When I began reading Sarah C. Murray'sFootnote ¹ book (an outgrowth of her Reference Murray2013 Stanford dissertation), I had reservations that a book purportedly about the Mycenaean economy and its collapse was instead a study of long-distance tradeFootnote ² over the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age transition. By the end of the book, I was convinced of the utility of her approach to the ancient economy through a careful, diachronic and quantitative study of trade and exchange institutions, imports and exports, and ancient demography, all the while daring to cross the ‘sub-disciplinary boundary’ between the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age [henceforth LBA and EIA, respectively].

Murray's conclusions derive from the systematic, quantitative approach she brings to the evaluation of the data. She argues that: 1) Mycenaean elites did not control long-distance trade of luxury objects or depend upon it, but did have an interest in the importation of commodities such as ivory and metals; 2) Greece was not isolated during the EIA, though it did experience an economic depression partly as a result of depopulation; and 3) the mechanisms and institutions of long-distance trade after this economic crisis were significantly different in their structure and organization from those of the LBA palatial societies. In order to get to these conclusions, she tackles textual evidence, the actual imported objects, the issue of commodity exchange and exports, and ancient demography.

As with nearly any study of LBA or EIA Greece, one must confront the textual evidence, as Murray does in chapter 1. There is not much of value in the Linear B or EIA texts on the topic of trade, as might be expected. Murray examines the more extensive LBA Mediterranean textual evidence for trade (Hittite, Amarna/Egyptian and Ugarit), and points out how much of the LBA ‘gift exchange’ as documented in the Amarna letters (and the Uluburun shipwreck) actually consists of commodities that are put to use in the local economies. Though there is no textual evidence for Mycenaean participation in mercantile trade at long distance, Murray suggests, by analogy with the Near Eastern material, that this was highly likely, a conclusion with which I heartily agree.

Given the inadequacy of the textual record regarding trade, Murray turns to the archaeological record for the remainder of her book, with very profitable results. Chapter 2 is devoted to the systematic assessment of the number of imported objects, their spatial distribution, context type (settlement, mortuary, sanctuary), function and material, in Greece and in Crete, for each of her four periods of consideration: LBA (that is, Late Helladic [mainland] and Late Minoan [Crete]) IIIB, LBA IIIC, Protogeometric (PG) and Geometric (G).Footnote ³ There are many interesting conclusions to be drawn from this exercise, such as imported objects of the LH IIIB are found mostly at palatial centres, but within those centres the find spots are more often workshops or places of ritual use, indicating that imported exotica were not especially prized by palatial officials as status symbols (p. 85). But it is the diachronic qualitative and quantitative comparisons, summarized in figure 2.9 and a series of tables, that are the most interesting. As has been stated before, there is an overall decrease in imports after LBA IIIB to a low in LBA IIIC, an increase in PG and ultimately the highest counts in G. More important are the changes in other dimensions, such as contexts and functions. As Murray concludes in this chapter, ‘it is not clear . . . how these patterns [of meaningful change along a number of different qualitative and quantitative axes] could have come about if the trade system were characterized by stability in structure, purpose, and extent between 1300 and 700 BCE’ (p. 129).

Many scholars would be satisfied to stop here, but Murray is not, and she proceeds to delve deeper into the evidence behind these patterns in chapters 3–5. For the sake of comparison among periods of different lengths, she extrapolates the data to standard 200-year periods and then employs simple chi-square tests to show that the quantitative changes are not random, except between LBA IIIC and PG (perhaps due to small sample size). She examines potential biases in the archaeological record. And she examines differential rates of survival of artefact types (e.g. organics) and how those might form significant components of the sets of trade goods in particular periods. She concludes that disciplinary bias is not apparent in the counts of imports or against recognizing EIA. She argues that LBA had a greater amount of ‘indirect observables’ (such as organics and raw commodities) than EIA, and thus current counts of imports for LBA are too low (p. 138).

Up until this point Murray deals primarily with imported, finished objects and not with commodities, whether organics or raw materials for processing into goods. With chapter 4, she broadens her scope to these ‘indirect observables’, bronze especially, but also other commodities such as ivory and glass. She also considers Greek exports (primarily ceramics), and thus begins to address more fully the breadth of the ancient trade economy. Overall the pattern of great scalar decline in long-distance trade activity between Greece and the Mediterranean world following the collapse of the palaces, with a significant recovery in the Geometric period, is corroborated among the various lines of evidence (textual, imported objects, imported commodities and exported objects) explored by Murray.

Perhaps the most novel, and also controversial, chapter is that on demography. Few would disagree that there was population decline after the fall of the palaces at the end of LBA IIIB, but the scale of the decline and whether this was a consequence of, or catalyst to, the Mycenaean collapse is up in the air. Murray argues we should consider the demand side of the issue of demographic change as it affects the economy. Not all will agree with her population estimates (understandably, she often utilizes Walter Scheidel's work, e.g. Reference Scheidel2003), but generally her reasoning is well articulated and, if anything, her population figures are conservative. What really matters is the scale of population decline after the LBA IIIB period: a 50 per cent decrease in LBA IIIC and PG is arguably a reasonable estimate, followed by an increase in G to population levels well above those of LBA IIIB. She then compares the population changes to changes in imports, bronze quantities and exports (summarized in table 5.3). Generally, import totals follow the demographic changes. The most anomalous figure, though, is that of ceramic exports in the PG period—1 per cent of the LBA IIIB total, far lower than the exports of the LBA IIIC period. But even the ceramic exports of the G period are well below those expected from other categories of trade. Murray suggests that in the PG period ceramics were not being exported, and that finds abroad of Greek ceramics may be due to population movements (pp. 243–4). Murray sees a correlation between economic complexity and population; decline in population, especially at old centres, led to the decentralization of production, what she calls a ‘simplification’ of production in the economy of PG and G Greece.

In her last chapter Murray draws on her analyses to make several important conclusions, as listed above, in a narrative of diachronic change in the trade economy. She follows with a set of conclusions that emphasize the important contributions made.

I feel compelled to comment on the production quality, which detracts from this book's importance. Several of the illustrations are, for all practical purposes, nearly illegible. Figure 2.9 (p. 99) would be a fantastic summary comparison of her detailed diachronic assessment of imports, their origin, function, material and context, yet the grey-scale colouring utilized makes it very difficult to distinguish between categories, and in the case of ‘other’ impossible to see. Even when using the online edition through Cambridge Core and expanding the PDF image to 200 per cent, the ‘other’ category is barely detectable. The four small maps of Greece comprising map 2.1 (pp. 118–19) have site names in tiny (c. 2 point, i.e., <1 mm high!) light grey type on a light grey image of Greece; even expanded to 200 per cent, the map labels are barely legible.Footnote ⁴ There are several wrong callouts to illustrations.Footnote ⁵

Despite these physical shortcomings, this book makes significant contributions to our understanding of the interrelationships of trade, the economy, demography and socio-economic collapse. Equally important is the demonstration that it is possible to cross, indeed even to erase, the sub-disciplinary boundary between the Bronze and Iron Ages in a meaningful way that contributes to both ‘sides’. I learned a lot from reading this book.