ReViews

Biblical Period Personal Seals in the Shlomo Moussaieff Collection

Robert Deutsch and André Lemaire (Tel Aviv: Archaeological Center Publications, 2000) 209 plates, some in color, 228 pp., $120 (hardback).

This handsomely produced book provides further evidence that artifacts acquired on the antiquities market are far from worthless despite their lack of archaeological context, and that once important pieces reach the antiquities market, the responsible stance is to support their rescue and prompt publication.

Large segments of the archaeological community take a very different view—that we should shun the antiquities market because it encourages looting and that we should avert our eyes from all unprovenanced artifacts. Hence, the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) prohibits its journals from publishing unprovenanced artifacts. BASOR, the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, has the same rule, but fortunately it is sometimes observed in the breach.