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Dec. 12th, 2009 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbBooks 2009: 104
non-fiction
104. Roberta Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade: From Pots to Pepper, Duckworth, London, 2008.
The term in the international community for archaeologists who love pots, I recently learned, is "sherd nerd". Tomber is a respected scholar and specialist in Roman and Indian Ocean pottery, so I suspect she's one in good standing.
This is an interesting book. A survey of Indo-Roman trade connections, it relies extensively on the pottery evidence - as you do. There's technical discussion of Torpedo Amphorae and Red Painted Ware and Black Organic Ware and sigillata sherds, but for all that, it's remarkably accessible, for an archaeological monograph. There's a lot in it about the Indian sites, the Red Sea sites, the Ethiopian connections, and the trade routes connecting with the Arabian peninsula: much of the scholarship cited is very recent, by which I mean within the last decade. It seems an exciting area.
There is also mention given to possible communities of foreigners and traders in each of the sites, and how trade may have functioned socially: not as much as the historian in me might wish, but enough to send me off wanting to read Sidebotham's publications of the Berenike excavations, and to want to track down the Myos Hormos publications. It's fascinating stuff, tracking the trade by pots, and sherds, and the odd inscription or graffito, and making informed arguments regarding Muziris and the Muziris papyri, and the handful of literary writings that mention the Red and Indian Sea trade.
I really enjoyed reading this, which probably goes to show how much of an archaeology geek I've become.
non-fiction
104. Roberta Tomber, Indo-Roman Trade: From Pots to Pepper, Duckworth, London, 2008.
The term in the international community for archaeologists who love pots, I recently learned, is "sherd nerd". Tomber is a respected scholar and specialist in Roman and Indian Ocean pottery, so I suspect she's one in good standing.
This is an interesting book. A survey of Indo-Roman trade connections, it relies extensively on the pottery evidence - as you do. There's technical discussion of Torpedo Amphorae and Red Painted Ware and Black Organic Ware and sigillata sherds, but for all that, it's remarkably accessible, for an archaeological monograph. There's a lot in it about the Indian sites, the Red Sea sites, the Ethiopian connections, and the trade routes connecting with the Arabian peninsula: much of the scholarship cited is very recent, by which I mean within the last decade. It seems an exciting area.
There is also mention given to possible communities of foreigners and traders in each of the sites, and how trade may have functioned socially: not as much as the historian in me might wish, but enough to send me off wanting to read Sidebotham's publications of the Berenike excavations, and to want to track down the Myos Hormos publications. It's fascinating stuff, tracking the trade by pots, and sherds, and the odd inscription or graffito, and making informed arguments regarding Muziris and the Muziris papyri, and the handful of literary writings that mention the Red and Indian Sea trade.
I really enjoyed reading this, which probably goes to show how much of an archaeology geek I've become.
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Date: 2009-12-12 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-12 11:19 pm (UTC)