas from the library of Alex-
andriaprecisely the final point in Mary Lefkowitzs
Some Ancient Advocates of Greek Cultural Dependen-
cy, a paper that, curiously, does not follow Preuss.
Lefkowitzs arguments are lucid and persuasive, non-
polemical, and insistent on remaining within the con-
text of ancient histoire de mentalit. Thus, Jewish and Egyp-
tian claims to cultural priority or stolen wisdom are ex-
plained as a reaction of peoples subject to Greeks. From
the Greek perspective, it is clear that Greeks had no
hang-ups about being first. From Herodotus to Plato,
Egypt seems rather to have provided a kind of validation.
For Herodotus and others, similarities were understood
as post hoc ergo propter hoc, the later civilization drawing
on the earlier. In fact, there was little Egyptian interest
in transmigration of souls (Pythagoras) or in astrology
(Democritus)both reputed to have originated in Egypt.
Similarities between thinkers, according to biographical
conventions, were explained as master-pupil relationships.
Ancient Greek Ethnocentrism by J. Coleman is a rea-
sonable, long-winded, and expressly moralistic (199) over-
view that could well serve an introductory course. The
claim that ancient Greek attitudes influenced Europe
and the United States is exclaimed, not argued; nor is
the use of ethnocentrism justified. Like others in this
volume, Coleman seems to think that Barbarians need
a definition, but not Greeks. Coleman is sensitive to
realities: since slaves were mostly barbarians, attitudes
were formed accordingly (but what is the ratio between
respectable non-Greeks and slaves? And why are Metics
represented as necessarily lower class? [201]; cf., D.
Whitehead, The Ideology of the Athenian Metic [Cambridge
1977]). On the other hand, mercenaries and ambassa-
dors needing translation (a good point, 182) must have
presented a different image. The superiority of the colo-
nial world is distorted: in the Black Sea area Greek com-
munities were sometimes subject to non-Greeks. Homer is
misrepresented: The Trojan War is presented as a total
Greek victory (187); as I recall, there is no victory in the
Iliad, nor is it Greek. Religion: since myths were cen-
tered on the activities of Greek gods and heroes they
would also have reinforced Greek feelings of superiority
(188). This imposes modern views on ancient polythe-
ism. In fact, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hera were not Greek
gods, and Herakles was simply a hero (not a Greek hero).
If I must generalize, religion for Greeks was a langue; the
names of the gods formed its paroles. For what happened
after the Persian Wars the reader is best served today
reading Jonathan Halls book, Ethnic Identity.
In the first part of Greeks and the Other in the Age
of Alexander, S. Rotroff presents an excellent analysis
of three models of approach: the Hellenic beacon of
culture (people loved to be Hellenized), a colonialist
model (Greek masters dominating barbarians), and a mid-
dle ground (Rotroffs way) that involves parallel hierar-
chies, multiple use of languages, mixed marriages, and,
in general, a patchwork. Rotroff is not an intentional-
ist: the Hellenistic world happened to become one of
numerous cultures, with no master plan for its Helleniza-
tion: mostly we perpetuate a divide between the Greek
and the non-Greek that may be very much of our own
making(226). Excellent; but why the Other in the
title? The second part of her paper reads like an utterly
convincing research proposal for the use of figurines and
pottery to illuminate her Hellenistic middle ground. It
is a persuasive start for hypotheses about the ethnic
make-up of a population, of the degree of Hellenization
in any one area, and of the interchange of ideas be-
tween colonists and indigenes (231). It is this diffusive
approach that ought to play a more prominent role in
the academic discourse of Greeks and Barbarians.
Irad Malkin
center for mediterranean
civilizations
gilman building, room 374
tel aviv university
p.o. box 39040
tel aviv 69978
israel
imalkin@post.tau.ac.il
Boeotia Antiqua. Vol. 6, Proceedings of the 8th
International Conference on Boiotian An-
tiquities (Loyola University of Chicago, 24
26 May 1995), edited by John M. Fossey. (McGill
University Monographs in Classical Archaeology
and History 18.) Pp. xi + 151, figs. 14, pls. 33. J.C.
Gieben, Amsterdam 1996. DFl 145. ISBN 90-5063-
468-0 (paper).
A regional study is so much a part of the modern com-
prehension of antiquity that it may be difficult to re-
member that such a concept is remarkably recent. One
of the first instances of an emphasis on a particular dis-
trict of the ancient world was the interest in Boiotia that
developed in the 1960s, originated by a small group of
scholars who came together in a free association under
the official but firm guidance of John M. Fossey of McGill
University, who himself had just completed the first de-
tailed study of Boiotian topography. Although there was
no definite philosophical orientation of the informal
Boiotian studies group that emerged at that time, one
goalrelatively novel thenwas to support the idea that
the ancient world was something more than famous cit-
ies, powerful people, and artistic monuments. Boiotia also
had suffered from many slanders, often of a porcine vari-
ety, that emanated from Athens, and this meant that it
had been little studied and even less appreciated. Thus
the Boiotologoi came to see their pioneering efforts al-
most in opposition to and even in contention with the
athenocentric view of Greek antiquity that was still amaz-
ingly prevalent at that time. But such thoughts seem
anachronistic, especially since regional studies are now
within the mainstream, and modern comprehension of
ancient Greece has expanded far beyond emphasis on
the Classical period. Yet one must never forget that how-
ever fascinating it may be to study the major centers such
as Athens and Rome, most inhabitants of classical antiq-
uity never saw either city.
Over the years, a series of informal yet scholarly inter-
national Boiotian conferences has been held in North
America and Europe. The most recent, the 10th, was in
Montreal in October 2001. All have had their proceed-
ings published, and the volume here under review is from
the eighth, in Chicago in 1995. It is a fine representa-
tion of the breadth and depth of contemporary Boiotian
studies.
The connecting theme of the papers herein is merely
Boiotia itself. Yet the wide chronological and disciplinary
range of the material is impressive. Chronologically it
runs from the prehistoric period to the late Medieval.
The former is represented by the examination of prehis-
toric Kastro Levadhostrou by J. Morin and G. Gauvin (19
29), a Bronze Age site near Kreusis on the Corinthian
Gulf. The authors have provided a skillful overview of
this important harbor city that was inhabited continuous-
ly during most of the period. By contrast, the fortress at
Panakton, discussed by S.E.T. Gerstel (14351), although
best known during the Classical era, continued to flour-
ish in Medieval times, especially the 14th and 15th cen-
turies, and thus stands at the very opposite end of the
chronological scale. As in the earlier periods, Panakton,
now a fortified village, remained on the main route be-
tween Athens and Thebes and had major visual commu-
nication with a wide area, thus ensuring its importance.
Although not large, the settlement was typical of its pe-
riod. Gerstels paper illustrates an important recent focus
of Boiotian studies, the movement away from the Greco-
Roman periods, especially into the later ones. These two
papers on Kastro Livadhostrou and Panakton, sites not
far distant from one another but 3,000 years apart in
terms of occupation, demonstrate the diversity of con-
temporary Boiotian fieldwork.
To be sure, most of the contributions are on the tradi-
tional periods of Greco-Roman culture. S. Levin has tan-
gled with one of the most frustrating of ancient authors,
Diodoros of Sicily, long a problem to ancient historians
because the scope of his extant work is far greater than
its quality. The focus of Levins paper (1318) is the
historians peculiar statement that Athens began as an
Egyptian colony, something only understood, if any un-
derstanding is possible, in connection with his statements
regarding the Egyptian origin of Kadmos. With justifica-
tion, Levin has taken the view that Diodoros was a com-
piler but not an inventor of tales, whose failure to recon-
cile diverse source material has led to innumerable prob-
lems. E. Guralnick has reexamined one of the major ar-
tistic products of the territory, the astonishing number
of Archaic kouroi from the Ptoian sanctuary and else-
where (3146). It has long been recognized that Archaic
Boiotia was especially rich in stone sculpture, and
Guralnicks essay is an intensive demonstration of how
early Boiotian sculpture was thoroughly in the mainstream
of Greek art.
Several papers concern historiographic issues of the
Late Classical and Hellenistic periods, always a fertile area
for Boiotian research. In particular, there is J. Bucklers
discussion of the Battle of Koroneia, which outlines why
Xenophon called the battle a Spartan victory (5972).
The historian knew better, but was affected by his per-
sonal admiration for Agesilaos and his desire not to em-
barrass an old friend and expose him to the ridicule that
he, in fact, deserved. Buckler has also used his proven
topographic skills to affirm that the location of the bat-
tle is exactly where J.G. Frazer proposed over a century
ago. A. Georgiadou elucidates the reason for Plutarchs
diffidence about his sources in the Pelopidas and provides
a detailed critique of what those sources were and why
Plutarch withheld them (7390). M. Miller traces Kas-
sandross activities in Boiotia, especially as they relate to
Elateia (91103). C. Mller outlines certain political is-
sues in Boiotian cities during the Roman period (127
41). L.A. Miller makes a detailed analysis of the sanctu-
ary of Zeus Basileus at Lebadeia (10526). And M. Munn,
returning the reader to Panakton, presents the first re-
port on the excavations there (4758).
Yet in many ways the most interesting essay is the
introductory one by J.M. Fossey (112), the doyen of
Boiotologoi, who has been the leader of exploration of
the region for nearly 40 years. This essay, a summary of
recent developments in Boiotian studies, stresses their
wide range, including excavation in a number of areas,
topographical survey throughout, and especially the rich
extent of epigraphic research. As is obvious from IG 7
(now available in a 1992 reprint by Ares Press), there are
probably more inscriptions per capita from Boiotia than
anywhere else in the Greco-Roman world. This has meant
that every aspect of epigraphical studies, especially pros-
opography, has been particularly fruitful, although the
sheer quantity of material remains daunting.
Another interesting part of Fosseys summary is his
recounting of the gaps in Boiotian studies. One might
expect that, despite the efforts cited above, the later
periods are the less studied. But it is astonishing also to
learn that numismatic evidence has not received the at-
tention it deserves.
Battles, prehistoric fortresses, Archaic sculpture, Me-
dieval villages, sanctuaries, historiography, and topogra-
phy are all found in this volume, over a span of 3,000
years. It is a fine demonstration of the diversity of recent
Boiotian research and what can be gained by intensive
focus on a single region of Greece. The land of Hesiod
and Plutarch has become one of the best-known parts of
the ancient world.
Duane W. Roller
department of greek and latin
the ohio state university
4240 campus drive
lima, ohio 45804
roller.2@osu.edu
Die Kypseloslade in Olympia: Form, Funktion
und Bildschmuck. Eine archologische
Rekonstruktion. Mit einem Katalog der
Sagenbilder in der korinthischen Vasen-
malerei und einem Anhang zur Forschungs-
geschichte, by Rdiger Splitter. Pp. vii + 173, ills.
46, pls. 3, foldout plate 1. Philipp von Zabern,
Mainz 2000. DM 98. ISBN 3-8053-2604-1 (cloth).
As Rdiger Splitters book amply documents, the lost
Chest of Kypselos continues to tantalize archaeologists
and art historians because of Pausaniass richly detailed
description (V.17.510). Like mural painting, the chest
has garnered its allure by being an example of a medium
that has precious little in the way of surviving artifacts.
Splitter ventures a new reconstruction of the work in the
context of Pausaniass description (what he labels the
archaeological evidence) and of Corinthian vase paint-
ing (the iconographic evidence), followed by a historio-
graphical review of previous reconstructions of the work.
Splitter begins by considering the physical qualities of
the object, being careful to separate these from its func-
tion as a container. The term , used by Herodot-
os and Pausanias, usually refers to a round container; Dios
term, |, and Pausaniass term, 6[, can refer
to either a round or a box-like container. Based on this,
Splitter follows Simon and some earlier scholars in re-
storing the object as a round container about 60 cm in
diameter and about 50 cm in height. Considering form
apart from function is important, but it also avoids a prob-
lem in the textual sources. Pausaniass own choice word
for the object is larnax, a chest. That the object before
him was labeled a kypsele, however, created an apparent
contradiction that he sought to explain by saying that
archaic Corinthians used that term for what he would call
a larnax (see J.B. Carter, The Chests of Periander, AJA
93 [1989] 3601). It would seem that if the terms were
truly synonymous, there would be no need for this qual-
ification. Reconstruction of a cylindrical container raises
a second difficulty, and this is the reversal of direction
that Pausanias takes in his description. In his description
of scenes in the second and fourth registers, he states
that he is beginning from the left, at the other end from
which he started the first and third registers. This makes
sense in the case of a box with a corner and clearly marked
borders, but a cylindrical form would not require such a
move on the part of the viewer.
Splitter lays out the reconstruction drawing on a rect-
angular grid that could be wrapped around a cylinder, or
left as the front panel of a large box. In this configura-
tion, it would not be very far from the dimensions of
chests used to house Perseus and Danae in Attic red-
figure painting (see, e.g., E.D. Reeder, Pandora [Prince-
ton 1995] 2716, nos. 7578). His drawing strips away
the ornamental borders and inscriptions of W. von Mas-
sows reconstruction, which is the most widely reproduced
in recent literature and is now 75 years old. Splitters
more schematic approach and his spare rendering of the
individual figures provide a better focus upon details of
composition, iconography, and overall organization of the
program. As with his predecessor, Splitter bases the indi-
vidual scenes on surviving representations in vase paint-
ing, but makes some sound adjustments to von Massows
compositions. Of particular significance is the reorgani-
zation of the Herakles and hydra scene, which handles
the transition from the games of Pelias better and makes
Iolaos in the chariot a part of the hydra scene with Her-
akles instead of a victor in the games, as Pausanias says.
The one suggestion that I would make is to have the
chariot procession with Thetis in the top register move
leftward, so that Cheiron starts the procession at the
extreme right.
Splitter dates the original chest to about 580560 and
places its production in Corinth, based on iconography.
He produces a detailed catalogue of mythological scenes
in Corinthian vase painting, organized by period, in the
second part of his book. This is a useful compendium
with extensive notes, but it does not help to corroborate
Corinthian origin. Ignoring the warrior marching scenes
on the third register, which are not exclusive to Corin-
thian art, the catalogue shows that only about half of the
mythological scenes on the Chest find an example in
Corinthian vase painting, and several of these are pan-
Hellenic. Two scenes that are most suggestive for a Corin-
thian provenance, the funeral games of Pelias and the
departure of Amphiaraos, were both found on a lost Late
Corinthian krater of ca. 570560. This vase is the only
example of these two scenes in Corinthian art, however,
while the scenes appear four and six times respectively in
Attic vase painting according to LIMC.
Undoubtedly the Chests patronage was in Corinth,
but it is less clear that the artists or the iconography
came from that city. The lack of comparable material in
the same medium makes attributing the origin of the
Chest difficult, but surely ivory jour works found at
Delphi must be closely related in style and iconography.
