British Archaeology, no 16, July 1996: Reviews

FROM DELIVERANCE TO DESTRUCTION
Mark Stoyle
Exeter, UKP11.95
ISBN 0-85989-478-9 pb

By April 1646, after four years of war involving two royalist and one parliamentarian siege, two thirds of the City of Exeter had been reduced to ashes. This study of rebellion and civil war in an English city is an excellent, very readable account of how this came to pass.

What happened in the war was a culmination of decades of local political conflict that had divided the city - between the `godly' party, as the puritans/parliamentarians were known, and their royalist opponents. Mark Stoyle has driven yet another nail into the coffin of regional neutralism, the idea that communities tried to insulate their towns from the national conflict. He shows the effect of the war on ordinary people, providing an intimate local perspective on great national events.

For the archaeologist, however, used to seeing events in their contemporary topographical context, this is a missed opportunity. Although the early pages carry a description of the city in the years before the war, thereafter, apart from one or two exceptions such as the vivid closing snapshot of a destroyed city, archaeology and historical topography are almost completely absent. Why, one wonders, given the excellent relationship between Stoyle and Chris Henderson of Exeter Archaeology over the past few years, do we end the book not actually knowing what archaeology has revealed about Exeter during the war? What did the defences and the siegeworks look like? Where exactly were they and how were they constructed? This would have made the military narrative far more understandable.

Glenn Foard, County Archaeologist for Northamptonshire, is the author of `Naseby: the Decisive Campaign' (Pryor Publications, 1995)

ANTIQUITIES TRADE OR BETRAYED
ed Kathryn Tubb
Archetype, UKP23.50
ISBN 1-873132-70-0 pb

This collection of papers given at a 1993 conference represents widely differing views on the international trade in antiquities. At stake in the debate is a large part of the world's heritage.

On one side are the dealers and collectors, who consider that they provide a legitimate and useful function, while opposite them are ranged archaeologists, most museum professionals and others, who believe that the looting of sites to feed the antiquities trade may be widespread, and represents a major threat to our archaeological inheritance.

The papers divide into those covering legal issues, case histories, the situation in the UK and a final section somewhat optimistically entitled `The Way Ahead'. As a criminal activity, trade in stolen art and antiquities is thought by many to be second only to drugs in terms of `street value', and in some cases it seems the two are directly linked. Against this, national legal controls frequently appear ineffective. In the UK, for example, we rely largely on codes of practice issued by the antiquities trade, although one contributor comments that in 20 years as an art market correspondent she had never met an antiquities dealer who did not happily handle smuggled goods.

Examples are given of illicit excavations and smuggling throughout the world,many of which stretch the concept of `portable antiquities' - nearly everything is portable if chopped up into small pieces. Temples are stripped in Tamil Nadu, mosaics removed from churches in Cyprus, and wall paintings hacked from Egyptian tombs. More conventionally, there is a healthy trade in stolen coins, pottery and all manner of metal objects, ranging from the Lydian Hoard to the Icklingham Bronzes.

As the Cambridge archaeologist Lord Renfrew comments in his introduction, what is really needed is a change in the moralities of those involved in the trade. While collectors are prepared to pay large sums and ask few questions, there will always be those prepared to supply them with looted antiquities.

David Graham is Honorary Secretary of the Surrey Archaeological Society, Guildford

THE CULTURE OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE
NJG Pounds
Cambridge, UKP18.95
ISBN 0-521-46671-7 pb

This book is monumental in its scope. After a brief introductory survey of Danebury and Roman Britain, Norman Pounds takes us on a wide-ranging tour of the material and non-material culture of pre-Industrial England. He does so by offering us insights into the full diversity of public and private life.

Pounds begins by describing the changing nature of house construction and ends with the development of urban centres. In between he discusses everything from home security (there wasn't any) to early interior decor, and on the way manages to inform us that the standard width for wall-paper was established in the 16th century. The richness of this study, and what makes it such entertaining reading, comes from the diversity of these more obscure and mundane details.

Pounds uses a wide range of examples to show something of the rich texture of life. He recounts the problems of crime in medieval England, the often lenient ways of dealing with burglars, and the problems of disposing of stolen goods in a village society where mobility was limited.

One can fully understand why the early recipes for soap - wood ash boiled with animal fat - were not popular (it smelled horrible), and anyway having a meal with friends in the communal hot tub sounds a lot more fun. Unfortunately these hot tubs soon came under the gaze of the moral majority.

We also learn that people consumed up to two gallons of ale each day. This still seems a lot, even though the ale was much weaker than modern beer. However, given the state and quality of the water supply, the contemporary claim that `ale for an Englysshe man is a natural drynke' becomes more understandable.

There are minor quibbles, however. The study claims to consider English culture from the demise of Roman power to the Industrial Revolution, but the over-whelming bulk of material is from after the Norman Conquest. There is also a very loose approach to dating with no chronological table, and with periods referred to without ever being linked to specific centuries.

Dr Neil Jarman is a Research Fellow in Social Anthropology at Queen's University, Belfast