Editors’ Page: Publish Unprovenanced Artifacts

An unusual book review appeared recently in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (BASOR),¹ the scholarly journal of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR). ASOR is the preeminent organization of American Near Eastern archaeologists. The book, Messages from the Past: Hebrew Bullae from the Time of Isaiah through the Destruction of the First Temple, is by Robert Deutsch.² Bullae are lumps of clay that have been impressed with a seal; the bullae that are the subject of the book are owned by the well-known collector Shlomo Moussaieff of London, Monaco and Herzliyya, Israel. The review is by Professor Larry G. Herr of Canadian Union College, a leading Near Eastern paleographer.

Author Deutsch is a Tel Aviv antiquities dealer who also holds a master’s degree from Tel Aviv University’s Institute of Archaeology. He has some of the sharpest eyes in the Holy Land for reading difficult ancient inscriptions. Moussaieff has one of the world’s great collections of inscriptions relating to the world of the Bible.