Review of Primas and De La Casa

832 BOOK RKVIKWS [ Λ )Λ 102 lowing chapter on the Iron Age. Webster explicitly uses

the ethnographic analogy of African krrud settlements to model socioeconomic and status relations w i t h i n and be-tween households. However, w h i l e (here arc i m p o r t a n t points of comparison, the range of variation in economic and social systems that exists among kraal settlements is not established, nor is it clear whether similar systems arc-associated with other settlement types.

Profound changes continue to occur during the Nuragic IV period (Iron Age, 900-500 B.C.). These include the ap-pearance of religious centers or sanctuaries, the establish-ment of Phoenician colonies on the island, and f u r t h e r intensification of metallurgical production and interna-tional trade. Webster argues that real stratification of Nuragic societies developed as a result of differential con-trol over resources and labor, and access to trade goods from Phoenicia, Cyprus, Greece, Sicily, and Etruria. The existence of a warrior elite is.supported by i n d i v i d u a l buri-als, the iconography of the votive bronzes, the unique over-life-size statues from Monti Prama, and the massive circuit walls, wells, and cisterns added at many Nuragic sites. Of great interest is the relationship between indigenous Sards and colonists; Webster suggests that "Orientalized culture" became the new standard of prestige for native populations.

A brief conclusion summarizes Webster's model for the emergence in Sardinia of s t r a t i f i e d societies based on "a p a t r i l i n e a l , patrilocal, polygynous social organization and male warrior-oriented oligarchic political organization" (203). Relegated to an appendix is a detailed discussion of t h e well-known votive figurines, orbronzelti. The 10-page bibliography (with references through 1993) is sufficient, but by no means comprehensive. More disappointing is the poor selection of illustrations. Only 3 of 81 are photo-graphs (in black and white), and the maps are but simple· outlines of the island. There is nothing to illustrate the topography or ecological zones that arc fundamental to Webster's model, or give more t h a n t h e plan of the nuraghi and their villages, the giants' tombs, sanctuaries, and the sacred wells. The reader is also occasionally distracted by typographical and other errors.

A Prehistory of Sardinia is well organized, w i t h each chap-ter including sections on chronology, settlement, techno-economy, ritual, and sociopolitical organization; in each, a handful of settlement, r i t u a l , and burial sites are de-scribed in detail, resulting in an accessible overview of Nuragic society that should appeal to both student and professional. Some may find Webster's proccssual model of social development too dependent on debatable ecological/ environmental constraints, and his combination of ethno-graphic analogy and social theory too creative for the avail-able archaeological data. However, such approaches to understanding and e x p l a i n i n g the development of social complexity are very much needed for the Mediterranean, and Webster has laid the groundwork for the formulation of alternative hypotheses and their testing with existing and future data. This volume is well worth the price and is a must-have for those interested in the Bronze Age Mediterranean.

ROBERT H. TYKOT

DEPARTMENT OK ANTHROPOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA TAMPA, FLORIDA <fäf>2O-8]OO RTYKOTeCinjMAljCAS.USF.EDU

VF.I.IKA GRUDA I. HÜGELGRÄBER DES FRÜHF.N 3.

MALA GRUDA UND IHR KONTEXT, by Margarita

Pri-mas. (Universitätsforschungen y.ur

prähistorisch-en Archäologie 32.) Pp. xi + 193, figs. 94, p lan s

8, maps 12, tables W. Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 1996.

ISBN 3-7749-2667-0.

VF.I.IKA GRUDA II. DIE BRON/EZEITLICHE NEKROIOI.F. VF.I.IKA GRUDA (Ops. KOTOR, MONTENEGRO): FUND-GRUPPEN DER MITTLEREN UND SPÄTEN ΒκΟΝ/Ε/ΚΙΤ /.WISCHEN ADRIA UND DONAU, by Philippe Delia Casa. (Universitätsforschungen / u r prähisto-rischen Archäologie 33.) Pp. xi + 206, figs. 148, plans 17, maps 12, tables 22. Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 1996. ISBN 3-7749-2663-8.

The two volumes under consideration present in im-pressive detail the results of t he excavation of a p r e h i s t o r i c t u m u l u s , Velika Cruda, in t h e Kotor region of Montene-gro on the south D a l m a t i a n coast of t h e eastern A d r i a t i c , by a team from Zurich University. Volume I (henceforth

VKl), by Margarita Primas, presents the Copper Age phase

of the burial mound, w h i l e volume II (VK II), by P h i l i p p e Delia Casa, the Bronze Age phase (and i n s i g n i f i c a n t Iron Age and medieval reuse).

