ARCHEOLOGY. (SCANDINAVIA ROME.) 



lithic, Magdalenian, and of the Quaternary geo- 

 logical period. The prehistoric artist who fig- 

 ured them, say M. Riviere and Mr. Haddon, was 

 the contemporary of the reindeer and of the mam- 

 moth whox portraits lie depicted. 



Among the latest and most recent finds of re- 

 mains of |rchi>toric man are two skeletons 

 those of a young man and an older woman un- 

 i art lied in the excavations carried on by the 

 Prinre of .Monaco in the Cave of Grimaldi, near 

 Mentone. They are believed by Dr. Verneau, of 

 I ';n is, to be paleolithic. The skeletons lay side 

 by side, the woman's body being doubled up, 

 u'tiile the young man's head was concealed in a 

 mass of ashes, ihe skulls are of the dolicho- 

 crphalic or long-headed type. 



Scandinavia. A runic inscription copied 

 from off a stone which was found in 1817 near 

 Kiiiirerike, Norway, has been deciphered by Prof. 

 Suphus Bugge. and found to relate to America. 

 The stone was lost a few years after it was 

 found, as also was a drawing made of it; but a 

 copy of the drawing from which Prof. Bugge 

 has made his version was preserved in the mu- 



remains, when found, would prove to have been- 

 cremated, according to the custom of the ancient 

 Aryans. A resemblance of the reticulated vases. 



A TOCNO HAN'S SKULL (PKKHISTOBIC), DISCOVERED AT 



MENTONE. 



seum at Bergen. Apparently only a part of the 

 inscription has been recovered, of which Prof. 

 Bugge's version, translated, reads: "They came 

 out (from the ocean) and across great stretches, 

 and needing clothes to dry themselves and food, 

 away toward Vinland and on the ice in the 

 uninhabited region. Evil can take away joy, so 

 that one dies early." The inscription is inter- 

 preted as the epitaph for a young Norwegian 

 from Ringerike, who had been wrecked with his 

 companions, and after wandering over the ice had 

 finally died near the coast of Vinland. The char- 

 acter of the ruins indicates that the epitaph was 

 cut between 1010 and 1050 that is, within half 

 a century of the discovery of the Western Conti- 

 nent by the Northmen. It is therefore the earli- 

 est document known to us containing a reference 

 to America. 



Borne. On April 2, Signor Boni, director of 

 excavations in the Forum, discovered a prehis- 

 toric tomb, believed to date approximately from 

 the eighth century B.C.. containing an urn, or 

 dolium, of black ware full of calcined bones; sev- 

 eral reticulated egg-shaped vases, a bowl, and a 

 cup with horned handles like those found in the 

 terrenmna of the bronze age. The tomb was 

 ntuated in the bed-clay, about 12 feet below the 

 level of the Sacred Way opposite the Regia. and 

 ^| ose |'.v the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina. 

 The discovery is believed by Signor Boni to illus- 

 trate his theory that the founders of Rome were 

 buried under a part of the Forum, and that their 



MASKS RECENTLY DISCOVERED IN THE QUIRINAL, ROMB. 



of the tomb to netted gourds, and the likeness- 

 of the funeral urn to a conical hut roof are taken 

 as evidences of date from a primitive period. The 

 tomb is the most ancient of a series of links in 

 the chain of Roman history as illustrated by an 

 almost continuous series discovered by Prof. 

 Boni within the precincts of the Forum down to 

 the eighth century A. D. constituted of the 

 cippus under the Black Stone, the Rostra, the 

 ritual pits, the massive republican drains far sur- 

 passing the Cloaca Maxima, the underground gal- 

 lery for scene-shifting, the Lacus and the Fons 

 Juturnae, the Sacred Way (Via Sacra), the Heroon 

 of Caesar, the Regia, the house of the Vestals, 

 the Basilica ^Emilia, the Church of Santa Maria 

 Antiqua, and others relics of less importance, but 

 fitting well into the succession. 



While excavating a tunnel under the Quirinal 

 to afford a passage between two quarters of the 

 city, a large chamber lined with sculptured mar- 

 ble, of the period of the decline, was discovered. 

 Among the carvings were panels illustrating the 

 cult of Bacchus. In one of these panels are the 

 heads of a faun and a bacchante, and of a 

 bearded man of the type of Dionysos, with a 

 basket of fruit beneath the figures. In another 

 is a similar group, with a burning altar shaped 

 like a wheat-sheaf in the place of the basket. A 

 thyrsus, the Bacchic symbol (a rod of fennel 

 topped with a pine-cone and bound with a fillet), 

 forms an accessory. Below the female head is a 

 lyre. A third group is a variation, on the same 

 theme; and a fourth, a more vigorous coniposi- 



A MARBLE BAS-RELIEF, RECENTLY DISCOVERED IN POMPEII. 



tion, shows a bacchante and a Silemis, with a 

 set of Pan's pipes as a decorative accessory. 



Among the later discoveries of objects of art 

 at Pompeii are a bronze support for a revolving 



