NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS lf)l 



museum and the Louvre. The cuneiform documents of the fourth 

 and second millennium B. C. can nowhere be studied to greater 

 advantage. Hundreds of terra cotta and glass vases; Hebrew 

 and Syriac bowls; about 700 fragments of the most ancient 

 'nscribed stone vases and votive tablets; nearly 600 seal cylin- 

 ders; clay coffins; charms; a large amount of gold and silver 

 jewelry, and other objects of art; all serve to illustrate the life 

 and customs of the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia, and of 

 the Semites in general. The committee in charge having, in 

 189§, obtained from the sultan a firman granting permission 

 to continue its excavations at Nippur for a term of three years, 

 and having raised |30,000 for the purpose, deemed it expedient 

 to concentrate its efforts on two seasons. The wisdom of this 

 decision has been justified by the importance of the results. 

 Foremost among these is the discovery of the library of the 

 temple, from the ruins of which large numbers of precious 

 ancient documents have been exhumed, and brought to the uni- 

 versity where they will be published. 



Under the reorganization of the department, which took place 

 in 1899, the section of casts has ceased to exist. Already, in 

 1898, the committee had voted the funds at its disposal to the 

 Egyptian and Mediterranean section for the purpose of secur- 

 ing some original ancient sculptures; and the casts acquired 

 through its efforts were distributed and installed in the sections 

 to which they respectively belonged. Thus the reproductions 

 of important Central American monuments from Quirigua and 

 Copan may now be seen in the American section; while the great 

 bas-reliefs of Trajan's arch at Benevento, and the important 

 series of marbles found in the neighborhood of Lake Nemi on 

 the site of a temple of Diana Arecina, form the most striking 

 feature of the Greco-Koman hall in the Egyptian and Mediter- 

 ranean section. 



The Egyptian section has secured important series of objects 

 illustrating the history, arts and industries of Egypt, from pre- 

 historic times down to the Greco-Roman period. From the 

 Egypt exploration fund, the American exploration society and 

 the Egyptian research account, the committee in charge each 

 year receives a fair share of the objects discovered. 



