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BETTS, J.H., (ed.), Die Schweizer Sammlungen. Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin, 1980. 293p. ills.(B&W photographs). Original burgundy cloth. Spine and cover gilt titled. Series: Corpus der Minoischen und Mykenischen Siegel, Band X. 'Betts' volume is a welcome and cautious change from the preceding ones. His introduction is a mine of information and stimulating observations. His comments on chronology, materials, shapes and forgeries are the most detailed and the most informed to date. For interested amateurs the volume could well be their primer (...). For the scholar, the book often cautions against the frequent casual misuse of terms. It also contains two thoughts that are so understated they may to unheeded; they bear repeating: a chronology, based on the 'minor, if functional, ceramic art form' should not govern one for 'the major art of the gem-engraver'; and, since these craftsmen were artists, often of international standing, 'the distinctions to be made may well turn out to be far more subtl that those assumed by the facile division of styles between Minoan in Crete and Mycenaean on the Mainland.' (JOHN G. YOUNGER in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1981, p.219). From the library of the late Professor Doktor Nikolaus Himmelmann. € 85.00 (Antiquarian)