Archaeology Magazine - September 1959 - Cover4

northern Switzerland.De Laet suggests
this may represent the first visible
delineation of the Germans and Celts.
By about 650 b.c., Iron Age Hallstatt
warriors had reached the Low Countries south of the Rhine. North of the
Rhine, Late Bronze Age traditions
merged gradually into those of the La
Tène culture (Late Iron Age). The
powerful warrior-aristocracy of the La
Tène Celts seemingly had little effect
on events in the Low Countries, and
for this reason their downfall in the
third century B.c. is likewise scarcely
reflected.
The excellent plates in the back of
the book are referred to by number in
the relevant margins, making it easy
for the reader to tie the text and illustrations together.
W. Creighton Gabel
Northwestern University

BRIEF

NOTICES

a Mystery
THEKENSINGTON
Solved,
STONE,
by Erik Wahlgren. xiii, 228 pages,
29 figures, 1 map. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1958 $5.00
This is a remarkable volume which
combines outstanding scholarship on
the engravedcharactersof the Kensington Stone and their interpretation with
excellent judgment and fairness in
the assessmentof the history connected
with its "discovery'' and later promotion. The Kensington Stone and its

supposed connectionwith ancient Vikings has had much too long a life as
a subject of serious study; even this
book will not be able to eradicate the
damage done by the wilful and careless perpetrator of an obvious hoax.
It may be suggested that this book be
required reading for the officersof the
Smithsonian Institution and the National Geographic Society.There is no
archaeologicalevidencefor pre-Columbian Norse contacts along the east
coast, although there is reasonable
justificationfor the belief that they did
land there- somewhere. At least the
Kensington Stone has not been the
center of a new religiouscult.
A Methodof AnalETHNOHISTORY.
MIXTEC
ysisof the CodicalArt,by PHILIPDARK.
61 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables. Oxford
University Press, London 1958 $4.80
Most of the extant highland Mexican
pre-Conquestcodicesare Mixtee rather
than Aztec; some are presumed to be
genealogicaland historical, some calendrical and astronomical, but opinions
as to their content differ. This essay
is concerned with two codices of the
genealogical-historicalgroup, the Bodley and the Seiden. Dark reduces the
phenomena to symbols and analyzes
them by two new systemsthat he calls
the Ideographic-Iconographicand the
Aspect Sheet. The result is a better
knowledge of the patterning of the
Mixtee codices, with tentative genealogies, and suggestionsfor the similar

An intimate and vivid picture of everyday public and
private life 5,000 years ago . . * now published as a
paper-back Anchor Book .
HISTORY

BEGINS

SUMER

By SAMUEL NOAH KRAMER, University of Pennsylvania
From the strange wedge-shaped marks inscribed upon the
tablets of Sumer, unearthed a century ago, America's
foremost Sumerologist has written a colorful account of
ancient man's schools, social reforms, religious ideas,
hymns, horticulture, literature, and many other aspects
of life in one of the world's oldest societies.
Photographs, drawings, maps.
At all booksellers

$1.45

DOUBLEDAYANCHOR BOOKS, Garden City, New York

220

analysis of other codices. The study
will help to place these genealogiesin
their proper chronologicalposition.
THEEXPLORATION
OF TIME,
by R. N. C.
Bowen. viii, 143 pages, 40 figures.
PhilosophicalLibrary, New York 1958
$6.00
This is a brief presentation of a
variety of techniques to measure past
time. The striking contributions from
astronomy, chemistry, physics, botany
and other sciencesin the determination
of the age of the earth, its past life
and past cultures are here reviewed.
As an introductory survey with useful
figures it has considerablevalue. It is
probably overpriced.
EXCAVATIONS
AT CLAUSENTUM
SOUTHAMPTON1951-1954,by M. Aylwin
Cotton and P. W. Gathercole. x,
169 pages, frontispiece, 37 figures, 6
plates. Ministry of Works, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London 1958
(Ministry of Works, Archaeological
Reports, No. 2) £2.5s
This is a careful report of excavations at Bitterne (ancient Clausentum)
on the River Itchen, three miles above
its junction with Southampton Water.
Earlier diggings by Waterman (19371939) and Muller (1946) are summarized. The amount of material, as is
to be expected, is not large, but the
report is meticulous and competent.
The discussion of pottery types is especially good.
CATALOGUE
OF THEUGOSISSACOLLECTIONof Stampand CylinderSealsof Mesopotamia,by E. Douglas Van Buren
with List of Recent Acquisitions by
Ugo Sissa. 37 pages, 292 illustrations
on 18 plates. Dr. Ugo Sissa, Via
Ripetta 252, Rome 1959
The significanceof this class of minute objects for art, religion and the
history of culture is becomingincreasingly recognized. The collection here
published is not large but has the unusual merit of containing specimens
of the glyptic art of every period from
the Jamdat Nasr Age down to the
Sasanian period. The descriptive catalogue includes 139 items; numbers 140
to 292 are listed among the recent
accessions. Each item is reproduced
photographically from impressions of
the seals, many of them slightly enlarged to show details more clearly.

Archaeology Magazine - September 1959

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - September 1959