Velika Gruda ("large button") lies only 270 m from a sim-ilar t u m u l u s , Mala Cruda ("little button"), both in the fer-tile coastal plain of Tivat beside t h e Bay of 'Kotor. Primas, in VK I, necessarily treats both mounds together ( M a l a was dug less s c i e n t i f i c a l l y by local archaeologists) in her p u b l i c a t i o n of the Copper Age phase, since M a l a shows close parallels in its solely Copper Age burial to the equiv-alent phase at Velika. Primas a d m i t s to a f u n d a m e n t a l d i f f i c u l t y in the interpretation of the excavated mound, that of the inadequate development of later prehistoric-research in the eastern A d r i a t i c (a view echoed by Delia Casa in VK II). Despite the admirable technical skill shown in the excavation of Velika Gruda, and the remarkable range of specialist analyses brought to bear on the finds (soil analy-sis, palynology, m e t a l analyanaly-sis, and physical anthropology for t h e numerous burials), a deeper u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the society that was responsible for the Copper Age single buri-als at the Velika and M a l a mounds remains unachievable given the present l i m i t e d knowledge of'both the Kotor re-gion and other, adjacent parts of Dalmatia d u r i n g t h i s period. Matters are only s l i g h t l y better for Delia Casa, deal-ing w i t h the collective burial clusters w i t h i n the Bronze-Age phase in VK II, where the greater prominence of mon-u m e n t s in the contemporary landscape ( f o r t i f i e d h i l l sites, stone t u m u l i ) and arguably a s i g n i f i c a n t p o p u l a t i o n rise allow some less speculative hypotheses concerning settle-ment networks and sociopolitical arrangesettle-ments than t h e l a t h e r f a n c i f u l "floating" ideas to which Primas resorts in placing the rich single-burial graves of t h e two t u m u l i i n t o their contemporary regional and extraregional context.

typolog-1998 ] BOOK REVIEWS

833

however, and the clay mound t u m u l u s in lowland topog-raphy, pins details of the burial rile, f i n d l i t t l e close par-allel in adjacent regions of the central Mediterranean or further distant (closer to home, Dalmatian parallels arc problematic owing to the poverty of research). A date for these burials of 2800-2700 B.C. (calibrated) is well argued, coeval to Early Bronze Age Greece to the south (though the contemporary cemetery of collective burials on the island of Levkas shows poor parallels except for polymctal-lic wealth items). Although to the north, in central Dal-malia, Copper Age occupation levels are claimed for un-f o r t i un-f i e d hill settlements as well as cave sites, and some stone t u m u l i are considered to begin by the end of this period, no local sites in the Kotor region can be associated w i t h the isolated t u m u l u s pair.

Primas's strategy to shed l i g h t on the f i n d s is t w o f o l d . First, she f i l l s out the VK 1 volume with extraordinary ex-cursuses into European and Near Eastern typology, search-ing for possible parallels for each artifact type or burial rite. This t r a d i t i o n a l approach is not p a r t i c u l a r l y rewarding, since it soon becomes apparent t h a t coastal M o n t e -negro, w i t h its small d i s t r i c t s of f e r t i l i t y and absence of exportable resources, nourished highly distinctive, but small-scale, later prehistoric communities. Nonetheless, we are drawn mechanically through rather tedious and largely f r u i t l e s s presentations of c u l t u r a l assemblages through-out the Balkans, c u l m i n a t i n g in an extended discussion of a cemetery in the Caucasus! Here one has to say t h a t the "Germanic" culture-history approach to prehistory shows its grave weaknesses, since arguably these extended typology games distract archaeologists of this tradition from looking into other means to understand the f i n d s f r o m excavations of this sort — w h e t h e r regional survey, or explorations in theory taken from the rich western Euro-pean and American tradition.

Nonetheless, one t h i n g does stand out clearly f r o m the wider context ( a l t h o u g h t h i s has long been known) — t h a t the t h i r d m i l l e n n i u m B.C. marks a definite trend toward single burial, often under visible mounds, sometimes of people probably of higher s t a t u s (from gifts t h a i arc un-likely to be available to the majority of the associated popu-lation). The two burials in the l i v a t Plain mounds f a l l clearly w i t h i n t h i s trend throughout Europe, but as to how the males concerned achieved their status. Primas has l i t t l e convincing to o f f e r us by way of explanation, in her sec-ond approach to interpretation. The association of a small, rather isolated district of land of some fertility with the Bay of Kotor, and the undeniable presence of exotic ex-change goods in metal prompt a rather i n t u i t i v e and self-f u l self-f i l l i n g model: "The survival oself-f available evidence sup-ports a scenario of several emerging, new centres of power, sometimes only ephemeral, which occupied important points on local bridges and routes of maritime traffic. Thus sea-borne mobility became a successful resource in the Aegean and in South Dalmatia and helped prominent ac-tivists to gain distinction at home and finally to get an out-s t a n d i n g burial" (162) — t h i out-s , deout-spite Primaout-s'out-s own earlier evidence that central Mediterranean trade consistently pre-ferred the route from northwest Greece to southern I t a l y , neglecting the eastern Adriatic u n t i l Hellenistic times. The way in which local leaders p a r t i c i p a t e d in these hypotheti-cal overseas ventures is even more curious: perhaps

stim-ulated by the current vogue for academic exchanges in the European Union, Primas speculates that these were "free-movers" who explored the seas before settling down to marry.

