Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 23 (2017) 355-366 brill.com/acss Book Reviews ∵ Massimo Vidale and Alessandra Lazzari, eds. Lapis Lazuli Bead Making at Shahr-i Sokhta. Interpreting Craft Production in a Urban Community of the 3rd Millennium BC. Padova, Roma: Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali, Archeologia, Storia dell’Arte, della Musica e del Cinema, Università degli Studi di Padova & ISMEO – Associazione Internazionale di Studi sul Mediterraneo e l’Oriente, 2017, 379 p., numerous colour and b & w images, tables. ISBN 978-88-97336-56-3. Maurizio Tosi was the archaeologist who first excavated and made famous in the world the proto-historic city of Shahr-i Sokhta in Iranian Sistan. In the year of his death, Massimo Vidale and Alessandra Lazzari completed a brilliant, substantial and comprehensive study of the manufacturing techniques for the production of beads and other artefacts, made of semi-precious stones, at Shahr-i Sokhta. The topic of the book, bead making with lapis lazuli and other semi-precious stones at Shahr-i Sokhta, has been the subject of numerous scientific papers authored by various writers (G.M. Bulgarelli, M. Casanova, L. Foglini, G. Herrmann, M. Piperno, M. Tosi, M. Vidale) since site excavations began in 1968. This work is truly exhaustive considering the quantity and quality of the scientific analyses (chemical, mineralogical, XRD and ESEM observation) performed by different Italian specialists, the re-analysis of the excavation records and stratigraphical contexts from which the material derives (EWP and EWK squares, in the Western Quarters area), the presence of numerous new drawings of the lithic inventory recently produced by M. Vidale and L. Foglini for her M.A. thesis in 1998, the reassessment of large quantities of graphical and registered written material (field books, sketches, maps, sections and photos) as well as the unexpected discovery of another industry sample from the same squares in 2015 in London, where an English researcher had stored this collection of lapis lazuli waste and rough-outs, shattered beads, chert blades and drills for about 20 years. Thus I can state without a shadow of a doubt that this book is a great contribution to the study and understanding of the palaeotechnological, social and economic processes connected to bead making with © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/15700577-12341321 Downloaded from Brill.com10/31/2019 02:02:52PM via Università di Bologna 356 book reviews semi-precious stones during the mid 3rd millennium BC in Middle Asia. This volume is a superb addition to the collection of ever-expanding literature on the Bronze Age period and proto-urban societies of the Near and Middle East. The authors and editors must be commended for writing and producing such a well-researched book. It constitutes, in my opinion, a very important contribution to our scientific knowledge and a benchmark of reference for any scholar interested in the prehistoric period of Middle Asia, having indeed set a high standard for future research in bead making across the Iranian Plateau. The book also marks an important step in the resurgence of ISMEO – International Association of Studies on the Mediterranean and the Orient, which was founded in 2012 and is the natural descendant of IsIAO (Italian Institute for Africa and East), declared closed in 2011. Much of the material included here was stored in dusty boxes of the IsIAO warehouses as well as on the shelves and in the showcases of the “Giuseppe Tucci” National Museum of Oriental Art of Rome. For decades A. Lazzari worked on constantly preserving, updating, correcting and re-organising the Shahr-i Sokhta collections and the relative records. Thanks to the obscure and meticulous work done in an archive of peeling yellowed labels, notes and records written long ago and almost illegible today, this book has also saved a great amount of archaeological information from the oblivion of ill-advised government decisions and unwise economic management. Ten scholars contributed to the book under the general supervision of M. Vidale, who authored and co-authored eleven of the twelve chapters plus the introduction of the volume. The appendix is represented by a contribution of S. M. S. Sajjadi focused on recent excavations at Shahr-i Sokhta carried out by an Iranian team of archaeologists. The first chapter is dedicated to the history of discoveries and research conducted relating to the processing and trade of semiprecious stones of Shahr-i Sokhta. Firstly, there is a detailed description of a stone cutter’s hoard discovered in 1969 characterised by the exceptional find of six wooden tools used as drill bit supports for beads as well as holders where beads were placed to be polished against grinding