April 27, 191 1] 



NATURE 



285 



ing of graves, both in ancient and modem times, 

 added to the confusion ; and the denudation of the 

 plain by the forces of nature in ancient times had 

 destroyed many, and seriously damaged still more, of 

 the graves. The failure to reduce this chaos to order 

 would have gone far to sterilise the essential work 

 of the survey. The results obtained at Shellal gave 

 Dr. Reisner at the outset the whole history of Nubia 

 in epitome ; and all the work since accomplished 

 farther south during the last three years has con- 

 firmed the accuracy of the conclusions drawn from 

 the study of "Cemetery vii.," while filling in the 

 ■details of the story that it summarised. 



One of the factors that greatly enhances the signi- 

 ficance of this report cannot be appreciated without 

 some reference to Dr. Reisner's work before the 

 \ubian survey began. After acquiring a knowledge 

 of Oriental work in Harvard University, he had 

 studied Babylonian and Egyptian philology and 

 irchaeology, and contributed to the work of cata- 



Dynastic Cemeteries of Naga-ed-der, I.," by Reisner, 

 i9o<S, and "II.," by Mace, 1910). It is this fact that 

 renders the Nubian report of such importance, for 

 in the remarkable chapter vii.. Dr. Reisner draws 

 aside the veil from his vast storehouse of knowledge 

 of Egypt's archaic civilisation, and gives us more 

 exact and detailed information of the pre- and proto- 

 dynastic periods in the Nile Valley than has hitherto 

 been published. 



Another important factor that contributed in no 

 small degree to the success of the Nubian excavations 

 was the systematic training which Dr. Reisner's 

 native workmen had received during their nine years' 

 association with him in Egypt; each man had learned 

 to do his allotted task as a matter of habit, and each 

 became a specialist in some branch of the work, such 

 as prospecting for sites, excavating, cleaning graves 

 without touching or disturbing their contents, and , 

 doing all the routine work of making a complete 

 photographic record of every stage of the survey. In 



KiG. 2. — The earliest distinctively Nubian pottery. From " The Archaological Survey of Nubia.' 



loguing the collections in the Berlin and Cairo 

 Museums; then in 1899 he began excavating in 

 Upper Egypt as head of the Hearst Expedition of 

 the University of California, and in 1903 at the Giza 

 Pyramids, at first for California, but later, from 1905 

 onward, for the Harvard University and the Boston 

 Museum of Fine Arts. 



During these years, 1899-1907, he and his colla- 

 borators, Messrs. Lythgoe and Mace, had devoted the 

 whole of their time and energies to the detailed and 

 . ritical study of remarkably complete scries of burials 

 of the predynastic and early dynastic epochs, in the 

 course of which they were able to sweep away a lot 

 of myths concerning the practices of the early Egyp- 

 lians, which the fertile imaginations of other ex- 

 plorers had created, and to piece together, bit by bit, 

 ihe accurate information they themselves laboriously 

 leathered. Unfortunately this expedition was so 

 husilv engaged in collecting information that its 

 inenibors found time to impart only a very small frac- 

 tion of their rich harvest to the public ("The Early 



NO. 2165. VOL. 86] 



' chapter ii. Dr. Reisner describes these methods, and 

 in the magnificent volume of plates — in itself one of 

 the completest records of archajological research ever 

 issued- — will be found ample evidence of the skill 

 displayed by these illiterate Egyptian boys in the prac- 

 tice of the art of photography and the no less difficult 

 task of systematic scientific excavation. 



In the work of excavation and the examination 

 and recording of the results, Dr. Reisner was assisted 

 by Mr. Cecil M. Firth and Mr. A. M. Blackman. 

 The major portion of this report consists of their 

 detailed and impartial record of every fact brought 

 to light in the course of their work, illustrated by an 

 exceptionally complete series of photographs and 

 hundreds of text-figures. These results are presented 

 in such a form that anyone who wants to draw his 

 own inferences has all the facts presented to him 

 without bias. 



In the last three chapters there is a masterly sum- 

 mary of all the evidence acquired during the first 

 season's work in Nubia, arranged and classified, and 