Delia Casa, in his t r e a t m e n t of the Bron/e Age phase at Velika Gruda, \'K II, provides a much less t r a d i t i o n a l a t t e m p t to put the burial mound into its regional and wider context. On the other hand, his task is far easier. For one thing, as noted earlier, there is much more information available on contemporary Dalmatian society, even in the Kotor region itself; and, secondly, there are well over 100 burials in the mound for t h i s phase, permitting some inter-nal ainter-nalysis of the composition of the buried c o m m u n i t y and — b y inference — o f the burying society. Once again. one can only express admiration at the flawless technical expertise and scientific analyses deployed by t h e Swiss team in t h e i r p a i n s t a k i n g extraction of every detail of the cre-ation of the mound's various strata and of the properties of its artifactual and ostcological contents.

Delia Casa convincingly demonstrates that the original ("opper Age mound of Velika Gruda w i t h its single high-s t a t u high-s male burial wahigh-s reuhigh-sed, after a long interval, for a l i m i t e d period d u r i n g the Hth-13th centuries ( c a l i b r a t e d ) B.C., (local Middle-Late Bronze Age), for a markedly differ-ent form of burial. At first using the old mound, then with more clay additions, then finally w i t h a new complete cover of stone across the mound, some 125 bodies were found interred at the site during these centuries. Allowing for decay of bone and the number of pilhos fragments lack-ing clear associated bone finds, Delia Casa elevates the orig-inal body count to 156. Through careful combination of stratigraphie detail and absolute dates, he suggests, plau-sibly, t h a t i n t e r m e n t occurred over a period of some 120 years, and t h a t deposition was structured in and around " f a m i l y tombs"—stone-lined graves used for successive col-lective burial of adults, some half dozen or so being in use at any one time. When these became too full, the older bones were carefully removed to ossuary deposits on the mound periphery, while infant and juvenile bodies were placed in jar burials clustered around the relevant "fam-ily" cist grave. A small hamlet c o m m u n i t y of some five or six families, or around 30 people, would then be reflected in a clan burial mound. In contrast to the ('.opper Age, gilts are rare and not of high value, essentially personal body ornaments.

BOOK REVIEWS l Λ JA 102 scatters of prehistoric pottery on low hillocks elsewhere

in the plain —arguably, the normal residence of the mixed-f a r m i n g peasantry who buried in such mounds during the Bronze Age and later.

These two volumes are a welcome addition to (he l i m -ited windows we possess into later prehistoric D a l m a t i a . p r i m a r i l y t h a n k s to the m e t i c u l o u s presentation and sci-e n t i f i c sci-evaluation of a tsci-extbook modsci-ern sci-excavation. Thsci-e in-terpretative weaknesses outlined above are as much the re-s u l t of tlie abre-sence of Comparable work throughout the region as of the c o n t i n u i n g backwardness of theory in Ihe German-speaking archaeological community. As m i g h t be expected, Inequality of production of these monographs is excellent, and a wider readership w ill f i n d t h a t the Ger-man text is more than adequately summarized, section by section, in English. IOHN BINTI.IFF DEPARTMENT ΟΙ·' ARC.IIAEOI.OCY D U R H A M UNIVERSITY DURHAM DH1 gLE UNITED KINGDOM J.L.BINTLIFF«DURHAM.AC.UK

'Γι ι κ FALL OF TROY IN EARLY GRF.F.K POKTRY AND ART, by Michael ]. Anderson. Pp. ix + 283, figs. 10, ap-pendix 1, catalogue. Oxford University Press, New York 1997. $75. ISBN 0-19-815064-4. Themes from the Kail of Troy are common in ancient ('•reek art and literature: the murders of Priam and his grandson Astyanax, the rape of Cassandra by A j a x , the re-union ol Helen and Menelaos, the rescue of Anchiscs by Aeneas, and a few less-popular episodes are evocative of tragic devastation induced by epic hubris. In Archaic and Early Classical Athens, the Ilioupersis was the most pop-ular Trojan story, and the complete saga inspired at least nine epic poems and dozens of plays. This book is not intended to be a comprehensive evidential survey of all the art or all the l i t e r a t u r e representing the Ilionpersis. Michael Anderson does not a t t e m p t to restlich the frag-mentary poems from t h e i r various echoes and remnants but, rather, to look for evidence of the saga's influence in more completely preserved poems, plays, and v i s u a l

