DISCOVliP.Y 



207 



agrees to a truce.if the challenger will first withdraw, 

 and the combat ends with an exchange of gifts between 

 the heroes and, upon Hector's side, a chivalrous ex- 

 pression of respect. " Ajax, seeing God gave thee 

 stature and might and wisdom, and with the spear thou 

 art excellent above all the Achreans, let us now cease 

 from combat and battle for the day ; but hereafter 

 will we fight until God judge between us, gi\ang to one 

 of us the victory." 



It is not difficult to understand, in the light of this 

 encounter, why it w-as that, once body-armour was in- 

 troduced, the Mycenjean way of fighting was doomed. 

 Heavy and hot though it might be — and early Greek 

 armour was both ill-fitting and heavy — the combination 

 of armour and parry-shield worn on the left arm pro- 

 vided as effective protection as the "tower" shield: it 

 was less difficult to manage, and it did not immobihse the 

 fighter. Above all, it did not in the same way hamper 

 offensive tactics. A duel between two warriors of the 

 old school was inevitably something of a stalemate. 

 It was difficult effectively to attack your adversary 

 except b\' risking the abandonment of your own 

 defence. Either you had to knock him over under his 

 shield with a boulder, or, as may be seen in the fighting 

 scenes engraved upon Mycenaean gems, you had to risk 

 exposure, sling your shield round on your back, and 

 spring at him, stabbing down w-ith the short dagger of 

 the Bronze Age over his shield, or catch hold of the top 

 of it and use it as a lever on its strap which formed 

 a noose about his neck. 



In conclusion, some accidents of the further history 

 of the shield may be noticed. We have noticed two 

 main types of pre-historic shield — the Northern type, a 

 round shield with a boss, the Mediterranean, an oblong 

 or figure of eight as tall as a man and decorated with a 

 blazon. The classical Greek shield was uniformly a 

 parry-shield and usually round, though the Mycena;an 

 shape survived in Boeotia and Arcadia. Blazons 

 appear upon Mycenaean shields ; the Homeric parry- 

 shield has a boss, but no blazon ; the classical shield 

 has no boss, but is ornamented with a blazon. If we 

 may trust the vase painters and the poets, a personal 

 device was worn on the shield by leaders of the heroic 

 age ; in historical times the citizen soldiers carried the 

 symbol or initial letter of the state to w-hich they 

 belonged, upon their shields. The blazon, indeed, 

 made recognition possible, which must otherwise have 

 been peculiarly difficult in the days before the vizor 

 was invented and the " Corinthian " helmet, made in 

 one piece, covered the whole face except the eyes 

 and mouth. It was, of course, a similar necessity 

 which led to the use of the blazon by the mediaeval 

 knight. 



The Romans, unlike the Greeks, retained the Northern 

 boss throughout their history. The earlier Roman 



army was armed with a round shield, but eventually 

 the Samnite shield was adopted. This was the familiar 

 oblong parry-shield of the legionary, which in shape, 

 though not in size, conformed to a Mediterranean type.' 



Some Modem Egyptian 

 Graveside Ceremonies 



By Winifred S. Blackman 



Oxford liescareh Slmlnit in AnthrDiinliuiij. 



During last winter, from January to the middle cf 

 April, I was engaged in studying the beliefs, customs, 

 arts and crafts of the modern inhabitants of the Nile 

 Valley, the chief part of my work being carried out 

 in the province of Asyut. I had been sent out as 

 Research Student in Anthropology, under the auspices 

 of the Committee for Anthropology in the Universitj' cf 

 Oxford. 



The greater part of what follows has, so far as I 

 am aware, not been published hitherto. Even Lane, 

 in his classical work on the Modern Egyptians, gives 

 no account of the weekly ceremonies described in this 

 paper. 



I lived, in company with my brother, in some of 

 the rock-cut tomb-chapels in the limestone cliffs 

 above Mir. Our camp, situated half-way up the 

 higher desert slope, overlooked the lower desert, 

 beyond which lay the cultivation, dotted about with 

 picturesque mud-built villages nestling among their 

 palm-trees. Further in the distance rose the cHffs 

 forming the edge of the eastern desert on the other 

 side of the Nile. The scene was beautiful beyond 

 description, and the glories of the Egyptian sunrises 

 and the after-glow of the sunsets could be seen to 

 advantage from this elevation. 



Just below us were the graves of the humbler folk 

 of ancient Egypt, those who could not afford the 



' Upon Homeric armour, Ridgeway, The Early Age of Greece, 

 and Reichel. Uber Homerische Waffen, may be consulted. 

 Ridgeway perhaps exaggerates the prevalence of the Northern 

 type of weapon, Reichel that of the Mycenxan ; and the truth 

 Hes probably between the two. As indeed might be expected 

 in a period of transition between two civilisations, both type=> 

 of armour were simultaneously in use. 



