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W. R. Biers, The Archaeology of Greece: An Introduction. Second edition. Ithaca, New York & London: Cornell University Press, 1996. Pp. 350. ISBN 0-8014-8280-1 (paper). $22.50.
William Biers' book, originally published in 1980, will surely be familiar to any reader who teaches Classical archaeology at advanced high school or undergraduate level, and no doubt to many general readers too. A revised edition in 1987 incorporated a few references to new finds and additions to reading lists, but this fully updated second edition has allowed Biers to add more substantial discussions of new material and to update the reading lists more comprehensively.
The format, as in the first edition, is chronological, with chapters devoted to each period in turn, each prefaced by a brief historical introduction which sets the archaeological material in its context. Within the chapters, the material is discussed by type: architecture, sculpture, pottery, figurines, metalwork, coins and so on. This regular arrangement of the material, although admirably clear and easy to follow, makes for occasional obscurities in explaining trends in artistic style, as when (for instance) the decorated metalwork that is perhaps the most characteristic manifestation of the Orientalising style comes at the end of the relevant chapter. More problematically, the structure of the chapters also has the effect of divorcing objects from their contexts: so, for example, in Chapter 5, pottery, metalwork and figurines from Geometric graves are discussed separately, and there is no general account of Geometric burial practices, which constitute such a significant source for our understanding of the period.
This object-centred approach is typical of traditional Classical archaeology: there is no theory here, and little interpretation. But this is probably inevitable in an introductory book, given the overwhelming quantity of material surviving from the Greek world, and the overall chronological ordering adopted by Biers is a distinct improvement over the entirely object-based format of the older Classical archaeology textbooks that this one supersedes, such as Gisela Richter's Greek Art (9th edition, Phaidon, 1987). Any student who had mastered all the material discussed in this book would have a...