In this article, we draw upon a wide range of archaeological, technical and iconographical evidence in order to examine the organisation and social role of fine pottery production in two contrasting Archaic and Classical poleis, Athens and Corinth. We examine developments in the relationship between the organisation ofproduction, changes in decorative style and the degree of complexity of the social and political organisation of the two producer societies during a period of state formation. We also consider variation in the behavioural patterns surrounding ceramic use, and the role of production within the overall economy (and especially its relationship to subsistence activity). Such a study of comparative ceramic ecology not only offers a distinctive source of information about the internal ordering of producer societies, but also addresses the issue of the generation of variability in the ceramic record, an issue which has hitherto received little attention ji-om Classical archaeologists, but which is central to a f i l l understanding of ceramic trade and exchange.
This volume represents the successful fulfilment of the enterprising idea of a collection of forty essays on pieces of sculpture from the collection of the Art Museum of Princeton University, written by archaeology graduates from Bryn Mawr under the tutelage of Brunilde Ridgway, who herself contributes seven essays. Eight of the sculptures are previously unpublished, a further nine previously published only in the Record of the Art Museum at Princeton. Three sections cover 'Greek originals', 'Roman copies and variants', and 'dubitanda'. There are ten originals, by chance limited in date to the period from the late fifth century to the second half of the second century B.C. They consist of several small heads (including no. 4, the previously unpublished mid-fourth century head of an athlete), three grave reliefs and one votive. The Roman copies and derivatives form much the largest group (nos. 11-34), go as late as the early fourth century A.D., and represent a good range of Classical and Hellenistic types. Included is a fragmentary copy of the Athena Parthenos (no. 13), widely published and here firmly assigned to the mid-second century A.D. Among the portraits are an unpublished Aeschylus of the early second century A.D. (no. 18); also Socrates (no. 19), Demosthenes (no. 20) and Homer (no. 29), all previously well pubhshed. Also noteworthy are two further unpublished pieces, a statuette of a 'seated intellectual' (no. 21) and a relief with a mask of Dionysos (no. 33). Other deities are also well represented: Aphrodite (the statuette no. 14), Athena (no. 15, a head of the Ince-Blundell Type); Dionysos (nos. 16, a torso; and 17, a head); Kybele (no. 30). The 'dubitanda' consist of six pieces, all certainly or probably modern. Each entry consists of detailed description and analysis, full documentation and bibliography; the plentiful photographs, several in colour and all reproduced to a high standard, give full coverage of each piece. The index is detailed, and a note on the history of the collection puts the pieces in context. All in all, this bodes well for the future of sculpture scholarship in America.
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