graved on the rocks on opposite sides of the path up the Wâdy Brissa. Each of the inscriptions is accompanied by a basso-rilievo. The inscriptions relate to an account of the buildings the king was constructing in Babylon. An inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, deposited in the New York Museum of Art, was provisionally translated in November, 1884, by J. F. X. O'Conor, S. J. It refers to the rebuilding and restoration by Nebuchadnezzar of the Temple of the Sun, at Sippara, and relates that "the God Merodach, the great Lord, in mighty power raised me up for the restoration of the city and the rebuilding of the temples. A lofty name he proclaimed. The Temple of Parra, the Temple of the Sun, at Sippara, which long before me was in decay and needed repair ... I rebuilt." Then, after relating that the work was not done by any special command of the god, but under the impulse of "the fear of his divinity" and with his encouragement, the king offers a prayer: "Samas, great Lord, upon the joyful entering into the Temple of Parra, thy glorious temple, into the works of my hands, truly be favorable, and may thy assistance complete my glory. In thy word of justice, grant me (?) a fullness of glory, a life unto a remote day, and the establishment of my throne for eternity."

The Wolfe Expedition.-Steps were taken in the autumn of 1883 for organizing an American expedition to visit and explore some of the Assyrian and Babylonian ruins. Funds were contributed toward the purpose by Mrs. C. L. Wolfe, of New York, and the enterprise was given the name of the "Wolfe Expedition." The work of exploration is to be carried on by the Rev. W. Hayes Ward, D. D., of New York, one of the few American gentlemen who have paid special attention to the study of cuneiform literature, and Messrs. Haynes, of Robert College, and J. R. S. Sterrett, of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Dr. Ward started on his journey in September, 1884, and was joined by his companions in Constantinople, where he was furnished by the Turkish Government with all the papers necessary to secure the end he has in view. At the latest accounts the party were at Marash, examining the Hittite relics there. They expected to spend the winter in investigations of the ruins in Mesopotamia.

Operations of the Egypt Exploration Fund at Pithom and Zoan.—The society called the Egypt Exploration Fund was formed in England in 1882 for the purpose of promoting the examination of the ancient ruins in the Delta of the Nile, with especial reference to the identification of the places mentioned in the Bible in connection with the sojourn of the Israelites. Its first work was performed during the season of 1882-'83, under the immediate direction of M. Edouard Naville, at the mound known as the Tel-el-Maschuta, in the Wadi-et-Tumilat, on the line of the sweet-water canal, near the railroad station Ramses, and resulted in the iden

tification of that place with Pithom, one of the treasure cities which the children of Israel built for Pharaoh, as well as with the city known under the Roman dominion as Heroopolis. M. Naville also learned that Succoth, the place of the first encampment of the Hebrews on the journey of the Exodus, was here, and found an inscription pointing to Pikeheret, which is supposed to be the Pihahiroth of the Exodus, as being in the vicinity. A possible corroboration of this identification has since been found in a manuscript relating to the journey of a Frank woman in Egypt, in the fourth century of our era, in which the author mentions that she was shown a place called Pithona, as the city that the Hebrews built for Pharaoh, and speaks of the village of Hero as occupying the same site. Thence the lady relates that she went to Ramses, twenty miles distant.

The excavations of the Fund were carried on during the season of 1883-'84, under the direction of W. Flinders Petrie, at Sân, the Zoan of the Bible, where was the capital of the fifteenth and sixteenth dynasties of shepherd kings, and of the twenty-first and twentythird (or Tanite) dynasties. According to a passage in Numbers xiii, 22, Zoan was built seven years after Hebron. The mounds that mark its former site were prominent objects among the marshes of the Delta, and many interesting relics had been found among the fragments lying loose on the surface of the ground. A few preliminary excavations had already been made by M. Mariette, who, being unable to complete the work, had again covered up the objects he had found, to preserve them. According to M. Naville, there was no place in Egypt where destruction had been as complete and as unmerciful as there. Mr. Petrie began his work with the excavation of the temple, an imposing ruin of red granite from Syene, which occupied one of the numerous mounds marking the site of the ancient city. This building was surrounded by two inclosure-walls, one of them of sun-dried brick and of very remote antiquity. The other one was erected in the reign of King Pisebkhanu, of the twenty-second dynasty, and is described as being of "incredible strength. It extended round three sides of the building, and is yet standing to the height of about twenty feet. It is eighty feet thick, and built of colossal bricks about eight times the size and weight of our modern bricks." Against and upon this wall dwelling-houses had been built, at different periods, as determined by the coins and potsherds found in them. The relics appertaining to the temple range in age from the period of the sixth to that of the twenty-sixth dynasty. Among them are stones bearing the cartouch of Pepè, possibly of him of the sixth dynasty; statues in red granite of Amenemhe I, and in black granite of Osortasen I and Amenemhe II; a torso in yellow sandstone of Osortasen II, and an inscription of Osortasen III, all of the twelfth dynasty; a few relics of

