2010

reviews 279
Naukratis: Greek Diversity in Egypt. Studies on East Greek Pottery and Exchange in the Eastern
Mediterranean. Edited by Alexandra Villing and Udo Schlotzhauer. British Museum Research
Publication 162. Pp. vii + 235. London, British Museum Press, 2006. ISBN 978 086159 162 6. Price
35.

This well-produced volume, generously illustrated with colour as well as black and white illustrations,
is a valuable addition to the study of Naukratis and Greek contact with Egypt. It emerged from the
28th British Museum Classical Colloquium in December 2004.
There are three main sections. The first deals with Naukratis: The Site, its Cults and its Pottery.
U.Hckmann and A. Mller revisit the evidence for the Hellenion, providing a useful list of inscribed
pots dedicated to the Gods of the Hellenes. A. Johnston presents a valuable overview of inscribed
Greek material from the site as well as a list of inscribed amphorae from Egypt: Tell Defenneh,
Naukratis, and Qurneh. Villing discusses the mortaria from the sanctuary of Apollo, some of
which carry inscriptions. It is suggested that they were used in the ritual preparation of food. The
interpretation by Williams and Villing of two sherds of possible Carian pottery as evidence for Carian
mercenaries at Naukratis seems to stretch the evidence.
The second section addresses the key issue of East Greek Pottery and its Production Centres:
Archaeology and Science. It is introduced by Sir John Boardman who gives appropriate acknowledge-
ment to the late Robert Cooks important work in this area. Hans Mommsens collaborative neutron
activation analysis of material from Naukratis is inconclusive and merely calls for a larger dataset to
make sense of the results. A batch of 85 East Greek fragments from Naukratis, now in the Museum
of Classical Archaeology in Cambridge, are analysed by Pierre Dupont and Annie Thomas. Dyfri
Williams discusses Chian pottery from Naukratis and argues for some Laconian influence. He also
returns to the possible movement of clay in antiquity. Milesian pottery, so important for finds from
Naukratis, is the subject of a discussion by Udo Schlotzhauer. This draws on finds from Miletus.
The East Greek situlae, that are well represented at Tell Defenneh, are discussed by Sabine Weber.
Possible places of production are rehearsed with the possibility of Rhodes being a strong candidate;
chemical analysis was inconclusive.
Part 2 also considers Greek material from outside Egypt: Old Smyrna (Stavros A. Paspalas) and
Emecik in the Knidia (Regina Attula). Aiolian pottery is the subject of two studies (Hans Mommsen
and Michael Kerschner). Kerschner argues that some material was produced at Kyme. There is also
discussion by Donald M. Bailey of the East Greek amphora in the Cahn collection that seems to be
from the same pot as two sherds in the Petrie Museum; these appear to have been found at Thebes.
The collecting history of the fragmentary amphora is undisclosed.
The third section puts Egypt in a wider context, East Greek Pottery and the Eastern Mediterranean:
Contact, Exchange, and Identity. Richard Posamentir considers Greek material from Berezan. Iulian
Brzescu looks at inscriptions on pottery from sanctuaries at Istros. The inscribed roof tile, dedicated
to Aphrodite (possibly by an individual named Echeleon), is intriguing. Gerald Schaus revisits finds
from the extramural sanctuary of Demeter at Cyrene. Knowledge of archaic fabrics from Cyrenaica
is supplemented by the finds from the Casa del Propileo published by Ivan DAngelo. This includes
material from the Cyclades, Corinth, and Laconia. It might have been worth exploring differences
with the East Greek material from Naukratis, which suggests that Cyrenaica and the Delta were on a
different trading routes.1 Alessandro Naso comments on Etruscan and Italic finds in North Africa. The
possibility that an Etruscan bucchero found at Naukratis came from Caere in Etruria is an interesting
development. The interpretation of a bronze infundibulum (part of a sympotic set) from Cyrene is
hampered by the unknown find-spots of other known examples (though a useful distribution map is
included). However, should a sword of the Tarquinia-Vetulonia type purchased in Egypt in the 1870s
be included as evidence for the movement of such Italian material? Alexander Fantalkin concludes the
book with an overview of Greek activity in the eastern Mediterranean during the first half of the first
millennium bc. This includes a discussion of the growing use of Greek (including Ionian and Carian)
mercenaries by different rulers.
One of the strengths of this new volume is the wealth of illustrations of previously unpublished
material. However, it is striking how the use of neutron activation and chemical analyses on the pottery

