Showing papers in "Antiquity in 1947"

Whales as an Economic Factor in Prehistoric Europe

Abstract: Archaeologists have long been aware that whales were extensively utilized by dwellers on the Atlantic sea-board of prehistoric Europe (1). The frequent discovery of cetacean bones in ancient middens and, in regions such as the extreme north of Scotland and the Orkneys, of implements and other objects fabricated from them prompts one to inquire into the source of the whales. Were some of them hunted, or did prehistoric man confine himself to stranded specimens? Again, it is interesting to speculate on the various ways in which whales, whether hunted or stranded, contributed to the economy of early man.

The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man

Abstract: IT is a pity that Hume, who carried the Cartesian system of philosophy to its logical conclusion, lived too early to contemplate the discoveries of the past century in Egypt and Babylonia, for he would readily have understood and assimilated the ancient processes of thought which arose at the dawn of history in Western Asia--‘ And no truth appears to me more evident ’, he said, ‘ than that beasts are endowed with thought and reason as well as man ’. The arguments are developed in section XVI of ‘ The Understanding ’, where there are many delightful passages of special relevance to the ancient concepts about life. Again, he said that a bird, that ‘chooses with such care and nicety the place and materials of the nest, and sits upon her eggs for a due time, and in a suitable season, with all the precaution that a chymist is capable of in the most delicate projection, furnishes us with a lively instance of animal sagacity’. Locke, on the other hand, in his discussion of animal rationale, had refused to be drawn so far. ‘ And if Balaam’s ass had, all his life, discussed as rationally as he did once with his master, I doubt yet whether any one would have thought him worthy the name ‘man’, or allowed him to be of the same species with himself ’. Of these two statements Hume’s approximates more closely to the earliest Asiatic view of life, and it is on these lines that Messrs. Frankfort, Wilson, and Jacobsen have approached their problem, which, briefly put is-how did the early thinkers of the Near East come to say what they did about creation, the state, and man ? Professor and Mrs Frankfort define the earliest mode of thought as an ‘ I-thou ’ relation-ship, by which they mean that the primitive Asiatic conceived of all creation in a reciprocal nexus wherein the material world was percipient as well as perceived, and Professor Wilson elaborates the same theme by saying that for the Egyptians the world was consubstantial, and that their view of life might be defined as monophysite. Pro-fessor Jacobsen’s contribution illustrates to what extent the Mesopotamian view of life conformed with this outlook, for example how salt and grain were conceived of as animate beings in a close relationship with man, responsible and responsive to him. Other ideas peculiar to the Mesopotamian mind are no less clearly stressed, and herein lies the fascination of the book, that we have a comparative examination of the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Israelite approach to life, for Hebrew theology was cast out of a similar matrix. In a concluding chapter by the Frankforts, we see the dawn of a new intellectual era. The Greek physical philosophers, regardless of the data of experience, carried the old basic concepts of the Egyptians and Mesopotamians from a concrete to an abstract frame and worked them to a reductio ad absurdurn, much as Hume did for the concepts of Cartesian philosophy. Their prescience gave birth to science. Nor should we forget that Thales of Miletus prophesied an eclipse, thereby following in the wake of the Babylonian astronomers, who had made similar observations and recorded them centuries earlier.

Note sur l'organisation et la nature juridique de la «Vigesima Hereditatium»

Abstract: Dans sa remarquable etude sur la ferme d'Etat a Rome M. Rostovtzeff (*) insiste sur la creation par Auguste de la Vigesima Hereditatium . Cet impot nouveau aurait presente des caracteres nettement differents de ceux des autres vectigalia , et son introduction aurait marque une etape importante dans l'evolution de la ferme des impots a Rome. Rappelons brievement qu'en 6 ap. J.-Chr., Auguste avait fonde Yaerarium militare, une caisse nouvelle, distincte de Yaerarium Saturni , et destinee a servir regulierement les primes de conge aux veterans. Pour alimenter ce tresor militaire, de nouveaux impots furent specialement institues : des droits de succession ( Vigesima hereditatium) et une taxe sur les ventes aux encheres ( Centesima rerum uenalium ). Nous ne nous attarderons pas sur le mode de perception de cette derniere taxe, levee tres probablement par les auctionatores memes qui s'occupaient des ventes a l'encan (2). La Vigesima hereditatium , au contraire, fut affermee. Toutefois, d'apres M. Rostovztzeff, les conditions d'affermage de cet impot auraient differe profondement de celles des autres vectigalia ; ces caracteres nouveaux indiqueraient qu'Auguste aurait songe a modifier foncierement le systeme de la ferme d'Etat en vigueur a l'epoque republicaine.