less-known successors of those kings; numerous works and alterations by Rameses II and Menephthah I, and a block of Seti II, of the nineteenth dynasty; and a statue of Rameses III, of the twentieth dynasty. After this dynasty the city seems to have fallen into decay, and its stones to have been used for other buildings. Large numbers of stones were worked over by Siamen, of the twenty-first dynasty, and other kings who succeeded him. The later dynasties were represented by a stela of Tirhakah of the twenty-fifth, and an ornament of Psammetik II, of the twenty-sixth dynasty. The most striking monument found in the course of the temple-excavations was indicated in numerous stones worked into the building, which proved to be fragments of a statue of Rameses II, that exceeded in size any other statue known. It appears to have been a standing_figure, crowned with the crown of Upper Egypt, and supported in the back by a pilaster. The great-toe measured eighteen inches across, and the figure is estimated to have been ninety-eight feet high from the foot to the crown, and, with its pedestal, one hundred and fifteen feet high, and to have weighed not less than twelve hundred tons. An avenue of granite blocks outside of the wall of Pisebkhanu was found to appertain to a temple of the Ptolemaic age, having a pavement of limestone and marked by fragments of statues and portions of bas-reliefs and sculptures.

Excavations in some of the houses near the temple brought to light relics of domestic articles, works of fine art, papyri, weights, etc. One house was called the "House of the Papyri," because of several baskets of manuscripts and waste-papers, partly or wholly burned, which were found in a closet under the cellar-stairs. In another house, called the "House of Statuettes," were many green porcelain figures of gods and sacred animals, and burned papyri; and a third house, the "House of the Glass Zodiac," furnished the fragments of a large sheet of colorless glass, which had been gilded on one side and painted on the other side with a square border-line, inclosing a circular zodiac and four heads of the seasons. while the corners between the border-line and the circle were covered with stars done in rhombs of gold-leaf. In one or other of these houses were also found domestic utensils, and vases in granite, basalt, alabaster, and bronze; in a niche in the wall the lamp used by the owner in going into the cellar; fine pottery curiously ornamented; specimens of blue glaze-ware; a portrait statue; coins and bronze fittings; a marble bust of a term; and specimens of weights, based on the units of the shekel, the kât, and the drachma. The papyri, of which some two hundred legible fragments have been saved, are of a miscellaneous character, and in various Egyptian and Greek handwritings. Among the documents in stone are the unpublished half of a tablet of Tirhakah, of

which the other half has been published; an inscribed obelisk of the twelfth dynasty; in a curious cruciform Græco-Egyptian character, a large inscribed stela of Ptolemy Philadel phus; and several smaller stele, a royal statuette, and sphinxes. Three cemeteries were examined, the most ancient of which dates from the twelfth dynasty. In it were found a broken sphinx of fine early work in black granite, on which Rameses III had cut his name; and a royal tomb containing a rifled sarcophagus, from which the lid had been lost, 14 feet long by seven feet nine inches in width, and without an inscription. The second cemetery was believed to be the chief necropolis of Tanis during the last stages of its civic history, and contained remains dating from just before the Ptolemies to about the time of Diocletian, during whose reign the city was burned. It contained a "rich quarter" and a "poor quarter," and a department for the sacred ichneumons, of which remains were found in thousands of oblong pots. A cabalistic circle of human skulls was found, with the ground strewed with "sacred eyes," in blue and glazed-ware. Among the remains in the third cemetery, which was of Roman times, was the mummy of a woman laid in a kind of open-work basket covered with a board. The robe of the mummy was edged with a variety of woven borders, white on red and red on blue, and other borders in red, yellow, white, green, and purple; and the jewelry consisted of a nose-ring, ear-rings, and a necklace. The mummy is supposed to have been of the time of Constantine.