Carter (supra, 3713) argues effectively that the Delphi
ivories fall in the Spartan tradition and that a workshop
might have migrated to Corinth to produce them and
the Chest of Kypselos, following a fall in ivory production
and consumption in Sparta. That the Corinthian Amphi-
araos krater was unique and corresponds to Pausaniass
description could suggest that the Chest of Kypselos and
the Delphi ivories were produced by a Spartan workshop
under Corinthian patronage, and that this inspired the
vases scenes. The encyclopedic nature of the Chests
scenes clearly reached beyond the standard repertory of
any workshop or single tradition, making iconography a
difficult method for localizing production.
Splitter ends with a review of the long scholarly histo-
ry of the Chest. This extensive review of the literature
here is very welcome, and would serve well for a historio-
graphic review of archaeology in a graduate seminar. The
reconstruction, reproduced as a foldout plate, is an im-
provement over its predecessors, and its drawing should
be preferred in future reproduction.
Mark D. Stansbury-ODonnell
department of art history
university of st. thomas
2115 summit avenue
st. paul, minnesota 55105
m9stansburyo@stthomas.edu
Pergamon: Geschichte und Bauten einer
antiken Metropole, by Wolfgang Radt. Pp. 376,
figs. 80, b&w ills. 89, color ills. 74, maps 5. Primus,
Darmstadt 1999. DM 98, FF 89, S 715. ISBN 3-
89678-116-2 (cloth).
Altertmer von Pergamon. Vol. 15, Die
Stadtgrabung, pt. 3, Die hellenistischen und
rmischen Wohnhuser von Pergamon:
Unter besonderer Bercksichtigung der
Anlagen zwischen der Mittel- und der
Ostgasse, by Ulrike Wulf, with a contribution by
Carsten Meyer-Schlichtmann. Pp. xxi + 229, frontis-
piece 1, figs. 89, b&w pls. 23, color pl. 1. Walter
de Gruyter, Berlin 1999. DM 198. ISBN 3-11-
016412-4 (cloth).
These two recent volumes mark a welcome contribu-
tion to the ongoing publication of the German Archaeo-
logical Institutes long-standing excavations at Pergamon.
In the first, Wolfgang Radt, director of the project since
1971, provides a sorely needed and magnificently illus-
trated survey of all aspects of the site (expanding and
updating an earlier version published by DuMont Buch-
verlag, Cologne, in 1988). In the second, Ulrike Wulf
presents a selection of recently recovered housing, as
well as a synthesis of the domestic architecture from the
Hellenistic and Roman phases at the site. She does so in
the sort of detail we have come to expect from a mono-
graph in the series of final reports of Pergamon, as well
as other German excavations. (Those from Pergamon now
number more than 20 volumes in the AvP series, plus
more than a dozen individual Pergamenischen Forschunun-
gen.)
Radts overview of Pergamon summarizes the results of
work carried out at the site since excavation began in
1878. The presentation spans 21 chapters, beginning
with the rediscovery of the site and early travelers ac-
counts, a consideration of its physical setting, as well as
chapters on the mythological background and history of
the city down through its Byzantine phase. Ensuing sec-
tions present all aspects of Pergamene urban topogra-
phy, beginning with the development of the city walls
and plan. The five poorly preserved Hellenistic palaces
that crown the citadel are then treated. Here and else-
where we are reminded how the building programs of
various rulers, Eumenes II (r. 197159) and Attalos II (r.
159138) in particular, shaped the city. Subsequent chap-
ters deal with the upper and lower markets, houses and
shops, gymnasia and baths, the citys water supply, its
many sanctuaries (including, of course, the Altar of Zeus,
or Throne of Satan, as it is likely referred to in the Book
of Revelation, 2:1213). The citys heroa, theatre, stadi-
um, and amphitheater are discussed and illustrated, as
are the most notable graves explored there, from the
Hellenistic through Byzantine periods.
A chapter, Culture-Historical Sidelights, follows this
topographic, architecturally driven itinerary with brief
discussions of select aspects of Pergamene civilization.
This includes a consideration of famed scholars in resi-
dence under the Hellenistic kings (perhaps in the li-
brary recently posited as having been located along the
north side of the Athena sanctuary, 1658). Related to
the cultural program of the ruling dynasts is what amounts
to Radts identification of royal sculpture collections and
sculptural programs, particularly well represented in the
area of the Athena sanctuary, which is intimately con-
nected with the terrace of the Great Altar and Palace V.
This useful chapter closes with a brief treatment of the
economy of Pergamon, from its control and exploitation
of available natural resources (e.g., timber), to the man-
ufacture of goods ranging from ceramics (e.g., Pergamene
sigillata and Megarian bowls) to the widely esteemed per-
gament, a high quality vellum.
The volume continues with a very brief chapter on
Byzantine Pergamon (4th14th centuries), about which
we know a good deal historically and archaeologically,
thanks to the efforts of the recent so-called city excava-
tions in particular. A penultimate section deals with the
conservation, restoration, and presentation of ancient
Pergamon as well as traditional modern Bergama. The
project as directed under the author has paid special at-
tention to these matters, and finds perhaps its most elab-
orate undertaking in the restoration of portions of the
Trajaneum. The book concludes with an appropriate chap-
ter of biographical sketches of the successive directors of
the Pergamon excavations, Carl Humann (18391896),
Alexander Conze (18311914), Wilhelm Drpfeld (1853
1940), Theodor Wiegand (18641936), and Erich Boe-
hringer (18971971).
Endmatter includes a list of bibliographic abbreviations
used in the subsequent endnotes and is followed by a
subject bibliography of literature that features Pergamon.
Notes keyed to pages in the text, rather than referenced
there, provide the essential accompanying bibliography
as well as some ancillary discussion. Photograph credits, a
glossary for nonspecialist readers, and indices of person-
al names, places, and subjects round out the book. As
already noted, the standard of production for this vol-
ume is exceedingly high. It is copiously illustrated with
color and black and white photographs, many of the
former by Elisabeth Steiner, the excavation photogra-
pher, while the latter are drawn from the excavation ar-
chive going back to the 1880s. The maps, plans, and
reconstruction drawings are also excellent, and include
older as well as more recent renditions. Many are in col-
or. All are skillfully integrated into the text, referenced
throughout it, and thoughtfully captioned. (In fig. 111,
read Abb. 114 for Abb. 144). The utility of this book
for those outside the world of German language scholar-
ship, in addition to its sales, would, of course, be consid-
erably enhanced were it to be rendered into English.
A companion CD-ROM to Radts work is also available
(J. S et al., Pergamon: Geschichte und Monumente der an-
tiken Stadt [Stuttgart 2000]). While a copy was not pro-
vided to this reviewer, it has been reviewed by Markus
Sehlmeyer for H-Soz-u-Kult at http://hsozkult.geschichte.
hu-berlin.de/rezensio/digital/cdrom/multimed/2000/
mse1200a.htm. Finally, Radt, as well as Wulf, have con-
tributed in English pieces to the recent collection edit-
ed by H. Koester (Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods [Harris-
burg, Penn. 1998]).
Wulfs volume stands in contrast to Radts in that it is
probably going to be of most interest to, and useful for,
the specialist in domestic architecture. Fortunately, such
is this reviewer. Wulf provides a thorough if traditional
approach to the topic. Following a brief historical intro-
duction to the recovery of Pergamene houses, the first
148 pages are given over to the methodical presentation
of a triangular block of structures recovered during the
city excavations between 1973 and 1993. Located on the
slope above the Upper Gymnasium and the Demeter sanc-
tuary, the block in question lies upon and to the north of
the main road up the citadel, and is defined on its re-
maining two sides by the so-called middle and east lanes.
Covering approximately 2250 m
2
, it is divided for purpos-
es of presentation, as well as on the basis of observable
architectural distinctions, into five complexes. These
comprise a large peristyle house (complex VII; the court-
yard of which alone covers some 270 m
2
); a bath and its
900 m
2
reservoir (complex VIII); a smaller plot that was
occupied by a sequence of courtyard houses, a fountain
house, and workshop/storage spaces (complex IX, at ca.
150 m
2
); a smaller peristyle house (complex X, ca. 210
m
2
); and, terraced into the east corner of the block, a
series of small courtyard houses, shops and stores (amal-
gamated into complex XI).
Following her introduction, and prior to presentation
of the building sequence proper, Wulf proceeds to locate
the area within the site (I.1), discuss construction mate-
rials and techniques (I.2), and the streets and lanes
bounding the area (I.3). The recoverable sequence of
buildings here is then treated individually by complex
and construction phases (I.4I.11). These are accompa-
nied by a series of schematic plans and reconstructed
elevations (spread across the length and breadth of the
volume), folding state plans (at the end), and photo-
graphs (also at the end). Useful excursuses are append-
ed to the presentation of the bath complex and fountain
house, which discuss private baths at Roman Pergamon
generally, and fountains and fountain houses at the site
as well. In the main, the datable phases of these struc-
tures span the first century B.C. to the fourth century
A.D. Subsequently, the area was extensively overbuilt by
the Byzantine settlement. While earlier remains are
present, in spite of being less well preserved and hence
more ephemeral, there is evidence for a third-century
sequence of shops and stores belonging to a rectangular
block lying beneath but oriented rather differently than
the triangular block that succeeds it.
Overarching syntheses come in parts II and III of
Wulfs volume. In part II (41 pages in length) she takes
up the domestic architecture from the site generally, pre-
senting attested material and that which has received
only scant, if any, previous attention. At the same time,
this is essentially a discussion grounded in typology. Start-
ing from the two types of peristyle houses identified at
the site by W. Stammnitz (D. Pinkwart and W. Stammnitz,
AvP 14: Peristylhuser westlich der Unteren Agora [Berlin
1984] 3642), Wulf goes on to expand and refine the
classification of Pergamene houses. Importantly, she in-
cludes here not just the dwellings of the rich and fa-
mous, but those of the middle and lower classes. First,
she provides a brief discussion and schematic plans of 18
modest courtyard houses accompanied by a useful table
of comparative data (II.12; with table 1 and fig. 71). It
remains up to the reader whether to accept her identifi-
cation of pastas as well as prostas type houses at Perga-
mon, as opposed to seeing a more flexible category of
architectural types and nomenclature present here. But
it is significant to see the longevity of these varieties of
courtyard houses down into the Imperial period.
Wulf then turns to the peristyle houses (II.35). Fol-
lowing a presentation by area of 16 examples, in addition
to the two already considered as complexes VII and X,
she turns to a consideration of their principle features.
Here the author takes into account the varying sizes,
nature of external access, the peristyles proper, presence
of upper stories, and disposition of principle and second-
ary rooms. It is here also that she modifies the scheme of
peristyles with rooms on three sides (U-frmig) versus those
with rooms on only two (L-frmig), into one based on the
presence and arrangement of three room groups, halls,
and main rooms. Thus, while there are indeed recur-
rent principles of house organization and layout, these
occur across a great variety of peristyle houses (cf. table
2, where essential data on each are presented), from
quite small examples, to the palaces of the upper cita-
del. All these aspects of the houses at Pergamon are cer-
tainly interesting, but do not necessarily offer any new
insights into the social significance of representational
private architecture in the Hellenistic or Roman periods.
Part III of Wulfs volume (at 23 pages in length) reca-
pitulates elements of part I, wherein the entire block
between the middle and east lanes is considered in di-
achronic fashion. However, this takes place against a more
explicitly historical backdrop, from before Philetairos (r.
281261) down to late antiquity, here integrated with
the building phases presented in part I. It also takes into
consideration how this area reflects change over time
across the overall urban fabric of Pergamon. The discus-
sion is accompanied by a series of useful phase plans (figs.
7784), referred to throughout part I as well, that docu-
ment the evolving configuration of the area. A succinct
conclusion rounds off the volume, and sums up the au-
thors position that the houses of Hellenistic and Roman
Pergamon reflect its fortunes just as much as the public
architecture that embellishes the site (214). Indeed, the
city excavations have done a great deal to clarify the
urban development of the city below the acropolis, a sub-
ject to which Wulf has also made important contributions
(cf. Der Stadtplan von Pergamon: Zur Entwicklung und
Stadtstruktur von der Neugrndung unter Philetairos bis
in sptantike Zeit, IstMitt 44 [1994] 13575). It is also
notable that the houses remain indebted to a Hellenic
tradition of domestic architecture throughout their
lifespan, rather than reflecting Italic influences. Arti-
facts from the area under consideration make an appear-
ance in a brief 14-page pottery catalogue by C. Meyer-
Schlichtmann appended to parts IIII, where they are
drafted into service by helping to establish the chronol-
ogy of the building phases already presented.
The Pergamon excavations as represented by these
two volumes stand as testimony to how the big digs can
responsibly disseminate their results in a timely fashion
to both the lay and professional communities. In this
regard, and in many others, they remain a model for
emulation.
Bradley A. Ault
state university of new york at buffalo
338 millard fillmore academic complex
buffalo, new york 14261-0011
clarbrad@acsu.buffalo.edu
Der thronende Zeus: Eine Untersuchung zur
statuarischen Ikonographie des Gottes in
der sptklassischen und hellenistischen
Kunst, by Stavros Vlizos. (Internationale
Archologie 62.) Pp. xiii + 145, pls. 30. Marie
Leidorf, Rahden 1999. DM 95. ISSN 0939-0561X;
ISBN 3-89646-334-9 (cloth).
This study of the sculptural iconography of the en-
throned Zeus began life as a Ph.D. thesis, as is evident
still in its cautious approach and labored argumentation.
The subtitle is somewhat misleading, since it implies that
the greatest image of the seated Zeus in ancient sculp-
ture, the Zeus at Olympia by Pheidias, is not included,
whereas a discussion of its likely appearance makes up
the useful chapter 2 (521), so supplying a model against
which to judge the later works. More seriously, while it is
asserted that the period under consideration is the late
Classical and Hellenistic era, the greater part of the sur-
viving material evidence is late Republican or Imperial
Roman. We therefore are in the danger area of Kopienkri-
tik, and whether or not one can begin to accept the
authors conclusions depends upon the extent to which
one believes that the sculptural evidence reflects in one
way or another lost Greek originals.
At first sight the material does not look promising.
The sculptures are a mixed bunch, with a few of quality
(such as the Getty Zeus), many others of smaller format
and variously damaged, and a handful of Greek votive
reliefs. The five principal categories into which the sculp-
tures are grouped all show considerable divergences of
detail, such that the author feels that he cannot use the
term Typus (Type), but opts instead for the ancient Greek
word Schema (scheme in his translation). The view tak-
en is that the schemata, which are categorized by pose
and drapery arrangement, are later (Roman) variations
of basic statuary forms (Grundformen) of the second cen-
tury B.C., which in turn, it is alleged, constituted Helle-
nistic reworkings of prototypes (Vorlager or Vorbilder) of
the fourth century.
The detailed argumentation for this backward train of
events is found in chapter 3 (21110), where the five
schemata are discussed and named Lyon, Rom, Malibu,
Pergamon, and Konya after the museums in which princi-
pal sculptures are found. The individual examples are thor-
oughly analyzed, as well as being presented in catalogue
form (12243), and cautious conclusions are drawn with
regard to chronology, style, and artistic and religious con-
texts. The only category felt to derive in any close way
from the Olympian Zeus of Pheidias is the Lyon schema,
which is believed to reflect a Greek cult-statue of the early
fourth century, which itself drew on the Pheidian Zeus.