manifestations,

The text is divided into three sections: the first seeks evidence for the Ilioupersis in epic poetry, the second looks to tragedy, and the third singles out some treatments of the Ilioupersis in A r c h a i c and Early Classical art and iconography —the period when it was most popular. The text is in general ihoughl-provokingand well w r i t t e n , espe-cially when the author ÎS Steeped in his subject and inspired

by it, as he generally is in the l i t e r a r y sections. Where he is on less familiar territory, as w i t h Attic vase painting, im-portant issues can suffer from hasty conclusions and easy observations. Yet his ideas are clear throughout, and Ihe Iresh air is invigorating.

Anderson uses three phenomena to analyze correlations between t h e Ilioupersis and other epics: narrative conti-n u i t y ; s t r u c t u r a l or compositioconti-nal s i m i l a r i t y (methodolog-ically linked to the neo-analysis school); and allusion, which

he d e f i n e s as specific reference in one saga to specific ele-ments found in another. Anderson weaves themes of fa-m i l i a l destruction and sacrifice throughout his analyses to discover evidence for reciprocity. For example, an ex-ternal relationship to t h e Ilioupersis can be traced in Priam's speech at //. 22.59-71, in which he predicts his death (30). But Homer is not Anderson's focus, and in an effective passage concerning l i m i n a l i t y , the author sees clues to a wider range of influence than heretofore considered for Arktinos's Iliouprrsis and the Mikra Ilias of Lesches, demon-s t r a t i n g the e l a demon-s t i c i t y of t h e poetic canon in t h i demon-s period. In t h i s vein, one of the more i n t e r e s t i n g sections in the book deals with the Nostoi, which, coming after the Sack, is positioned well for thematic linkage to the Ilioupersis. This section concludes w i t h an essay in nonlinearity, a very good brief summation of the complexity of transmission and incorporation.

A f i f t h of the plays of Aeschylus and Euripides, and a q u a r t e r of those by Sophocles, incorporate Trojan material, i n c l u d i n g three plays by Sophocles and two by E u r i p -ides about the Ilioupersis itself. W i t h o u t i n t e n d i n g to be exhaustive, Anderson provides examples of the strongest correlations to the Ilioupersis in selected plays, and some of his most convincing w r i t i n g appears in the section on Aescliylus'sAgnwrwHOH, which initiales the Orcstrin w i t h t h e nostos of Agamemnon from Troy. The author details the

indispensable d r a m a t i c elements provided by the I l i o u

-persis: " W i t h o u t t e l l i n g us exactly what happened at Troy, the d r a m a t i s t nevertheless evokes strong impressions of

the Conquest through t h e abstract means of m e t a p h o r and

imagery" and "the Ilioupersis rests uneasily on the hori-zon, an ambiguous specter whose immense i n f l u e n c e is felt and acknowledged, b u t whose shape and contours can-not be f u l l y discerned" (109).

When he turns to Euripides, Anderson s h i f t s to a para-digm borrowed from 18th-century aesthetic c r i t i c i s m . Lessing's iMohmhi provides inspiration for a brief contrast between poetry and painting: "Euripides has constructed the play [in t h i s case the Andromach«] not just as a poetic narrative, but also as an Archaic a r t i s t would construct a b i p a r t i t e narrative painting, overstepping Lessing's distinc-t i o n bedistinc-tween distinc-t e m p o r a l l i n e a r i distinc-t y in lidistinc-terary narradistinc-tive and temporal s i m u l t a n e i t y in v i s u a l narrative" (148). Anderson makes t h i s analogy because he i n t e n d s the work of Eurip-ides to serve as a bridge between t h e preceding analyses of t h e poetry and the following analyses of v i s u a l m a t e r i a l . But w i t h so much recent work on narrative in Greek art. and on theoretical narralology in general, it is no longer enough q u i c k l y lo reference Lessing and move on.

The t h i r d section of the book deals w i t h I l i o u p e r s i s iconography. It is founded on a curiously slight bibliog-raphy, especially f o r a m a n u s c r i p t t h a t began as a doctoral dissertation. The current state of Ilioupersis bibliography contradicts Anderson's statement t h a t "the vast q u a n t i t y of Ilioupersis art work has been subjected to frequent study d u r i n g the past few decades" (179). In a c t u a l i t y , no scholar has followed up with an Attic counterpart to J.-M. Morel's excellent treatise on Ihe Ilioupersis in I t a l i a n vase p a n n -ing (URiouptTSis dans la céramique italiole: Iss mythes et leurs

txpnssum figurée CM IV siècle, Rome 1975). So it comes as no