Aetites or the Eagle-stone

Abstract: An Aetites may be defined as any hollow stone containing loose matter, a smaller stone or sand, which rattles when shaken. Such objects are of little interest to the modern geologist, who usually breaks them open in order to examine the interior for crystals or impressions of fossils. Their importance to the archaeologist and student of folk-lore may be gauged by the fact that they are mentioned by Dioscorides about A.D. 69 and in the fourteenth edition of Quincey's Pharmacopoeia, published in 1769. A series of at least a hundred references between these dates could be compiled ; only those necessary to elucidate the history of the Eagle-stone need be given.

Etruria from the Air

Abstract: A Century has just elapsed since the now famous Regolini-Galassi tomb at Caere (Cerveteri) was opened by the Archpriest and General whose names A it bears. The beautiful proportions of the silver vessels, the delicate goldwork, and the impressive design of the bronzes, which together formed the sepulchral furniture befitting an Etruscan nobleman of the middle 7th century B.C. came as a coup d’éclut to the academic world, and can still be considered the most splendid ornament of the Museo Etrusco Gregoriano at the Vatican. But the most obvious significance, today, of this centenary is to recall the early history of field-archaeology in Etruria and the problems that have been inherited from it, of which one of the most essential still remains to be dispatched; namely, the preparation of accurate plans of the cemeteries. The difficulties inherent in this are very clearly illustrated by the circumstances (1) of the Kegolini-Galassi discovery and by its consequences. It immediately stimulated extensive excavations for collectors’ trophies at Caere, where the necropolis until then had largely escaped the attentions of early antiquarians and treasure-hunters; activities that at Tarquinia have been characterized as ‘tumultuosi’ by Prof. Nogara, and whose story has been summed up by Prof. Pallottino as ‘singolare e dolorosa insieme’.

Sheep and Swine in the Husbandry of Prehistoric Europe

Abstract: Since the classic work of Rutimeyer (1) and others on the fauna of the Swiss lake villages was first undertaken nearly a century ago, a vast amount of information has been assembled about the livestock of the prehistoric farmers of north-western and central Europe. Interest at first centred on distinguishing breeds of the various species in the hope of defining the routes by which farming spread from its early homelands into the European continent. In recent years more attention has been paid to the light which can be thrown on the economy of prehistoric communities through a study of their livestock : among the chief points which it has been sought to establish are the age at which various species were normally slaughtered, the relative proportions of wild and domestic forms and the proportions in which the different species of livestock were maintained by the people under investigation.

The Sutton Hoo Helmet

Abstract: When unpacked at the British Museum Laboratory, the remains of the Sutton WHoo helmet covered a good-sized table. They appeared to consist of a gilded bronze nose and mouth piece, two gilded bronze dragon heads, parts of what once had been a silver crest, and three or four hundred fragments of sand-encrusted rusty iron. No photographs had been taken of them during excavation as their importance had not been realized at the time.

A Technique for the Study of Centuriation

Abstract: N the last century of the Republic and in the first of the Empire, few things better display the arbitrary but methodical qualities in Roman Administration than the I practice of Centuriatio. With an absolute self-assurance and great technical competence, the same formal topographical framework of land-division was superimposed on lush alluvium and near-desert, in a nicely balanced blend of the doctrinaire and opportunist. I t will be readily recalled that in the Central Mediterranean region, wherever continuity of cultivation was not over-violently disturbed, this system often survived (in skeleton form) to establish itself usefully and thus successfully in the present fieldand road-pattern. The durability of some of the smallest details of the units of division has shown how well they were suited to their environment. Such purposeful dissection of suitably flat areas for intensive farming was scarcely surpassed in formal precision by the 19th century land-partitions in North America, or by the systematization of the Great Alfold after the Ottoman tide had receded from Hungary. Land surveyed by the method of Centuriation was assigned under several forms of ownership and economic status, but our present investigation is only concerned with the type of ager centuriatus or limitatus apportioned as private property among the members of a new colonia. The component-unit usually employed by the field-surveyors (agrimensores or gromatici) for this purpose was the centuria quadrata, measuring 710 metres (776 yards square). Let us retain this solid mental image and momentarily rest content with a delusively simple generalization. Now, it is natural that a graticule originally composed of such large units may only survive imperfectly, with occasional distortions and lacunae ; but. equally, these centuriae when preserved, skeletally, will normally stand out distinctly from the heterogeneous details of the modern field-pattern, which are quite different in character. Large topographical sub-divisions of this kind are, therefore, studied with particular facility on air-photographs (1) ; and the method followed will essentially be that of the anatomist dissecting a specimen, concerned with surviving structural traces, vestigial though they sometimes are, and not with the complexities of the legal, fiscal and administrative aspects about which one looks to the Historian for guidance. Of course, the topographical evidence soon becomes closely involved with the study of the agricultural methods and technology (2) of the Roman world, in relation to which it only becomes fully intelligible. In recent years there has been a perceptible inclination to ‘ get down to earth ’ and to concentrate further on the material remains of Centuriation