None of the domestic and smaller articles as yet recovered at Tanis are of an earlier date than the Ptolemaic period, although the larger works give evidence that the city existed as early as the sixth dynasty. This is because the excavations have not yet reached the strata in which pre-Ptolemaic remains are imbedded. An idea of the magnitude of the work to be done before an expectation can be entertained of finding similar relics of any of the earlier dynasties, is given in the statement by Mr. Petrie in one of his reports that, "where there is least accumulation over the earlier remains, I find fifteen feet of Roman and post-Roman dust and rubbish; and this means that from forty to fifty tons of stuff have to be taken out of any hole we dig before we even begin to touch pre-Roman work." The excavations were continued during the season of 1884-'85.

Egypt Exploration Fund.-At the annual meeting of the Egypt Exploration Fund, held October 29th, Mr. Petrie reported that he had examined twenty sites of ancient cities and remains. The immediate results of the examinations were that some sites supposed to be of importance were really small, and this alone was of geographical value, for it prevented the formation of a mistaken expectation of finding a large city in such a situation, while other sites were of such size and so much encumbered with late deposits that their ex

amination should be postponed. Among places that promised to yield important discoveries was one so covered with early Greek pottery that the potsherds crackled under the feet as one walked over it. This pottery was of every date, from the prehistoric down through the Phoenician and black-figured to the finest period of red-figured pottery on a black ground, and on into still later times. Such a site was of the first importance for the study of Greek archæology, and, so far as was known, it had never been visited by a European. This site, with the one in which the great sarcophagus of red granite already mentioned, and one in which the jamb of a gateway of Amenemhe I were found, were spoken of as places not before known to Europeans, on which the agents of the fund hoped to make more thorough explorations. They had been foiled in finding relics of the Hyksos dynasties at Zoan, simply by the immensity of the area to be explored there, to clear which exhaustively would take centuries of work, rather than the few months that could be given to it between the rains and the heat of one season. The whole of that area, however, had been examined to depths of ten, twenty, or thirty feet, with shafts that left no spaces of more than three hundred yards untouched by excavations. The financial report showed a balance of £2,162 to the credit of the fund. It was proposed to spend £1,650 during the ensuing year, and to send out an English student of Egyptology to assist Mr. Petrie. American friends of the fund had contributed £260 to its treasury, through the Rev. W. C. Winslow, of Boston. It was resolved to present a selection from the objects collected in the excavations to the museum in Boston. Measurements of the Great Pyramid.-W. Flinders Petrie has published the results of measarements of the Pyramids of Gizeh, which he made during the season of 1880-'81 and 1882-'83, and in which he believes he has secured, by the systems of checks and triangulations he employed, a higher degree of accuracy than has been obtained in any previons survey. The dimensions of the Great Pyramid and its several parts, as calculated by him, differ from those announced by Prof. C. Piazzi Smith slightly, but sufficiently, if the measurements are actually more accurate, to overthrow the theory of mystic harmonies and proportions which Prof. Smith has founded upon his own surveys; and Mr. Petrie suggests new relations of proportion in the different parts of the pyramid, without attaching any particular significance to them. He controverts the theory of Lepsius, that the pyramids were built by successive accretions, or by the addition of new layers over the whole structure in the successive years of the king-builder's reign, and finds reason in his observations on the mode of structure for believing that they were constructed according to a predetermined plan. Mr. Petrie also inquired into the character of the tools that were used in build

ing the pyramids. Of these tools, a bronze plate or scraper, and a copper instrument, and traces of bronze saws and tubular drills, have been discovered, but not the tubes themselves. The drills are supposed to have been jeweled with tough, uncrystallized corundum or some other gem-mineral capable of cutting into granite, diorite, and basalt, and the saws were probably about nine feet long. An enormous levy of forced labor might have been made during the season of the overflow, without interfering with the regular industries of the country. Barracks have been discovered to the west of the second pyramid which were capable of accommodating about four thousand workmen. These, supposing them to have been masons, with relays of one hundred thousand men every three months, would have been adequate, Mr. Petrie supposes, for the construction of the pyramids. The accuracy with which the base is squared-so close that it is hardly conceivable that the angles could have been measured without the aid of telescopes - is mentioned as the most wonderful feature in the construction of the Great Pyramid.

