ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE 221 



of instances ; and the finding of certain things together 

 in several cases under different circumstances is one of 

 the strongest kinds of evidence, such, for instance, as the 

 name of Amenhotep III often found with the Mykenaean 

 pottery, both in Greece and in Egypt. 



3. Exhaustion may prove a point; as, for instance, 

 the Iconoclasts in Greece or Reformers and Puritans 

 in England were the only destroyers of images and 

 pictures, or Akhenaten was the only man who erased 

 the name of Amen. Such destructions therefore are 

 evidence of the age and the man. 



4. Probabilities, as, for instance, the fact that the 

 Saxons erased the Romano-Britons, makes it probable 

 that Silchester, Uriconium, and other late Roman towns 

 which were burnt, were destroyed by the Saxons. 



We see thus that each kind of proof which is accepted 

 legally is also used archaeologically, and is subject to 

 much the same failings. Legal evidence may fail by 

 mistaking the nature of the facts, such as that some 

 rabbit's blood on a knife is human blood ; so may 

 archaeology mistake by ignorance, as when the Myke- 

 naean treasure was called Byzantine. 



Or legal evidence may fail by wrong inferences from 

 facts, such as that some human blood on a knife is due 

 to a murder, while it has come from the owner's finger. 

 So archaeology erred from a wrong inference in calling 

 the treasure of Troy ' the treasure of Priam '. 



Or legal evidence may fail owing to mere prejudice, 

 thus ignoring the truth. So archaeology has suffered 

 from the prejudice that nothing in Greece can be older 

 than the eighth century B.C. 



It is supposed sometimes, by those unfamiliar with 

 the subject, that archaeological evidence is so doubtful 

 or so slight that it cannot be relied upon, and is not 



