The slim paperback under review is an introduction to the study of the Lydians, who inhabited in the first millennium bc the central part of western Anatolia. The history of Lydia is known in some detail from the accounts of Greek authors, brief and disparate as they are. The historical evidence is supplemented by archaeological material, the bulk of which comes from the Lydian capital Sardis, and dates mostly to the periods when Lydia had already lost its independence (Persian through Byzantine). Explorations in Lydia and adjacent regions produced rich epigraphic material, in Greek as in the epichoric language of the Lydians, which provided important insights both into the language structure itself and into such fine aspects of the Lydian culture as naming practices or religious beliefs. Although the last decades witnessed neither a significant accretion of the written sources on the Lydians nor a major breakthrough in understanding the Lydian language, a book providing an up-to-date overview – if not a synthesis – of all these fields and making them easily accessible for students might seem a good idea, especially when written against the background of the cultural and socio-linguistic history of Anatolia in which perceptible advances have been made recently (cf. e.g., H.C. Melchert (ed.), The Luwians, 2003 or I. Yakubovich, Sociolinguistics of the Luvian Language, 2010). The expectation to find in the book something similar is supported by the words of the authors themselves (p. 1). The book represents, however, anything but a successful realization of this idea.

Following a short introduction (pp. 1–3), chapter 1 (pp. 5–45) sets out to give an overview of Lydian history. The chapter, divided into ten sections, deals with sources (1.2), geography (1.3), chronology (1.4) and different historical periods, from prehistory (1.5) to what the authors somewhat misleadingly term “post-Lydian” (which covers all periods following the Persian conquest of Lydia) (1.10). While a systematic presentation of all sources on the Lydians known at present is a significant desideratum and would be extremely welcome, one is presented instead with a rather cursory review which lacks a clear structure and is focused almost exclusively on Greek historical works. From Oriental sources (p. 14), only the Nabonidus Chronicle is discussed in detail, while such crucial sources as Assyrian texts are mentioned only en passant without any details on their dating and content. The references to the Lydians in the Persepolis tablets and Old Persian inscriptions (Sparda-) are not discussed at all, nor is there any mention of references to Lydia in the Archaic Greek poetry. The view of Lydian history presented here thus very much brings to mind the dusty picture we had of Classical scholarship a hundred years ago (the only exception being the section on prehistory). The description of Lydian geography, cramped as it is, with only a small map (p. 18, not better is that on p. 33), is hardly able to give the unprepared reader any idea about the country (cf. instead the excellent section on geography and natural resources in C. H. Roosevelt, The Archaeology of Lydia, from Gyges to Alexander, Cambridge, 2009, 33–58).

Chapter 2, “Sardis and the archaeology of Lydia” (pp. 47–62) presents an overview of the history of explorations in Lydia and the monuments to be seen there rather than an introduction into Lydian archaeology. Too short even for an introduction, prone to general statements and completely devoid of archaeological illustrations and plans, the chapter might serve as a sort of tourist guide through Lydian antiquities, but does little to acquaint the reader with specific features of the material culture of the Lydians.

Chapter 3 (pp. 63–71) gives a short overview of what is known about the Lydian language, which is for some reason separated from the treatment of Lydian inscriptions in chapter 4 (pp. 73–86). The overview is up-to-date and rather detailed. However, it seems that it will be difficult for a general reader to make much sense of it, due to the over-formal presentation of the material, terminological language and complete absence of examples. The initial section of chapter 4 (pp. 73–81) is one of the most valuable and interesting parts of the book, presenting a detailed survey of the history of exploration of Lydia, which mentions practically all of the important works ever published, of the alphabet and the corpus of inscriptions. Less felicitous is the last section (4.4) featuring three examples of Lydian inscriptions (each presented in drawing, text in Lydian, translation, and provided with a short commentary). Given the limited amount of material presented, one would like to see the texts also in analytic translation glossing the meaning and grammatical form of each element and to find a more detailed commentary (which is in general too dry and brief). It is also strange that the Aramaic part of the bilingual LW 1 (pp. 84–6) is not presented alongside the Lydian text, which could serve as a perfect illustration of the difficulties involved in interpreting Lydian texts.

Three sections of chapter 6 (pp. 87–115) touch upon three different aspects of life of the Lydians: monetary system and gold working, religion, and burial customs. The treatment of Lydian coins is thorough and well-illustrated, and is a fitting introduction to the subject. In contrast, the description of the Lydian religion is rather unimpressive, lacking depth and making little attempt to go beyond simple enumeration of different sorts of evidence. The same applies to the section on burial customs, which is, without illustrations, dull reading. The book concludes with a short chapter (pp. 117–9) on the reception of Lydian topics in later works, a chronological table (pp. 120–1) and a bibliography (pp. 123–44).

To sum up, the book gives the impression of being a more or less diligent compilation of secondary sources rather than a work which has grown up from a longstanding personal engagement with the Lydian culture. The resulting picture is neither systematic nor inspiring and in both these respects the book proves to be inferior to the collection of essays published in N. Cahill (ed.), Lydians and their World, 2010. In places the style is quite awkward, fancy statements based on misinterpretation of respective sources (e.g. “gold … as vapour” (at 800° C!) on p. 95 or Gyge's birth “in Assyria” on p. 120 (a “corruption” of Leukosyria)) and rather numerous omissions of the cited works in the bibliography hardly contribute to improving this impression.