One of the most interesting results of Mr. Petrie's investigations was the discovery of evidence that these works of the ancient empire had been at some period subjected to deliberate, determined attempts to destroy them. To this is owing the condition of the second pyramid of Aboo Roash, which had led to the supposition that it had never been finished. From the examination of the rubbish-heaps around this work, Mr. Petrie learned that the whole granite casing of the pyramid had been stripped off to be laboriously smashed. He found fragments of a sarcophagus of granite, which the structure had once contained, and pieces of a throne and of a statue in diorite as large as the statue of Khafra of the second pyramid of Gizeh, which had been seated on the throne, and part of the name of the king. Chips and fragments of precious vessels in alabaster, bronze, and basalt, were also discovered in this débris. The rubbish in which the ruins of the votive chapel, attached to the pyramid of Khafra at Gizeh, are half buried, yielded similar results. Considerable masses of chips of diorite and alabaster statues, fingers, toes, bits of drapery, fragments of diorite and alabaster bowls, and even of hieroglyphical inscriptions, were found in it. These discoveries may help to throw light on the character of the period from the seventh to the eleventh dynasties, the darkest epoch of Egyptian history, which it is supposed may have been a period of revolution, and upon the hitherto unexplained expression of Herodotus respecting the pyramid-builders, that "the Egyptians so detest the memory of these kings that they do not like even to mention their names."

A Theban Tomb of the Eleventh Dynasty.-M. Maspero discovered in February, 1883, among the hills near Thebes, the tomb of a person named Horhotpu, of the eleventh dynasty, a

very obscure period of Egyptian history, of which the known relics are very few. The tomb is composed of two chambers, tunneled in the hills, in a rock, the friable character of which obliged the artist to line the walls with blocks of limestone, on which to place his emblematic paintings and inscriptions. The sarcophagus, which was decorated, had been rifled of its mummy, and was lidless. Texts from the Book of the Dead and the Funerary Ritual were found. The discovery is of particular interest, because it supplies a distinct connecting link between the Mastabah tombs of the older dynasties and the tunneled tombs of the Theban Renaissance period, between which M. Mariette supposed a complete rupture of all artistic traditions" had taken place.

The Necropolis of Khemnis.-During the spring of 1884, M. Maspero discovered at Ekhmeen, a large provincial town of Upper Egypt, about half-way between Assiout and Thebes, and representing the ancient Khemnis, or Panopolis, a hitherto undiscovered and unplundered necropolis of immense extent. Within three hours he verified the sites of more than one hundred catacombs, all absolutely intact, five of which, on being opened, yielded 120 mummies. The remains, so far as explored, are of the Ptolemaic period.

Roman Relics in England.-Relics of the Roman Occupation have been frequently uncovered in the excavations for the erection of new buildings, and for other public works, in various parts of England. Several such remains were found during 1884 at York. A dedicatory tablet of Marcus Aurelius was unearthed in digging for the foundations of the new Mechanics' Institute in that city. A flanking wall of the Roman bridge, which is known to have crossed the Ouse, running at right angles to the bridge

were found parts of two altars, with the arm or handle of a large vessel of gritstone, curiously ornamented. Of one of the altars only the base remained, on which had been roughly cut the letters "S. P. R." The other altar, of fine limestone, had been broken, but bore an elegantly cut votive inscription by L. Celernius Vitalis, cornet of the ninth legion, with a caution against any violation of the offering.

A Roman family burial-place was discovered at Lincoln, in the heart of the city. The "loculus" consisted of a stone chamber, 5 feet 10 inches long, from 2 feet inch to 3 feet 1 inch broad, and 3 feet 9 inches high. Connected with it by a short passage-way was a quadrangular chamber measuring 4 feet 2 inches by 4 feet 10 inches. Within the loculus ten vessels were found imbedded in lime; not ordinary globular - shaped funeral urns, but pitchers, like ordinary domestic jugs, containing ashes and fragments of burned bone. They were of coarse ware, with a greenish glaze, and unornamented. Several of them were covered with saucers or small cups, inverted and made to do duty as lids. Upon the upper or eastern end of the loculus was built a furnace, which was between five and six feet long and one foot nine inches wide and high. The discoverer believes from the small dimensions of this furnace that it was not used for cremation, but was in fact a Norman oven.