stones, according to the new interpretation advanced by M. Vidale. This is followed by the identification of the lapis lazuli workshop area in squares EWK–EWP, where about 2000 individual objects and rejects weighing about 3.8 kg were found, presented in close association to the discovery of some craftsmen’s graves of very great cultural importance for their funerary inventory (graves 2, 10, 12 and 77). The first site excavators, and subsequently other colleagues, indiscriminately set this evidence of lapis lazuli manufacturing into a picture crowded with elements and reflections based on Childe’s urban revolution model: Ancient Civilizations from Scythia toDownloaded Siberiafrom 23Brill.com10/31/2019 (2017) 355-366 02:02:52PM via Università di Bologna book reviews 357 technological specialisation, standardisation of tools and techniques, urban segregation of the artisan class, which were concentrated in a citadel under the physical and political control of the urban élite, and cultural context suggesting long-distance trade networks in I. Wallerstein’s “world system” economical theory. This interpretation, strongly criticised in the book, was previously supported by a cursory examen of the stratigraphy and the formation processes of the archaeological matrix of squares EWK-EWP and the undisputed certainty that the architecture displayed in the aforementioned squares was a substantial unitary complex, in other words a true workshop. As clearly stated in the following chapters but mainly in chapters 3, 7 and 12, the three-dimensional distribution of the lapis lazuli industry seems to be patterned after post-depositional taphonomic processes (anthropic and natural) rather than by ancient forms of labour organisation. The re-analysis of the field books, the graphic documentation of the dig, the photographic record and Tosi’s personal recollections by M. Vidale and his colleagues allows to identify a series of industrial dumping layers trashed across the ruins of a series of mud brick rooms and/ or houses and the performance of small-scale, irregular production activities carried out at different times by small groups or single craftsmen seeing to the complete manufacturing sequence of small batches of product, more than the performance of coordinated, hierarchically controlled craftsmen working together for long periods of time in a larger organisation. Neither in the deposits of Period II, nor in the assemblages of Period III, have Vidale and his colleagues identified evidence of administrative activities specifically focused on bead making. Moreover, the idea of a specialised technology for the mass production of semifinished objects for long-distance trade enterprises is unsupported. Thus, from the newly analysed evidence and data, we may envisage a group of part-time specialists, independent and self-sufficient from an economical point of view (some perhaps even socially emarginated), manufacturing finished beads for the internal demand of the city and its surrounding rural territory, working on a seasonal basis and freely subsisting on the natural resources available on the shores of the nearby Hamun-i Helmand terminal lake: fish and eggs. This behaviour and craft organisation by self-sufficient social units, working on a part-time, probably seasonal basis, is compatible with the squatting context of occupation in decaying or ruined private houses and dumping in the adjacent abandoned spaces. The EWK–EWP craftsmen may have worked as local farmers for most of the year, while working as beadmakers and stonecutters in spring, they most likely supplemented their food by fishing, hunting birds and collecting eggs. The discovery of cane segments as containers for semi-precious stones attested by the hoards discovered by Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 23 (2017) 355-366 Downloaded from Brill.com10/31/2019 02:02:52PM via Università di Bologna 358 book reviews M. Tosi in 1968 is suggestive proof for this interpretation. On the contrary, if they were nomadic pastoralists, extraneous to the city, the authors suggest that they would have reached the edges of the city in spring, supporting themselves by foraging and with the income of their craft work. This interpretation is vigorously put forward: the overall organisation of the lapis lazuli industry at Shahr-i Sokhta seems to be compatible with well organised pastoral transhumance patterns from mining areas in the Badakhshan area to the market and workshops of Shahr-i Sokhta. In this regard, it is no coincidence that there exists a link between the offering of kids and lambs and large amount of lapis lazuli and turquoise beads in the graves of nomadic pastoralists-and-traders, previously noted by M. Piperno1 and recently confirmed by S. M. S. Sajjadi, in the Appendix of the book. This