ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 227 



of a people are shown as clearly by their art as by their 

 literature ; the sense of beauty, the sense of accuracy, 

 the power of expression, the amount of wealth and taste, 

 are all shown by the decorations and the small objects. 

 The foreign trade is shown by the importations from 

 abroad. Even the details of organization leave their 

 traces ; in a group of 400 similar statuettes which I found, 

 seventeen different styles were noticeable, but the styles 

 vary greatly in number and are all irregular : hence 

 even in a very large order such as this the work was 

 done in a joint factory, and not let out to different 

 men. The relative precision and truthfulness of work 

 are continually shown in all constructions, and form 

 a very exact test of one kind of civilization. We may 

 even see as in the pyramid of Cheops at what point 

 the master-mind of the chief architect passed away, and 

 less precise work was done by his successor. 



Not only can we thus gather a picture of the condi- 

 tion of a people at a given stage, but the actual 

 historical changes can be traced. Every detailed map 

 of England embodies the main changes of the history 

 of the people. The growth of a town is always shown 

 by the position of its streets and public buildings : the 

 old lines of its walls are visible and the successive 

 stages of its growth. Its relation to the roads show 

 which roads preceded it, and which were made after 

 the town. The relative ages of towns are thus shown 

 by their relation to the roads which join them. The age 

 of enclosure and cultivation of the country is shown 

 by the relation of the field enclosures to the roads. 

 And the old centres of life which have long since sunk 

 into silence, before even the coming of the Romans, 

 are still shown by the straight lines of field paths 

 running across miles of country from one such centre 



Q 2 