The possibility that this was the Zeus Meilichios statue at
Argos is considered, but the occurrence of versions of the
image on Attic votive reliefs is a complicating factor. The
other four schemata are held to originate later in the
fourth century or after, on account of their looser poses
and differing drapery arrangements. I found the Rom sche-
ma unconvincing as a group with only two divergent mar-
ble statues and two bronze statuettes, but the Malibu group
holds together, and the discussion of this category (56
82) is a helpful explanation of the art-historical place of
the fine ex-Marbury Hall statue in the Getty Museum.
The similarity to the Zeus Sosipolis from Priene and the
enthroned Zeus on the Lagina frieze is noted, and there
is tentative acceptance that the schema may have been
influential upon the Domitianic statue of Jupiter Capitoli-
nus in Rome. The more mobile Pergamon and Konya sche-
mata show cross-fertilization, and both are taken back to
basic forms in the later second and first centuries.
Three torsos of uncertain grouping, but possible com-
mon origin, form the short chapter 4, after which a four-
page conclusion (1148) reviews the carefully drawn in-
terpretations. Short summaries are provided in English
and modern Greek; that in English deteriorates notice-
ably and should have been checked by a native speaker.
There are adequate illustrations of all the sculptures un-
der discussion in 30 plates.
In sum, this is a careful and thoroughly researched
piece of scholarly work, well organized and presented
with clarity. My view is that the extent of the influence
from the Pheidian Zeus at Olympia on all later seated
statues of the god is underestimated by the author. Also
the extent to which some of the schemata can be held to
go back to the fourth century is questionable. But it is a
competent and useful piece of scholarship within the
Kopienkritik tradition.
Geoffrey Waywell
institute of classical studies
university of london
senate house
malet street
london wc1e 7hu
united kingdom
geoffrey.waywell@kcl.ac.uk
Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. USA 35: The
Cleveland Museum of Art 2, by Jenifer Neils and
Gisela Walberg. Pp. 64, pls. 57. Cleveland Museum
of Art, Cleveland 2000. $100. ISBN 0-940717-61-
1 (cloth).
This second fascicule of vases in the Cleveland Muse-
um of Art features 57 complete vessels and one frag-
ment. Aside from 19 Cypriot pots, acquired from the Ces-
nola collection in 1916, and 3 Mycenaean (2 of them ex-
Cesnola), the remaining 36 works were accessioned be-
tween 1971, when the first Cleveland fascicule was pub-
lished, and 1993. The earlier volume, by Cedric Boulter,
covered Greek and Etruscan vases of every period and a
smattering of Arretine. The new fascicule, by Jenifer Neils
and Gisela Walberg, is equally eclectic, encompassing
nearly the entire gamut of Greek and Etruscan painted
pottery. The Cleveland collection is relatively small for a
museum of its size, but the quality is high, both artistical-
ly and in terms of iconographic interest. Most of these
vessels were acquired during the curatorship of Arielle
Kozloff, whose successor, Michael Bennett, produced the
excellent profile drawings that accompany somebut not
allof the entries. The book is dedicated to Boulter and
another lamented Ohioan, Kurt Luckner, former curator
at the Toledo Museum of Art.
Luigi Palma di Cesnola, American consul in Cyprus and
first director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was the
source of many core collections of Cypriot antiquities in
American museums. The examples that Walberg describes
represent well-known types from the Early Bronze Age
to the end of the Archaic period. The three Mycenaean
pieces are also unexceptional. Walbergs entries are thor-
ough but succinct, in most cases limiting comparanda to
one example. The lack of catalogue numbers and the
subordination of the plate references in the entries make
it somewhat difficult to match plates with entries. Over-
all, however, the book is clearly and simply designed, and
the entries are well organized. The plates are good and
there are many details, though one could wish for more
in some cases.
The Greek, Etruscan, and South Italian vases have been
studied by Neils. Her entries are longer, offering a wealth
of comparanda, references, and iconographic observa-
tions. This is a trend in recent fasciculesone thinks of
the influential CVA London 9 (1993), by Dyfri Williams
and although there are those who prefer the CVA to
contain just facts, others, including this reviewer, prefer
a more detailed discussion. Most of the vases have been
published more than once and there are no new attribu-
tions. There are some fascinating newcomers, however,
such as a Faliscan red-figure kylix of the Clusium Group
(pls. 8788), with a bold depiction of Artemis grappling a
stag. The notion (G. Ferrari, AJA 104 [2000] 1368) that
scholarship would best be served by excluding such new
material from the CVA is self-defeating at best.
The rotund body and short neck of a Corinthian col-
umn-krater (pls. 5758) declare as clearly as the style of
its dueling hoplites (Achilles and Memnon?) that it is a
relatively early example of the shape, placed by Amyx at
the transition between Early and Middle Corinthian (ca.
600590 B.C.). East Greece is represented by two Archa-
ic plastic oil bottles (pl. 59.17): an aryballos in the shape
of a heron, surely the finest of its kind, and another in
the form of a truncated monkey, a fitting gift from ani-
mal-lover Leo Mildenberg and a rare and appealing type
(to the three others cited, add a fourth in a New York
private collection). The earliest Attic vase is a colorful
Nikosthenic amphora (pls. 6062), signed by the potter
Nikosthenes and decorated with prancing komasts and a
conga-line of satyrs and nymphs; the facsimile of the
inscription is rendered with painstaking fidelity, as are
those in other entries. A contemporary dinos (pls. 63
65) from the Circle of the Antimenes Painter is unbro-
ken but lacks its stand. The glossy black body is set off by
bichrome ornament on the shoulder and outer rim, and
there is black-figure decoration both on the top of the
rim (Theseus vs. the Minotaur, Herakles vs. Nessos, bat-
tling warriors) and around its inner circumference (five
warships, a decorative conceit known on other dinoi of
this type). Another black-figure work (pls. 6668), a hy-
dria, attributed to the Antimenes Painter himself, has a
frontal chariot of the usual type but with exceptionally
beautiful horses, flanked by a pair of particularly danger-
ous looking hoplites.
The red-figure vases are of even higher quality, not
excluding a small krater fragment (pl. 70.1) with an in-
scribed head of Aglauros, daughter of Kekrops, attribut-
ed to the Nausicaa Painter. Only one kylix is catalogued,
a much-published eye-cup by Psiax (pls. 7577), contem-
porary with the black-figure works mentioned above. On
one side, two warriors rush toward a third, who falls
wounded between the eyes. Schefold suggested he is
Hektor and that the kitharist on the reverse is singing
the tale of his death at the hands of Achilles. The dying
warrior turns his face toward the viewer, but the pathos is
mitigated by the apparent trouble Psiax had in drawing
the mans muscular belly, which resembles a sack of pota-
toes. A lekythos with Athena killing the giant Enkelados
(pls. 7071) has been published as the work of Douris,
but Robert Guy has long maintained that the satyr and
maenads on the shoulder are by the Berlin Painter and
that the principal scene is by the same artist who painted
a hydria in Boston (inv. 98.878; ARV
2
1596) that, like
the lekythos, is inscribed Lykos kalos. Dietrich von Both-
mer has recognized the same hand in an unpublished
calyx-krater in the collection of Shelby White and Leon
Levy, also depicting Athena and Enkelados, and attributes
all three vases to the early Berlin Painter. Neils agrees
that the shoulder is by the Berlin Painter and seems to
support (as does this reviewer) Bothmers attribution of
the principal scene, although she never says so explicit-
ly. In this vase and the White/Levy krater, and in such
works as the fragmentary calyx-krater in the Getty with
Ajax carrying Achilles (Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Mu-
seum 6 [2000] 15986), we see the young Berlin Painter
experimenting with a style combining a certain precious-
ness of detail with the bold foreshortening of selected
figures.
Nearly a century later, the Meidias Painter decorated a
squat lekythos (pls. 7274) with a complicated depiction
of Athena acting as midwife to Ge at the birth of Erich-
thonios. Looking on are the daughters of Kekrops and
the retinue of Aphrodite, languid beauties whose wet
chitons and spangled himatia epitomize the Rich Style of
the later fifth century. The remaining Attic vases attest
to Kozloffs love of plastic vases, amply demonstrated
throughout this fascicule. On a janiform kantharos (pl.
78), the heads of a satyr and an elderly African male are
uniquely, if not surprisingly, addorsed. The photos of a
donkey-head rhyton are mercifully poor (pls. 8081),
considering the quality of the courting scenes on the lip,
substandard work by the Eretria Painter (for more on
donkey symbolism, see B. Cohen, ed., Not the Classical
Ideal [Leiden 2000] 4370). Far better is a fragmentary
ram-head rhyton (pl. 79), attributed to the Brygos Paint-
er, with a symposium painted on the lip, and, on either
side of the handle, a winged maenad and a hairy-chest-
ed satyr playing the flutes. Here additional views of the
entire vase would have been welcome.
Two of the four Etruscan vases are plastic, including an
important Italo-Geometric bird askos (pls. 8283), whose
Euboean-influenced decoration associates it with a work-
shop active in Vulci at the end of the eighth century B.C.
The idea that the shape was inspired by Villanovan bird
askoi is reasonable, implicitly arguing against H.-P. Islers
suggestion that vases from this workshop were made by a
Euboean potter (Ceramisti greci in Etruria in epoca tar-
dogeometrica, NumAntCl 12 [1983] 23). A Pontic oi-
nochoe (pls. 8485) features Herakles and Pholos and a
secondary frieze with the cattle of Geryon, the theft of
which, according to Steisichoros, preceded Herakles
encounter with the old centaur.
Among the South Italian vases are four outstanding
works. An Apulian situla (pls. 9899) shows Bellero-
phon and Pegasus attacking the female Chimaera, who
is defended by a rock-throwing satyr and Pan (the art-
ists conception of the wild Solymians?). A volute-krater
by the Darius Painter (pls. 9497) has a grand, split-
level scene of the departure of Amphiaraos, who ex-
tracts from his woeful son Alkmaion a vow to avenge his
coming death on the boys mother, Eriphyle. An earlier
Apulian bell-krater by the Choregos Painter (pls. 92
93) is painted with a unique and, indeed, astonishingly
large head of Dionysos in three-quarter view, flanked
by capering phlyax actors, one in the role of Pappasile-
nos (of the possible explanations proposed, the least
likely is that the gods head may have been an actual
stage prop rather than a symbolic image of the the-
ater). A magnificent Lucanian calyx-krater of the Poli-
coro Group (pls. 89-91), ca. 400 B.C., shows Medea fly-
ing away in her dragon-chariot, surrounded by a rayed
nimbus, while Jason approaches the altar on which lie
the bodies of his murdered sons. A grieving nurse and
paidagogos pull their hair, watched by hook-nosed Fu-
ries (more at home in scenes of Orestes at Delphi). On
the reverse, Telephos threatens the infant Orestes
before an outraged Agamemnon, who is restrained by
Clytemnestra. As Neils points out, both scenes may have
been inspired by plays of Euripides: Medea (431 B.C.)
and Telephos (438 B.C.). If the krater were a special
commission it would help explain the unusual place-
ment of mythological scenes on both sides of the vase
and the unique combination of subsidiary ornaments. A
notable contrast to the scene with Medea is found on a
later volute-krater by the Darius Painter (Princeton
y1983-13; RVAp Suppl. I, 74, 78, no. 18/41a, pl. 12),
where Medea has brought her children not to Corinth,
but to Eleusis, and the boys, quite unharmed, sit on the
altar as suppliants rather than sacrifices.
The remaining South Italian works are minor but not
without interest: for example, an unusually elaborate
Pagenstecher lekythos (pl. 102), a black-figure type pe-
culiar to fourth century Campania, in particular Paestum
(a unique, Paestan red-figure lebes gamikos in a private
collection has a Pagenstecher lekythos affixed to its lid);
an Apulian plastic guttus in the shape of a frog (pl. 100.4
5; to those mentioned, add an unpublished example in
Princeton [y1987-54], and another, in black-glaze, in the
Petit Palais; CVA France 15, Petit Palais 1, pl. 47.10); an
exquisite black-glaze mug with horizontal fillets (pl.
105.5), incorrectly called an oinochoe of shape 8 (in-
stead, the type, unknown in Attic black-glaze, reflects a
class of South Italian bronze situla, the cista a cordoni; see
J.W. Hayes, Greek, Roman, and Related Metalware in the
Royal Ontario Museum [Toronto 1984] no. 20); and a Si-
cilian plastic vase in the form of a pig, from Heldrings
Randazzo Group, whose pigs and mice some, including
this reviewer, have speculated may have functioned as
baby feeders (one is given pause, however, by the prom-
inent painted phallos on a plastic mouse in the art mar-
ket: J.-D. Cahn, Das Theater und seine Welt, cat. 12 [De-
cember 2000] no. 33).
This useful, well-written, and thoroughly researched
fascicule is a solid contribution to the CVA, and both
authors deserve our thanks, along with the participating
staff of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
J. Michael Padgett
the art museum
princeton university
princeton, new jersey 08544
mpadgett@princeton.edu
Scavi francesi sul Palatino: Le indagini di
Pietro Rosa per Napoleone III (18611870),
by Maria Antonietta Tomei. (Roma antica: Collec-
tion publie par lcole Franaise de Rome et la
Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma 5.) Pp.
555, figs. 346, pls. 16. cole Franaise de Rome
and La Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma,
Rome 1999. ISBN 3-7283-0604-4 (cloth).
The unwary reader who might suppose from the title
that the present handsome volume bears some relation
to the archaeological investigations carried out in recent
years in the Vigna Barberini by members of the cole
Franaise should be advised at once that there is no con-
nection whatsoever. The excavations documented here
were French only in so far as they were initiated and
financed by Napoleon III. They were in a different sec-
tor of the Palatine, with an entirely different purpose
and program, and were the work of Italians.
In 1861 Napoleon III bought the Orti Farnesiani in
Rome from Francesco II of Naples. Napoleon aspired to
imperial grandeur, and for him, as for Bonaparte, impe-
rial grandeur was synonymous with Rome of the Cae-
sars. The Orti had been created by Vignola for Cardinal
Alessandro Farnese and covered the western height of
the Palatine together with the northern slope toward
the Sacra Via and Forum and broad lower gardens. Here
in the 18th century in what was to prove the Domus
Augustana, excavations by Bianchini had recovered the
magnificent basalt statues now in Parma, and it was clear
that the gardens overlay, at least in part, the Imperial
palace. Pietro Rosa (18101891), a Roman architect and
topographer, a pupil of Canina, was then made director
of archaeological work there with the title Conserva-
tore del Palazzo dei Cesari. He had already distinguished
himself with his Carta archeologica di Lazio (completed
in part by 1857; unpublished but available for the schol-
arly world), a work universally admired by the scholarly
world, and had drawn the maps to accompany Napo-
leons Histoire de Jules Csar (Paris 1865). He accepted
the challenge with enthusiasm and for a decade devot-
ed himself and the efforts of a surprisingly small staff
and work force to a series of discoveries that stunned
the world.
