Classical Marble: Geochemistry, Technology, Trade

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Book Reviews

megafauna, microfauna, and humans.” The review includes the dynamics of evolution, immigration, and extinction. Need one say more-read on! This is about us! Bruce Marsh of Johns Hopkins tells us about the state of knowledge of magma chambers, melts, mushes and the like, and the zones of partial melting. They vary in range, size, and shape on many scales, from I to thousands of km). Recent advances include the seismic mapping of such bodies. How do they cool? How do they convect? What is their total rheology? How do they inguence their container in the crust? Marsh provides us with an excellent statement of what we do and don’t know. Volume 17 concludes with a review by C. M. Jarchow and G. A. Thompson of Stanford on the nature of the Moho in ocean-floor

crust (I was surprised by no mention of serpentine) and continental crust. The picture is of a simple oceanic Moho and a very complex continental one. They conclude that the traditional model of the Moho is inadequate in most situations. But, as they stress, in the Moho region lies a vast source of information on how crust is formed and modified, particularly at its base. Overall, this is an impressive volume. The range is wide, the topics well chosen and the papers well written.

Classical Marble: Geochemistry, Technology, Trade edited by Nor-

heading “Trade and Archaeological Use of Marble.” These papers show why it is important to understand the sources of marble in the ancient world (but I am perplexed by the term “archaeological use”). It is in the next four parts of the book that geochemistry earns its place in the volume title. The fiReen papers in these four parts all deal with techniques for determining the provenance of marbles based on petrographical and analytical methods used by geologists and geochemists. Isotopic analyses (of carbon and oxygen) and trace element analyses receive the most attention, but a variety of other techniques that might be useful in distinguishing among different marbles are examined-electron spin resonance spectroscopy, X-ray diffmctometry, xeroradiography, measurement of pore-size distribution, and petrographical characterization of both fresh and weathered marble. Since these papers address an archaeological problem-the provenance of marbles used in antiquity-there is not much new ground coveted in geochemistry. But an assessment by D. Wenner, S. Havert, and A. Clark of causes for variability in stable isotopic compositions of marble stands as a significant contribution to geochemistry, as well as to archaeology. Several papers address methods for analysis of multivariate data; one by M. N. Leese on statistical treatment of stable isotope data was particularly interesting to me. The book concludes with seven papers on provenance determinations of ancient artifacts, which represent the culmination of the cooperative work of the scientists and the scholars, and two papers on decay and conservation of marble. It is clear that much remains to be done before the analytical methods for the determination of the provenance of marble can reach their full potential. (And there are, of course, other analytical methods that have not yet been applied to the problem.) Generally, the analytical data allow one to rule out many potential sources, but they seldom are sufficient to pinpoint the source of an artifact. But in the hands of scholars who can use their knowledge of classical history to limit the range of potential sources, the analytical data provided by the scientists can be very valuable. I expect that this book will come to be viewed as a benchmark publication in a field of inquiry that has a promising future. It is a pity that this book about classical marble had to be published in a format that is anything but classical. The quality of reproduction of the photographs is poor. Some line drawings have been reduced too much for clarity. Some figures do not have captions, and some captions are misaligned. Although some of the manuscripts were carefully prepared, others have an abundance of typographical and other errors. (One author confused the Adriatic coast of Italy with the Ligurian coast, and in another paper, particle volume is said to have been estimated as “4/3 ? cubed.“) I think the editors and the pubhshers should have been more careful to insure that the manuscripts for this expensive book were well prepared and to insure adequate reproduction of the photographs that are so important in studies of classical art.

man Herz and Marc Waelkens. NATO Advanced Science Institutes Series E: Applied Sciences, Vol. 153, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988,482 p., US $124.00 (ISBN 90-247-3793-I). THE NATO ADVANCEDResearch Workshop on Marble in Ancient Greece and Rome: Geology, Quarries, Commerce, Artifacts held in 11Ciocco, Lucca, Italy, May 9-13, 1988, was attended by archaeologists, architects, art historians, geochemists, and geologists. This compilation of the proceedings of the meeting ilhtstrates the great diversity among these groups, both in literary style and in the kinds of information used by specialists in each field, but it also illustrates how such a meeting provides an opportunity for diverse groups to work together toward a common goal. In this case, the goal is to understand more clearly the sources ofmarbleused in ancient Greece and Rome, the historical development of the technology for the use of marble, and the marble trade in the ancient world. Of the 49 chapters in the volume, about one-third were written by physical scientists (including a few chemists and engineers, as well as geoscientists). For me, the most fascinating papers in this volume are those by scholars who have been successful both in presenting plausible accounts of how marble was prepared and used in the ancient world and in conveying a sense of the motivations of the people involved in the marble trade so long ago. E. Dolci’s description of the quarrying and the use of Lunese (Carrara) marble by the Romans, S. Walker’s documentation of an eventual shift in the balance of trade in white marbles away from Luni, J. C. Fant’s discussion of the role of the Roman emperors in the marble business, and A. Weis’ discussion of the problems encountered by Roman sculptors in copying a Hellenistic statuary type are examples of careful writing in a style that allows the story of the ancient people involved to stand out over the technical details of the scholarly investigations. Another well-written scholarly paper is by J. B. Carter, who has skillfully supplemented her knowledge of early Greek culture with isotopic data to pinpoint the source of perirrhantetia (marble cult basins) from the seventh century B.C.These papers am also exemplary in respect to the care that the authors used in preparing their manuscripts for publication. Some of the other scholarly papers are difficult reading for one who has not been schooled in classical culture. In my estimation, most of these papers deal with significant matters, but there are so many technical details that are beyond my knowledge that I cannot easily follow the reasoning of the authors. A few of the papers are largely catalogs of data, which are no doubt important to specialists but would be of little interest to others. Most geologists should find interesting reading in the early sections of the book that deal with quarties and quarrying technology in the ancient Mediterranean world. (In a few cases the product was granite, rather than marble.) A section on preliminary dressing of extracted material provides information available to us because of work left unfinished by ancient cmflsmen or, in one case, because of shipwreck. Following that are ten chapters (two are abstracts only) under the

Natural Science Centre University of Western Ontario London, Ontario N6A 5R7 Canada

School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Georgia Institute of Technoiogy Atlanta, GA 30332-0340, USA

W. S. Fyfe

J. M. Wampler