55 B.C. and 54 B.C.

Abstract: The Year 1946 is the Two Thousandth Anniversary of the first historical event in our Island Story, the first Invasion of Julius Caesar ; 1947 that of the first appearance of the first British personality, the first man in England whose name we know, Cassivellaunus. It is fitting, therefore, that ANTIQUITY should choose the turn of the years for its own discussion of England's first ‘ bimillenary ’.

The Bronze Lion of St. Mark at Venice

Abstract: The measures taken for the protection of the monuments and works of art of Europe during the recent war, besides saving an incalculable number from damage or destruction, have also made available for detailed study many that are normally difficult or impossible of access. One such has been the bronze lion of St. Mark, familiar indeed to every visitor to Venice but only at a respectable distance, from the loggia of the Doge's Palace or from the foot of its lofty column by the waterfront of the Piazzetta di San Marco. In 1941, together with its companion figure of St. Theodore, the four bronze horses from the facade of St. Mark's, the great equestrian bronze of Colleoni, and numerous lesser works, it was lowered to safety and stored throughout the war in the vaults of the Doge's Palace. Shortly after the liberation of Venice in 1945 it re-emerged to form part of a unique temporary exhibition in the courtyard of the Palace, after which it was replaced once more upon its column. The writer is indebted to Commendatore Forlati, Superintendent of Monuments for the Veneto, for permitting publication and for much courteous help in eliciting facts and photographs ; and to many colleagues in Rome for criticism and comment—helpful not least by its variety. While venturing some comment on what is evidently a provocative and controversial animal, it must be stressed that the primary purpose of this article is the presentation of a detailed description of the statue, accompanied by the known historical facts and by adequate illustration. These will at least enable others, better qualified, to pass long-overdue judgment on one of the select company of ancient works of art that have never been below ground since the day they were made.

Naval Activity in the Days of Solomon and Rameses III

Abstract: Ever since the beginning of recorded history, Ancient Egypt was dependent upon the goodwill of the Phoenician overlords of the mountain land of the Lebanon for supplies of timber in the long running lengths required for the construction of large ships, especially those intended for use on long voyages by sea ; fine timber was also in considerable demand for the making of the elaborate wooden sarcophagi of nobles and of members of the royal family as well as for furniture of superior quality. This lack of suitable native timber made the Egyptians late comers in sea-trading ; indeed, it restricted progress so seriously that their water-borne commerce was limited to traffic with Nubia and the South by way of the Nile waterway, to occasional expeditions down the Red Sea to Southern Arabia and to Somaliland (Punt) and to short coasting trips to Phoenicia to buy timber logs and to the coasts of the Sinai Peninsula in search of copper.