Then in 1870, following the defeat of the French at
Sedan and the collapse of the government of Napoleon,
the Italian state was able to purchase the Orti Farnesiani,
thanks to the efforts of Rosa, and with the change of
government in Rome from papal to royal, Rosa, now a
popular hero, was elected senator and made superinten-
dent of excavations and monuments for Rome and its
province. He undertook a broad spectrum of projects at
sites such as the Forum Romanum, Ostia, and Hadrians
villa at Tivoli, but his ascendancy soon brought him into
conflict over matters of methodology with other emi-
nent archaeologists, notably Lanciani and Fiorelli, and
in 1875, with the institution of the Direzione Generale
per i Musei e gli Scavi under Fiorelli, Rosas star declined.
Although he continued to hold an official position to
the end of his life, his last years were spent in embit-
tered obscurity.
This explains in part why there was never any com-
prehensive publication of Rosas work on the Palatine.
Accounts of work in progress appeared from time to
time in the Annali dellInstituto, but these were brief
and without adequate illustration. At his death, howev-
er, Rosa left two enormous bundles of documentation
of his work that have passed into the possession of the
Biblioteca Nazionale, one entitled Appunti, the other
rough drafts of the reports that he dispatched to Paris
at regular intervals. The former consists of largely un-
dated papers and includes disquisitions on the inter-
pretation of passages of topographical interest in an-
cient authors, rough sketches of inscriptions and sculp-
tures, and daybook entries as work progressed. It was
marshaled by Rosa into loose categories, in part by ge-
ography and in part by date. The other sheaf was on
official paper properly headed and dated but intended
in final form to be accompanied by accurately drawn
plans and sections, artists renderings of the remains
of decorations, and albums of photographs, a labori-
ously assembled documentation of every aspect of the
work, not only excavation but consolidation and resto-
ration, and accounts of expenses. Although these were
intended eventually for Napoleon personally, they were
addressed to his agent, Lon Renier, himself an ar-
chaeologist and accomplished epigraphist, and conse-
quently do not fight shy of technical matters and
learned discussion. Despite the present authors best
efforts, she has been unable to locate this precious
trove of material in Paris; it would constitute, in effect,
the official report that is missing.
The present work is an attempt to bring order out of
chaos, to blend material from both of Rosas bundles into
a coherent narrative, eliminating duplications and digres-
sions. The task was complicated by the difficulty of deci-
phering Rosas hand, which was not always possible, by
the numerous cancellations and insertions encountered
especially in the notes, and by repeated reference to
missing drawings and documents. It has taken the author
many years of patient labor. Wherever possible she quotes
directly from Rosas writing and between these passages
supplies the connections and other information required
for comprehension. This makes for rather broken read-
ing, and occasionally one is not quite sure whose voice
one is hearing; it is, however, the best solution for a
difficult problem. She has also added very extensive foot-
notes that bring the text abreast of our current knowl-
edge and scholarship. Thus, for example, while she nev-
er changes Rosas identification of the temple of Jupiter
Victor to that of Apollo that prevails today, the reader is
never left at sea as to what is under discussion. Her bibli-
ography is enormous, covering the whole span between
Rosas day and the present, and is meticulously and ex-
haustively exploited.
The core of the work is arranged topographically and
to some extent, although not strictly, chronologically, in
part following Rosas marshaling of his notes, in part the
topographical divisions that have emerged. Seven main
chapters are broken into numerous subsections. These
are preceded by a chapter on Rosas life and career and
an illuminating introduction to the excavations and fol-
lowed by chapters on the presentation of the excava-
tions to the public and the Palatine museum, the materi-
al sent to Paris, and three appendices.
It is impossible in a review to give an adequate in-
ventory of the wealth of material and scholarship pre-
sented here, but the reader will be especially grateful
for the illustrations, which are numerous and superbly
reproduced. Not only does the author seem to have
ransacked every photographic archive in Rome for
19th-century illustrations of the excavations and finds,
but she has also provided a wealth of unfamiliar artists
views, architects drawings, and plans. These are not
only strategically placed and make the text readily ac-
cessible, but are in themselves worth the price of the
book.
L. Richardson, jr
p.o. box 90103
duke university
durham, north carolina 27708-0103
classics@duke.edu
Lexicon topographicum urbis Romae. Vol. 5, T
Z. Addenda et corrigenda, edited by Eva
Margareta Steinby. Pp. 370, figs. 114. Edizioni Qua-
sar, Rome 1999. $165, Lit 260,000. ISBN 88-7140-
162-X (cloth).
The penultimate fifth volume of this lexicon completes
the alphabetical entries with the letters T to Z. To these
are added 72 pages of Addenda and Corrigenda, and to-
pographical and prosopographical indices, plus an index
of popes, but no index of inscriptions or ancient authors.
Like its predecessors, the fifth volume is the work of an
extensive family of scholars; there are occasional entries
in French, German, English, and Latin, but the over-
whelming majority are in Italian. Here, however, one
misses the participation of some of the most respected
names in the study of ancient Roman topography. Many
of the plum articles are by Filippo Coarelli, whose views
on most of the problems in topography have already been
aired in a series of hefty tomes. Blocks of others are
largely the work of a single contributor; almost all the
entries for the various viae, for example, have been writ-
ten by Nigel Pollard, and almost all those for the vici by
Claudia Lega.
There is not a great deal that is new or revolutionary,
but the articles are ample and discursive, allowing on
occasion for the inclusion of contrasting views and dis-
cussion of disputed points. Along the way a great wealth
of interesting information is dispensed, but the discur-
siveness makes it sometimes hard to find the particular
point or points for which one is consulting the work.
Although there is no set pattern for entries, the an-
cient testimonia are usually presented after a general
definition and description with a critical evaluation of
their interpretation and importance, and these are fol-
lowed by a history of the monument or area through
late antiquity and into modern times, with particular
attention to changes in use and to antiquarian interest
and excavation. Detailed description of the surviving
remains and reconstruction of the original appearance
follows, along with any modification it underwent in
antiquity. References to illustrations are conveniently
placed in the margins at appropriate points, but since
these include illustrations in all five volumes, one must
have a complete set of the lexicon at hand whenever
one consults it. Moreover, since the text is liberally pep-
pered with references to CIL (Corpus inscriptionum Lat-
inarum), IGUR (Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae), ILL-
RP (Inscriptiones latinae liberae rei publicae), PIR (Prosopo-
graphia imperii romani), PLRE (Prosopography of the Later
Roman Empire), RE (Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopdie der
klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, and VZ (Valentini and
Zucchetti, Codice topographico della citt di Roma [Rome
19401953]), as well as the abbreviations for numerous
journals, one must have a good research library available
whenever doing more than a casual investigation of a
point or problem. A bibliography is usually set off at the
end of an entry and in smaller type. Commonly this
covers only work of the last century and a quarter, but it
is very thorough and one of the most valuable features
of the work; occasionally it ranges back to the 16th or
17th century. The latter is especially true of the entries
for early Christian monuments.
Most entries are exemplary in their coverage of the
subject and the evidence and in the balance of views
presented, to achieve which more than one entry is some-
times presented for an especially thorny problem. One
might single out for special commendation the entries
for Velabrum (A. Ammerman, F. Guidobaldi and C. An-
gelelli, and P. Liverani) and Velia (F. Coarelli), and A. La
Regina must certainly be right in his brilliant deduction
that Procopiuss Vivarium was the Amphitheatrum Cas-
trense under an alternate name. Most of the fairly nu-
merous entries for Christian monuments, especially the
tituli, do little to enlarge our understanding of ancient
topography, since these tend to disappear without leav-
ing a trace, and their original location is apt to be only
very vaguely known. And a number of other items of
doubtful location or even existence are included in the
interest of completeness.
One must applaud, however, the inclusion among the
addenda of accounts of the latest work, often still very
much in progress and consequently offered provisionally
and tentatively. This is especially true of the entries for
the area of Circus Flaminius and the sequence of the
Imperial fora, although one has a hard time swallowing
the entrance portico proposed for the Forum Traiani as
architecture.
Only occasionally is an article disappointing. In de-
scribing the Theatrum, Marcelli Paola Ciancio Rossetto
gives a detailed account of the minutiae of materials and
construction for every sector of the cavea but avoids ad-
dressing the burning questions that bedevil our under-
standing of the theatre: the change in location from
Caesars original project that would have built it against
the Capitoline hill, the lack of a scaenae frons of the usual
sort in its representation on the Marble Plan and what
this might imply about the spectacles offered there, and
the function of the grand apsidal halls that flanked the
stage building. Moreover, for the great curving apron
shown behind the stage building she offers only the ad-
mittedly inadequate suggestion that it might have been
a bulwark against erosion by the Tiber. Also in Giuseppi-
na Ghinis entry on the Thermae Agrippae she takes
refuge in interpreting the original laconicum built by
Agrippa in 25 B.C. as having been a covered palaestra,
since it antedated the construction of the Aqua Virgo by
several years. But for Vitruvius (5.10) a laconicum was
already a dry sweat-bath, and I can find no use elsewhere
of the word laconicum for a palaestra. Moreover, evidence
is accumulating that laconica unaccompanied by wet baths
were common in the Republican period. Agrippas impor-
tant contributions to Roman bathing need to be recon-
sidered.
But my chief reservation about this work is in regard to
its physical form. The long lines of the large octavo page
(9" 11") make for difficult reading, especially as they
are broken at frequent intervals with abbreviations and
parentheses. They might better have been set in double
columns. And the illustrations fall short of the standard
set by the text. Despite the large format, they have of-
ten been reduced in scale to the point that details have
bled together and legends are impossible to decipher
even with a magnifying glass. Palladios plan of the Ther-
mae Constantinianae appears much dirtier than it is shown
in my copy of Zorzi. Many plans lack adequate legends
and require constant reference back to the text to be
interpreted. Such photographs as are included, especial-
ly those of coins, tend to be excessively dark. It seems
inexcusable in a work of this importance and of this price
that the illustrations should be so poor when so many
Italian publishers are producing work that rivals in quali-
ty any produced elsewhere in the world.
L. Richardson, jr
p.o. box 90103
duke university
durham, north carolina 27708-0103
classics@duke.edu
Vie colonnate: Paesaggi urbani del mondo
antico, by Giorgio Bejor. (RdA Suppl. 22.) Pp. 143,
figs. 98, pls. 16. Giorgio Bretschneider, Rome
1999. Lit 450,000. ISSN 0392-0895; ISBN 88-7689-
154-4 (paper).
This monograph is primarily about colonnaded streets
rather than about such streets as urban landscapes. Among
its many acknowledged points of departure, W.M. Mac-
Donalds The Architecture of the Roman Empire. Vol. 2, An
Urban Appraisal (New Haven 1982) is conspicuously ab-
sent from the endnotes, although not from the bibliog-
raphy. MacDonalds characterization and examination of
colonnaded streets as urban armature and connective
architecture implicitly underpins Bejors argument that
colonnaded streets were fundamental toand indeed
synonymous withthe ancient urban landscape, as much
for their decor as for their utilitas.
Bejor amplifies the work of his predecessors in his ex-
tensive use of recently published excavation reports. In
his view, a colonnaded street was not merely a street with
porticoes. Rather, colonnaded streets usually operated as
part of a network; they were thoroughfares and arter-
iesoften the urban segment of a major road or trade
routeor else processional ways connecting sanctuaries
to other parts of cities. Extraordinary length and width
were typical of colonnaded streets, which were normally
paved, hundreds of meters long, and bordered by side-
walks, porticoes, and shops. Arches, tetrapylons, nymphaea,
and the like at major points of articulation completed
this ensemble. Most importantly, colonnaded streets were
part of a unified conception and plan. For this reason,
Bejor observes, such networks developed in cities more
fully after major destructions and were, because of their
enormous expense, sponsored by wealthy patrons, rulers,
or the emperor. The majority of the most salient exam-
ples are to be seen in Syria after A.D. 115. Seemingly
infinite files of columns lining wide streets certainly con-
tributed to the general air of urbanization and must have
given visitors the impression that they had truly arrived;
however, colonnades were as important for their func-
tionality as for the landscape they created. These streets
and their porticoes, the author argues, formed the com-
mercial heart of ancient cities. Colonnaded streets were,
in his view, a natural outgrowth of the Greek stoa and, as
a concept, primarily a fixture of the Hellenized eastern
empire.
The work is divided into 14 chapters, an introduction
and conclusion, and two appendices. Proceeding both
geographically and chronologically, Bejor begins with a
chapter on Antioch on the Orontes, usually acknowledged
as the first city with a colonnaded street in the true sense.
There follow six chapters on evolutionary phases of the
concept in cities in Asia Minor, on Syrian cities possess-
ing networks of colonnaded streets, and on the diffusion
of what Bejor calls the Syrian model, and a further six
chapters that discuss other examples around the empire.
A final chapter traces the late antique and post-antique
legacy of colonnaded streets.
This monograph constitutes a positive contribution to
continuing discussion about the important but somewhat
underexamined role of colonnaded streets in ancient
Roman cities. Bejors investigation of nearly 100 exam-
ples is detailed but not exhaustively so. The 98 plans, 16
plates, and catalogue (appendix 2) of selected cities are
helpful, although regional maps showing pertinent cit-
ies would be a welcome addition. At an astonishing
450,000 lire this monograph may not, unfortunately, find
its way to many libraries, let alone to personal collec-
tions.
Alison B. Griffith
university of canterbury
christchurch new zealand
a.griffith@clas.canterbury.ac.nz
Chiragan, Aphrodismas, Konstantinopel: Zur
mythologischen Skulptur der Sptantike, by
Marianne Bergmann. (Palilia 7.) Pp. 81, pls. 87.
Ludwig Reichert, Wiesbaden 1999. DM 68, Euro
34.77. ISBN 3-89500-123-6 (paper).
This book makes an important contribution to the cur-
rent revision of the final stage of ancient sculpture. Tra-
ditional terminology has turned out to cause problems
when dealing with the type of sculpture under discus-
sion. The old term copies has been abandoned as hard-
ly any piece is, in the true sense of the word, a Roman
copy of a Greek original. German scholars have been
inclined to speak about Idealskulptur, while the Anglo-
Saxon world has focused rather on the function, there-
fore labeling the type mythological sculpture. Others
(like myself) have used the more vague phrase sculp-
ture in the Classical tradition. Recently, scholars have
tended to use ideal sculpture and mythological sculp-
ture synonymously, which aptly illustrates an ongoing
process.
Two decades ago the old order still prevailed. Basically
it was stated that copying, that is, continued production
of sculpture in the Classical or Greco-Roman tradition,
ceased in the early years of the third century A.D. Fol-
lowing a chaotic century, Constantine the Great became
emperor over a much changed society. The Roman world
became Christian and the demand for traditional, pagan
sculpture existed no longer. Research within recent years
has proven this picture wrong. Sculpture in the Classical
tradition died hard and at least 200 years should be added
to its lifespan.
