30 



ARCHEOLOGY. (BAB YLOXIA EGYPT.) 



found in it, and inscriptions of a religious char- 

 acter. Human remains buried with vessels 

 bearing inscriptions were found beneath the 

 ruins of all the castles. A cemetery for children 

 seems to huve existed close to the Solomon cas- 

 tle. Prof. Sellin attaches most importance to 

 the excavation of tliis < anaanitish castle. 



A stone, Winning to a gentleman residing in 

 Syria, and bearing Hittite inscriptions, has only 

 i in nt ly been first made known to Europeans. 

 An illustration of the inscriptions is given in the 

 ti^'iire on page 29. 



Babylonia. The German Oriental Society 

 reports of the results of the latest expedition 

 -i nt out by it to the East the discovery of 400 

 inscribed clay slabs in the center of the ruins 

 of Babylon. Two of these have been deciphered 

 one comprising a large part of a Babylonian 

 compendium, or dictionary, of the cuneiform 

 characters; the second tablet contains a litany 

 which was chanted by the singers of the temple 

 nf Ksagila on the return of the god Marduk to 

 his sanctuary. 



The discovery of a square courtyard sur- 

 rounded by walls in the south quarter of the 

 city of Babylon is reported by Dr. Kaltenay. 

 The southernmost wall is described as being re- 

 markable for its architecture and its elegance. 

 It is faced with glazed tiles, ornamented w r ith 

 flowers and tracery. When the tiles that had 

 fallen to the ground were replaced, a beautiful 

 design was revealed. Bricks composed of 

 enamels and glass-raised work, which were ap- 

 parently part of a mosaic pavement, were found 

 in (lie courtyard, together with coins, fragments 

 of inscriptions on stone, and a broad slab bear- 

 ing a picture of the Babylonian idea of hell. 

 From the great elegance of this courtyard Dr. 

 Kaltenay believes that it was a part of the pal- 

 ace of Nebuchadnezzar. A building about 60 feet 

 wide and 160 feet long is supposed by the dis- 

 coverer to have been the throne room of Nebu- 

 chadnezzar. Exactly opposite the door is the 

 niche in which the royal throne stood. On both 

 sides and on the northern front of the hall were 

 richly colored ornaments in good preservation. 

 No inscriptions of special significance are men- 

 tioned. 



Egypt. Besides the review of the work of 

 the society, the report of the Egypt Exploration 

 Fund for 1901 gives a conspectus of the work 

 done by other scholars and explorers and those 

 of other nationalities. Among these is the dis- 

 covcry at Elephantine or Assouan, reported by 

 Prof. Sayce, of an Aramaic papyrus, with two 

 ostraka, relating to loans of money contracted 

 by Jews settled in that district during the Per- 

 sian epoch. The Aramaic texts are said to con- 

 tain some fresh words and to throw light on 

 Biblical Aramaic. The discovery by Mr. Evans 

 at KnossoH, in Crete, of an alabaster lid inscribed 

 with the name of the Hyksos King Khyan, cou- 

 pled with the occurrence of the same name on 

 a lion of Bagdad now in the British Museum, 

 seems to show that that ruler was a personage 

 of great importance. The monuments of no 

 other Pharaoh have so wide a range. Some ex- 

 amples of a curious kind of lamp, discovered in 

 two places, have been placed in the Cairo Mu- 

 seum. It consists of a small bowl pegged into 

 a saucer, and provided with an extinguisher. It 

 was fed by scented fat, which was burned by 

 means of u wick. A Berlin papyrus, published 

 by a (iernmn professor, contains a Hesiodic frag- 

 ment about the wooing of Helen, of whose suit- 

 ors Ulysses is said to have been one. 



The work of Prof. Petrie in Egypt in the sea- 



son of 1901-'02 extended over every historical 

 period, and its most important result was the 

 connection of the prehistoric with the historic 

 period. On the site of an early town was dis- 

 covered an unbroken stratified series of deposits 

 ranging over four or five centuries of the earliest 

 kingdom. It has been calculated that the depos- 

 its of the town dwellers increased at the rate 

 of 20 inches to each century, and thus, by a 

 process of leveling, the relative ages of the pot- 

 tery, flints, and other objects were estimated. 

 Further comparison with the final prehistoric 

 stages and with the remains from the royal tombs 

 established a continuity between the known 

 and the hitherto unknown or undefined. It 

 seems to have been made clear that the great 

 settlement at Abydos began with the founding 

 of the kingdom there, and the large tombs of 

 the first dynasty show a continuance of the type 

 of prehistoric burials. Much sculpture was 

 found in the ruins of the Temple of Osiris of the 

 sixth, eleventh, twelfth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and 

 twenty-sixth dynasties, but of the twelfth much 

 had to be left until the next season, and in par- 

 ticular a tomb which is pronounced to be the 

 largest in Egypt awaits a complete clearance. 

 Two gigantic sarcophagi of granite have been 

 seen within it. The researches of Dr. Grenfell 

 and Dr. A. S. Hunt in the Fayoum, under the 

 auspices, like those of Prof. Petrie, of the Egypt 

 Exploration Fund, were pursued more with refer- 

 ence to the Greece-Roman period, mainly in 

 searching for papyri in the Ptolemaic cemeteries. 

 Many Greek and denotic papyri were obtained, 

 partly from early Ptolemaic mummies and part- 

 ly from the mummies of crocodiles of a rather 

 later period. These have yet to be prepared and 

 examined. Another work of exploration was 

 prosecuted on the account of the Egypt Research 

 Fund, at the site of the Temple of the Kings 

 (Seti I) by Mr. A. St. G. Caulfield, while Mr. 

 L. Chrystie copied the sculptures. 



The second part of the collection of the Am- 

 herst papyri, edited by Messrs. B. P. Grenfell 

 and A. S. Hunt and published by the Oxford 

 University Press, has to do with classical frag- 

 ments, documents of the Ptolemaic, Roman, and 

 Byzantine periods, and theological fragments, 

 chiefly from the " Shepherd " of Hermes. Among 

 the fragments are fifteen broken lines of an un- 

 known tragedy; a commentary by Aristarchus 

 on the first book of Herodotus, preserving a 

 short quotation from the IToifj^vts of Sopho- 

 cles ; a papyrus of the fourth century. A. n., con- 

 taining three fables of Babrius in Latin; and 

 miscellaneous documents supplementing our in- 

 formation about the administration of Egypt. 

 In these are found notices of conflicts between 

 the Egyptians and the Greek settlers under the 

 later Ptolemies, in which the Egyptians com- 

 plain that they are overreached by the Greeks 

 in the apportionment of lands, anil, revolting, 

 destroy title deeds. Evidences are also afforded 

 of the exactness of the enforcement of law and 

 the collection of the taxes. The prominent posi- 

 tion of women in business and the prevalence of 

 the custom of marriage of brother and sister, 

 among Creeks a* well as Egyptians, are amply 

 illustrated in these documents. 



In illustration of the thoroughness with which 

 investigation of prehistoric relics is now carried 

 on may be cited the method by which P. J. 

 Petrie has established a succession of remains 

 of pottery. Having to deal in his latest season's 

 work with a site which contained, in successive 

 layers, the remains, easily distinguished, of suc- 

 cessive kind's of the first Egyptian dynasty, and 



