xv. A POTTERY MOUND. 269 



difficult to make an impression with a chisel as upon 

 the hardest granite in the quarry. 



This cement was manufactured at a very early period. 

 We have no record of a time when it was not in use. 

 And it is still one of the most essential articles of pro- 

 duction and commerce throughout Palestine. In that 

 dry and parched land cisterns and aqueducts are con- 

 stantly required ; and the preparation by the peasants 

 of one of the most important ingredients in the cement 

 for lining them is a familar process which the traveller 

 constantly witnesses in the towns and villages of Judaea. 

 In the very same places, and by the very same simple 

 methods employed by their ancestors three thousand 

 years ago, broken pottery is still ground down in order 

 to form this valuable cement. We read in the Bible 

 of the process having been carried on in the Potter's 

 Field in the Valley of Hinnom outside of the Potter's 

 Gate at Jerusalem in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah ; 

 and in the very same place, every season still, the 

 visitor may see the peasants carrying it on in exactly 

 the same way ; a most striking example of the change- 

 lessness of Oriental customs and industries. Nothing 

 can be more primitive than the process. The peasant 

 collects the broken fragments of earthenware which he 

 finds on the spot, or brings from some other place, into 

 a little heap ; and, sitting down beside it, he rolls back- 

 wards and forwards over it a large round stone, until 

 every fragment is broken into the smallest possible 

 pieces and the whole mass is reduced to the state of 

 fine powder suitable for his purpose. It is very inter- 