The authors aim is to establish further evidence in
support of this new picture so that we can eventually
write the story of the final stage of ancient sculpture in
the Classical tradition. The fourth and fifth centuries
constitute the chronological framework. To achieve this
goal the author discusses various groups of sculpture, some
important sculptural settings, and individual pieces of
sculpture related to this material.
In the introduction the author gives an illuminating
presentation of the history of this field of research and it
is possible to follow the development in creating this
new picture. However, there is no speculation about the
strange fact that the same results could have been estab-
lished 100 years ago, had the right questions been asked
or had interdisciplinarity prevailed.
Crucial to the theme of the book is the discussion of
the so-called Esquiline group, found in Rome and ac-
quired by the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen in
1893. This large ensemble (eight to 10 pieces originally)
of life-size divinities was manufactured for an unlocated
suburban villa on the Esqiline Hill in Rome by Aphrodi-
sian sculptors (as we are informed by the inscriptions on
the plinths). Conventionally, the sculptures have been
dated on stylistic criteria to the second century. But in
1982 Charlotte Rouech suggested, on the basis of the
inscriptions, that they should be dated instead to the
late Constantinian period. The year before, Elaine Gaz-
da had published a small-scale statue of Ganymede and
the Eagle found in Carthage, and she dated it to the age
of Augustine. The old order began to crumble!
Bergmann includes five settings of sculpture, all bear-
ing the mark of the so-called School of Aphrodisias and
all, except one, manufactured to embellish stately homes
in various parts of the empire. By far the largest group,
and one of the largest in any Roman Imperial context, is
the sculptural content of the villa at Chiragan ca. 50 km
southwest of Toulouse: about 50 marble portraits (nearly
half imperial) and more than 150 other pieces of marble
sculpture derive from this complex, which was in fact
fairly well published about 1900, but since then the ma-
terial had became nearly forgotten. Bergmann had
brought an important part of this material back on stage
in the late 1980s when she still advocated the traditional
early dating of mythological sculpture. She accepts that
the villa was still in use in the early fifth century (26),
but, in the reviewers opinion, she wrongly sticks to the
traditional account of the accepted life of the complex,
and particularly its sculpture, as having been accumulat-
ed over years. Based on the series of imperial portraits,
beginning with Augustus, the consensus has been that
the villa was established in early Imperial times with some
later phases. As this reviewer has pointed out, however,
all the imperial portraits, and presumably most of the
private ones as well, are late antique collectors items
(for a response, see Bergmann, Gnomon 73.1 [2001] 62
5). They all have one thing in common, namely to have
been restored in late antiquity. For example, a bust of
Septimius Severus is composed of three different parts
head, bust, and right shouldernot originally belonging
together (N. Hannestad, Tradition in Late Antique Sculp-
ture [Aarhus 1994] figs. 8384).
By studying these pieces on exhibit in the Muse Saint-
Raymond in Toulouse, as well as the bits and pieces in the
museums well organized storerooms, one can learn much
about the peculiar restoration techniques used in late
antiquity. The statuary unearthened at the villa of Chi-
ragan represents (in my opinion) an extensive sculptural
setting created by a rich landowner around 400 A.D.,
who acquired much old stuff, including six or seven cop-
ies of actual Greek masterpieces. In addition, large-scale
reliefs of the 12 labors of Hercules were manufactured
for the villa, as well as a series of tondoes with effigies of
gods. Add to this approximately 40 small-scale mytholog-
ical sculptures in the round.
Bergmann also discusses the origin (3740) of the
marble but is hesitant about the obvious and important
observation that the large-scale reliefs were carved in
local marble, while the small-scale pieces were carved in
Aphrodisian marble, including some pieces in the dis-
tinctive black stone also quarried in Aphrodisias. This
implies that transport of heavy goods had become a prob-
lem, which has been demonstrated for marble sculpture
in other parts of the empire (Hannestad, Tradition, 135
9, 1479,1545, also see idem, The Marble Group of
Daidalos: Hellenism in Late Antique Amman, Studies in
the History and Archaeology of Jordan 7 [2001] 51320).
The three other collections that Bergmann discusses
are of a modest size. One comes from a circular structure
excavated in Valdetorres de Jarama just east of Madrid
and is dated by ceramic finds to ca. 400; the second de-
rives from a poorly excavated suburban villa near Con-
stantinople (Silatarauga). The third group of sculptures
(now in the Louvre) had embellished a mithraeum in Si-
don; some of these can be dated by inscriptions to the
late fourth century.
Bergmann presents these main groups of sculpture,
together with individual pieces, in a well organized man-
ner, with lavish illustrations in high quality plates. She
has successfully established a coherent pattern for defin-
ing characteristics of style and type. While she discusses
the origin of the sculptural tradition of late antiquity,
she puts less emphasis on the function of sculpture in
society (6870). And she could have stressed more con-
clusively that the new picture of late antique sculpture
brings that medium into perfect alignment with other
art forms of the period.
Niels Hannestad
department of classical archaeology
univerity of aarhus
dk 8000 aarhus
denmark
klanh@hum.au.dk
I materiali archeologici della raccolta Nyry
del Museo Civico Correr di Venezia, by
Emanuela Gilli. (Collezioni e Musei Archeologici
del Veneto 42.) Pp. 153, b&w figs. 236, maps 6.
Giorgio Bretschneider, Rome 1999. Lit 500.000,
$242. ISSN 0392-0879; ISBN 88-7689-174-9
(cloth).
This volume presents the archaeological collections
donated by Baron Jen o Nyry of Nyregyhza to the Na-
tional Archaeological Museum of Venice in 1872. The
collection consists of 310 selected objects of different
material and age, from the Neolithic to the Medieval
period, and derives from the excavations carried out by
the Baron himself on some of his properties.
The book is divided into several chapters, the first of
which deals with the personal history of the Baron and
his political and archaeological life. Nyry was born in
February 1836 at Bagonya of a small but noble family of
Nyregyhza in southeast Hungary. His familys proper-
ties were located mainly in the counties of Pest, Hont,
and Ngrd, the territories where the Baron carried out
the more important of his researches and excavations.
Gilli carefully describes the way the collections were do-
nated to the Venice National Museum and the important
relationships entertained by Nyry and Luigi Pigorini in
Parma during the second half of the 18th century, a peri-
od that was of fundamental importance to the early de-
velopment of prehistoric studies in northern Italy. The
second chapter is devoted to the archaeological sites in-
vestigated by Nyry, in particular the area around the
town of Piliny, where he discovered, and partly excavat-
ed, the Bronze Age site of Piliny-Borss, which gave its
name to one of the Bronze Age cultures of Hungary. The
third chapter consists of a detailed catalogue of the finds
stored in the Venice collection. The finds are presented
systematically in chronological order: Neolithic artifacts,
Bronze Age assemblages discovered at the sites of Mag-
yard and Piliny, artifacts from the Final Bronze Age (Urn-
fields) culture, and finally artifacts from the Scitian and
Medieval periods.
The Neolithic assemblage is mainly composed of pol-
ished stone tools, including axes, adzes, and chisels. Other
tools are represented by flint and obsidian instruments
as well as by one bead and one loomweight, the specific
provenance of which is unfortunately unknown. These
tools, accurately described and compared to similar spec-
imens from known sites, are thought to come from north-
ern Hungary or southern Slovakia. Of major interest is
the pottery collection most probably from Magyard;
among other finds, it includes one typical Early Bronze
Age enigmatic tablet, as well as a few complete vessels
of the Madarovce culture. The collection of finds from
Piliny is represented by a rich assemblage of characteris-
tic bronze tools, including arrowheads, knives, axes, ra-
zors, pins, bracelets, and other ornaments, as well as some
ceramic vessels of the Piliny culture. Other objects in
the Nyry collection represent more recent periods. Sev-
eral spindle whorls and one stamp seal have been attrib-
uted to the Scitian Period, while the Medieval specimens
are represented by a small assemblage of finely decorat-
ed horse plaquettes (10th century A.D.) recovered from
the cemetery of Piliny-Leshegy. A brief appendix by F.
Bertoldi on the Bronze Age anthropological remains from
Piliny, recovered from the contents of three funerary
urns, concludes the description of the finds. The final
chapter consists of a general discussion of the different
assemblages, followed by a concordance of the catalogue
and museum inventory numbers.
The book is well conceived and written, and has clear
illustrations, both line drawings and occasional photo-
graphs of the more interesting finds. Each object is de-
scribed, chronologically framed, discussed, compared with
other finds of the same class and culture, and furnished
with bibliographical references. Apart from the impor-
tance of the publication of this collection, almost totally
unknown to Italian (and also Hungarian) scholars, of great
interest also are the chapters dealing with the life of the
Baron and the history of his discoveries. This was the
pioneering period of research into prehistory, not only
in Hungary and Italy, but also in all of Europe. Further-
more, it should be remembered that Nyry was the first
Hungarian archaeologist to carry out a systematic, scien-
tific excavation in a prehistoric settlement (Piliny) in his
native country.
The author has done her best to produce a complete,
intelligible description of the collection even though
the absence of provenance and data pertaining to the
cultural attribution of some artifacts (mainly Neolithic)
have made her task difficult.
To conclude, I materiali archeologici della raccolta Nyry
is a useful book that fills a gap in the knowledge of the
archaeological and cultural relationships between Hun-
gary and Italy during the second half of the 18th centu-
ry. The quality of the printing is excellent as is that of
many of the illustrations, especially those of the material
culture; of special interest is a portrait of Baron Nyry
from the archive of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
and a drawing of the Nyry familys coat of arms. The
books only weakness is the incredibly high price that
renders its acquisition impossible by those Italian, and
especially Hungarian, scholars who would most benefit
from the presentation of this important collection and
pioneer archaeologist.
Paolo Biagi
dipartimento di scienze dellantichit e del
vicino oriente
universit ca foscari
palazzo bernardo, s. polo 1977
i-30125 venezia
italy
pavelius@unive.it
LIllyrie mridionale et lpire dans
lantiquit. Vol. 3, Actes du 3
e
colloque in-
ternational de Chantilly (1619 octobre
1996), edited by Pierre Cabanes. Pp. 429, figs. 250,
pls. 21, maps 8, tables 19. De Boccard, Paris 1999.
FF 560. ISBN 2-7018-0225-7 (paper).
As collaborative archaeological research in Albania has
grown substantially in the last 20 years, so have excava-
tion reports and articles that help to fill in the blanks in
our knowledge of ancient Illyria and Epirus. Two previous
volumes in this series (1987, 1993) with the same focus
have already appeared. The volume reviewed here con-
tains a collection of papers from the most recent confer-
ence of European scholars to share the results of their
research concerning a region that crosses modern na-
tional boundaries. Fifty articles are organized around the
two themes: new discoveries and the organization of
human communities in antiquity with a geographical range
from Dalmatia to Ambracia. This collection is densely
packed with new information, most articles are illustrat-
ed, and all accompanied by references and/or bibliogra-
phy. Since many classes of evidence are presented and
discussed, there is no particular theoretical focus or
theme.
The goal of the first section is to present new discov-
eries of major importance, and the focus is clearly on
archaeology, although topics such as linguistics, ethnici-
ty, history, and religion are also represented (e.g., Olujic
on the origins of the Iapodes and Liburians, de Simone
on the etymology of King Gentius, and Proeva on the
linguistic arguments for deriving Ohrid from Lychnidos).
The format varies and includes excavation reports, pri-
mary publication and discussion of various classes of ob-
jects, and studies of broader issues in numismatics, epig-
raphy, architecture, and history. A separate section is de-
voted to Apollonia. Contributions are arranged chrono-
logically: Bronze Age to Archaic (7 papers), Classical and
Hellenistic (21), and Roman (9); the last contains a broad
range of topics and interdisciplinary treatments.
In the category of excavation reports is the article by
Prendi and Touchais on their excavations in the Kora
Plain (near the modern Macedonian border) at the
Bronze Age site of Sovjan. Here part of a building with a
well-preserved wooden plank floor was discovered while
paleobotanical evidence suggests the consumption of
wheat and the abandonment of the settlement as a re-
sult of rising lake levels in the Iron Age. Tumulus burials
characteristic of the area over a long chronological peri-
od are described and illustrated in two papers (Bodinaku,
and Dimo and Fenet), while Kosti-Lagkari presents a short
discussion of cist graves in Epirus. Archaeological evi-
dence of third- and second-century burials in the valley
of Shkumbi illustrates the activities of the Celts in S.
Illyria and Epirus either as a part of an invading force, or
in the role of mercenaries (Ceka). Riginos takes a diach-
ronic approach to ancient Elea where settlements and
graves can be dated before and after the destruction of
168 B.C. Continuing use of graves in areas in the north-
ern region after 168 shows that these settlements were
not entirely destroyed, perhaps because they were allied
with the Romans. The French-Albanian (Lamboley and
Vrekaj) excavations at Apollonia (19931996) concen-
trate on public areas in use from the fifth to the first
century B.C.
In addition to the finds in the reports described above,
there are much needed and substantial presentations of
separate classes of objects that will become essential ref-
erences. Soureref studies Bronze Age tools, weapons, and
ornaments of Epirus, exploring their relationship to Myce-
naean and other centers. Pliakou provides a typology for
both imported and local Archaic to Hellenistic pottery of
Ambrakia from the site of Thanou at Arta. Tzouvara-Souli
presents an informal catalogue of loom weights from Cas-
sope in Epirus inscribed, incised, and impressed, many of
which have names and unusual designs specific to Epirus
in the Hellenistic period. Publication of Roman glass of
the first to fourth centuries by Tartari is a welcome addi-
tion to an otherwise practically blank slate for Epirus.
Along with glass imported from well-known centers in
Italy, Gaul, and Sidon, local production of glass is proba-
ble for Dyrrachium and perhaps Apollonia.
Numismatics is the subject of six articles devoted to
questions of circulation and production. Gorini presents
evidence for a new chronology for the coinage of the
Illyrian king Ballaios and its first appearance in Italy. Nico-
let-Pierre and Gjongecaj use materials analysis in their
study of Aeginetan silver coins in the Hollm hoard to
discuss issues of production and design. Ujes provides a
catalogue of Corinthian silver coins in the Risan hoard
and explores the implications of the presence of Corin-
thian staters in this region. The coinage of Apollonia is
the subject of two papers: Masson reviews earlier research
and emphasizes the importance and richness of the cor-
pus of inscriptions that preserve unusually legible and
complete names of magistrates. Gjongecaj and Picard dis-
cuss the economic implications of Apollonian coin circu-
lation from the Classical to the Byzantine period.
A number of papers address the specific evidence for
Roman activity in Southern Illyria and Epirus from the
third century B.C. to the period of Augustus through an
analysis of the presence of Roman coinage and dedicato-
ry inscriptions (Papageorgiadou-Banis, Deniaux, Marin)
in these areas. Sael-Ko presents an in-depth study of
the purpose, extent, and results of Octavians campaigns
in Illyricum and a very useful review of the current evi-
dence for native peoples. Karatzeni summarizes new ar-
chaeological evidence for the existence of a population
at Ambracia, even after the foundation of Nikopolis.
