‘Economy’ is a broad term encompassing many different actions and activities. It encompasses everything from the manufacturing of goods to the provision of services. The production of goods, their value and their place in the economy integrates the acquisition and extraction of the materials needed, labour and equipment, the manufacturing of that equipment and the building of facilities, as well as the transport of goods to markets. As the term economy is so multifaceted, the volume reviewed here inevitably focuses on only a few aspects, with case studies related to stone objects, which are taken to characterise the Roman-period economy in Syria. The 11 contributions were originally presented in two workshops in 2017 and 2018, organised by the Palmyra Portrait Project at Aarhus University.
Although the volume aims to limit itself to stone objects, it is still a very diverse collection. The editors, Rubina Raja and Julia Steding, start by presenting the current state of research and introducing the Palmyra Portrait Project and the chapters that follow. The second chapter analyses the Palmyrene portrait reliefs in the collections of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. The study examines the tool marks and clearly shows that the techniques and tools used were similar to those employed elsewhere in the Roman Empire—a conclusion that is in line with previous works (e.g. Colledge Reference Colledge1976).
The third chapter examines a different aspect connected to Palmyrene sculptures, concentrating on seemingly unfinished objects recovered from funerary contexts. Here, Julia Steding is persuasive in arguing for the need to use the terms ‘partly finished’ or ‘partly carved’, rather than ‘unfinished’, as these objects were still included in burials and therefore presumably considered sufficiently worked. Steding also presents various possible reasons for the presence of these partly finished objects, and demonstrates that this presence was, in fact, less common at Palmyra than elsewhere.
The polychromy of Palmyrene portraits is the topic of the fourth chapter. As there is little information about this subject from Palmyra, however, the focus turns mainly to the production and painting of statues, and its different costs, in Delos, Greece, in the third century BC—a few centuries before the core timespan of the volume and beyond its geographical borders. The fifth chapter returns to Palmyra and analyses the extraction, transport and carving of stone. Inexplicably published in French, this very interesting chapter is the only non-English contribution in the volume. The next chapter also focuses on the extraction and quarrying of stone, specifically on megalithic blocks that could reach up to 19.6 × 6 × 5.6m. The chapter compares finds from Palmyra and Baalbek, and explores the facilities constructed at the quarry sites, such as blacksmithing installation and water cisterns.
Chapter 7 offers something completely different and starts with an introduction to the scientific methods that can be used to provenance materials, such as stable isotope analysis and petrography. This overview, however, is cut abruptly short when the chapter changes focus to describe the stone used at Roman Sagalassos, in modern-day Türkiye—again, outside of the supposed parameters of the volume.
These first seven chapters take up half the volume, while the second half is filled by four longer contributions, the first two of them dealing with marble. Alfred Hirt's chapter is one of the most interesting, attempting to achieve three objectives: first, to provide a survey of the use of imported marble in Syria, Judaea/Palaestina and Arabia; second, to examine dedicatory inscriptions from the same provinces, in order to show that civic buildings and columns were donated by a wide array of individuals, ranging from client kings to local elites, and even ordinary citizens, soldiers and officers; and third, to explore how at some quarries, such as in the ancient Troad region of Türkiye, there is no sign of any imperial administration, possibly indicating that these quarries were privately owned and worked. Conversely, the next chapter, by the late Marc Waelkens, focuses on the imperial presence at other quarries. Again, sites from Türkiye are used, this time to show that local stones were preferred, as the distances involved in transporting marble were a significant proportion of their overall cost. This chapter also dissects the fluctuations in the origins of marble used at Sagalassos during antiquity.
The following chapter also concentrates on research in Türkiye, specifically stone sculpting at the city of Aphrodisias. Here, Julia Lenaghan provides an excellent survey of our knowledge about these statues and their creation. The study analyses the signatures on the sculptures in the city and compares these with finds from Italy. Not only is the documented sculptor's workshop in Aphrodisias presented, but also the quarries that supplied stone to it. The author also examines the models, motifs and styles used in the city by comparing them with other places, such as contrasting the statues of a ‘Satyr with baby Dionysos on his left arm’ made at the workshop with the statue of a ‘Satyr with child Dionysos on his shoulders’ from Mougins, France. The final chapter leads us back to northern Syria and southern Türkiye, providing a glimpse into the meagre information available on the construction of tombs and the sculptures that were placed in them, in the ancient regions of Commagene and Cyrrhestica.
In sum, this volume presents diverse and extremely interesting papers, but its title is misleading—a perfect example of not judging a book by its cover. ‘Discussions on the Eastern Mediterranean stone economy in late antiquity’ would have been a more suitable title. This issue, however, does not detract from the importance of the chapters, which deal with subjects that rarely receive sufficient attention. In doing so, the volume contributes to ongoing debates about the role of stone in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean, from quarrying and transport to exchange and use.
