Content area
Full text
The Archaeometallurgy of the Asian Old World. Vincent C. Piggott, ed. University Museum Publications, Philadelphia PA, 1999. vi + 210 pp.; 39 figs. ISBN 0-924171-34-0, ISSN 1048-5325. $42.00 Cloth.
This compilation is based on the proceedings of "The 4th USA--USSR Archaeological Exchange Symposium: The Development of Ancient Metallurgy in the Old World," held in Tbilisi and Signakhi, Republic of Georgia, 27 September-8 October 1988. It has had a long gestation, as described by the editor in his introductory comments. It finally contains six papers on archaeometallurgy presented by U.S. participants, together with an invited paper on copperbased metallurgy in South Asia, and an English translation of a Russian summary of the proceedings included as an appendix. The majority of the final manuscripts was received in 1996 with some updating to include references up to 1998. Final publication was in 1999.
Given this lengthy evolution, any review must address the question of whether the final volume justifies its publication. To some extent more recent published research has superseded it, but it does make accessible material that might not be readily available. For example, papers by J. N. Kemoyer and H.M.-L. Miller on "Metal technologies in the Indus Valley tradition in Pakistan and western India" (pp. 107152) and G. L. Possehl and P. Gullapalli on "The Early Iron Age in South Asia" (pp. 153-176) ably summarize material not easily available. This is also true of the editor's paper on "The development of metal production on the Iranian Plateau: An archaeometallurgical perspective" (pp. 73-106) but this is in part duplicated elsewhere in the author's own writings.
The reviewer must also consider the presentation of the data and the quality of the discussion presented. There is no space for detailed criticism of each paper and any such review would be uneven depending on...