Of special interest in the area of epigraphy, Drini gives
an overview of 200 of the more than 1,500 fascinating
inscriptions preserved above and below the water line on
a quarry face in a deep natural harbor or inlet at Gramma-
ta. Those that are ancient date from the first to the third
centuries A.C., Some are in frames, or small architectural
features, others are combined with symbols (amphora,
ships). Many are votive in nature, to the Dioscuri; others
mention well-known individuals. Other articles address
specific examples of relief sculpture, several with inscrip-
tions (Burzacchini, Katsadima, and Pojani-Djamo).
The rest of the studies in the first section treat diverse
topics based on an interdisciplinary approach. Several
articles concern the material culture of the local tribes in
pre-Greek and pre-Roman periods, in particular the evi-
dence for fortified settlements (Kati, Bereti, E. Andre-
ou and I. Andreou). Balandier and Koco discuss the plan
of the city wall and gates at Apollonia, and propose a
chronology. The reader will also want to consult Saracis
summary and view of the Epirote contribution to Roman
castramentation. Impressive and well-supported new evi-
dence by Ciobanu brings to light the important role of
Illyrians in Dacia. After conquest by Trajan, the Romans
began to work the mines in the region of Apulum/Albur-
nus Maior in the central part of Transylvania. A series of
unusual wax tablets and inscribed grave monuments from
excavated cemeteries show that a large number of Illyri-
ans and Dalmatians were participants at all levels of soci-
ety from governors and procurators of mines to freed-
men and slaves.
The Late Roman period is represented by an impres-
sive survey (with bibliography) by Duval and Chevalier of
what is known, excavated, and published of Christian ar-
chitecture in Albania. This is nicely complemented by
Bowdens exploration (in the second section) of the
physical character of the Late Antique city in Epirus us-
ing the example of Butrint. A related study of the evolu-
tion of religious hierarchy in Dardaria and Epirus by Hax-
imihali suggests that local bishops held and used their
position between Rome and Constantinople as a way to
political autonomy.
Several papers in this first section anticipate the sub-
jects of city and state in the second section of this vol-
ume: comprehensive descriptions of the prytaneion at
Dodona (Dakaris, Tzouvara-Souli, Vlachopoulou-Oikono-
mou, and Gravani-Katsiki) and a stoa at Gitani (Preka-
Alexandri).
Fewer articles make up the second section, which is
devoted to synthesis of evidence and broader topics on
regional organization, monarchic rule, the city and state
in Epirus, and womens roles in society. The only article
devoted entirely to survey in the volume is the contribu-
tion of Pepin on the spatial organization of two territo-
ries: Koutsi and Elina in the region of Cheimerion in
Thesprotia (cf. Riginos, Cabanes, and Preka-Alexandri).
Also primarily archaeological is Andreous article on ur-
banism in Epirus, where the evidence for a gradual devel-
opment of Ambracia and other Epirote towns in the
fourth century B.C. is compared to features of the sud-
den Augustan foundation of the city of Nikopolis. Ca-
banes discusses the terms koinon, ethnos, and polis in north-
ern Greece and southern Illyria and their relevance to
the region. He suggests that federalism was characteris-
tic of the state among the Molossians, then of Epirus as
a whole because it was a flexible framework for communi-
ties of transhumant pastoralists, and because it allowed a
political entity to be established that was more efficient
for the time than the polis. Also on this topic, Hatzopou-
los distinguishes between the organizing principles of
polis, ethne, basileis, or synedria (federalism), and forms
of government (e.g., democracy and oligarchy). He sug-
gests that in Molossia as well as in Macedonia and Thes-
saly there was no federalism until the last years of the
third century, after the abolition of the royal houses.
Corvisier presents a study of the succession of the Molos-
sian kings.
Two complex papers relate Epirus to other parts of the
Greek world: Antonetti explores the common Dorian or-
igin of the tribes and mythological iconography of Cor-
cyra, with particular reference to Corinth. Baslez consid-
ers evidence in an oration of Hyperides in connection
with the religious affairs of Dodona and Oropos in her
study of Olympiass role, influence, and power as reflect-
ed in the statues of goddesses at these shrines during
her lifetime. The last article in the second section is
Hoffmanns exploration of the implications of two in-
scribed stelai now in the museum at Ioannina for the role
of women in Epirus and Attica in the early fourth century
B.C.
In addition to a wealth of primary documentation, the
juxtaposition of different approaches in this volume (ar-
chaeological, epigraphic, literary) to similar topics (e.g.,
the appearance and function of the city) is stimulating.
And it is of similar importance that we can now begin to
see the Illyrians through the evidence of archaeological
research. Essential maps appear with many papers and
there is a very useful index. There is little here to pro-
voke a negative comment, except I had considerable dif-
ficulty in reading the poor English translation of the
first article in the volume by Bodinaku on Early Bronze
tumulus burialsunfortunate since the photographs and
drawings are fine. But apart from that, this volume will be
an important acquisition for all research libraries and for
scholars who study the ancient Balkans.
Virginia R. Anderson-Stojanovic
wilson college
1015 philadelphia avenue
chambersburg, pennsylvania 17201
vstojanovic@wilson.edu
Roles of the Northern Goddess, by Hilda E.
Davidson. Pp. viii + 211, figs. 32, pls. 8. Routledge,
London 1998. $85 (cloth); $22.99 (paper). ISBN
0-415-13610-5 (cloth); ISBN 0-415-13611-3 (pa-
per).
Hilda Ellis Davidson gathers information about nu-
merous roles of northern goddesses rather than seek-
ing their origins or the significance of particular female
deities. These goddesses of northern Europe have re-
ceived much less attention than either the male gods of
the north or the male and female deities of Mediterra-
nean regions, and the author attempts to rectify this
dearth of information. In many ways, the coverage of
this book is much broader than the title indicates.
Though known particularly for her standard overview of
Scandinavian mythology, Gods and Myths of Northern Eu-
rope (Baltimore 1964), Davidson demonstrates exten-
sive knowledge of comparative material from Egypt, the
Near East, Greece, and Rome, as well as farther afield.
She seems equally at home discussing Artemis, Kybele,
Diana, Epona, Isis, Inanna, or even Kali in India and
Pele in Hawaii, as she does such Nordic goddesses as
Freyja and Frigg.
The author does not set geographic bounds for what
she means by northern. At times it seems synonymous
with Scandinavian, sometimes more broadly Germanic,
but also Britishboth Anglo-Saxon and Celtic. Besides
its sweeping geographic coverage, the work is also more
inclusive than the title connotes because Davidson dis-
cusses numerous goddesses rather than just one, and
throughout the book she uses the plural and singular
interchangeably. The title seems to be a conscious yet
subtle attempt to draw in an audience attracted to The
Great Goddess, although right away she refutes the idea
of one supreme goddess. Her critique of Marija Gimbu-
tas, who is mentioned only at the beginning and end of
the book, is not heavy-handed. Davidson says, however,
that she wants to correct the over-emphasis on the god-
dess as a power hostile to and opposed by the gods of the
Indo-Europeans (188). She points out that some god-
desses were benevolent while others were destructive,
and she stresses that goddesses were important to both
men and women.
The book is divided into chapters arranged according
to the occupations and needs of women, including the
mistresses of animals, grain, textiles, the household, and
life and death. Davidson emphasizes that various female
deities and their functions overlap. They tend to be asso-
ciated with liminal aspects of life including birth, death,
and destiny, and they have connections with spinning,
dairying, and midwifery that were later carried on by fairy
godmothers and female saints.
Davidson appeals to popular readers who want to learn
more about the Great Goddess without alienating the
academic audience by demonstrating her vast knowledge
and careful scholarship despite the limited evidence. Al-
though the 13th-century Icelandic writer Snorri Sturlu-
son mentioned 16 goddesses of Norse mythology, he pro-
vided little information about most of them. Davidson
tries to tease out as much as possible by looking at paral-
lels in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America, and by
drawing on evidence from mythology, religion, folklore,
literature, and archaeology. However, she is more com-
fortable with popular tradition and legends as sources
than archaeology where she relies heavily on secondary
literature published in the 1960s and earlier, which was
timely then for her 1964 survey but now is dated. In her
discussion of goldgubber (small gold foil figures of men
and women), she mentions only finds from Trondheim
and Helg rather than more recent and substantial dis-
coveries at Sorte Muld, Lundeborg, and Uppkra, and
says that their function is still disputed, citing sources
from 1954 and 1909. In addition, her presentation of
Frstenberg-type gold bracteates is inconsistent; she uses
out-of-date counts supplied by Mackeprang (1952), but
then two pages later refers to a 1982 discovery from the
Danish island of Funen. These flaws in handling material
with which I am familiar lead me to wonder whether oth-
er areas suffer from similar problems.
Overall, the quality of editing is very good. Minor mis-
takes include Wallendorf consistently for Willendorf
and omitted diacritics like the umlauts in Helg and
Frstenberg. These mistakes with special characters are
curious since care is taken to use the less accessible Ice-
landic letters.
The book is a compendium of little-known material,
which is both a strength and a weakness. It is valuable as
an encyclopedic gathering of information, but there is
little synthesis to tie the parts together. It is tedious to
read straight through, and most readers will likely dip
into it for reference. In spite of deficiencies with recent
archaeological literature, Davidson is courageous to bring
all this knowledge together to inform the goddess-seek-
er as well as the scholarly reader.
Nancy L. Wicker
department of art
nelson hall 136
minnesota state university, mankato
mankato, minnesota 56001
nancy.wicker@mnsu.edu
Westgotische Grberfelder auf der
iberischen Halbinsel am Beispiel der Funde
aus El Carpio de Tajo (Torrijos, Toledo), by
Barbara Sasse. (Madrider Beitrge 26.) Pp. 301,
ills. 59, pls. 59. Philipp Von Zabern, Mainz 2000.
DM 140, 71.58. ISSN 0179-2873; ISBN 3-8053-
2390-5 (cloth).
The German Archaeological Institute in Madrid has
been fortunate to enlist the talents of an accomplished
researcher of Merovingian archaeology in west-central
Europe for the comprehensive publication of the necrop-
olis near El Carpio de Tajo, Spain. The site, located about
40 km west of Toledo, south of the homonymous village
but still north of the river Tajo, was destroyed in the
1960s by the construction of a canal. The topography
and structure of the necropolis are known only through
a plan produced by its excavator, C. de Mergelina, in
1924 but unknown until 1985, and through descriptions
in Mergelinas 10-page report of 1949 on the excava-
tion. The finds, all of which Mergelina had photo-
graphed, were inventoried and exhibited at the National
Archaeological Museum in Madrid (later transferred to
its dependence in Toledo), and they attracted the atten-
tion of German scholarship as early as 1928. H. Zeiss
established a chronology of Visigothic artifacts based
on his studies of the El Carpio de Tajo complex (1934);
and, in 1963, W. Hbener, with the valuable collabora-
tion of W. Nestler, began to prepare a systematic publica-
tion of this complex, which was continued by G.G. Koenig
and completed by B. Sasse in the form of this magnifi-
cent volume (ch. 1, history of research). Spanish readers
will be grateful for the complete translation of essential
chapters. Sasse furthermore includes the metal analyses
published in 1985 by Spanish colleagues (G. Ripoll, La
necrpolis visigoda de El Carpio de Tajo (Toledo) [Madrid
1985]).
By the time Sasse came to work on the project, the
tomb inventories had been scattered and had to be re-
constructedchapter 2, which details this process, reads
like a detective story. And additional difficulty derives
from the custom found here of frequently placing more
than one deceased in a burial. The catalogue (ch. 8)
describes all 618 discovered objects: jewelry (394 piec-
es!), costume accessories, bags and their contents, and
belt buckles and pendants (namely tools); interestingly,
there are no horse trappings or unequivocal weapons.
Remarkably, 91 inventories could be attributed to precise
burial sites among the 275 numbered and indicated on
Mergelinas plan. This work constitutes the solid founda-
tion of Sasses study. All photographs and figures are laud-
ably reproduced to scale.
The burial sites are stone- or brick-lined and generally
oriented westeast; this shows that the deceased were
Christians, laid down to face the direction of Christs
expected return. The cross symbol on some objects fur-
ther attests to the owners faith. Sasses study treats the
deceased more objectively than did earlier research and
resolves earlier preconceptions about their ethnic iden-
tity. She compares El Carpio de Tajo to other necropoleis
in Spain and Central Europe (ch. 2), which allows her to
identify the function of certain elements of costume and
their pertinence to the gender of the wearer (the skele-
tons, unanalyzed except for some skulls, have been lost).
Numerous illustrations support her conclusions; for in-
stance, figure 8 shows traces of leather and fabric corrod-
ed onto bronze belt buckles and clarifies their form of
attachment. It therefore becomes obvious that, only by
handling and studying the originals, can a scholar assess
them fully. There are also numerous tables of tomb in-
ventories that present the result of the authors admira-
ble efforts at reconstructionexcavators will find them
particularly useful.
The third chapter presents the first systematic analy-
sis of all the finds. An earlier monograph (Ripoll 1985)
focused on establishing a chronology through a typology
of symbols and decorative motifs. Sasse determines her
chronology differently, through seriation; she shows that
whereas the analysis of the different classes of objects in
isolation does not always lead to a chronological order-
ing, the combination of objects in burial sites will.
Chapter 4 (accompanied by maps 213) presents Sasses
seriation method and demands most from the reader. For
the establishment of a relative chronology, the classified
finds are analyzed within the context of their assemblag-
es. The distribution of these combinations in the ceme-
tery reveals the use of this space over time producing a
pattern of horizontal stratigraphythe oldest nucleus
being located in its center (fig. 49). The absence of any
fixed date (the few coins found were heirlooms) forces
the author, like others before her, to revert to compara-
tive diagram in order to arrive at absolute dates: figure 44
compares the established chronology of finds from fe-
male burials in southwest Germany with the similar mate-
rials arranged in a relative chronology from El Carpio de
Tajo. As a result, Sasse is able to date this necropolis from
its earliest beginnings ca. 460 to its abandonment in the
late sixth century. It has been long assumed that the
conversion of the Visigoths from Arian to Catholic Chris-
tianity in 589 brought along a change in burial habits,
but Sasse observes these changes occurring at El Carpio
de Tajo already in the middle of the sixth centurythere
is a gradual abandonment of dressing the deceased in
clothes. Ongoing research (by Sasse as well as by a num-
ber of Spanish and international scholars) will eventually
yield a valid chronology for the fifth to seventh century
for the Iberian peninsula, solving problems in the ceram-
ic sequence, and especially in the development of archi-
tecture, both religious and secular.
The reward for following the author along every step
of the methodical work comes in chapter 5. There, she
lays out the development since 1858 of the ide fixe that
these characteristic objects were Gothic artifacts, and
the reconstructed costumes and fittings correspond to a
tradition that was brought to central Castile by immigrat-
ing Visigoths. Since the 1950s, scholarship has reviewed
these concepts, and, to avoid the strictly ethnic term
visigothic, introduced the phrase of the visigothic pe-
riod to take in account ethnic mix and acculturation.
