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Hendrik W. Dey . The afterlife of the Roman city: architecture and ceremony in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. 2015. xiv+291 pages, 8 colour and 48 bw 9781-1-107-06918-3 hardback $99.

The study highlights the many levels inherent in the construction of individual identities. For example, amber, ivory, and objects bearing depictions of Africans circulated within the sphere of international elite culture; jet appears to have functioned on a provincial level; some (but not all) fibulae were strictly localised. The overlapping meanings and distributions bear witness to the complexities of participation in the wider community of the Roman Empire and, indeed, beyond (e.g. bucket pendants, gold-in-glass beads). The delightful examination of ivory fan handles gives us a glimpse of fashionable accessories, a reminder that the etiquette surrounding the actual use of such items also forms part of the international construct of provincial life. In similar vein, the real or perceived exotic nature of materials as well as the significance of colour and texture is discussed: particularly intriguing is the British preference for black jet and shale, while the Rhineland favoured red-golden amber. The symbolism of left/right imagery is explored in Chapter 6 through a type of hairpin in the form of a hand holding a ball, but is equally relevant to, for instance, the differential survival of statue body parts or the position of gifts of jewellery in burials. It is worth noting the curious contrast between the right hand of the pins and the tendency to favour the left foot for shoes deposited in watery contexts. Organic materials are not included amongst the case studies, except for wooden writing tablets. As the find locations of these objects says more about conditions of preservation than actual occurrence, the loss of organic materials undoubtedly has a significant negative effect on spatial distributions. Inkwells can also be made of cattlehorn, as they were in the Middle Ages.