The two volumes under review represent the first comprehensive and contextualized publication of pottery and small finds unearthed in archaeological works from the late 1950s to the 1970s underneath the so-called Houses of Bronzes (HoB) and in Pactolus Cliff (PC) at Sardis. These materials from the capital of the Lydian kingdom span a period of approximately six hundred years from the Late Bronze Age to the Persian conquest. Two of the authors, Andrew and Nancy H. Ramage, were directly involved only in a small part of the original fieldwork undertaken in these sectors; the third co-author of this volume, R. Gül Gürtekin-Demir, contributed to the post-excavation classification of Lydian pottery (cf. Gürtekin-Demir, Lydian Painted Pottery Abroad: The Gordion Excavations 1950–1973 (Philadelphia 2021)). As such, though it can be treated as primary material, the work is a massive project of analysis and interpretation of what was effectively legacy data for the current authors. The final product is truly impressive and the value for scholarship of this period cannot be overstated.
Volume 1 contains individual chapters on Lydian pottery, the Lydian trenches of Sector HoB with sub-chapters organized chronologically from the Late Bronze Age and Earliest Iron Age (13th to tenth century) to Lydian I (later seventh to mid-sixth century), followed by the Lydian levels at PC. Included is a comprehensive catalogue for both areas containing measurements and descriptions for finds from both HoB (785 entries) and PC (139 entries). Most dates are robustly referenced, although a few are based, somewhat unsatisfactorily, on personal communications instead of published comparanda (for instance, HoB 626, 634, 635). The bibliography is comparatively sparse but the general index at the end of the book is extremely useful since it also lists associated catalogue numbers with pottery shape names and places of origin. Volume 2, conveniently colour-coded by period, contains plates showing sector drawings and objects.
Both volumes contain a wealth of information, high-quality photographs and drawings of both the trenches at the time of the excavation and the objects. Captions are always detailed and clear and cross-references between plans, sector drawings and profile drawings help the specialist reader to follow stratigraphical comments closely. However, some information can only be extracted from the figures with difficulty. First, at times the fact that sector drawings are not directly accompanied by profile drawings makes understanding the spatial situation of individual contexts challenging. Second, some of the plans are presented at such a small scale that individual structures are barely visible. Finally, and most importantly, the different shades of red and brownish red used on the palimpsestial diachronic plans are too similar, making it extremely hard to differentiate some periods. While some of this might simply be a question of production costs for the printed edition, the resolution of illustrations in the open access version is also quite low (https://sardisexpedition.org/en/publications/r8).
The non-specialist reader will find the chapters on Lydian pottery (1–18) very helpful as they provide an overview of shapes and decoration styles present at Sardis. Equally insightful for a general audience are the introductions (21–35, 111–16) with information on previous research, political and settlement history, geology and geomorphology (for example, floods caused by the river posing a recurring danger for the inhabitants of the area), chronology and stratigraphy. Most of the other chapters are written with a specialist audience in mind. From the many important insights, only a few will be highlighted here. First, the authors convincingly date one major destruction level to the last quarter of the eight century BCE and thus show that it cannot be related, as previously assumed, to a possible Cimmerian raid of Sardis a century later (57–69). Second, the authors have spent considerable effort on the presentation of contexts such as Building H, including a wonderful isometric drawing accompanies photographs and plans (73–77). This provides an excellent case study, not only for comparison (for example, with similar domestic structures of that period from Miletus) but also for teaching students about contemporary architecture. The observed entanglement of domestic and small-scale economic life within local houses is particularly noteworthy and something that changes with the growth of workshops and production. With the erection of the monumental mudbrick city wall in the course of the seventh century BCE the occupants of both sectors found themselves outside of the city’s defence system, which ultimately seems to have made them less attractive for habitation.
The reader should not expect much in the way of engagement with discussion of contemporaneous material culture from other sites (both the Anatolian heartland and the Greek coast, but also the wider Mediterranean), which on occasion can be surprising. This is an extremely targeted work, if one of very high quality. What is offered here is, rather, an indispensable and impressive data foundation for many new avenues of future research. There is no doubt this book will become a standard point of reference for anyone working with archaeological objects from western Asia Minor from the Late Bronze down to the Late Archaic periods.
