Since classical antiquity, Greek sculpture has occupied a premier position in the history of art. Pliny the Elder relied on earlier writers such as Xenokrates, Antigonos, and Pasiteles for his accounts of ancient Greek statues in marble and bronze, which appear in chapters of his Natural History devoted to stone and metals. Materials and techniques were of primary interest to Pliny, but his treatment—and those of many modern art historians until quite recently—nonetheless focused largely on stylistic development and the seemingly inevitable “progress” toward more naturalistic rendering of the human form, which is Greek sculpture’s principal subject.

The past several decades, however, have ushered in new approaches. Scholars have paid increasing attention to such topics as context (socio-political and religious as well as archaeological), reception, gender, etc. Materials and techniques, too, have received more detailed examination, both in specialized monographs and comprehensive surveys: Andrew Stewart’s Greek Sculpture: An Exploration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990) and Claude Rolley’s La Sculpture Grecque 1 (Paris: Picard, 1994), for example, address such matters usefully in introductory chapters.

In Greek Sculpture: Function, Materials, and Techniques in the Archaic and Classical Periods, Olga Palagia and her American and British collaborators take things considerably further, zooming in on the methods by which ancient craftsmen produced the statues while exploiting and compensating for the particular properties of various materials. Yet although ancient craftsmen also fashioned statues out of wood, ivory, and precious metals, these are only briefly touched upon. The focus of the volume—as befits the preponderance of the surviving material—is marble, though bronze and terracotta are also examined. (Somewhat surprisingly, however, there is little attention to terracottas outside of Magna Graecia: the series of “Tanagra figurines” that appeared in the fourth-century BC is overlooked; nor is fourth-century statuary produced outside Asia Minor—or, indeed, any fourth-century statuary today outside the British Museum—in any medium addressed.) The book provides no explicit rationale for limiting the treatment to the Archaic and Classical periods. Hellenistic sculptors broke new ground in various ways; and although as Palagia notes (244) the technical characteristics of Hellenistic marbles show little variation from the Roman, it seems artificial to exclude such an innovative period. Finally, neither the economic nor symbolic value assigned to diverse materials is explored, though the word “expensive” does appear occasionally without further explanation. Still, within its self-defined limits, the book is packed with information.

In chapter 1, “Sources and Models,” Sir John Boardman surveys the rise of statuary in eighth- and seventh-century BC Greece, from small terracottas and direct solid-cast bronzes to larger figures, like hammered-metal sphyrelata, to hollow-cast bronzes and monumental marbles, paying particular attention to the import of techniques and forms from ancient Egypt. Boardman notes that surviving sphyrelata, like the bronze triad from Dreros on Crete, were not hammered over wooden cores, as had long been assumed. Hollow figures riveted together, they are not merely metallic versions of early wooden ones, which unfortunately remain largely lost to us, despite their prevalence in antiquity (see, for example, chapter 11 of Russell Meiggs’s Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982]). Nevertheless, a wooden female figure once in the Samos Museum does share stylistic traits with the Dreros bronzes and with early stone statues, suggesting that even in the seventh century BC neither material nor technique necessarily determined the appearance of figures. Indeed, the independence of style is a sub-theme that reappears in many of the subsequent contributions.

Boardman addresses the religious context of early limestone statuary on Crete, and surprisingly continues to refer to the famous statuette now in Paris, formerly in Auxerre, as a goddess (both with and without quotation marks), although the lower part of a similar figure was excavated at Eleutherna in the late 1980s in a context suggesting that it served as a funerary marker, rather than as a divine image (see N. Stampolidis, “Eleutherna on Crete: An Interim Report on the Geometric-Archaic Cemetery,” Annual of the British School at Athens 85 (1990): 400, fig. 26; J.-L. Martinez, La Dame d’ Auxerre [Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux: Louvre, service culturel, 2000], esp., 43–45; and, for the history of interpretation, A.A. Donohue, Greek Sculpture and the Problem of Description [Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005], esp. 131–143).

