gems, ancient jewelry, early metallurgy, gold, Black Sea, Hellenistic world, Greek jewelry

As Dr. Segall remarks in her Introduction, the collection of which this is the catalogue consists almost entirely of objects from the Eastern Mediterranean. That, from the reader’s point of view, is its value, since it has enabled Dr. Segall to devote her whole attention to this most important area. The result is a book which will be of the greatest value when enough material for a general history of Near-Eastern goldsmith’s work is known. The theme of the whole is the continual influx of forms, motives, and technical processes from the East. The most striking examples of this are Nos. I–Ib, from Euboea. Details of form and ornament ally these to Cycladic pottery and to pottery from Ahlatlibel, near Ankara, and point to a date about the beginning of the third millennium B.C.; and the latter parallel suggests an ultimate connexion, by way of Central Anatolia, with similar pieces from Ur. The large finds of the Hellenistic period, especially that from Thessaly (Nos. 28–37), force the reader to a parallel conclusion. No. 28 is, on the analogy of an ornament from the Punjab, an Iranian form; Greek parallels from South Russia (as is frequently the case), Macedonia, and Thrace are cited. No. 36, on the other hand, is obviously connected with the Roman Emblemata dishes from Boscoreale and elsewhere. This beautiful treasure enables Dr. Segall to write a most illuminating essay on the mixture of elements which forms this Hellenistic art, and to show how largely it depends on the East for its motives and technique.