In this very useful book, Baker makes the valid point (one of which most classicists are painfully aware) that much of everyday life in antiquity remains undocumented and that, therefore, texts can tell us only so much about past societies. While the idea that archaeology can provide valuable insights is no longer new, this is the first monograph to relate a beginner's introduction to archaeology directly to the history of medicine.
After a general chapter on archaeological theories and field methods, including the ‘site report’ of a fictional site to illustrate them, the remaining chapters are based on artefact classification: texts, images, small finds and structures, as well as human, animal and environmental remains (under the heading of ‘archaeological science’).
The ‘texts’ in ch. 3, including papyrus fragments and coins, are seen as forms of material culture and studied as much for their material base, artistic style and local context as they are for their textual content. The same is true for images (ch. 4), where possible symbolic content also has to be considered, such as, for example, a club of Hercules or a mouse on a medical tool. Some of the points raised, such as the injunction against introducing our own concepts of art, should really be widely known by now. Despite the warning against making easy assumptions about identifications, B. then (73f.) reproduces the received wisdom that the two men — of whom she mentions only one — depicted on Trajan's Column as treating casualties are doing so in the midst of a battle. The section on medical procedures (78f.), too, shows great optimism about the literalness of images: the kneeling doctors and standing patients need not be an indication of how treatment would have been performed in real life.
Instruments feature large in the chapter on small finds (ch. 5), which provides a very helpful discussion of archaeological theories and artefact terminology. How many medical historians would know what a manuport was? (An unmodified object moved from its original place to another.) Apart from the misinterpretation of instruments (for which the ‘broken bracelet’ that may be a ligula is a good example), there is the well-known problem of multivariant functions, especially with probes and tweezers, which could be cosmetic as well as medical. This, B. explains, is a classification by etic categories, that is, based on the views of the person studying a society, and therefore to be avoided, while emic categories are based on the view from within that culture. (Nevertheless, the map on p. 100 shows sites with finds of ‘medical instruments’.) Remarks about the difficulty of matching instruments with terms in the text will ring true to anyone who has tried to do so, as will those about the absence of standardization in terminology. This very situation, of course, also makes it problematic to claim that different names for instruments are used interchangeably. The example from Paul of Aegina, to take one instance, does not illustrate this (90): the olivary end of a ‘scalpel’ is in fact that of a probe in MSS from two different branches of the transmission, the reading τῆς σμίλης instead of τῆς μήλης easily explainable by itacism (and dictation?) (Paul of Aegina 6.8 = CMG 9.2.51 line 17 (ed. I. L. Heiberg)).
It is in ch. 6, on the subject of ‘healing spaces’, that B. is at her most innovative and controversial. She takes issue with the identification of certain structures found in Roman camps as valetudinaria, and of others, excavated in Asclepieia (‘Asclepia’ in B.), as abata. She offers a series of critical questions that should help the archaeologist, but while it is sensible to be sceptical of established explanations, it is not easy to come up with viable alternatives. The literary and epigraphical sources prove that valetudinaria existed, so they need to be somewhere in the camp. The passage from the Hippocratic Decorum (112) is presumably about medical treatment in the patients' homes, so is not very helpful in this context. Again, the mainly non-medical small finds in presumed valetudinaria are not a convincing argument either. They may be rubbish left behind by soldiers treated there, or there could have been a workshop as well. (A list from Vindolanda suggests a link between valetudinarium and fabrica (44f.)) As for the scarcity of instrument finds, it is surprising that any were found. Failing a sudden, chaotic evacuation, a fire or natural disaster, doctors were unlikely to leave without their kit. On the other hand, several dozen instruments were found at the camp of Vindonissa (not mentioned here), which may have been left in a hurry. Altogether, the argument is intriguing, but not compelling. The section about the abata, too, raises many important questions, but in the end leaves one without an alternative answer.
Non-archaeologists may find the final chapter, on archaeological science, the most instructive, with its brief outline of scientific methods that assist archaeological research.
This book contains a wealth of information that would benefit scholars not trained in archaeology, or first-year archaeology students, but there is a problem with its tone. It is clearly written as an undergraduate textbook, with ‘consideration questions’ and ‘further reading’ at the end of each chapter. Scholars, and probably some students as well, will find the persistent finger-wagging about anachronistic assumptions wearisome, and will balk at being asked (for example) to write down their own reaction to sick people.