1
See D. W. J. Gill, Early Colonisation at Euesperides: Origins and Interactions, in G. J. Bradley and J.-P.
Wilson (eds.), Greek and Roman Colonization: Origins, Ideologies and Interactions (Swansea, 2006), 123.
280 REviews JEA 96
have added little to the interpretation of long distance trade in the archaic period. While some scholars
are calling for augmenting the datasets, it should be remembered that these are partially destructive
processes. Would it be better to suspend further study until the techniques have been developed?
There is little attempt to quantify the results or to move to a common methodology for interpreting the
finds. One of the few attempts to present charts of finds (not from Naukratis) only gives percentages
rather than raw figures. Nevertheless this volume gives a summary of work in progress and we can
look forward to more detailed studies to interpret this site that is so crucial for our understanding of
the Greeks in Saite and Late Period Egypt.

David W. J. Gill

Les objets en cuir de Didymoi: Praesidium de la route caravanire Coptos-Brnice. Praesidia du dsert de
Brnice, III. By Martine Leguilloux. Fouilles de lInstitut franais darchologie orientale 53. Pp.
260. Cairo, Institut franais darchologie orientale, 2006. ISBN 2 7247 0409 6. Price 48.

The Roman fort Didymoi is situated on the CoptosBerenike route in Egypts Eastern desert and was
investigated during the years 19972000 by a team of French scientists. The excellent preservational
circumstances resulted in numerous finds, organic in nature, including textiles and leatherwork. Les
objets en cuir de Didymoi by Martine Leguilloux deals with the latter.
Detailed research within a theoretical framework on Egyptian leatherwork is long overdue, and,
although an increased interest can be detected in the last two decades and several research projects
are currently in progress,1 our knowledge on leatherwork is still frustratingly scanty. For this reason
alone, this book is of great value as it presents the corpus from one well-dated and well-excavated site
by means of description, photographs, line drawings, and construction drawings. The material is not
only described but the author discusses, among other things, the distribution of size, and develops a
typology looking at development over time.
Although Roman period leatherwork from Ancient Egypt is among the best understood, which
is due not least to the large corpus of adequately published material from European sites allowing
for detailed comparison, only a handful of publications have appeared dealing with finds from other
Roman sites in Egypt,2 indicating the immaturity of our knowledge about this important finds category.
This means that comparison is severely limited, and placing the finds in a broader perspective is,
therefore, difficult. However, future publications of the aforementioned projects will only increase the
value of Leguillouxs excellent book, as it will provide a better understanding of the development of
leatherwork especially during and after the Roman era. I will pick out some issues to discuss in greater
detail that will serve as examples.
The book is divided into two parts: text and catalogue. The text part consists of a presentation
of the context, the processing of skin into leather, and a detailed account of the objects themselves.
The text part is finished with the conclusion. The quality of the photographs and drawings is very
high but it is a drawback that in most photographs, a scale bar is lacking. Although in the beautiful
shaded drawings an indication of size is given in terms of, for example, of the original size etc., an
indication by means of a scale bar would have made it easier for the reader to imagine the size. But this
is only a minor issue and might be regarded as a personal preference of the reviewer. Drawing objects
of soft, flexible material is different from drawing objects of inorganic material with an unchangeable
shape, but sometimes differences between the object in a photograph and the same object in a drawing
seems a bit too large, for example Cf-001 in fig. 42 and pl. xxviii top; S-106 in fig. 31 and pl. xiv (note
that the figure text erroneously refers to the top one as S-103 unless the reference to this object in pl.
xiv is erroneous) and S-037 in fig. 19 and pl. vi.

1
For example on Amarna leatherwork, as part of the Ancient Egyptian Leatherwork Project; see A. J.
Veldmeijer, Amarnas Leatherwork, I: Preliminary Analysis and Catalogue (Norg, 2010).
2
Mons Claudianus: S. Winterbottom, Leather, in V. A. Maxfield and D. P. S. Peacock (eds), Survey and
Excavation: Mons Claudianus, 19871993, II. Excavations, I (Cairo, 2001), 31353; Berenike: A. J. Veldmeijer,
Preliminary Report on the Leatherwork from Roman Berenike, Egyptian Red Sea Coast (19942000), PJAEE
1/1 (2007), 136; Qasr Ibrim: A. J. Veldmeijer and C. van Driel-Murray, Leatherwork from Qasr Ibrim, II: The
Pharaonic Period to the Age of Christianity (in preparation). Note that several sites have produced leather finds,
which have not (yet) been studied, among which are finds from Elephantine and the Dakhleh Oasis.