REPORT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY 

 FOR THE YEAR 1903-04. 



By Otis T. Mason, 

 Acting Head Curator. 



The work of the year has been devoted to the care of specimens in 

 hand and of new materials daily arriving, to finding- safe and accessible 

 storage for collections not on exhibition; but, more than all, to making 

 the department useful "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge." 



Although the specimens received number over 5,000 less than in the 

 previous year, when 24,319 were catalogued, they were on the whole 

 as valuable, for the reason that besides those acquired without definite 

 aim very many were secured for the purpose of perfecting old series 

 or of making new ones to illustrate special points in anthropology. 

 Some of the more valuable accessions are here enumerated: 



GIFTS. 



The W, L. Abbott collection, numbering 1,377 specimens from the 

 Malay Peninsula, northern Sumatra, and the adjacent archipelago, 

 adds materially to the resources of the Museum from this almost 

 virgin area. These, with his gatherings in former years from the 

 East Indies and other parts of Asia, form a most valuable addition to 

 the Museum, and constitute the basis of a monograph on the ethnology 

 of the regions explored by Doctor Abbott, now in course of prepara- 

 tion by Professor Mason and Doctor Hough. The collection illustrates 

 the arts of the people of this region, who are especially skillful in the 

 use of plant and vegetable materials, of which the most serviceable is 

 rattan. Besides the ethnological, there are also specimens in physical 

 anthropology, consisting of Moro skulls and monkey and ape brains. 



Of unusual interest and value is the collection of 278 ancient Egyptian 

 chipped stone specimens presented by Mr. II. W. Seton-Karr, which 

 includes crescent-shaped implements, leaf -shaped and semilunar 

 blades, spearheads, saws, scrapers, a tine collection of arrow points with 

 extremely long barbes, knives with handles in one piece, and a number 

 of specialized forms for cutting. Mr. Seton-Karr writes: 



They are all from the Fayum, and arc of a type mainly peculiar to that district. 



They were found in the desert about 10 miles from present cultivation, the ancient 



prehistoric lake having a much higher level than the dynastic or, of course, the 



present one. 



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