president's address. 17 



whether another class of painted Neohthic fabrics, the traces of which 

 extend across the Steppes of Southern Russia, and, by way of that 

 ancient zone of migration, to the lower Danube and Northern Greece, 

 may not stand in some original relation to the same ancient Province. 

 The new discoveries, however, in the mounds of Elam and Anau 

 have at most a bearing on the primitive phase of culture in parts 

 of South-E astern Europe that preceded the age when metal was 

 generally in use. 



Turning to the Nile Valley wie are again confronted with an extra- 

 ordinary revolution in the whole point of view effected during recent 

 years. Thanks mainly to the methodical researches initiated by 

 Flinders Petrie, we are able to look back beyond the Dynasties to the 

 very beginnings of Egyptian civilisation. Already by the closing phase 

 of the Neolithic and by the days of the first incipient use of metals 

 the indigenous population had attained an extraordinarily high level. 

 If on the one hand it displays Libyan connexions, on the other we 

 already note the evidences of commercial intercourse with the Eed 

 Sea; and the constant appearance of large rowing vessels in the 

 figured designs shows that the Nile itself was extensively used for 

 navigation. Flint-working was carried to unrivalled perfection, and 

 special artistic refinement was displayed in the manufacture of vessels 

 of variegated breccia and other stones. The antecedent stages of many 

 Egyptian hieroglyphs are already traceable, and the cult of Egyptian 

 divinities, like Min, was already practised. Whatever ethnic changes 

 may have marked the establishment of Pharaonic rule, here, too, the 

 salient features of the old indigenous culture were taken over by the 

 new rdgime. This early Dynastic period itself has also received 

 entirely new illustration from the same researches, and the freshness 

 and force of its artistic works in many respects outshine anything pro- 

 duced in the later course of Egyptian history. 



The continuity of human tradition as a whole in areas geographically 

 connected like Eurafrica on the one side and Eurasia on the other has 

 been here postulated. Since, as we have seen, the Late Palaeolithic 

 culture was not violently extinguished but shows signs of survival 

 both North and South, we are entitled to trace elements of direct deriva- 

 tion from this source among the inherited acquirements that finally 

 led up to the higher forms of ancient civilisation that arose on the Nile 

 and the Euphrates. In many directions, we may believe, the flaming 

 torch had been carried on by the relay runners. 



But what, it niay ibe asked, of Greece itself, where human culture 

 reached its highest pinnacle in the Ancient World and to which we 

 look as the principal source of our own civilisation? 



Till within recent years it seemed almost a point of honour for 

 classical scholars to regard Hellenic civilisation as a Wonder-Child, 



1916 c 