With regard to the development of kouroi, the nude male youths with arms at sides and left leg forward, Boardman eschews Gisela Richter’s anatomically based groupings and chronology, preferring instead three classes that he distinguishes by appearance as well as source: Cycladic, Attic, and Ionian. More interesting, perhaps, is Boardman’s discussion of proportions and the role of Egypt, specifically a fixed canon thence derived and its difference from a grid, which is not a rigid system but rather “a convenience for standardizing figures and compositions in a single complex” with very pragmatic uses (18–24).

Mary Sturgeon begins chapter 2, “Archaic Athens and the Cyclades,” with a survey of quarries and quarrying, a topic also discussed in later chapters. Focusing on Naxos and Mt. Pentelikon, she describes tools and techniques employing the evidence of unfinished works, and usefully suggests that “slablike,” rather than “planklike,” is a more apt term to describe Nikandre’s dedication to Artemis on Delos, as “its shape probably reflects the thin, somewhat irregularly shaped stones that were extracted from marble veins visible on the surface” of the Naxian quarries (34). She discusses the style of kouroi at some length, intriguingly suggesting that differences derive not only from differing chronology, but also “the special potential of diverse marbles” as well as regional workshop traditions (37–38). She then traces the development of work in Naxian, Parian, Hymettan, and Pentelic marble, and devotes a paragraph each to limestone and terracotta. These are unillustrated, but heavily annotated. A section on korai follows, and then a useful survey of piecing and attachments that includes interesting observations on the combination of different marbles, such as Parian and Pentelic, in single figures. Inserted eyes, locks of hair, jewelry, and other accouterments are also surveyed, as is the addition of color. The chapter concludes with unillustrated sections on funerary and architectural sculpture.

Chapter 3, “Archaic and Classical Magna Graecia” by Barbara Barletta, is in some ways the most illuminating contribution, as the production of Southern Italy and Sicily is so often treated as a sidelight in the history of ancient Greek art. The author opens with a lengthy account of terracotta statuary, addressing its types, distribution, technique, development, and function. Similar to Boardman’s discussion of the Daidalic-style sphyrelata, Barletta observes that much of the Archaic terracotta statuary recalls in its details contemporary stone renderings (86), as opposed to exploiting the distinctive modeling possibilities of its considerably more ductile medium. She then moves on to stone, noting that the majority of early stone sculpture in Magna Graecia was carved, as one would expect, of local material—sandstone and, where available, limestone, much of which can now be sourced through scientific analysis. Marble was imported from Cararra as early as the second half of the sixth century, but most came from the Aegean islands. Barletta, like Sturgeon, compiles examples of kouroi and korai in various materials and also rehearses the various stages in carving, from rough cutting in quarries to finer work with abrasives, followed by coating in stucco for limestone figures. She too addresses joining and attachments, and also akroliths, which seem to have been especially popular in the region, owing to the dearth of local sources of marble.

Palagia examines “Classical Athens” in chapter 4. In vivacious prose she surveys various genres, initially focusing, perhaps excessively, on fragmentary cult-statue bases. The sculptures of the Parthenon, naturally, occupy the center of her contribution, and she inventories its various details: polychromy, gilding, varnish, joining methods, inserts, attachments, the use of structural iron, etc. The architectural sculptures of other temples are treated more briefly, as are grave, votive, and the new genre of “record” reliefs.

Chapter 5, by Peter Higgs, is considerably less sweeping. Entitled “Late Classical Asia Minor: Dynasts and Their Tombs,” it addresses—and compares and contrasts—two monuments, both now (mostly) in the British Museum: the Maussolleion at Hallikarnassos and Nereid Monument at Xanthos. These monuments have been thoroughly published (as has most of the material in this volume), but Higgs notes that “the two monuments have not been presented together with opportunities to compare and contrast the use of stone, carving techniques and construction methods” (163). This he does in considerable detail, analyzing selection and combination of materials, tool marks, handling of the relief background, piecing, surface treatment and finish, metal additions, and paint— distinguishing by their distinct techniques the different workshops employed on this massive project.