A Roman villa has been opened, under the Hill of the White Horse, at Uffington, Berkshire. It contained a pavement that constituted a very fine specimen of the third-century tessellæ, which is illustrated in the engraving. Six skeletons were found, which are supposed to be of Saxons who occupied the villa after the retirement of the Romans. A massive building has been uncovered at Chesterhope

found in repairing this structure that it had been partly rebuilt with sepulchral and other stones, among which were one bearing a Latin inscription containing the name of Septimius Severus and the stone with the Greek inscription. This stone, which is about two feet long and one foot wide, is engraved on one side. At the top it is ornamented with two squares, divided by cross-lines into eight triangles, and on either side is the so-called palm-branch found on both pagan and Christian monuments of the classical age. Between the palm-branches runs an inscription in twelve lines. From a photograph and casts of the inscription that were sent to him, Prof. George Stephens pronounced it to be Runic. Other casts have been taken and subjected to the examination of English scholars during the past year, who have decided that the inscription is Greek. Prof. A. H. Sayce and Dr. Isaac Taylor attribute it to about the fifth century of the Christian era. Some other critics assign it a date nearer the beginning of the Christian era. A closer examination has made it to appear to be in hexameter verse. As the inscription is much defaced and indistinct in many places, and is not grammatical in structure, a variety of interpretations and readings of it have been proposed. Most of them agree in supposing it to be a funeral inscription of a youth, named Hermes of Commagene, who died at the age of sixteen, while traveling in Britain, with an address of farewell, and an invocation.

Leaden Articles.-Hitherto no specimens of articles of use or adornment made of lead have been found in any of the prehistoric monuments that have been scientifically investigated in Europe. The eminent archeologist and Orientalist, F. Kanitz, has now discovered among the masses of fragments found in the tumulus of Rosegg in Carinthia, parts of a prehistoric wagon of lead, which shows that the rich deposits of lead in the neighborhood of Villach were not only known in prehistoric times, but were utilized in the art of the people. Kanitz has published an interesting account of this find in the sixteenth volume of the "Transactions" of the Vienna Anthropological Society, 1834, and has now issued it as a separate essay. Other articles in lead than the parts of the

LEADEN FIGURE FOUND AT ROSEGG.

wagon were found in the same tumulus, and are represented in the monograph-figures of animals and fragments of two horsemen-all of which indicate an extremely limited degree of

graphic talent in the prehistoric Alp-dwellers. The engraving represents one of the figures of horsemen.

The Palace of the Kings of Tiryns.-Dr. Henry Schliemann, assisted by Dr. William Dörpfeld, of Berlin, has explored the Acropolis and the Palace of the Kings at Tiryns, one of the most ancient cities of Greece. The whole upper and the whole middle Acropolis were carefully excavated, and two cross-trenches were dug in the lowest terrace. The mean thickness of the walls was twenty-four feet, while in some places on the upper Acropolis the extreme thickness was forty-eight feet. The wall of the upper Acropolis consisted of a lower part resting on the rock, and an upper part receding by about twenty-six feet, and provided in several places with narrow, longitudinal covered galleries, whence doors led to the terrace of the projecting lower wall. The walls were composed of large, almost unwrought blocks, which were piled one on another without any binding material. Traces were found on the top of the wall of what appeared to have been a roofed passage around the citadel, having a wall of raw bricks on the outside and columns on the inside. The principal entrance to the Acropolis was on the eastern side, close to the remains of the best preserved of several towers of which ruins were found at places along the wall. This tower stood to the right of the ascending passenger, so that the assailants of the fortification had to expose their right side, which was unprotected by the shield, to the defenders. The principal gate of the upper citadel was formed by two uprights, ten and ten and a half feet high, three feet broad, and four and a half feet deep, and had a breadth of nine feet three inches. The holes in which the door-hinges turned are still preserved in the threshold, and in the two uprights are holes, six inches in diameter, for the wooden cross-bar by which the gate was fastened. The holes of the door-hinges are also preserved in the threshold between the vestibulum and the hall of the propylæum. In one of the courts was an altar, which is compared with an altar mentioned in the "Odyssey" (xxii, 335, 336), as in the court of the palace of Ulysses, which was sacred to Zeus. The floors of all the apartments and courts were formed of a mosaic of lime and small pebbles, corresponding with the "beaten floor" in the palace of Ulysses. The floor of the principal hall, which was on the northern side of the court of the altar, was divided by incised lines into squares, and shows traces of the red painting with which it was adorned. The fore-room is connected on the west with several corridors and small rooms, among which was a bath-room about ten feet square, the floor of which was a single block of limestone about two feet two inches thick. A large fragment of a bathing-tub of terra-cotta, ornamented with spirals, was also found; and traces of the gutter and sewer by which the water was carried off were observed.