3 Review(s)

Between 1977 and 1984 the excavations of a Canadian archaeological team at San Giovanni di Ruoti in southern Italy uncovered a series of three Roman villas dating from the first to the sixth centuries AD. The multi-volume report on the excavation will provide the first comprehensive overview of the social and economic life of a Roman villa in southern Italy. Volume II constitutes a catalogue raisonTe of the small finds, covering all categories of non-ceramic personal, domestic, and industrial artifacts recovered from the site. C.J. Simpson has been a member of the Canadian excavation team since 1979. He provides detailed descriptions of the individual artifacts, their dates of manufacture, and their use, and discusses the evidence they yield for domestic and daily life. The artifacts range from hairpins and brooches to iron knives used for slicing and chopping. Coins and lamps found at the site are evaluated in separate contributions by R. Reece and J.J. Rossiter. The book includes several useful appendices, notably one by Vito Volterra on the analysis of millstones.The 400 items listed in the catalogue are illustrated by drawings or photographs. This volume presents one of very few accounts of the household artifacts found at an estate centre remote from urban Rome. It provides an important resource for specialists seeking to date similar objects, and adds much interesting detail to our picture of the rural economy of Italy in late antiquity.