SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— H. 387 



a rich series of votive objects, many insoribed with the name of Athena, representing 

 debris from her Sanctuary. The pottery, which ranged from Geometric to Hellen- 

 istic and included some fine decorated Laconian ware, many fine archaic and later 

 terra-cottas and bronzes, and, above all, a marble statue (ca. 470 B.C.) of a helmeted 

 ■warrior (perhaps a portrait of Leonidas, or Pausanias ?), call for special mention. 



9. Mr. W. A. Heurtley.— 7ron Age Pottery from the Vardar Valley, 

 Macedonia. 

 The pottery discussed in this paper comes from two mounds, Vardino and 

 Vardaroftsa, both on the east bank of the Vardar, near Salonica. The stratum in 

 which the pottery occurs lies in both cases immediately above a stratum of theSub- 

 Mycentean age, and immediately below a stratum of the fourth century B.C. Thus, 

 though there is overlapping, the limits of the Iron Age stratum can be fixed within 

 half a century. They are 1050 B.C. and 400 B.C. Within those limits the pottery 

 IS practically homogeneous, and shows few traces of development or change. The 

 types are few, and derive mostly from those of the preceding stratum, which covered 

 the Late-Mycensan period and part of the Sub-Mycensan. An invasion, however, 

 apparently from Central Europe, towards the end of that period introduced a class 

 of black ' fluted ' pottery into Macedonia, which left its traces in the Iron Age pottery. 

 It seems probable that these invaders passed on southwards, and their influence 

 appears in the ' Early Geometric ' culture of Thessaly. The Iron Age pottery of 

 Macedonia is a parallel development to that of Thessaly, and arose after the departure 

 of the invaders. 



10. Mr. R. Campbell Thompson.— rA€ Scie7ice of the Assyriayis in the 



Seventh Century B.C. 



The readiness of the Assyrian and Babylonian doctors to tabulate evorytliing in 

 long lists is a good indication of their capacity for scientific observation. Their 

 tablets of lists of animals, plants, and stones vouch for their great interest in natural 

 history ; they had a knowledge of some 250 plant-drugs, which reappear in their 

 medical receipts, and of several chemical products, which are again found in their 

 manuals for glass-making of the seventh century. They knew several formulas for 

 making and colouring difierent kinds of glass, and it would appear that they had 

 anticipated the Purple of Cassius, and had even a method of making Aventurine. In 

 mathematics they were expert at an early period in settling problems of the areas 

 of fields, and about 2220 B.C. they were able to provide a fairly good formula for 

 solving the length of the diagonal of a rectangle, when the length of the sides was 

 given. In astronomy their desire to read the heavenly portents had made them very 

 careful observers, and their tablets on this subject date almost down to the Christian 

 Era. They knew at an early period the difference between the solar and lunar year, 

 tad divided the Zodiac into twelve divisions, and even in the seventh century were 

 attempting to foretell lunar eclipses. 



11. Mr. L. H. Jivxii.^Y-'EvxTOTS.— Anthropological Work in Mesopotamia, 



1925-26. (With exhibit in the Department of Human Anatomy,' 

 University Museum.) 



SkuUs and long bones in sufficiently good preservation to be of value were 

 «xcavated in both Sumerian and Neo-Babylonian strata. No graves were found in 

 the area which contained the early painted ware. A later cemetery was discovered 

 near the southern end of the Kish mounds, but as it appeared to be of little 

 archaeological interest the chances of obtaining anthropological material had to be 

 abandoned. A long series of measurements was made on the modern population 

 They appear to be of essentially the same type as their predecessors in the same area 

 ■5,000 years ago. 



12. Prof. S. Langdon.— .Excavations at Kish. (With exhibit in the 



University Museum.) 



The discoveries of the Oxford and Field Museum Expedition in the season 1925-6 

 Are confined to two periods, the Early Sumerian and Late Babylonian. Only the former 



c 2 



