This handsome, specialist volume amounts to much more than the detailed catalogue of Lydian and Lydianizing pottery excavated by the late Rodney Young at the Phrygian capital of Gordion. Gordion came under Lydian control from sometime in the early sixth century BCE until the Persian invasion of ca. 547. Thereafter it fell within the Achaemenid Empire down to 333 BCE when Alexander the Great famously cut the Gordion Knot. Thus the chronological range of this study extends from the seventh century down to the early fourth. It should be made clear that this is a study of whole pots and nice pieces almost all of which are painted, and that even these exceptional pieces represent only what Rodney Young decided to keep in the course of his extensive, highly productive, excavations. In addition to providing detailed contextual information that will be invaluable to those working at Gordion itself, the volume provides an overview covering Anatolia beyond the homeland of the Lydian Kingdom, which in practice is very largely restricted to the capital at Sardis. Included in this wider picture is analysis of function together with discussion of the implications for moving towards interpretation of daily life, ritual life and afterlife at Gordion. No one could be better positioned to undertake this in-depth study than Gül Gürtekin-Demir who has extensively published on Lydian pottery from Sardis itself, Daskyleion, and elsewhere. Although the subtitle of the book is restricted to excavations that took place between 1950 and 1973, it takes full cognizance of more recent fieldwork conducted by Mary Voigt, together with publications that have resulted from it, as well as the small amount of relevant material found by the Körte brothers in 1900. Gürtekin-Demir was herself able to examine material from Voigt’s trenches at first hand, benefitting from close collaboration with members of the Gordion team. While it is obviously impossible to publish a study of this type that contains results from the very latest fieldwork at the time of going to press, the present work lays excellent foundations for study of the pottery from Brian Rose’s current campaigns. This ongoing fieldwork includes the uncovering of what is very probably the palatial residence of a Lydian governor of Gordion beneath a collapsed terracotta tile roof (Rose 2021, 51). It is to be hoped that Gürtekin-Demir will, in due course, make a study of the Lydian pottery from these ongoing excavations.
The book is essentially divided into two. Chapters 1 to 4 deal with the pottery itself, and the contexts from which it was excavated, while chapters 5 to 7 offer analysis and interpretation of that evidence. 222 pieces are catalogued and illustrated. This review will focus on highlighting some of the more important aspects of the study that will be of interest to archaeologists, and cultural anthropologists with interests in the Iron Age of Central Anatolia, and the Eastern Mediterranean.
The first three chapters deal with visual study of wares (i.e., pottery fabrics), painting conventions, and shapes. Four fabrics are identified: Sardian, Provincial I, Provincial II, and Miscellaneous. Eight color plates provide adequate illustration of the limited number of motifs and, most usefully, of the various types or styles of marbling, thereby complimenting the clear text. There is a very limited range of painting conventions; there is no figural decoration whatsoever. Shapes are summarized on figure 11, page 125, at the beginning of the catalogue, while variations of common shapes are illustrated in the chapter itself. The total number of shapes amounts to only 14, of which lekythoi have been divided into three types and , the most common shape by some margin, into two: Type I, Fat-bellied, and Type II, Late lydions. This entire corpus can be split into 64 Sardian imports, 29%, and 158 Provincial fabrics (including Miscellaneous), 71%. Relationships between fabrics, shapes, and painting are provided in clear, and helpful tables.
Analysis of this pottery according to findspots within discrete sectors of the Gordion excavations forms the subject of chapter 4, the Eastern and Western Citadel Mound, the Küçük Höyük and the Tumuli, Common Cemetery, and Museum Site all taken together. These areas encompass the elite portion of the site (on the citadel), the garrison residence in a multi-storied fort on the line of urban defenses, and burials of both people of status and commoners. Details of the findspot for each individual piece are provided along with a series of block plans that show buildings, excavated areas, and trenches. While the largest corpus was recovered from the Eastern Citadel (very little having been excavated on its Western twin) almost none can be said to have come from a good and clear archaeological context. While this observation reflects the methods of excavation, recording and selection of pieces for retention that were characteristic of Young’s excavations, it also serves to emphasize the very small percentage of the entire ceramic corpus at Gordion that is made up of Lydian or Lydianizing pottery. At the Küçük Höyük, by contrast, a significant number of vessels, mostly lydions, were recovered from the destruction deposits that can safely be attributed to the Persian attack of the mid sixth century. Contained in these pages is a welcome summary of excavations at this multi-storied fort, which has never been properly published, with provision of a helpful plan. Here alone, at the Küçük Höyük, is a well-dated corpus, albeit comprising a very limited repertoire of shapes.
Turning now to matters of chronology, Gürtekin-Demir documents a few occurrences as early as the seventh century BCE, but the majority can be dated to the sixth or fifth centuries, with little if any extending down into the fourth. The Persian destruction that is so evident at the Küçük Höyük has also been recognized in some parts of the Eastern Citadel excavations. This dramatic event provides the only securely dated contexts. Additionally, lydions and a small number of other vessels were recovered from some of the cremation burials in elite graves while other examples were found in more ordinary graves, with both imported and provincial wares recorded. Material from Tumulus A and Tumulus C is catalogued while that from the other cremation tumuli is to be incorporated in a forthcoming volume. The burials with which this pottery is associated do not provide independent evidence of dating. Furthermore, the pottery says nothing concerning the identity of the deceased, least of all ethnicity.
Of wider interest than the pottery itself is, perhaps, the short discussion of function. Some shapes are to be associated with eating and drinking while others, Gürtekin-Demir argues well, were valued for their perfumed contents rather than as decorated vessels of value in their own right. There is description of ancient written sources as well as of archaeological evidence that pertains to Lydian food and beverages, but taken as a whole the data is not suggestive of extensive adoption at Gordion of Lydian style. It is also noted that, with regard to fine table wares, there are many more Attic imports than Lydian ones. The question of perfumed oils in the lydions found at the Küçük Höyük with implications concerning the personal habits of the garrison thought to have been installed there is briefly raised. The possibility that some of these Lydions were recycled as containers for other substances is not discussed. One hopes that residue analysis might one day be possible.
The final short chapter, “Lydian Material Culture at Gordion: Investigating Lydian Culture through Pottery,” is mostly concerned with Lydian-style pottery from other sites in Anatolia with a view to placing the evidence from Gordion in a wider context. It is stressed that this pottery tells us nothing about the ethnicity of those who used it. Furthermore, the limited amounts do not suggest that Lydian habits and tastes were much emulated beyond the borders of the homeland. A fuller assessment of Lydian influences at Gordion will have to take account of other classes of material culture, including imported and provincial terracotta roof and revetment tiles, metalwork, carved ivory, and so forth. Ongoing excavation of a possible palace for a Lydian governor, alluded to above, will doubtless produce much evidence relevant to these wider questions of cultural contact and cross-fertilization. If the identification of this building is correct it would surely imply the presence of at least some Lydians at Gordion. Here we may note in particular the much-discussed issue of tumulus burial traditions as well as the adoption by Lydia of the Phrygian goddess Cybele. Pottery, however, remains the life-blood of archaeology, and this study has laid very strong foundations for the future study of Lydian influences beyond the borders of its homeland, within the regions west of the Halys River that it subjugated, and the extent of Lydian cultural influence in those same areas in the Achaemenid period down until at least the end of the fifth century BCE.
Reference
Rose, C. B. 2021. “Midas, Matar, and Homer at Gordion and Midas City,” Hesperia 90, 27–78.