October 29, 1903] 



NA TURE 



^n 



Shells are worn as amulets by modern savages, e.g. 

 cowries in Africa ; red coral is a potent amulet worn by 

 travellers by sea ; pearls are a potent medicine in modern 

 China ; seeds of plants are medicine everywhere ; and the 

 claws of lions are worn as amulets all through Africa, and 

 are " great medicine," and imitations of them are made. 



When gold becomes first known it is regarded exactly 

 like the stones mentioned. Thus the Debae, an Arab tribe, 

 who did not work gold, but had abundance in their land, 

 used only the nuggets, stringing them for necklaces alter- 

 nately with perforated stones. 



Magnetic iron and haematite were especially prized, the 

 power of attraction in magnetic iron, as in the case of 

 amber, causing a belief that there was a living spirit within. 

 Hence iron in general was regarded with peculiar vener- 

 ation, and not because it was a newer metal, as is commonly 

 stated. 



In a paper on the origin of the brooch, and the probable 

 use of certain rings at present called "armlets," Mr. E. 

 Lovett suggested, as the prototype of the ring-and-pin con- 

 trivance for fastening a cloak, the use, by a hunting people, 

 of the mammalian Os innominatum and Os calcis. He 

 noted, further, that very many rings of early. date, usually 

 described as " armlets," are too small to allow the entrance 

 of a hand. .'\s such rings are frequently found associated 

 with pins of similar materials, commonly regarded as 



hair-pins," and as ring and pin are sometimes found in 

 sttti on the breast of a skeleton, he infers that they repre- 

 sent a simple ring-and-pin fastening of the kind described 

 above. An apron-fastener of this type, composed of an 

 iron ring and a horse-shoe nail, is still worn in some of the 

 blacksmith's shops in Scotland. The next step of develop- 

 ment follows when the pin is perforated at the thick end 

 and attached to the ring by a fibre to prevent it from being 

 lost. This stage is actually represented in China. A 

 furtlier step is taken when the pin itself is hinged upon the 

 ring, for security, by bending its flattened head round the 

 ring, a form which is abundant in Celtic times. The in- 

 convenience which accompanies the ring-and-pin brooch, 

 that the fabric must be drawn so far through the ring, was 

 remedied by leaving a gap in the ring ; the " penannular " 

 brooch results. 



Miss Bulley exhibited a number of examples of crosses, 

 chiefly Celtic, and traversed familiar ground in inferring 

 from them the existence of a distinct type of symbol in 

 which a circumscribed circle is of equal importance with 

 the cross itself. Coptic and Syrian crosses show the same 

 type as the Celtic, though not so markedly. The subject, 

 if treated at all, needs much more thorough examination. 



Mr. John Garstang's account of Egyptian burial customs 

 summarised the results of his discovery of a necropolis of 

 the Middle Empire (about 2200 B.C.) at Beni-Hasan, in 

 Upper Egypt, which contained buryingf places of minor 

 officials and distinguished women, and illustrated the 

 funeral ritual of the middle classes of the locality. These 

 tombs are not large enough for mural decoration, but they 

 are furnished with numerous wooden models — boats, 

 granaries, and men and women engaged in field-work and 

 household duties — which explain manv points connected 

 with the burial of the dead. The objects seem to have 

 borne no relation to the profession of the deceased, but are 

 simply of religious motive — the elaborate provision for a 

 future journey. 



Dr. C. S. Myers described the antiquities of Kharga in 

 the Great Oasis, which include a well-preserved temple of 

 Hibis, which is one of the most important monuments of 

 the Persian dynasty in Egypt, and an early Nestorian 

 necropolis, with streets of tombs and funeral chapels of 

 unburnt brick, plastered and frescoed with symbolic orna- 

 ment and Biblical scenes. 



Prof. Flinders Petrie summarised the principal results of 

 his recent excavations at Abydos in two demonstrations 

 entitled " The Beginning of the Egyptian Kingdom " and 

 "The Temples of Abydos." The discovery of the pre- 

 historic age of Egypt, and its division into regular 

 sequences of remains, fills up a period of more than 2000 

 years before the establishment of the dynastic rff^imc, and 

 reveals a wealthy and elaborate civilisation which was 

 already decadent when it was overthrown by the dynastic 

 conquerors. Five different types of man can be dis- 

 tinguished in pre-dynastic times, one of which Prof. Petrie 

 is inclined to identify as Libyan, and akin to a characteristic 

 NO. 1774, VOL. 68] 



