This is a beautifully produced book. The culmination of forty years' work, it publishes sealings on clay artifacts in the collections of the Department of the Middle East (formerly Western Asiatic Antiquities) of the British Museum. Most of the sealings dealt with come from Mesopotamia, from a mixture of cuneiform tablets and uninscribed bullae, and dating from the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Achaemenid and Hellenistic periods. Another body of material comes from Palestine, mainly impressions on jar handles (above all from Lachish) but also a clay sealing from a papyrus document (No. 819). The sealings are presented in chronological order, an arrangement which will be of great assistance to art historians. The drawings themselves are good, and indeed in numerous cases it is clear that Searight's expert eye has teased out details which are far from easy.Footnote ¹ The list of Museum Collections (p. 17f) is a useful feature. Highlights include the Assyrian royal seals (Nos. 1–10), Egyptian seals (Nos. 12, 13, 285, 467) and seals inscribed in Hittite Hieroglyphics (Nos. 14–18). There is also a large amount of material from the archives of the Ebabbara temple in Sippar, and also the collection of impressions from Wooley's excavations in Ur. On the other hand it is not clear that the symbols impressed on the prisms of Esarhaddon (Nos. 50–51) really belong with the sealings published here.Footnote ² Nevertheless this collection bears witness to cultural influence from an enormous area – Greece, Anatolia, Egypt and Palestine in addition to Assyria and Babylonia.

That said, the catalogue has a number of weaknesses. Drawings are made of most of the sealings catalogued, but not all, and there appears to be no clear rule for determining which are copied and which are not. Another anomaly, explicitly formulated as part of the methodology (p. 9), is that cylinder seals are included if they have been stamped onto the tablet but not if they were rolled.Footnote ³ This does not really make adequate sense even from the art historical point of view, but from the holistic approach it is untenable. It is disconcerting that the seals are not regularly reproduced in the same left to right order that they appear on the tablet.Footnote ⁴ Lastly, there are many other tablets bearing sealings which are not included in the present study. Taken together, these omissions greatly diminish the completeness of the catalogue.

The methodology of the work deserves comment. The basic approach is that taken for the publication of the Museum's seal collections, that is to say essentially art historical. The sealings are arranged by date and the catalogue provides drawings (in most cases) and comprehensive references to primary and secondary publications (to which much effort has clearly been given). But seals and sealings require somewhat different, if overlapping, methodologies. Most of the seals in the British Museum come without meaningful provenance, the consequence of which is that the traditional art historical approach is the right tool for the job. But this does not apply to impressions on tablets, even if they too are without reliable provenance. There is an interplay between sealings and texts which provides a rich source of information feeding back into the study of both. Most Assyriologists would accept that we are now well past the age where tablets are studied without reference to sealings. The quid for pro is that we are also well past the age when sealings can be published without reference to the texts which they seal. Unfortunately the present volume makes far too little use of the epigraphic contents of the texts, even when the work has already been done.Footnote ⁵ With regard to ownership of seals, the authors' policy (p. 7) is not to give this information even when it is known (Nos. 323 and 324 are partial exceptions). Such information is important and it is a missed opportunity for it to be omitted. To take a salient example, No. 291 (BM 64650) is the seal of a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar – surely a point worth mentioning!

The lack of engagement with the archival contexts shows up in other ways. The catalogue takes insufficient account of the mixed nature of the “Sippar” collections – they include tablets from around Babylonia – Babylon, Borsippa, Cutha, Dilbat and a number of smaller sites as well as Sippar (technically also Amarna!). Thus, inclusion in the Sippar Collections does not automatically mean that a tablet is from Abu Habbah.Footnote ⁶ In practice, the contents of the text normally allow us to say whether or not this is so, but this information is not considered in the catalogue. To take another point, it is now well established that the Ebabbara Sippar archives came to an end in year two of Xerxes I.Footnote ⁷ Accordingly, No. 386 (BM 57003) is not probably Darius I, but unquestionably so; similarly, with No. 391 (BM 57290) the dating by prosopography to Darius years 4–12 refers to Darius I. There are many other examples.