pattern has not been noted in two large Middle Asia graveyards of the Bronze Age: Altyn-depe in southern Turkmenistan,2 and Shahdad in central, south-eastern Iran.3 A great amount of bead making indicators was collected on the surface of squares EWK–EWP. The authors of Chapter 3 suggested that this surface assemblage, particularly in square EWP, is a palimpsest belonging to the Period III (phase 4 and 3 – third quarter of the 3rd millennium BC) formed by the record of a distinctive phase of chert and jasper processing and bead making and the surface dispersion of substantial amounts of lithic material re-excavated from the buried contexts of Period II (phase 5A and 5B – between 2600 and 2500 BC). This interpretation is corroborated by the analysis of the pottery, although the ceramic record is scanty and inhomogeneous, as well as by two of the three available 14C datings (chapter 4). Briefly, the 200 m2 excavated in squares EWK–EWP brought to light two different ruined architectural contexts superimposed in time, where craft indicators were almost entirely in secondary contexts of deposition. This manufacturing site is subsequent to the period of intensive use of lapis lazuli ornaments documented in Period I (end of the 4th – beginning of the 3rd millennium BC) and ends before Period III, when lapis lazuli networks extended across the Iranian Plateau to furnish the expanding Near East markets (as witnessed by the royal graves of Ur). Chapters 5 to 10 are dedicated to the description and analysis of the lithic industry and the craft activities carried out with different stone material at Shahr-i Sokhta. The processing and use of chert-chalcedony, utilised for the production of drill-heads out of bladelets and certainly carried out alongside the manufacturing of lapis lazuli beads, is the main subject of chapter 5. 1 Piperno 1979. 2 Masson, Berezkin 2005. 3 Hakemi 1997. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia toDownloaded Siberiafrom 23Brill.com10/31/2019 (2017) 355-366 02:02:52PM via Università di Bologna book reviews 359 Vidale and Foglini here demonstrate that the know-how and cumulative skill required for working chart and lapis are quite different and technically independent. This supports the impression that the craftsmen were competent in multiple craft skills, further affirmed by the evidence of other manufacturing cycles such as the working of turquoise ornaments and artefacts made of other raw materials described and analysed in chapters 9 and 10, authored by the same Vidale and Foglini. Here the description of the raw materials, the basic palaeotechnological types and the reconstructed reduction process are provided, highlighting that the manufacturing process of turquoise did not employ the typical grooving-and-splitting technique, which was rather characteristic of the lapis lazuli, as described in the central chapters 6, 7 and 8. By means of chemical and XRD analysis Vidale and his colleagues infer that samples from Shahr-i Sokhta and other sites of the Indo-Pakistani territory (Mehrgarh in primis) share the same mineralogical composition with those collected from the Sar-i Sang mining area on the banks of the Kokcha River in Afghan Badakhshan, Pamir, excluding moreover the presence of such mineral resource in the Chagai hills of Baluchistan, as already demonstrated by R. Law4 and confirmed by other scholars.5 The assemblage composed of the palaeotechnological classes and lapis lazuli products is presented by tables containing descriptions of the types, quantity of the artefacts, percentage, weight, their morphological and typometrical variability, by ESEM pictures showing the technical detail of the process and by numerous drawings (by L. Foglini), while the bead types, which were mainly small in size and of three basic types (cylindrical, disk-shaped and barrel-shaped), are analysed in relation to their presence/absence both in the excavated residential quarters and in the burials. The quantitative figures achieved support the hypothesis of a production mainly intended for the internal market with some bead types more frequently worn by the living population than by the deceased. The reduction sequence already proposed in the past by different authors is updated suggesting a serial production of tablet-like, flat preforms, which were then polished and carved on both sides before the separation of the blanks in the form of elongated bars. The hypothetical use of copper chisels for striking along the grooves is here advanced, as well as the use of abrasives in the grooving and splitting process, as highlighted by the identification of flakes of a corundum-bearing chrysoprase through an XRD (the first time this mineral was identified in a technological context of the 3rd millennium BC): a quartz-bearing rock with substantial percentage of aluminum oxide, one of the hardest substances on 4 Law 2011. 