Bryn Mawr Classical Review 95.12.12  P.R.S. Moorey, Ancient
Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological
Evidence. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Pp. 414. $105.00. ISBN
0-19-814921-2.  Reviewed by Tamara Stech, Philadelphia.  To
review the work of Roger Moorey is an intellectual pleasure and
a daunting task because of his masterly knowledge of the
material about which he writes; as one of my colleagues
remarked, "He is a scholar's scholar." In fact, Ancient
Mesopotamian Materials and Industries (hereafter AMMI) is so
compendious that it cannot be reviewed. It is a source book
which will become the essential starting point for any research
on the materials covered (stone working; ivory, bone, and shell;
ceramics and glassworking; metals; building crafts -- mud, clay,
mortars, bitumen, stone, wood, and reeds -- organic materials
are excluded because their study must be pursued primarily
through texts). A glance at the index will illustrate the
extraordinary breadth of the work; such a detailed inde