Ordinary Lydians at Home: The Lydian Trenches of the House of Bronzes and Pactolus Cliff at Sardis. By Andrew Ramage, Nancy H. Ramage, and R. Gül Gürtekin-Demir (SardisRep 8). 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Archaeological Exploration of Sardis 2021. Pp. 570. $100. ISBN 9780674248557 (cloth).

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Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewOrdinary Lydians at Home: The Lydian Trenches of the House of Bronzes and Pactolus Cliff at Sardis. By Andrew Ramage, Nancy H. Ramage, and R. Gül Gürtekin-Demir (SardisRep 8). 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Archaeological Exploration of Sardis 2021. Pp. 570. $100. ISBN 9780674248557 (cloth).Naoíse Mac SweeneyNaoíse Mac SweeneyUniversity of Vienna Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreWhen we think of the Lydians, we tend to think of kings and palaces, the wealth of the proverbial Croesus, and the invention of coinage. With the publication of this handsome two-volume set, this will change.The volumes present the long-awaited and much-anticipated results of more than 50 years of excavation and research into the Lydian levels (ca. 1200–547 BCE) from the site of Sardis, the capital of the Lydian kingdom. They focus on the two sectors where remains from the Lydian period are best explored: the House of Bronzes (HoB) and the Pactolus Cliff (PC). Both areas lay beyond the city’s fortification walls during the Lydian period, making them, in the authors’ words, “suburbs” outside the main urban core (xii). Evidence from these sectors may therefore be mute on the subject of kings and palaces, but it has much to tell us about the everyday lives of ordinary people living and working on the outskirts of the capital city. The first volume presents the remains from both sectors systematically, organized first by area and then by level. It then lays out a catalogue of ceramics and small finds, comprising 924 separate items. The second volume contains the accompanying illustrations: 264 pages of maps, plans, drawings, and photographs, many in full color.The first volume begins with a series of brief introductory essays. These include prefaces written by the authors, and also by the series editor and overall site director, Nicholas Cahill. These set out the history of the excavations and the research into the Lydian levels of Sardis, stretching back to 1958 when Lydian levels were first uncovered in the HoB sector. Following this, Ramage and Ramage offer a comprehensive yet succinct overview of Lydian pottery, including its main fabrics, wares, decorative type, and shapes. This is a practical guide that will quickly become a standard go-to text for future students of Lydia and Anatolian ceramics. Throughout, the authors are careful to consider how Greek terminology can and should be applied to Lydian pottery, and they encourage reflection on the cultural implications and assumptions implicit in this practice.Part I of the book then details the findings in the HoB sector. After a description of the relevant topography, geology, and geomorphology, Ramage and Ramage proceed chronologically, beginning with the earliest Late Bronze and Early Iron Age levels (uncovered only in deep soundings) and ending with the remains of the Lydian I level, dating to the early sixth century BCE. We read about a local ceramic tradition incorporating both elements of geometric design associated with the Aegean and the typical monochrome styles of inland Anatolia in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages, as well as the relatively scanty remains of the first Lydian level: Lydian IV (ninth to mid eighth centuries BCE). The subsequent Lydian III level seems to have enjoyed a growth in prosperity, with a series of substantial storage pits, structures, and ovens uncovered in the HoB sector. It is known as the “destruction level,” due to the signs of burning and violence that sealed this phase—a destruction that was once attributed to the Kimmerians but which is now known to have occurred significantly earlier (late eighth century BCE) than the historical dates given for the Kimmerian attack (652 BCE). Whatever the identity of its attackers, Sardis appears to have recovered relatively quickly. The remains of the subsequent Lydian II level attest to greater prosperity still, with the sector occupied by a number of domestic houses, well built on stone foundations, containing evidence for domestic industries as well as everyday life.The more extensive remains of the Lydian I level offer evidence for an ever-wider range of activities in the HoB sector in the seventh and early sixth centuries BCE, when the Lydian kingdom was at its height. As well as domestic areas, storage, and what the excavators have tentatively identified as a “shop,” there is also evidence for kilns, bone working, textile manufacture, as well as the mysterious “puppy burials”—ritual inhumations of juvenile dogs, accompanied by a standard set of dining finewares. Throughout part I, developments in Lydian ceramics are detailed, and the descriptions of various archaeological features are illustrated with evocative photographs from the original excavations between the late 1950s and early 1980s.The remains from the smaller PC sector are discussed in part II by N.H. Ramage. The brevity of this section is due in part to the relatively poor preservation of the remains in this sector, due to flooding and erosion from the nearby Pactolus stream. In addition, unlike for the HoB sector, the authors of this book were not directly involved in the excavation of PC, which was undertaken in only two field seasons (1959 and 1960). Nonetheless, N.H. Ramage demonstrates the complexity of the archaeological record in PC, with the richest remains being from Lydian III, including several distinct walls on what appears to be a “cobbled street.” The catalogue of ceramics and small finds from both sectors follows, mostly authored by Ramage and Ramage, with the description of the finds from Lydian II and I in the HoB sector authored by G. Gürtekin-Demir. The descriptions are full and easy to follow, and the accompanying illustrations in volume 2 are lavish.The importance of this publication for Anatolian archaeology is hard to overstate. More than six decades in the making, it finally presents a comprehensive set of data from the Lydian period at the Lydian capital city. This will allow future researchers to draw more nuanced and meaningful comparisons with Lydian Sardis, thereby furthering the study of both Iron Age Anatolia and the archaic Greek world. A further point of interest is that these remains bear testament to the lives “not of the high and mighty, but of the ordinary worker, humble and poor, the bread makers and artisans living in reed huts and within walled enclosures” (108). Current trends in archaeology have highlighted the importance of understanding wider society beyond the urban elites, and while survey and rural excavations have done much in recent years to shed light on the lives of people in the chora, the suburban dwellers of antiquity are less well served. This publication has much to offer, therefore, not only to researchers working on Lydia, Anatolia, and archaic Greece, but also those interested in the archaeology of nonelites.In bringing these volumes to publication, the authors faced the daunting task of collating and synthesizing data from almost a whole human lifetime’s worth of excavations, working with and around the changing excavation practices and recording systems that were employed over the years. The end result is a coherent and user-friendly publication, cogently written and beautifully illustrated, and all the more laudable for being made freely available online.Notes[email protected] Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 126, Number 3July 2022 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Views: 233 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/720609 Views: 233 HistoryPublished online May 10, 2022 Copyright © 2022 by the Archaeological Institute of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.