TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 145 



On a Philosophic Universal Language. By G. Edmonds, Birmingham. 



On the Deciphering of Inscriptions on Two Seals, found by Mr. Layard at 

 Koyunjih. By the Rev. J. Gemmel. 



On Celtic, Sclavic, and Aztec Crania. By Prof. Retzius, of Stockholm. 



The Professor combated the phrenological view that high skulls betokened high 

 intellect. He had gone into schools in this counti-y, and uniformly observed, on 

 looking around, that not more than one in a hundred could be found without the 

 elongated skull and prominent occiput. The same thing was to be said of his native 

 country, Sweden. There were some among the Swedes who had the short, high 

 head, but it was always found that these persons did not resemble the native popu- 

 lation, but had black iiair, and were allied to the Finlanders ov Laplanders. Phre- 

 nologists placed the Sclavonian in the Caucasian race; but if this were correct, 

 anatomy was certainly of no nse to ethnologists, for it completely contradicted that 

 view. Prof. Retzius then exhibited and described an Aztec skull, which he said was 

 supposed to belong to the ancient Mexicans, who had left the gigantic reaiains of 

 civilization which had been found in that country, and to be, at any rate, older than 

 the Spanish conquest. These skulls had much the same character as those of the 

 ancient Peruvians, and came under the Mongolian type. ' These skulls were always 

 small, but the chiefs, who may be regarded as the nobility, had elongated heads. 

 The whole American people belonged either to the short-headed or the long-headed 

 class, the former being found on the west side, and the latter on the east side of the 

 continent. 



I 



On a Roman Sepulcral Inscription on an Anglo-Saxon Urn in the Faussett 

 Collection. By C. Roach Smith, F.S.A. {hi a Letter addressed to 

 Thomas Wright, F.S.A.) 



The author presents, in the first place, a general view of the progress made in 

 separating the Anglo-Saxon remains from the Roman, and adds the following illus- 

 tration of the care required in this investigation : — 



" An urn, which I suspect came from Norfolk, is 

 in the museum of our friend Mr. Joseph Mayer of 

 Liverpool, in the Faussett Department. While last 

 autumn I was looking over the Kentish Saxon an- 

 tiquities, I was stinick with the shape of this vase, 

 and examining closely, I discovered upon it a Roman 

 funereal inscription as follows : — 

 D, M. 

 L A E L I A E 

 R V F I N AE 

 VIXIT.A.Xlil 

 M. UL D. VI 

 scratched with some sharp tool. 



" Not finding any mention of it in Mr. Faussett's Journal of his excavations in 

 Kent, I concluded it did not belong to that county, as indeed I doubted from the 

 first. But I find a memorandum of his referring to two Roman urns from Norfolk 

 which belonged to one of his neighbours, and one of these I suspect is the urn now 

 under our consideraton ; but, if so, it is remarkable he did not notice the inscription. 

 The antiquity of this inscription I see no reason to doubt ; and I can instance names 

 and funereal inscriptions scratched, in like manner, upon sepulcral urns of the 

 Roman period. 



" This urn, then, we cannot avoid believing to be Roman. But it is, doubtless, of a 

 very late period, that probably which verged upon the Anglo-Saxon. You will see at 

 once what are now my opinions on the Derby urns, and the fragment of the duck-billed 

 fibula found in one of them. All the Fraiikish and Saxon ornaments may be traced 

 to Roman archetypes ; and though I know of no instance where one of these peculiar 



1855. 10 



