In this volume H.S. makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of Messenia and revitalises an old debate about the location of the sites mentioned on the Linear B tablets. H.S. aims ‘to outline the state of our present knowledge of Mycenaean settlements in Messenia and to examine the evidence for reconstructing the “political geography” of the “Kingdom” of Pylos’ (p. 1). The book grew out of H.S.'s earlier work in the region as part of the University of Minnesota Messenia Expedition: a large, extensive survey of the region of Messenia from 1959 to 1968. By explicitly linking his current research to the earlier project, he is returning to one of the main objectives of the survey, which was to identify the location of the places named in the Linear B tablets discovered at the Palace of Nestor, Pylos (p. xvi). In agreement with Chadwick's estimation of the size of the kingdom of Pylos, he contends that it probably covered approximately the same area as modern Messenia: 1,800 km2, excluding mountains and marshes (pp. 8, 48). He recreates the locations of the places by combining survey and excavation data with the evidence from the Linear B tablets. The book was submitted in 2010, but its publication was delayed because H.S. suffered some health problems. Therefore, the bibliography mostly dates to 2009 and earlier.
The book is divided into a very brief introduction that outlines the book and three chapters. In the first chapter H.S. presents summaries of the excavations and surveys conducted in Messenia from the nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. He cursorily describes the methods and the area covered by each survey (UMME, PRAP and IKAP), while giving most weight and space to the UMME survey in which he participated. He then analyses each survey's contribution to our understanding of the region. In this summary and assessment, he appears to be very critical of PRAP's data and conclusions without applying the same level of criticism to UMME or IKAP. Without giving an absolute number of sites, he reports that UMME, who covered the largest amount of area by far, discovered a large number of prehistoric sites; most of these sites were medium to large size sites. By stressing the vast area UMME covered and the extensive nature of the methodology (p. 12), he defends UMME's identification of medium and larger sites (1ha or greater). He acknowledges that PRAP found more smaller sites than UMME and identifies the estimation of the area of the palace and lower town and the harbour discovered at Romanou as PRAP's main contribution (p. 10). However, he points out that they found few larger sites (p. 10) and criticises the PRAP team for both over emphasising the significance of Beylerbey and Ordines and underestimating the importance of Romanou (p. 12). This criticism, which he makes again in Chapters 2 and 3, is key in H.S.'s reconstruction and identification of the sites listed on the Linear B tablets in Chapter 3. He further criticises PRAP for not integrating other studies into their conclusions (pp. 12, 13). In contrast he has no such criticisms of IKAP, which was focused predominantly in one district south-east of the palace around the site of Iklaina: Traganes. He stresses that IKAP identified the area of Iklaina: Traganes as being around 12ha, which was second only in size to the lower town around the palace, and later identifies this site as a district capital in Chapter 3.
In Chapter 2 H.S. provides a list of known Mycenaean sites in Messenia, discusses the merits and pitfalls of survey data, outlines the development of the kingdom from MH to LH IIIC, identifies centres in the various districts, and estimates the number of LH IIIB sites in the kingdom and the population size (50,000–60,000). He stresses that most of the LH I–LH IIIA1 sites are known from survey and excavation, while the LH IIIA2–IIIB sites are mostly known from survey with a few from excavation (p. 15). Drawing on PRAP's data, he claims that there was an increase in the population around the palace during LH IIIB from less fertile areas (p. 29). He points out that while most of the LH IIIA2 sites continued into LH IIIB, few continued into LH IIIC (pp. 15, 40). Although H.S. does not return to this dramatic fall off in sites in LH IIIC, since it is not part of his goals, this is an extremely significant observation that could greatly enhance our understanding of the changes in settlement patterns after the palatial economy collapsed. He assesses there to be approximately 179 recorded sites from survey and excavation (indicated on 6 maps and listed on Table 2), which he divides into 18 sections based on the natural topography: 160 of these sites are Mycenaean and 130 have LH IIIB material (pp. 18–19, 42). In his discussion of each division, he addresses the size of the sites, their dates, the types of finds, their locations in the division and possible access routes (pp. 29–38). H.S. compares the number of place names on the Linear B tablets, 240, to that of the region of modern (1961) Messenia, 253. Estimating that there should be around 400 sites, ranging from large to small, in the area during LH IIIB, he concludes that there are a considerable number of sites that have yet to be located.
In the third chapter H.S. discusses the uses of Linear B, the division of the kingdom into the Hither and Further provinces and into districts, the growth and supervision of the kingdom, and the identity of the district centres. He combines the archaeological evidence presented and discussed in the preceding two chapters with the evidence from the tablets. The crux of his identification of the main centres in the districts rests on three arguments: first, the Pylian taxation system was equitable and was assessed based on a district's size and population (p. 50), districts were grouped together for taxation and, therefore, the taxes can be used to deduce the area of a tax group and the size of a district; second, the main towns/districts, which were listed in a similar order on several different tablets, were recounted in a logical order and from north to south (pp. 47, 49, 56, Table 3); third, the regional centres would have been those sites that were over 2.4ha in size (p. 46). Relying heavily on Chadwick's interpretation of the tablets, he reconstructs the location of the sites by first identifying the districts and correlating the information on the tablets with the survey and excavation data and the natural topography of the region. Once he identifies a district he then uses the archaeological data to locate its main town/centre. In this discussion he disagrees with members of the PRAP team in their identification of the district centres, and argues that Romanou was too close to the palace to be a centre of a separate district as Davis contended and that Ordines was too small and not positioned well enough to be pe-to-no as Bennett posited (pp. 58–9). Instead H.S. argues that Filiatra: Hagios Christophoros should be identified as pe-to-no. This recreation of the location of the district centres potentially changes the way we envision the palace's relationship to the district centres and each district centre's access to resources.
The volume deepens our understanding not just of the geographical location of the main sites but also their access to and control of local resources. The summary of the sites by geographic subdivision will be of great use to scholars working in the area. Such work can only lay the foundation for future research on the economy of the region and models of varying scales of interaction.