Sasse follows general lines on ethnogenesis drafted by
the sociohistorians R. Wenskus and H. Wolfram in under-
BOOKS RECEIVED 146 [AJA 106
standing the Visigothic gens as an agglomeration of war-
riors of different origins around a military leader, in or-
der to seek institutionalization through the royal title
for the leader, a determined territory, equal legal norms,
blood relation, and the formation of traditions (145, my
translation).
In addition, previous chapters reveal that outside Spain
parallels to the finds of El Carpio de Tajo and similar cen-
tral Castilian complexes occur only in three areas: north-
west France, southwest France, and the central Danubian
provinces. The last, offering the oldest examples of this
material, clearly was its area of origin. Sasse therefore
creates the classification Donauprovinz-Kriterien (Danubi-
an province critera). She shows that these criteria can be
distinguished from those that characterize material from
other necropoleis in Spain and southern France, which
reveal a continuity of late Roman habitsthere are no
clearly innovative features, even in regions where writ-
ten documentation attests Visigothic settlement. Sasses
almost revolutionary conclusion is that the Visigoths-the-
ory is untenable. At the same time, however, she looks
for a new (again tendentially ethnic) identification for
the people buried at El Carpio de Tajo and related sites
with Danubian province critera (1603).
Sasses analysis and her results can stand as a model for
innovative interpretation on the basis of faithful consid-
eration of material evidenceshe comes close to recon-
structing an historic reality.
Sabine Noack-Haley
136 dromore crescent
hamilton, ontario l8s 4b2
canada
haleyev@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca
BOOKS RECEIVED
Acconcia, Valeria. Il santuario del Pozzarello a Bolsena (Scavi
Gabrici 1904). (Archaeologica 127.) Pp. 193, figs. 41, pls.
16. Giorgio Bretschneider, Rome 2000. Lit 500,000. ISSN
0391-9293; ISBN 88-7689-170-6 (paper).
Andrefsky, William Jr., ed. Lithic Debitage. Context, Form,
Meaning. Pp. xi + 266, ills. 54. University of Utah Press,
Salt Lake City 2001. $50. ISBN 0-87480-679-8 (cloth).
Angelicoussis, Elizabeth. The Holkham Collection of Clas-
sical Sculptures. (CSIR Great Britain, 3.10; Monumenta
Artis Romanae 30.) Pp. 189, figs. 43, pls. 95, col. pls. 6.
Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2001. DM 150. ISBN 3-8053-
2697-1 (cloth).
Assmann, Jan. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt (trans.
David Lorton). Pp. xi + 275, figs. 6. Cornell University
Press, Ithaca 2001. $19.95. ISBN 0-8014-8729-3 (paper).
Barbanera, Marcello, ed. Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli e il
suo mondo. Catalogo della Mostra, Universit degli Studi di
Roma La Sapienza Museo dellArte Classica, 5 dicembre
200020 febbraio 2001; Istituzione Santa Maria della Scala,
Siena, luglio-agosto 2001. Pp. 115, figs. 188. Edipuglia,
Bari 2000. Lit 50,000. ISBN 88-7228-270-5 (paper).
Baker, Rosalie, and Charles Baker. Ancient Egyptians:
Building for Eternal Glory. Pp. 185. Oxford University Press,
Oxford 2001. $40. ISBN 0-19-51221-6 (cloth).
Bawden, Garth, and Richard Martin Reycraft, eds. En-
vironmental Disaster and the Archaeology of Human Response.
(Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, Anthropological Pa-
pers 7.) Pp. x + 228, figs. 30, tables 7, map 1. Maxwell
Museum of Anthropology, Albuquerque 2001. $34.95.
ISBN 0-912535-14-8 (paper).
Behrwald, Ralph. Der Lykische Bund: Untersuchungen zu
Geschichte und Verfassung. Pp. x + 269. Habelt, Bonn 2000.
DM 120. ISBN 3-7749-3035-X (cloth).
Bentz, Martin, and Christiane Dehl-von Kaenel. Cor-
pus Vasorum Antiquorum: Deutschland, 73: Gttingen,
Archologisches Institut der Universitt, 2: Korinthische und
etruskische Keramik. Pp. 83, figs. 19, pls. 48, Beilage 7.
C.H. Beck, Munich 2001. DM 158. ISBN 3-406-474-500
(cloth).
Bentz, Martin, and Norbert Eschbach, eds.
Panathenaka: Symposion zu den Panathenischen
Preisamphoren Rauischholzhausen 25.11.29.11.1998. Pp.
xv + 205, figs. 23, pls. 45. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz
2001. DM 128, S 934, SF 113. ISBN 3-8053-2708-0
(cloth).
Bergemann, Johannes, ed. Wissenschaft mit Enthusiasmus:
Beitrge zu antiken Bildnissen und zur historischen
Landeskunde. Klaus Fittschen gewidment. (Internationl
Archologie. Studia Honoraria 14.) Pp. xxi + 191, pls. 28.
Marie Leidorf, Rahden 2001. DM 125. ISSN 1433-4194;
ISBN 3-89646-394-2 (cloth).
Berres, Thomas Edward. Power and Gender in Oneota Cul-
ture: A Study of a Late Prehistoric People. Pp. xii + 253, figs.
21. Northern Illinois Press, DeKalb 2001. $29. ISBN 0-
87580-587-6 (cloth).
Binford, Lewis R. Constructing Frames of Reference: An Ana-
lytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using
Hunter-Gatherer and Environmental Data Sets. Pp. xx + 563,
figs. 151, tables 60. University of California Press, Berke-
ley and Los Angeles 2001. $75, 50. ISBN 0-520-22393-4
(cloth).
Bottro, Jean. Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia (trans. by
Teresa Lavender Fagan). Pp. x + 246, map 1. University
of Chicago Press, Chicago 2001. $30, 19. ISBN 0-226-
006717-3 (cloth).
Broodbank, Cyprian. An Island Archaeology of the Early
Cyclades. Pp. xix + 414, figs. 122. Cambridge University
Press, New York 2001. $80. ISBN 0-521-78272-4 (cloth).
Buchli, Victor, and Gavin Lucas. Archaeologies of the Con-
temporary Past. Pp. xii + 294, figs. 20. Routledge, New
York 2001. $85 (cloth); $29.95 (paper). ISBN 0-415-23278-
3 (cloth); 0-415-23279-1 (paper).
Calvo, Manel, Vctor M. Guerrero, and Bartomeu
Salv. Arquitectura Ciclpea del Bronce Balear: Anlisis
Morfofuncional y Desarrollo Secuencial. (El Tall del Temps
37.) Pp. 83, figs. 32, tables 9. Mallorca 2001. ISBN 84-
87685-96-X (paper).
Campione, Ada. La Basilicata Paleochristiana: Diocesi e culti.
BOOKS RECEIVED 2002] 147
Pp. 219, figs. 20. Lit 30,000, 15.49. Edipuglia, Bari 2000.
ISBN 88-7228-292-6 (paper).
Capelotti, P.J. Sea Drift: Rafting Adventures in the Wake of
Kon-Tiki. Pp. xxi + 294, figs. 22. Rutgers University Press,
New Brunswick 2001. $26. ISBN 0-8135-2978-6 (cloth).
Carrasco, Davd, ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of
Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexico and Cen-
tral America, in 3 vols. Vol. I: pp. xvii + 451, figs. 73, tables
4. Vol. II: pp. 458, figs. 62, tables 2. Vol. III: pp. 476, figs.
63, tables 2. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001. $395.
ISBN 0-19-510819-9 (set).
Cartledge, Paul. Spartan Reflections. Pp. xii + 276, pls. 10.
University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles
2001. $27.50, 19.95. ISBN 0-520-23123-6 (cloth).
Chatters, James C. Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and
the First Americans. Pp. 303, figs. 34. Simon and Schuster,
New York 2001. $26. ISBN 0-684-85936-X (cloth).
Chew, Sing C. World Ecological Degradation: Accumulation,
Urbanization, and Deforestation 3000 B.C.A.D. 2000. Pp.
ix + 216, figs. 12, tables 4. AltaMira, Walnut Creek 2001.
$62 (cloth); $24.95 (paper). ISBN 0-7591-0030-6 (cloth);
0-7591-0031-4 (paper).
Clark, Jeffery J. Tracking Prehistoric Migrations: Pueblo Set-
tlers among the Tonto Basin Hohokam. (Anthropological
Papers of the University of Arizona 65.) Pp. ix + 124, figs.
39. University of Arizona Press, Tucson 2001. $16.95.
ISBN 0-8165-2087-9 (paper).
Coarelli, Filippo. The Column of Trajan (trans., Cynthia
Rockwell). Pp. viii + 273, figs. 73, pls. 154. Editore Co-
lombo, Rome 2000. Lit 120,000. ISBN 88-86359-37-3
(cloth).
Connah, Graham. African Civilizations: An Archaeological Per-
spective, 2nd ed. Pp. xv + 340, figs. 75. Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, New York 2001. $64.95 (cloth); $22.95 (pa-
per). ISBN 0-521-59309-3 (cloth); 0-521-59690-4 (paper).
Crawford, Harriet. Early Dilmun Seals from Saar: Art and
Commerce in Bronze Age Bahrain. Pp. 111, figs. 269. Ar-
chaeology International, Ludlow, U.K. 2001. ISBN 0-
9539561-0-5 (cloth).
Cultraro, Massimo. LAnello di Minosse: Archeologia della
regalit nellEgeo minoico. (Biblioteca di Archeologia 31.)
Pp. 441, figs. 52, pls. 48. Longanesi, Milan 2001. Lit
76,000, 39.25. ISBN 88-304-1650-9 (paper).
Curti, Francesca. La Bottega del pittore di Meleagro. (RdA
Suppl. 25.) Pp. 294, figs. 11, tables 21, pls. 105. Giorgio
Bretschneider, Rome 2001. Lit 650,000. ISSN 0392-0895;
ISBN 887689-169-2 (paper).
Dally, Ortwin. Canosa, Localit San Leucio: Untersuchungen
zu akkulturationsprozessen vom 6. bis zum 2. Jh. v. Chr. am
Beispiel eines Daunischen Heiligtums. (Studien zu Antiken
Heiligtmern 1.) Pp. 366, pls. 54, Beilage 15. Archologie
und Geschichte, Heidelberg 2000. DM 160. ISBN 3-
9804648-8-1 (cloth).
de Laguna, Frederica. Travels among the Dena: Exploring
Alaskas Yukon Valley. (McLellan Books.) Pp. xxi + 369,
photographs 80, drawings 40, maps 14. University of
Washington Press, Seattle 2001. $29.95. ISBN 0-295-
97902-X (cloth).
DeMaine, Mary R. The Hostage. Pp. vii + 307. PZA, White
Bear Lake, Minn. 2000. $12.95. ISBN 0-9673471-1-4
(paper).
Dever, William G. What Did the Biblical Writers Know and
When Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us about
the Reality of Ancient Israel. Pp. xiii + 313, figs. 100. William
B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Mich. 2001. $25, 16.99.
ISBN 0-8028-4794-3 (cloth).
Dietler, Michael, and Brian Hayden, eds. Feasts: Ar-
chaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics,
and Power. Pp. xii + 432, figs. 68, tables 18. Smithsonian
Institution Press, Washington 2001. $29.95 (paper); $55
(cloth). ISBN 1-56098-840-1 (paper); 1-56098-861-4
(cloth).
Dobson, Nick, and Peter Van Alfen, eds., with the assis-
tance of Joann Gulizio, Dimitri Nakassis, Stephie
Nikoloudis, Kevin Pluta, Franoise Rougement, Jrg
Weilhartner, and Mserref Yetim. Studies in Mycenaean
Inscriptions and Dialect, 199697. Pp. 247. Program in
Aegean Scripts and Prehistory, Department of Classics,
The University of Texas at Austin, Austin 2001. $20$35.
ISBN 0-9649410-5-8 (paper).
Domnguez, Adolfo J., and Carmen Snchez, and edited
by Gocha R. Tsetskhladze. Greek Pottery from the Iberian
Peninsula: Archaic and Classical Periods. Pp. xvi + 501, figs.
180. E.J. Brill, Leiden 2001. $149, Hfl 282.07, 128.
ISBN 90-04-11604-4 (cloth).
Drews, Robert, ed. Greater Anatolia and the Indo-Hittite
Language Family: Papers Presented at a Colloquium Hosted
by the University of Richmond, March 1819, 2000. (JIES
Monograph Series 38.) Pp. xiv + 305, figs. 17, tables 5.
Institute for the Study of Man, Washington, D.C. 2001.
$52. ISBN 0-941694-77-1 (paper).
Ebert, James I. Distributional Archaeology. Pp. xx + 296, figs.
26. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City 1991 (re-
print, 2001). $25. ISBN 0-87480-685-2 (paper).
Everly, R.D.G. Minoan Crafts: Tools and Techniques: An In-
troduction. (SIMA 92.2.) Pp. xvi + 394, figs. 123, pls. 30,
charts 10. Paul strms, Jonsered 2000. $55.40. ISBN 91-
7018-155-5 (paper).
Feuerstein, Georg, Subhash Kak, and David Frawley. In
Search of the Cradle of Civilization. Pp. xxi + 341, ills. 47,
tables 4, maps 5. Quest Books, Wheaton, Ill. $24.95. ISBN
0-8356-0720-8 (cloth).
France, Jrme. Quadragesima galliarum: Lorganisation
douanire des provinces alpestres, gauloises et germaniques de
lempire romain. (Collection de lcole Franaise de Rome
278.) Pp. 498, figs. 21, tables 5. De Boccard, Paris and
LERMA di Bretschneider, Rome 2001. Lit 211,000. ISSN
0223-5099; ISBN 2-7283-0605-2 (paper).
Genava n.s. 48. Pp. xiii + 310, b&w figs. 11, color fig. 1, b&w
photographs 163, color photographs 36, tables 13. Muse
dArt et dHistoire, Geneva 2000. SF 65. ISSN 0072-0585;
ISBN 2-8257-0727-9 (paper).
Gillis, Carole, Christina Risberg, and Birgitta
Sjberg, eds. Trade and Production in Premonetary Greece:
Acquisition and Distribution of Raw Materials and Finished
Products. Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop, Ath-
ens 1996. (SIMA-PB 154.) Pp. 119, figs. 19. Paul strms,
Jonsered 2000. $23. ISBN 91-7081-196-2 (paper).
Gould, John. Myth, Ritual, Memory, and Change: Essays in
Greek Literature and Culture. Pp. x + 424, fig. 1, pls. 10.
Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001. $60. ISBN 0-19-
815299-X (cloth).
Guerrero, Vctor M., and Sim Gorns, eds. Colonitzaci
humana en ambients insulars: Interacci amb el medi i adaptaci
BOOKS RECEIVED 148 [AJA 106
cultural. Pp. 475, figs. 126, tables 10. Universitat de les
Illes Balears, Palma 2000. ISBN 84-7632-600-9 (paper).