Archaeology and the National Air-Photograph Survey

Abstract: Buddhism came into Szechwan also from the North. Buddhist sculpture in the round or in bas-relief found in this area were mostly in the Lung-men and the Yun-kang style. Influence from Tibet was also felt, though slightly, during the T’ang period as indicated by the printed charm found in a grave of this period. The great culture that flourished in China during the T’ang dynasty became the fashion of Szechwan in this period and in the succeeding dynasties. The kilns at Ch’iung-Iai and Liu-li-ch’ang imitated masterpieces produced by other kilns in north and east China, including the famous tri-coloured glazed wares, a chief characteristic of the T’ang ceramic art. The Royal Tomb of Wang Chien yielded a series of excellent pieces of sculpture. The carving of jade, the execution of the decoration in high and low relief, and the chiselling of figures in the round all followed closely the North China technique. The warriors supporting the platform of the royal coffin were no strangers to those who had visited a Buddhist site of this period in the northern provinces. The orchestra was but a replica of those that decorated the altar of the Stone Cave monastery in Kung-hsien, Honan. The famous Taoist paintings from a temple on Mt. Omei, which we acquired last year, were dated from A.D. 1693. These pictures were painted not in the style of the Tibetan thankas, but rather in that of the Tun-huang wall painting. Szechwan has also been open to influence from the south. The famous bronze drum, popularly known as an invention of Chu Ko-liang, was but an example of a nonclassical Chinese art which enjoyed a wide distribution in South China as well as in Indo-China, Burma, and some islands on the China Coast. The specimens unearthed in Szechwan may be ascribed to the T’ang Period. The highly appliquC grave-jars of the Sung and Ming periods were also related to a non-classical Chinese culture in the south. The industry enjoyed a sphere smaller than that of the bronze drum. It was distributed only in the Chinese south-western provinces. Though a marginal area, Szechwan was by no means an inaccessible region or a pocket of degenerated cultures. On the contrary, it has been a centre of international communication. The great central Asiatic Highway branched out into the Red Basin from both Kansu and Shensi. The river Yangtse served as a line of transportation to east China and the sea. The route across Kweichou, Kwangsi and Kwangtung to the South China Sea was open for trade and commerce. Nor was the mountainous region to the south-west a barrier. Over the treacherous mountain paths of Yunnan, Burma and Tibet, the products of ancient Szechwan reached India, and went from there to Bactria in Central Asia centuries before the Christian Era (13). Therefore, the province of Szechwan, a virgin field in archaeology, should become an important station in the study of eastern Asia. CHENG TE-K’UN. The fashion reached its climax in the tenth century.

Herodotus on Min

Abstract: HERODOTUS’S history which includes his description of the country and people of Egypt has lost nothing of its charm and interest though nearly two and a half millennia have elapsed since it was first published. As the report of an eyewitness who saw the great pagan temples still open, and met a priesthood still educated in the remnants of a great tradition serving their gods in the ancient ways, Herodotus’s account has held its place among the sources of Egyptian history. Though modern scholarship has shown some of his statements to be erroneous because based on untrustworthy sources such as popular legends and stories made up by interpreters and guides, Herodotus’s veracity as an author has become more and more recognised and he can be relied upon to repeat faithfully what was told to him.

EARLY INDIAN PAINTED POTTERY . By D. H. Gordon. Journ. Indian Soc. Oriental Art, XIII (1945), 35.

Abstract: tombs of the Bylany culture round Kolin. While the Platenice urnfields occupy eastern Bohemia, the richer centre of the land is taken up by the Bylany cemeteries. These comprise relatively poor cremations in urns, large graves containing half-burned skeletons either alone or with an inhumation, and spacious shaft-graves under barrows containing skeletons, normally extended but occasionally contracted. All the latter graves are richly furnished and often contain joints of pork. A few among them are genuine royal tombs and contain hearses. Dr Dvoihk describes in detail five such graves that he himself excavated as well as a dozen or so similar tombs observed earlier and less accurately. Thanks to careful digging and precise observation the author has been able to recover many details in the construction of these four-wheeled hearses and, what is most surprising, the yokes to which the horses were attached. The wheels with 6 to 8 spokes measured 80 to 82 cm. in diameter while the tyres were studded with iron nails and slightly wider than the felloes, the naves of wood plated with iron. The yokes of oak wood partly cased in leather were richly decorated with a mosaic of bronze nails and were carved at both ends. One at least was regarded as so valuable that it had been wrapped in linen and encased in a wooden box before burial. Now in at least three graves three bits*were found of which two in each case belong to Gallus’ type 11. The yokes are actually long enough to allow of three horses abreast but it seems more likely that the third bit, which is usually found some distance from the other two and is often of rather different pattern, stood for the war-horse that would doubtless be led to the grave in the funeral procession. He is of course thus represented on Hallstatt urns and on. an ivory sheath as well as in Greek and Etruscan funerary scenes. The grave-goods include further many vases graphited or painted in colours, long iron Hallstatt swords, a lug axe, and those curious clay crescents generally termed ‘ Moon Symbols ’, but hardly ever a fibula. Apart from this negative trait, the ritual and furniture with which these Bohemian kinglets were buried agrees very closely with those long familiar from the plundered Chieftains’ Graves of southwest Germany, Switzerland and eastern France. From this agreement DvofSk and Filip draw the conclusion that the Hallstatt rulers of Central Bohemia were already Kelts though their subjects included members of an Urnfield population. The justice of their conclusions is confirmed by reference to the r81e of pork in the funerary feast ; in view of the prominence of swine among the historical Kelts including the Parisii of Yorkshire. (That is of course not a trait peculiar to Kelts-joints of pork are reported for instance from cremation graves of the Bordei-Heristrhu culture in Roumania which is just pre-La T h e and presumably Thracian or Agathyrsian). V.G.C.

