Scarabs, widely used in ancient Egypt for a variety of purposes and preserved by the thousands, are among the more unassuming monuments of this civilization. Despite, or perhaps rather because of, their profusion, they rarely become the subject of systematic study. The reluctance to deal with this material on a broad scale has left appreciable gaps in our knowledge of certain fields, and one warmly welcomes Geoffrey Martin's attempt to close them in at least one area: that of Middle Kingdom seals with private names.
It has undoubtedly required considerable patience as well as courage to tackle this project-patience, because it involves the study of thousands of scarabs and similar artifacts which are dispersed over numerous collections; courage, because it is in this vast field all too easy to overlook the odd piece or obscure reference, upon which the reviewers in their eagerness will gleefully pounce. The catalogue, which makes up the bulk of this volume (pp. 7-148), lists in alphabetical order 1,909 seals, of which 1,838 name private individuals; the others have been issued for institutions and government offices (some numbers have been left vacant). Each entry
records the name of the owner and, where known, his parentage; his titles, the provenience (if known) and material, and the bibliography. Moreover, each piece is classified according to type, the various types and their chronological order being described on pp. 4-5, 149-54, and 202. Three concordances, six indexes, and a comprehensive bibliography conclude the volume.
One of the few errors which the reviewer has noticed concerns the reading of a title consistently transcribed wcrtw, although G. Posener showed several years ago that the correct reading is :tw (RdE 15 [1963]: 127-28; see now also O. D. Berlev, "Les pr6tendus 'citadins' au Moyen Empire," RdE 23 [1971]: 23-48).
Geoffrey Martin has presented us with an invaluable tool for the study of the Egyptian administration of the Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Period. It would be useful to know which of the officials named on these seals are also attested in other sources; may we hope that he will soon supplement this catalogue with an investigation of this problem?