While these first five chapters are organized by chronology and geography, the next three are structured more explicitly around materials and techniques. Carol Mattusch’s essay, “Archaic and Classical Bronzes,” reprises in abbreviated form material she has presented elsewhere. This up-to-date account of the beginnings, uses, technical developments, and finishing techniques of Greek bronzes statuary is, I think, the only essay in the book suitable for undergraduates, though it, too, would benefit from more extensive illustrations—for example, to better explain the difference between direct and indirect, solid and hollow castings. Here, as elsewhere, Mattusch emphasizes that ancient bronzes are all replicas, the “originals” being the lost wax, clay, and plaster models, and that the use of molds readily led to serial production, albeit with the possibility of variation.

Chapter 7, “Marble Carving Techniques,” Palagia’s second contribution, begins with the observation that “the practice of ancient [marble-carving] workshops from the classical period onwards was not essentially different from those of more recent times in European history until the introduction of electricity” (243). Based on the evidence of surviving tool marks (including those of the running drill) and unfinished statues, she discusses carving processes, repeating some of the material treated in earlier chapters. She concludes with an attempt to reconstruct ancient copying methods and to explain the use of preliminary models in an age before the advent of modern pointing machines.

The final essay in the book, “Greek and Roman White Marble: Geology and Determination of Provenance,” is by Norman Herz, a geologist and pioneer in the analysis of ancient marbles. Herz surveys diverse scientific techniques for identifying the sources of marble, why these can be useful, what their limitations are, and how they can be combined. While the now standard technique of analyzing the ratios of stable isotopes of oxygen and carbon can sometimes localize the source of marble, overlapping characteristics of some stones necessitate the use of other methodologies such as neutron activation analysis, electron-spin resonance spectroscopy, cathodoluminescense, x-ray diffraction, and x-ray florescence, all of which Herz describes. However, Herz also insists that the importance of correct petrographic description, including rock textures and structures, cannot be overestimated, and this can often be done with a hand lens and a ruler. He provides a useful table of “physical characteristics of some principal classical white marbles,” listing the color, accessory minerals, and grain sizes (average and maximum) of marbles from eighteen quarries known to have been used in antiquity, noting, of course, that there is sometimes significant variation within a single quarry. His contribution ends with some case studies in which analysis has helped to distinguish early modern restorations from ancient fragments, along with a brief account of limestone provenance.

Editing and production values are high. The book’s four-page select bibliography contains only a small fraction of works cited in the copious notes to each contribution. A single index includes individual materials, techniques, historical and mythological figures, marble types, and, most usefully, sites and museum objects.

A question larger than scope is that of audience. It is unclear to this reviewer for whom the book is intended. Its authors, all noted scholars who write fluidly, assume a familiarity with specialist terminology. There is no glossary, and definitions are not provided for such terms as anathyrosis, geison, kalytpter, or protome. Moreover, a wide variety of objects are discussed in the text, but not illustrated. To be sure, specialist readers do not need to see images of Antenor’s kore, the Siphnian Treasury frieze, Nike of Kallimachos, “Kritian boy,” Delphi Charioteer, Artemision God, or Berlin Foundry Cup, but students probably do. Even the Riace Bronzes appear only on the dust jacket in a profile head detail of statue A. The Motya “charioteer,” perhaps the most technically accomplished ancient marble to have come down to us, is mentioned only briefly and not illustrated. While some less familiar pieces—or less standard views of familiar ones—are provided, many of the image choices are questionable. Akropolis kore 682, for example, is discussed at some length with respect to the method of its join at the knees and the attachment of its right arm, but is illustrated only in a detail (figure 19) from head to waist, three-quarters from the left, where neither is visible. Conventional photographs of the large Sounion kouros that emphasize its frontality are rightly criticized (41), for the statue was intended to be seen in three-quarter view from a low vantage point, but this discussion is not accompanied by any photo. The subject treated here, of course, is vast, and several of the essays, while providing very useful accounts of which materials, tools, joins, etc., were used in the periods they survey, come to read, in part, like highly annotated, unillustrated lists of statues that evidence this or that feature. That being said, with its synoptic essays, wealth of information, and up-to-date bibliography, this book is likely best to serve advanced graduate students. More advanced scholars in the field will also find it a very useful resource, though they will discover little here that is new or surprising.