Egyptian and Medieval Pigeon-houses

Abstract: IGEON rearing has been for centuries an industry of importance in Egypt, valuable alike for the tender morsels of flesh when the birds are cooked and for the manurial P value of the guano which is a precious by-product of the business. Travelling up the Nile Valley by rail the many pigeon-houses to be seen in the villages and on the outskirts of the towns passed en route, are generally the most arresting buildings noticed on the journey, interesting because of their evident importance in the economy of the land, as well as for the variety of design seen in the fortresslike buildings themselves, which change markedly in appearance as the traveller passes from the delta southwards to the Thebaid. In the northern fashion, typical of the pigeon-houses of the Fayiim region, the roof of the massively built basal portion of the building is generally surmounted by a forest of little cupolas grouped in circles around a larger dome ; the sight of these numerous cupolas suggests instinctively the idea that the architectural design has been inspired by familiarity with the domed porticoes and appurtenances of the mosque whereto the architect was accustomed to repair when in a devotional mood. Local variations, sometimes of distinctive design, are occasionally seen ; one of the most important is marked by the replacement of the cupolas by tall and narrow cones, of sugarloaf shape. Farther south, when we reach the temple-strewn land of ancient Thebes, the pigeon-houses become more massive, the cupolas disappear and the structures more imposing architecturally, strong in the simplicity of their design. The observer feels that here, in this holy land, the architects founded their designs upon the pylons flanking the lofty gateways which formed the main entrances to the temples of old-grandly massive buildings, rectangularly oblong in plan, with the tall walls inclining slightly inwards in a characteristic gentle batter. In all of these distinctive designs, the massive walls are nothing but an empty shell, wanting both in dividing floors and in vertical partitions. In the sun-dried bricks of the enclosing walls a number of apertures are contrived to enable the homecoming birds to enter within their home-tower, in order to reach their nests. Some of these entrances are circular, made by embedding empty pots in the walls or in the cupola vaulting when present, the bottoms being knocked out before they are fixed into,position. Other and larger openings of a rectangular shape are sometimes provided, each furnished with a hinged flap-door which may be closed when necessary by means of a cord attached to a button or nailhead affixed to the outer surface-a kind of rectangular port-cover. Within this shell of a building, many round-bellied pots are fitted, lying upon their sides, among the dried mud bricks whereof the walls are built, an arrangement recalling the parallel arrangement of cylindrical drain-pipes, stacked in horizontal layers, to form the typical construction of the beehives commonly seen in the Levant and particularly characteristic of those in use in Cyprus and Egypt. So numerous are the nesting pots that the walls appear to be honeycombed from floor to roof ; each pot affords a comfortable nest to one pair of pigeons,

Archaeological Chronology in Szechwan

Abstract: WEST CHINA UNION UNIVERSITY MUSEUM On account of the war, the interest of many scholars has been concentrated upon the culture of South-western China, especially Szechwan. Therefore, it may be worthwhile, at the happy conclusion of this world-wide struggle to review some of the work which we have been doing in the West China Union University Museum here in Chengtu. For more than thirty years the University Museum, under the capable curatorship of Prof. Daniel Sheets Dye and Dr David Crockett Graham, has been devoted to the collection of articles of scientific value in West China, and has become a great repository of archaeological and ethnological material from this part of the world. It was the worst of times for museum activities. War was raging on all fronts. Chengtu was perpetually haunted by enemy planes. Our treasures had to be evacuated, and a part of our galleries turned into reading rooms for refugee students. We managed to keep the door open not only for our students but also for thousands of KAF and AAF boys who were here with us. Aside from my daily routine and war duties, I have taken part in four excavations, several reconnaissance and collecting trips, and managed to keep up with my research on the archaeoIogica1 chronology in Szechwan. I take great pIeasure, indeed, in summarizing it for ANTIQUITY. I was appointed to succeed Dr Graham in 1941.