. c cpccv cpcv c cpc
. c vc pv c ccv .
(cc, s, c s): .c c
.pc c. p. c vc p
v. The Survival of the Greco-Roman Antiquity in
the European Culture of the Second Half of the Twentieth Cen-
tury (Literature, Art, Political Thought): First European Com-
petition for Students of Secondary and Higher Education. Pp.
xi + 474, figs. 105. Aristotle University, Thessalonike 1999.
ISBN 960-243-572-0 (cloth).
Halfmann, Helmut. Stdtebau und Bauherren im rmischen
Kleinasien: Ein Vergleich zwischen Pergamon und Ephesos.
(IstMit-BH 43.) Pp. ix + 116, figs. 19. Ernst Wasmuth,
Tbingen 2001. ISSN 0418-9701; ISBN 3-8030-1742-4
(paper).
Heckman, Robert A., Barbara K. Montgomery, and
Stephanie M. Whittlesey. Prehistoric Painted Pottery of
Southeastern Arizona. (Technical Series 77.) Pp. xxii + 163,
figs. 59, col. pls. 10. University of Arizona Press, Tucson
2001. 35. ISBN 1-879442-77-9 (paper).
Held, Winfried (with an appendix by Ay se orbaci
Gltekin). Milesische Forschungen. Vol. 2, Das Heiligtum
der Athena in Milet. Pp. x + 194, figs. 81, pls. 40. Philipp
von Zabern, Mainz 2000. DM 98, 50.11. ISBN 3-8053-
2594-0 (cloth).
Hemphill, Pamela. Archaeological Investigations in South-
ern Etruria. Vol. 1, The Civitella Cesi Survey. (ActaRom
28.1.) Pp. 150, figs. 208, tabbed in map. Paul strms,
Stockholm 2000. $27.70. ISSN 0081-993; ISBN 91-7042-
160-9 (paper).
Hertel, Dieter. Troia: Archologie, Geschichte, Mythos.
(Wissen in der becksche Reihe.) Pp. 128, b&w figs. 10,
color figs. 3, maps 5. C.H. Beck, Munich 2001. DM 14.80.
ISBN 3-406-44766-X (paper).
Hickmann, Ellen, and Ricardo Eichmann, eds. Studien
zur Musikalarchologie. Vol. 1, Saiteninstrumente im
archologischen Kontext. Vortrge des 8. Symposiums der Study
Group on Music Archaeology (ICTM), Limassol, 26.30.
August 1996 und andere Beitrge. (Orient-Archologie 6.)
Pp. vii + 144, figs. 167, tables 13. Marie Leidorf, Rahden
2000. DM 95. ISSN 1434-162X; ISBN 3-89646-636-4
(cloth).
Hickmann, Ellen, Ingo Laufs, and Ricardo Eichmann,
eds. Studien zur Musikalarchologie. Vol. 2, Musikarchologie
frher Metallzeiten. Vortrge des 1. Symposiums der Interna-
tional Study Group on Music Archaeology im Kloster
Michaelstein, 18.24. Mai 1998. (Orient-Archologie 7.)
Pp. xiv + 401, figs. 130, tables 7, CD-ROM. Marie Leidorf,
Rahden 2000. DM 149.80. ISSN 1434-162X; ISBN 3-
89646-637-2 (cloth, CD-ROM).
Himmelmann, Nikolaus. Die private Bildnisweihung bei den
Griechen. (Nordrhein-Westflische Akademie der
Wissenschaften Vortrge G 373.) Pp. 76, figs. 46.
Westdeutscher, Wiesbaden 2001. DM 28, 14. ISSN 0944-
8810; ISBN 3-531-07373-7 (paper).
Hume, Ivor Nol. A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America.
Pp. xix + 323, figs. 100. University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadelphia 2001 (reprint of 1969 ed.). $24.95. ISBN 0-
8122-1771-3 (paper).
Huxley, Davina, ed. Cretan Quests: British Explorers, Exca-
vators and Historians. Pp. xxi + 227, figs. 141. The British
School at Athens, London 2000. 27. ISBN 0-904887-37-
5 (cloth).
Ionas, Ioannis. Traditional Pottery and Potters in Cyprus: The
Disappearance of an Ancient Craft Industry in the 19th and
20th Centuries. (Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman
Monographs 6.) Pp. xxii + 273, figs. 207, pls. 3, maps 3,
tables 7. Ashgate, Aldershot 2000. $84.95. ISBN 0-7546-
0323-7 (cloth).
Jacquemin, Anne. Delphes: Cent ans aprs la grande fouille.
Essai de bilan. Actes du colloque international organis par
lcole Franaise dAthnes. (BCH Suppl. 36.) Pp. xii + 433,
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146-7 (paper).
Johnston, Alan W., and Christina Souyoudzoglou-
Haywood. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Ireland, 1: Univer-
sity College Dublin. University College Cork. Pp. 80, pls. 60,
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Jones, Donald W. External Relations of Early Iron Age Crete,
1100600 B.C. (AIA Monographs, New Series 4.) Pp. x +
395, maps 31, tables 22, appendices. Kendall/Hunt,
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Justice, Noel D. Field Guide to Projectile Points of the Midwest.
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Bloomington 2001. $12.95. ISBN 0-253-33931-6 (paper).
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nean after c. 1200 B.C.: Proceedings of an International Work-
shop Held at Trinity College Dublin, 7th9th May, 1999. Pp.
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Near Eastern Studies, Trinity College Dublin and the
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Kirch, Patrick Vinton, and Roger C. Green. Hawaki,
Ancestral Polynesia: An Essay in Historical Anthropology. Pp.
xvii + 375, figs. 35, tables 40. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge 2001. $74.95 (cloth); $27.95 (paper). ISBN
0-521-78309-7 (cloth); 0-521-78879-X (paper).
Koloski-Ostrow, Ann Olga, ed. Water Use and Hydraulics
in the Roman City. (AIA Colloquia and Conference Papers
3.) Pp. xi + 131, figs. 59, table 1. Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque
2001. $46. ISBN 0-7872-7690-1 (paper).
Larson, Jennifer. Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore. Pp. xii +
380, figs. 50. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001. $55
(cloth); $29.95 (paper). ISBN 0-19-512294-1 (cloth); 0-
19-514465-1 (paper).
Laudonnire, Ren. Three Voyages (trans. by Charles E.
Bennett). Pp. 22 + 232, figs. 16. University of Alabama
Press, Tuscaloosa 2001. $22.95. ISBN 0-8173-1121-1
(paper).
Leciejewicz, Lech, ed. Torcello: Nuove ricerche archeologiche.
(RdA Suppl. 23.) Pp. 153, tables 5, pls. 52. Giorgio
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Lewis, M.J.T. Surveying Instruments of Greece and Rome. Pp.
xx + 389, figs. 69, tables 5. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge $80. ISBN 0-521-79297-5 (cloth).
Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae, Indices, in 2 vols.
Vol. 1, Museums, Collections, Sites. Pp. xliii + 629. Vol. 2,
BOOKS RECEIVED 2002] 149
Literary and Epigraphical Sources Mentioning Lost Works,
Mythological Names. Pp. vi + 397. Artemis, Dsseldorf 1999.
ISBN 3-7608-8760-0 (cloth).
Masseria, Concetta, ed. 10 Anni di archeologia a Cortona.
(Archaeologia Perusina 15; Archaeologica 129.) Pp. xvii
+ 270, figs. 68, pls. 34. Giorgio Bretschneider, Rome
2001. Lit 370,000. ISSN 0391-9293; ISBN 88-7689-161-
7 (paper).
Miari, Monica. Stipi votive dellEtruria Padana. (Corpus delle
Stipi Votive in Italia 11 = Archaeologica 128.) Pp. 398, figs.
59, pls. 25, tables 12. Giorgio Bretschneider, Rome. Lit
800,000. ISSN 0391-9293; ISBN 88-7689-179-X (paper).
Mills, Barbara J. Alternative Leadership Strategies in the
Prehispanic Southwest. Pp. x + 299, figs. 49, tables 6. Uni-
versity of Arizona Press, Tucson 2001. $40. ISBN 0-8165-
2028-3 (cloth).
Moore, A.M.T., G.C. Hillman, and A.J. Legge. Village on
the Euphrates: From Foraging to Farming at Abu Hureyra. Pp.
xvii + 585, figs. 286, tables 21. Oxford University Press,
New York 2000. $39.95. ISBN 0-19-510807-8 (paper).
Mordvinceva, Valentina. Sarmatische Phaleren.
(Archologie in Eurasien 11.) Pp. ix + 98, pls. 57. Marie
Leidorf, Rahden 2001. DM 79.80. ISSN 0949-2410; ISBN
3-89646-260-1 (cloth).
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du colloque de Strasbourg 35 dcembre 1998. (Universit
Marc Bloch de Strasbourg, Centre National des
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Strasbourg 17.) Pp. 574, figs. 253, pls. 18, tables 2. De
Boccard, Paris 2001. FF 280, 42.68. ISBN 2-911488-03-
2 (paper).
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Siegel. Beiheft 6, Minoisch-Mykenische Glyptik: Stil,
Ikonographie, Funktion. V. Internationales Siegel-Symposium,
Marburg, 23.25. September 1999. Pp. xv + 368, figs. 155,
tables 9. Gebr. Mann, Berlin 2000. DM 248, 126.80.
ISBN 3-7861-2406-X
Nelson, Sarah M., with K. Lynn Berry, Richard F.
Carrillo, Bonnie J. Clark, Lori E. Rhodes, and Dean
Saitta. Denver: An Archaeological History. Pp. x + 273,
figs. 104. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia
2001. $45, 31.50. ISBN 0-8122-3591-6 (cloth).
Nerantzes, Ioannes G. cc p
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128, photographs 22. Ekdoseis Agrinion Arkheion
Arkhaiologias kai Istorias Dutikes Stereas Ellados, Agrinion
1994. ISBN 960-85583-0-1 (paper).
Nerantzes, Ioannes G. .
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Pp. 158, figs. 22, photographs 18. Ekdoseis Agrinion
Arkheion Arkhaiologias kai Istorias Dutikes Stereas Ellados,
Agrinion 1997. ISBN 960-85583-1-X (paper).
Nerantzes, Ioannes G. ccs s c
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Stephanos D. Basilopoulos, Athens 2000. ISBN 960-7731-
23-9 (paper).
Panter-Brick, Catherine, Robert H. Layton, and Peter
Rowley-Conwy, eds. Hunter-Gatherers: An Interdiscipli-
nary Perspective. Pp. xii + 342, figs. 23, tables 17. Cam-
bridge University Press, Cambridge 2001. $90 (cloth);
$29.95 (paper). ISBN 0-521-77210-9 (cloth), 0-521-
77672-4 (paper).
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cv c s scc, 2nd ed. Pp. 228,
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xxiv + 272, figs. 172, tables 13. Oxbow, Exeter 2000. $60.
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Pryor, Francis. Seahenge: New Discoveries in Prehistoric Brit-
ain. Pp. xxviii + 337, figs. 28, pls. 50. Harper Collins,
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Raftopoulou, Eliana G. Figures enfantines du Muse Na-
tional dAthnes. Pp. vii + 89, pls. 96. Deutsches
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Relethford, John H. Genetics and the Search for Modern
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Roskams, Steve. Excavation. (Cambridge Manuals in Ar-
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79801-9 (paper).
Schrlig, Alain. Compter avec des cailloux: Le Calcul
lmentaire sur labaque chez les anciens Grecs. Pp. 339, figs.
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Romandes, Lausanne 2001. SF 58, 39.70. ISBN 2-88074-
453-9 (paper).
Sekunda, Nicholas. Hellenistic Infantry Reform in the 160s
BC. (Studies on the History of Ancient and Medieval Art
of Warfare 5.) Pp. 189, figs. 36. Oficyna Naukowa MS,
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Sidebotham, Steven, and Willemina Wendrich, eds.
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the Survey of the Egyptian Eastern Desert, Including Excava-
tions in Wadi Kalalat. (CNWS Publications Special Series
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Simpson, Elizabeth, and Krysia Spirydowicz. Gordion:
Ahs ap Eserler. Wooden Furniture. Pp. 174, b&w figs. 15,
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Archaeology. Pp. xxvi + 226, figs. 19. University of Arizona
Press, Tucson 2001. $35. ISBN 0-8165-2138-7 (cloth).
Soterakopoulou, Panagiotas I. :
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191.) Pp. 512, figs. 77, pls. 353, tables 13.
Archaeological Society of Athens, Athens 1999. ISSN
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Steiner, Deborah Tarn. Images in Mind: Statues in Archaic
Greek Literature and Thought. Pp. xviii + 360, figs. 28.
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Storm, Elfriede. Massinissa: Numidien im Aufbruch.
(Schriften der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft an der
Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitt Frankfurt am Main
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3-515-07829-0 (cloth).
Strenz, Jacky. Mnnerfrisuren der Sptarchaik. Pp. vii + 133,
pls. 25. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2001. DM 90. ISBN 3-
8053-2779-X (cloth).
Terrell, John Edward. Archaeology, Language, and His-
tory: Essays on Culture and Ethnicity. Pp. x + 317. figs. 9, pl.
1, tables 8, maps 21. Bergin and Garvey, Westport, Conn.
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23.) Pp. 164, b&w figs. 59, color pls. 22. Giorgio
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Mycenaean Inscriptions and Dialect, 199495. Pp. 296. Pro-
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8447 (paper).
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2 (paper).
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Salle. Pp. xvii + 327, photographs 12, maps 8. Texas A&M
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(paper).
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and Its Hinterland: Prehistoric Regional Organization in
Northwest Mexico. Pp. xv + 239, figs. 49, tables 16. Univer-
sity of Arizona Press, Tucson 2001. $45. ISBN 0-8165-
2097-6 (cloth).
Wilson Jones, Mark. Principles of Roman Architecture. Pp.
280, figs. 256, color pls. 80. Yale University Press, New
Haven 2000. $60. ISBN 0-300-08138-3 (cloth).
Yule, Paul, and Gerd Weisgerber. The Metal Hoard from
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foldout chart 1. Franz Steinder, Stuttgart 2001. DM
138.86, SF 119.40, S 1014, 71. ISBN 3-515-07153-9
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Frank J. Frost for
University of California,
Santa Barbara
Ira Haupt, II
Indiana University
Institute for Fine Arts,
New York University
Institute of Nautical
Archaeology
Johns Hopkins University
University of Missouri-
Columbia
George W. Nowell
Oriental Institute,
University of Chicago
University of Pennsylvania
Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology
University of Pittsburgh

American Journal of Archaelology

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American Journal of Archaelology

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AMERICAN JOURNAL

No. 1 January 2002

EZEQUIEL M. PINTO-GUILLAUME 42 [AJA 106

Br, High CaCo

hardly evidence to suggest a precise point of ori-

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