5 Wilkinson 2012. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 23 (2017) 355-366 Downloaded from Brill.com10/31/2019 02:02:52PM via Università di Bologna 360 book reviews the planet, second in hardness only to diamond. Comparing the manufacturing and cutting techniques of Shahr-i Sokhta, Tepe Hissar in northern Iran, Tall-i Malyan in Fars and Mohendjo-daro in Sindh and supporting the reconstruction by some experimental replicas, as well as by drawings summarising the ergonomic positions of the craftsmen and the stages of the manufacturing transformations, the processes of lapis lazuli bead making are fundamentally reconstructed on a grooving-and-splitting technique and today appear as a mass production, batch-oriented, that can be considered a rational solution for the production of large amounts of beads. The tenth chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the manufacturing cycles of artefacts made of other raw materials such as chalcedony, jasper, agate, aragonite, calcite, sandstone, steatite and basalt. It is highly likely that some of them had been presumably used by artisans of Shahr-i Sokhta as tools or utensils in bead making processes, while some others document operational sequences very similar to those described in relation to lapis lazuli and turquoise manufacture, aimed at the production of beads and other ornaments. The last chapter of the book, as previously stated, is designed as an appendix and is authored by S.M.S. Sajjadi. Dedicated to the Iranian research in the Shahr-i Sokhta graveyard, which began in 1997 and is still underway, this text is rather descriptive and informative in character. Notwithstanding, the author presents the discovery of some new burials attributed to artisans (graves 2701 and 5003) and highlights the bi-univocal correspondence between the presence of numerous lapis lazuli beads in the same grave and the offering of a lamb or kid, suggesting that these graves belonged to a wealthy class. Moreover, some of these graves, characterised by animal offering, contained some exceptional composite lapis lazuli ornaments fixed to an inner copper wire and mounted with several cylindrical segments joined with gold strips in their centre. M. Vidale remarks in the footnote that nothing so complex, from a metallurgical point of view, has been discovered thus far in this Iranian site. As an example, grave 4314, of the Period III, is considered the richest grave on account of the presence of goat kids as well as six lapis lazuli beads with gold strips. In this regard, I recommend a careful perusal of the beautiful colour plates at the end of the book, particularly colour plate 21, where the composite beads from grave 3400 are perfectly illustrated. This book has a great depth and breadth, and given the magnitude of the research questions, it is very impressive in that it achieves its aims. Both in terms of new data and re-interpretations of earlier investigations, there is a wealth of material here that will be useful not only to the specialist in Middle Asian archaeology, but to researchers in other disciplines as well, first of all those interested in bead making, lithic industry and ancient long-distance trade. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia toDownloaded Siberiafrom 23Brill.com10/31/2019 (2017) 355-366 02:02:52PM via Università di Bologna 361 book reviews Ultimately, this is a work that is timely, relevant and interesting, and both a welcome and necessary addition to the field of Middle Asian archaeology. Gian Luca Bonora ISMEO – International Association of Studies on the Mediterranean and the Orient, Italy Bibliography Hakemi, A. (1997). Shahdad. Archaeological Excavations of a Bronze Age Center in Iran. Rome. Law, R.W. (2011). Inter-regional Interaction and Urbanism in the Ancient Indus Valley: a Geological Provenience Study of Harappa’s Rock and Mineralogical Assemblage. In: Linguistics, archaeology and the human past, Occasional Paper 11. Kyoto: Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, pp. 1-800. Masson, V.M., Berezkin, Yu.E., eds. (2005). Khronologiya épokhi pozdnego éneolita – sredneï bronzÿ Sredneï Azii (pogrebeniya Altÿn-depe) (Trudÿ Instituta istorii material’noï kul’turÿ Rossiïskoï akademii nauk 16). St.-Petersburg. Piperno, M. 1979: Socio-economic implications from the graveyard of Shahr-i Sokhta. In: M. Taddei, ed., South Asian Archaeology 1977, Naples, pp. 121-141. Wilkinson, T.C. (2012). Tying the threads of Eurasia: Trans-regional Routes and Material Flows in Eastern Anatolia and Western Central Asia, c. 3000-1500 BC, PhD Thesis, Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 23 (2017) 355-366 Downloaded from Brill.com10/31/2019 02:02:52PM via Università di Bologna