Beyond Price: Pearls and Pearl-Fishing, Origins to the Age of Discoveries.

• Author: Ptak, Roderich
• Position: Review

By R. A. DONKIN. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge, vol. 224. Philadelphia: AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 1998. Pp. xxi + 448, with 40 maps, 72 figures, 12 tables.

This book is a gigantic commodity study. It discusses the terminology related to and the usages, natural distribution, and commercial production of sea and freshwater pearls. It also looks at the trade in these commodities. The geographical frame is circumglobal although a slight emphasis is put on the Old World. The time frame is equally broad. Both archaeological evidence from the earliest periods and written sources from Classical times through to the age of discoveries are considered. The opening chapter deals with legends and folktales on pearls. Then follows a chapter on biological and ecological issues. Among other things the zoological classification of pearl producing shells is discussed. Chapters three to seven focus on different macro-regions: the ancient Near East, the Classical world and its eastern neighbors, the Arabo-Persian sphere, India, and China. Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Pacific region are not dealt with in separate sections but there is almost full coverage in the India and China parts and the last two chapters. These last two segments follow a chronological arrangement, presenting the medieval period first and then the early modern period, roughly to the eighteenth century.

The wide scope of Donkin's monograph certainly posed an extraordinary challenge to the author. Ideally a commodity study of this type requires a reading of as many sources as possible from the most different and distant cultures one can conceive of, and in a large variety of languages. Travelogues, letters and old documents, folklore, indeed literature of any kind may contain references to or descriptions of pearls and other matters related to Donkin's theme. Many of these works, even in modern editions, do not include products - such as shells, pearls, etc. - in their indices. Therefore enormous efforts had to be made to collect the data for this book. Moreover, background information on trade history and commodity flows, political developments in different periods and regions, and a thorough knowledge of natural history and the history of marine biology were required as additional prerequisites. In short, a myriad of mosaic pieces had to be assembled with utmost patience to establish a coherent picture. The...