In conclusion, these deficiencies do not annul the good qualities of the book, but they do add up to something more than trivial and make the work a much less authoritative and definitive work than it might have been. As a consequence there are some respects in which it will soon be superceded. Nevertheless, for some of the material the work will stand as an important primary publication while for the rest it will still be useful to consult. We thank the authors for this volume before us and look forward to the next phase of scholarship which it will undoubtedly unleash.

Some specific points:

1. No. 287 (BM 49711): this text is discussed by Da Riva Der Ebabbar-Tempel von Sippar in frühneubabylonischer Zeit, AOAT 291 (2002) pp. 21, 182, 272.

2. No. 305 (BM 56515): discussed by Beaulieu The Reign of Nabonidus King of Babylon 567–539 BC (1989) p. 10.

3. No. 311 (BM 60649): has two seals, not one (as copied in MacGinnis Letter Orders No. 2).

4. No. 357 (BM 76974): unusual in being a sealed school text.

5. No. 360 (BM 79015): the royal name appears to be Artaxerxes (^mAr-[. . . . . .]).

6. No. 365 (BM 95518): dates to Artaxerxes year [x]+18; there is also part of a fourth sealing.

7. No. 367 (BM 67071): is the seal of Zqîša-Marduk.

8. No. 374 (BM 64039): published by MacGinnis, Rocznik Orientalistyczny 51 (1998). This was significant as it produced independent verification of the identifications proposed in the original analysis of the sealings in MacGinnis Letter Orders.

9. No. 381 (BM 120024): is certainly from Darius (year 41). Now published by Jursa and Stolper in the Festschrift für Herman Hunger, WZKM 97 (2007).

10. No. 384 (BM 74963): the text will be published by Zawadzki as No. 620 in his forthcoming edition of texts relating to the garments of the gods; there is also an unpublished copy, Strassmaier II 259/2.

11. No. 387 (BM 56909): of exceptional interest as the only letter order to have an Aramaic epigraph.

12. No. 389 (BM 65089): Mitchell is right that the tablet has three sealings whereas only two were observed in the copy by MacGinnis (Letter Orders No. 94). The three named writers of the letter order are šarm-ludàri, Bēl-iddin and Nabû-ahhē-ušallim. The two seals noted by MacGinnis are C.4 (the seal šarm-ludàri and A.11 (the seal of Bēl-iddin). The likelihood is therefore that the third seal will be that of Nabû-ahhé-ušallim, for whom no seal has been previously identified. The copy by Mitchell No. 389 (c) shows a somewhat awkward design, but to my eyes the impression looks like a five pointed star with a tail.

13. No. 394 (BM 64076): correctly lists three seals, but only two are drawn.

14. No. 397 (BM 74603): to be published by Waerzeggers in her work on the archives of Marduk-rémanni.

15. No. 400 (BM 64082): published as MacGinnis Letter Orders No. 23.

16. No. 403 (BM 56969): identified as the seal of the šangû Ina-Esagila-lilbur.

17. No. 401 (BM 74683): to be published by Waerzeggers in her work on the archives of Marduk-rēmanni.

18. No. 405 (BM 74607): to be published by Waerzeggers in her work on the archives of Marduk-rēmanni.

19. No. 409 (BM 65239): there is an epigraph “seal of Bēl-ab-ṣur”, who is identified in the text as the scribe (and son of Ŝum-iddin).

20. No. 412 (BM 79512): to be published by Waerzeggers in her work on the archives of Marduk-rēmanni.

21. No. 413 (BM 62561): published by Jursa WZKM 87 (1997) No. 1.

22. No. 415 (BM 74623): Zawadzki Calmayer Festschrift (AOAT 272) p. 737.

23. No. 417 (BM 54289): published by Jursa RA 97 (2005) p. 88. The text come from Cutha and dates to Darius II not Darius I.

24. No. 427 (BM 56710): seal of Uballissu-Gula.

25. No. 474 (BM 95105): impressed twice, in fact a sealed receipt not a contract.

26. No. 476 (BM 65721): the copy in MacGinnis Letter Orders No. 88 only shows the one stamp seal. There is no sign now of the two cylinders used as stamps, but there is a fairly fresh break on the tablet which may be where these impressions were located.

27. No. 591 (BM 46856): the year is year 35.