{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.03353658536585366, 'fraction_numerical': 0.01753048780487805, 'mean_word_length': 4.526315789473684, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Eva Møller: Ancient Near Eastern seals in a Danish collection . (CNI Publications, 11.) 94 pp. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press [for the] Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, 1992. Dkr. 320.

This handsome volume publishes 143 items in a Danish collection, mainly cylinder and stamp seals, dating from the fifth millennium B.C. to the Sasanian period. Inevitably, such a small collection cannot give good coverage: there is nothing from the Syrian or Anatolian Middle Bronze Age and little from the Kassite to the Parthian period. The seals were acquired more than 30 years ago in Baghdad; they have few special features and only such provenances as dealers give. The appearance of the book is good. Both the objects and their impressions are shown, but the photographs are faint and one cannot see many of the details described, especially in the finer pieces such as nos. 59, 79, 91, 123 and 128. Drawings are given for the impressions and occasionally otherwise, but they lack conviction (e.g. no. 58). Dr. Meller has worked hard on this unpromising material. The commentary and references are detailed throughout, though her special interest is in the earlier periods where some of her essays are particularly valuable. Her opinions are always fresh and well informed and she does not just repeat traditional views. Nos. 1-26 are prehistoric stamp seals. The suggestion that the excavated material from Mesopotamia shows 'a strong leaning towards Iran' (p. 9) raises a question of definition as we cannot assume that the centre of production was where most seals have been found. Moller emphasizes that material traditionally believed to be Jemdet Nasr in date may well belong to the Middle or Late Uruk period as the large deposits at Brak and Uruk may represent ancient accumulations (p. 9); likewise, we cannot now separate the modelled ' Uruk ' cylinders from the schematic ' Jemdet Nasr ' ones in time (p. 19). As we know from other periods, different glyptic traditions often existed side by side, and we should not now reverse our bias and say that some types are ' obviously much older' (p. 12, no. 9) if many of them are stratified in Jemdet Nasr levels. On p. 30, indeed, it is suggested that the Brocade Style seals may have continued later than is usually thought, because so many of them were found in ED II levels. The numbers are in any case often difficult to assess, as publications are often incomplete. The section on stamps has good references but must have been written before the appearance of Alwo von Wickede, Praehistorische Stempelglyptik in Vorderasien (Munich, 1990).