20 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 



covered in a cliff house on upper Salt river. Ac- 

 counts of this whole region agree in representing 

 the cliff dwellings and mounds representing the 

 ruins of former buildings as occurring in very 

 large numbers. 



An Ancient Crown. A part of a golden 

 crown in the collection of Mr. E. J. Molera, of 

 San Francisco, was taken from an ancient tomb 

 near the Indian village of Tula. It was rescued 

 from Indians, who were opening the tombs for 

 the sake of the treasures they contained, after 

 it had been broken into pieces and some of the 

 pieces had been melted. When whole the crown 

 was a plain circle of gold, beaten to a thickness 

 of one eighth of an inch, two and a half inches 

 broad, with a straight edge below, but rising in 

 front with a domelike curve to a height of nearly 

 five inches. The front and a part of one side are 

 all of it that has been preserved, and this bears 

 the stamp of Leopoldo Batres, inspector of monu- 

 ments for the republic of Mexico. In the same 

 grave from which this crown was taken a neck- 

 lace and a lip stone were found. The lip stone 

 is a crystal of remarkable brilliance and work- 

 manship, and the necklace, composed of similar 

 crystals, is also highly finished. 



A City on a Hilltop. In exploring a hill 

 called Xochicalco, which rises between 300 and 

 400 feet above the surrounding plateau, about 

 two days' horseback journey from Cuernabaca, 

 Mexico, Prof. W. H. Holmes observed that the 

 surface had been remodeled on all sides so as to 

 present a succession of terraces faced with stone. 

 The work was so constructed as to furnish ap- 

 proaches by series of staircases of stone. All 

 the level places were marked by traces of an- 

 cient houses, with surrounding courts or plazas, 

 within which large buildings had been erected. 

 One of these buildings or temples was in a good 

 state of preservation, and was situated within 

 a plaza between 300 and 400 feet square. It 

 rested upon a stone base between 60 and 70 feet 

 square at the bottom and rising to about 20 feet 

 in height, was capped by a heavy cornice stand- 

 ing out like a brim, and was adorned with elab- 

 orate sculptures. The hill was further marked 

 with many subterranean chambers or caverns, 

 some extending 150 feet back, of which those ex- 

 plored by the author were walled and plastered. 



England. New Discoveries at Silches- 

 ter. The excavations at the Romano-British 

 site of Silchester had been carried on sys- 

 tematically, at the time the report for 1898 was 

 made, for nine years, and had resulted in the 

 exploration of considerably more than half of 

 the 100 acres within the walls. Operations in 

 1898, as described by Mr. W. H. St. John Hope 

 before the Society of Antiquaries, had been con- 

 fined to the southwest corner of the city, where 

 an area of 8 acres had been dealt with. This area 

 had been found to contain two insulce, which had 

 been numbered XIX and XX, and a large tri- 

 angular space south of them, which appeared to 

 belong in part to Insula XVIII, excavated in 

 1897. Insula XIX presented the unique feature 

 of being completely inclosed by walls. It con- 

 tained a small house and two other minor build- 

 ings, as well as a well-planned house of the 

 largest size, built round a courtyard, and having 

 attached to it what seemed to be the remains of 

 a tannery. The winter rooms of the house were 

 warmed by a series of hypocausts. Beneath the 

 courtyard were laid bare the traces of a still older 

 house. Insula XX contained two small houses 

 and a number of other buildings. The interest 

 in the remains of the older house lying in the 

 courtyard of the large house in Insula XX con- 



sisted in the fact that they showed a building 

 of half-timber construction. Such construction 

 was not entirely unknown at Silchester, as indi- 

 cations of modern partitions in masonry-built 

 houses had been detected, but entire buildings 

 of this kind had not as yet been found on the 

 site. The design of a finely enriched mosaic 

 pavement in one of the chambers differed from 

 the general run of Romano-British mosaics, in 

 which variously disposed lines of braidwork form 

 the most conspicuous portions. In this composi- 

 tion the noticeable features are delicate ara- 

 besques, resembling friezes found among the 

 wall paintings of Pompeii, and a huge scroll of 

 black leafage on a white ground, strongly re- 

 sembling the leaf borders to be seen on Greek 

 painted vases dated about 300 B. c. 



This mosaic was shown at an exhibition of 

 Silchester relics held at the rooms of the Soci- 

 ety of Antiquaries, Burlington House, in May. 

 Among the miscellaneous articles exhibited in 

 connection with it were a mutilated amphora, 

 without top or feet, found in the same house; 

 a pot ornamented by the potter making indenta- 

 tions with his thumbs in the wet clay; pieces 

 of plaster painted to imitate various kinds of 

 marble ; a quern, both the upper and lower stones 

 of which were found in situ, and an upper quern 

 stone still retaining its wooden handle; a pair of 

 manacles or handcuffs, with a large lock; a well- 

 preserved set of hooks, such as might be used 

 for slinging barrels; a little sconce to screw into 

 the wall and hold a candle; a " hipposandal," 

 the purpose of which is in doubt; ornaments; 

 coins; and a brick or tile, upon which before it 

 was baked some workman had scrawled with 

 the tip of his finger the word " satis." 



France. Caves of Brassempony. Among 

 the finds of 1897 in the caves at Brassempony, 

 France, recorded by MM. Ed. Piette and J. de 

 Laporterie were a horse's head engraved on a 

 vertebra, a seal in champlevt, a young bovine 

 animal raising its foot against an aurochs, two 

 other equine figures, the head of a doe engraved 

 in champlev6 on a two-pointed instrument of 

 reindeer horn, a number of bones with lines cut 

 in them after the manner of runes, and bone 

 arrowheads with simple linear characters. The 

 authors remark that man had hardly been in- 

 stalled at Brassempony under a relatively clem- 

 ent climate when he invented sculpture. The 

 first deposits met with,' at the base, in the alley, 

 and in the largest part of the great gallery, con- 

 tained human statuettes, and not a single animal 

 figure. In this respect the discoveries differ ma- 

 terially from those at Mas d'Azil, which are at- 

 tributed to the same period. 



Rome. Belies of the Republic and King- 

 dom. It was usual in the earlier excavations of 

 the Forum to stop when the first remains of a 

 pavement were met, without seeking further to 

 find what more ancient remains might be beneath 

 it. Discoveries of any great value regarding the 

 early history of Rome could hardly have been 1 

 expected under this method, because all tfie struc- 

 tures of the Forum and the Comitium, with the 

 surrounding edifices, were seriously injured or 

 completely destroyed by the fire of Carinus, 

 A. D. 283, and were repaired and reconstructed 

 under Diocletian and Maxentius. Excavations 

 could, however, have been carried on deeper with- 

 out destroying what might exist at the level by 

 digging in the gaps and free spaces between the 

 surface ruins. This plan has been adopted in 

 the most recent explorations under the super- 

 intendence of Signer Boni, in which the object 

 has been kept in view of reaching the early im- 



