300 



NATURE 



[November ii, 19 15 



east and west along the main Roman road from 

 Aquileia to Nissus, and running from Milan to Nish 

 through Gradisca, Laibach, and Belgrade. The Hon. 

 W. Pember Reeves, who was unable to attend the 

 discussion, sent a communication in which, in dealing 

 with the position of the Greeks, he urged that on 

 historical and ethnological grounds their present 

 northern boundary, including Epirus, corresponded 

 closely to the ideal ; while in Macedonia the line divid- 

 ing the Bulgar-Slav portion from the Greek drawn 

 by the Treaty of Bukarest represented the facts, 

 especially as since the war of 1912-13 much migration 

 had taken place on each side of the line. The claims 

 of Greece to Bulgarian Thrace were justifiable on 

 economic rather than ethnic grounds ; on the other 

 hand, the claim of Bulgaria to the eastern part of 

 Macedonia' was stronger than that of Serbia. In 

 Monastir the existence of Vlach, Bulgarian, and 

 Greek elements gave rise to a separate problem. It 

 is scarcely necessary to emphasise the fact, upon which 

 stress was laid by each speaker in turn, that political 

 considerations had no part in the discussion. 



Another matter of topical interest was the subject 

 of a communication by Prof. Arthur Keith. In 1905 

 Prof. E. Manouvrier, of Paris, published a paper 

 entitled " Une Application Anthropologique h. I'Art 

 Militaire : le Classement des Hommes et la Marche 

 dans ITnfanterie," in which he advocated the classifi- 

 cation of soldiers according to length of the lower 

 limbs, rather than according to height, in order to 

 minimise fatigue. This publication had not received 

 attention in this country at the time of its publication, 

 and a summary of its contents was now presented to 

 the section at the request of the author. In the dis- 

 cussion which followed the hope was expressed that 

 the suggestions might be put to a practical test. 



.\ second discussion had for its subject "The Influ- 

 ence of Egyptian Civilisation on the World's Culture." 

 It was opened by Prof. Elliot Smith and Mr. Perry. 

 Their communications covered a wide field. They 

 argued that towards the close of the new Empire a 

 great many of the most distinctive practices of 

 Egyptian civilisation, carried possibly in part by 

 Phoenicians, suddenly appeared in the more distant 

 parts of the coast lines of Africa, Europe, and Asia, 

 and in course of time in Oceania and America. Mr. 

 Perry relied in particular on the association of mega- 

 lithic buildings and mine workings, or the situation 

 of such monuments in or near regions noted for gold, 

 precious stones, or pearl fisheries, as well as on 

 similarities of technique in smelting or refining opera- 

 tions. In the discussion which followed, the opening 

 speakers were subjected to some' severe criticism. Sir 

 Arthur Evans, while feelincf that it was impossible 

 to discuss adequately a subject of such vast extent, 

 attacked their method of dealing with the evidence, 

 and Prof. Petrie emphasised the necessity for greater 

 precision in datinp- the facts with which they dealt. 

 Sir Richard Temple pointed out certain difficulties in 

 this connection in the treatment of the Indian evidence. 

 Dr. Rivers, in supporting the openers, explained the 

 reasons which had led him to modify his previous 

 opposition to their position. The president pointed 

 out that the difficulty of the length of time necessary 

 for such a diffusion of culture was perhaps not so 

 great as mi^ht be thoug-ht ; a complete change had 

 taken nlace in the diet of the native of South Africa 

 since the discovery of Arnerica, when maize was intro- 

 duced to the Old' World. 



Other communications, in addition to this discus- 

 sion, also dealt with Egvptian archaeology. Mr. 

 Robert Mond made a valuable contribution to the 

 method of recording archaeological discoveries with an 

 exhibit of a cardboard folding model pf the Theban 



NO. 2402, VOT,. q6~| 



temple of Menna at Gurnah, on which photographs 

 recorded all the scenes painted on the walls of the two 

 chambers exactly in the position in which they were 

 found. He proposes to survey all the temples and 

 buildings of ancient Egypt in the same manner. Prof. 

 Petrie described the magnificent find of twelfth-century 

 jewelry of a princess, daughter of Senusert III., 

 found by the British School of Archaeology in Egypt 

 at Lahun, which is in some respects finer than any 

 j'et known. 



What was, however, felt to be one of the most impor- 

 tant communications made to the section in the course 

 of the meeting was a paper by Dr. E. A. Gardiner, 

 " Fresh Light on the Origin of the Semitic Alphabet," 

 which dealt with inscriptions of Pharaonic date in an 

 unknown writing discovered by Prof. Petrie in Sinai 

 in 1905. The inscriptions would apj^ear to be alpha- 

 betic. A detailed analysis supported the conjecture 

 that the system was related to, if it did not actually 

 represent, the common parent of the Phoenician, 

 Greek, and Sabaean alphabets. This Proto-Semitic 

 alphabet apparently was hieroglyphic and acrophonic, 

 i.e. the value of the letters was taken from the names 

 of the things they represented. 



Sir Arthur J. Evans, following Dr. Gardiner, dwelt 

 upon the value for comparative purposes of the Cretan 

 analogies for the origin of the alphabet, which were 

 decisive against De Rough's theory that the Semitic 

 alphabet was derived frorii hieratic Egyptian forms 

 representing similar sounds but having no reference to 

 the actual meaning of the later name. To a certain 

 extent the Minoan and Cretan forms appeared to 

 belong to related systems. Dr. Gardiner's evidence 

 tended to show that Semitic letters were derived from 

 an indigenous source, and if the early forms went 

 back to 1500 B.C. they could not have been introduced 

 from Crete by Phoenicians. Nor did the aleph-beth 

 theory of Gesenius require Egyptian influence, though 

 it might have been present in both Semitic and Minoan 

 as a formative element. 



An interesting paper by Prof. R. S. Conway dealt 

 with the religion and linguistics of early Italy. He 

 described some votive offermcs to the Venetic goddess 

 Rehtia discovered on the site of a temple at Este, 

 the ancient Atesta, about eighteen miles south of 

 Padua. The offerinp-s, which were of two classes, 

 consisted of votive nails and wedges recalling Horace's 

 description of Dim Necessitas,. and bronze tablets 

 divided into longitudinal bands, ten or twelve in num- 

 ber. The latter, the author sugp-ested, might be con- 

 nected with a game, and possibly were offerings of 

 lucky players. 



Two communications dealt with British archaeology. 

 The first, by Mr. J. P. Bushe-Fox, described the ex- 

 cavations at Uriconium in the vear 1912-14. The 

 finds included a large amount of pottery, evidence of 

 industrial occupations, and a building of unique form. 

 The second, bv the Rev. Dr. Dukinfield Astley, on 

 " Earlv Man in Norfolk," discussed the further evi- 

 dence for the existence of Aurijjnacian man in East 

 Anglia furnished by the results of excavations in 

 Norfolk undertaken in 1014. 



.\monc- the papers dealing with social organisation 

 and religion was an important communication bv Dr. 

 W. H. R. Rivers, on "Ceremonial and Descent in 

 Ambrim," which adduced evidence to show that though 

 at the present time the institutions of the island are 

 patrilineal, in the older ceremonial, which is indi- 

 f^enous, the mother's brother comes into prominence. 

 Consequently in this part of Melanesia it would 

 appear that matrilineal institutions preceded the patri- 

 lineal. 



Miss Margaret Murray, in her paper on "Roval 

 Marriage and Matrilineal Descent," dealt with the 



