This article explores the chief features and limitations of mass production in the ancient world, and what the phenomenon might imply about the nature and performance of the ancient economy. It also describes the technologies of large-scale manufacturing and of organization. Trade in marble illustrates a basic division of labor, spatially separated between quarries and final workshops. The production of bread using baking and milling, and the manufacture of decorative marble objects are then dealt with in this article. Large-scale production is particularly apparent in certain kinds of food production and the processing of agricultural produce; in some of these, the scale of production that was achieved was maintained by a limited use of machines. There is much more research that needs to be done, particularly on the mass production of arms and armor, and we are only just beginning to see how to read clues about organization and division of labor from the archaeology of production sites.