type in early Greece. The connection of the close of the 

 prehistoric scale of sequences with the early kings has been 

 closely settled by the pottery, and its history shown in the 

 stratified ruins of the earliest town of Abydos ; four of the 

 ten kings' names have been found of the dynasty which 

 preceded that of Menes, and also the names of all the eight 

 kings of the dynasty of Menes himself. The growth of the 

 use of writing can be traced on the seals, and the aesthetic 

 revolution which accompanied the estiblishment of the 

 dynastic kingdom is seen to lead directly to the fixed artistic 

 types which dominate Egypt thenceforward. The Royal 

 tombs likewise are traced in sequence of elaboration from 

 the prehistoric pit grave, first to the brick mustaba, and 

 then to the stone-built pyramid of the third dynasty. 



At Abydos, on the site of the Osiris temple, ten successive 

 shrines of earlier dates have been unearthed through a 

 depth of 20 feet of soil ; the latest is that of Amasis, of the 

 twenty-sixth dynasty, and the earliest that of the first. The 

 principal results were of the last-named period, and included 

 a remarkable school of fine ivory carving, and striking ex- 

 amples of two-colour glazing. 



The liberal support which the Association has given 

 throughout to British exploration in Crete was more than 

 justified by the reports of the last season's work. Mr. 

 Duckworth's anthropographic inquiry has been noted 

 already ; Dr. Arthur Evans gave a full account of his latest 

 discoveries in the Palace of Knossos, and Messrs. Bosanquet 

 and Myres described the excavation of a pre-Mycenzean town 

 and sanctuary at Palaikastro, in eastern Crete, conducted 

 by the British School of Archaeology in Athens, and sup- 

 ported, like the work at Knossos, by the Cretan Exploration 

 Fund. 



At Knossos the year's campaign, which was expected to 

 conclude the excavation, took a wholly unlooked-for de- 

 velopment, in the discovery, first, of a north-west wing of 

 the palace, including a rudimentary theatre formed by con- 

 verging staircases, not unlike that found already in the 

 Palace of Phaestos ; second, of a detached house to the north- 

 east, with much fine pottery, and a remarkable columnar 

 hall with a tribuna and apse at one end, which appears 

 to anticipate the features of the later basilica ; third, of 

 many scattered deposits between and below the floor levels of 

 the palace, which serve to elaborate and explain the detailed 

 chronology of the whole mass of buildings. One of these 

 deposits, found near the east pillar-room, contained a quite 

 unparalleled accumulation of native-made figurines in a 

 kind of Egyptian glaze-ware, the d6bris of a sanctuary 

 dedicated to a snake-goddess. In the same deposit occurred 

 also a remarkable marble cross, which seems to have been 

 the central aniconic object of the shrine, and examples of 

 a fresh form of linear script. In view of these important 

 results, it becomes necessary to complete the investigation 

 of the ground below the later floors throughout the palace, 

 as well as to continue the search for the Royal tombs, which 

 has hitherto only led to the discovery of a late and much 

 plundered necropolis to the northward. 



At Palaikastro the settlement discovered in 1902 proves 

 to be a considerable town of regular plan, dating from the 

 later Minoan period, with extensive Mycensean rebuildings. 

 The detailed finds indicate widespread commerce from Egypt 

 to Lipari, and considerable prosperity and comfort at home. 

 The preponderance of submarine subjects in the decorative 

 art suggests that the persistent Cretan sponge industry 

 was already of importance, and a visit paid by Mr. 

 Bosanquet to the island of Kouphonisi, off the south-east 

 coast of Crete, proved the existence of an extensive and 

 clearly pre-Phoenician purple fishery, going back into 

 Minoan times. The pre-Mycenaean sanctuary explored by 

 Mr. Myres on the hill overlooking Palaikastro yielded a 

 remarkable series of votive terra-cottas, and much new 

 evidence as to pre-Mycenaean costume. 



The papers on Roman Britain, already mentioned, were 

 as follows : — 



Mr. T. Ashby, jun., gave a retrospect of excavations at 

 Caerwent, in Monmouthshire (1800-1003), on the site of 

 the Romano-British citv of Venta Silurum, which a recently 

 discovered inscription shows to have been the administrative 

 centre of the Silures in Roman times. The external walls 

 are clearly traceable, with three gates partially preserved, 

 and an inner earthwork which seems to have been the 

 original fortification. The buildings within are chiefly 

 private houses, sometimes wholly enclosing a rectangular 



