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The Bishop of Newcastle presided, and in his inaugural address reviewed the questions to be considered by the meeting. Upon the first of the subjects on the programme of discussions Home Work: Review of the Church's Progress during the Nineteenth Century-generally and in the dioceses of Durham and Newcastle, the Bishop of Ripon spoke of what had been accomplished during the second half of the century, placing emphasis upon the deepening of the unseen hold of Christianity upon mankind and the enlargement of the scope of Christian aim which had taken place in the direction of Christian and social ethics. This was particularly illustrated in the work of the Salvation Army, the Church Army, and the Social Settlements. Canon Overton dwelt upon the enormous effects" that were due directly or indirectly to the Church revival which began in 1833. Other topics of the first day's discussions were The Church's Policy in Elementary Education and The Cathedral System, with Reference to the Supply and Training of Candidates for Holy Orders. A number of carefully prepared papers were read upon the subject of The Reformation in England: (a) What was it in its Essence? (b) To what has it committed the Church of England? Respecting Old Testament Criticism and its Bearing on Teaching, Prof. Ryle held that inspiration was no special operation, but a spiritual informing force, and commended the teaching of the Old Testament as an evolution of religion. The Rev. Prof. Margoliouth urged that in teaching we should not look to results which were being fast discredited, but to those which the future was likely to see replaced and sustained. Other subjects on which papers were read were: Art: Its Relation to Religion; War: Attitude and Duties of the Church; The Church's Policy in Elementary Education; Autonomy of the Church: Mode of Achievement; The Ascension (at the devotional meeting); The Church's Progress in the Foreign Field in the Nineteenth Century: (a) In the Colonies, (b) In India, (c) In Other Mission Fields; The Housing of the Poor. The evening meeting for men was addressed by the Bishop of Newcastle, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Derry, and the Bishop of Thetford, all of whom pressed the claims of Christianity upon the reason and heart of man and its living power to elevate and ennoble him. At a Conference of Christians of various denominations in furtherance of Christian unity, held in connection with the congress, Earl Grey presided, and a resolution, moved by the Dean of Ripon and seconded by the Rev. F. W. MacDonald, President of the Wesleyan Conference, was adopted, declaring increased co-operation among Christians, where sacrifice of principle is not involved, to be both desirable and practicable. Church of England in Australia and Tasmania. The General Synod of the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania met in Sydney, Aug. 28. A committee was appointed to have charge of the raising of a twentieth century fund, and of provision for such objects as clergy pensions, religious education, clergy training, and Church extension. British New Guinea, already constituted a diocese, was included within the teritorial limits of the synod. A proposal to change the name of the Church in such a way as to convey a closer identification of it with Australia was rejected. The synod decided that the primate should be selected from among the metropolitans of Australia and Tasmania, or until these provinces shall have been formed from among the occupants of the sees of Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Other action of the synod related to clergy discipline, thanks and public prayer for the

inauguration of the commonwealth, the abolition of the primate's veto on the confirmation of bishops, enlargement of the powers of the synod, the College of Theology, the Clergy Superannuation fund, the relation of the Church and industrial problems, and the Centenary Thanksgiving fund. ARCHEOLOGY. The results of the Oriental and Grecian archæological discoveries of the season of 1899-1900 are among the most fruitful recorded in any single year. They have established the historical character of the first dynasty of Egypt and have brought to light some of its art, and of the art even of the pre-Menite period. They have proved the existence in Crete of Greek or Mycenæan writing eight hundred years earlier than any previously known and furnished palpable data concerning times and scenes which the Greeks invested with myths of fanciful character; and have brought to light in Babylonia a library of cuneiform cylinders, all antecedent to 2280 B. C., from the study of which an amount of information may be expected to accrue respecting the most remote past exceeding all present possibilities of estimation.

American. The archæological investigations conducted by Mr. Harlan I. Smith for the Jesup north Pacific exploring expedition on the north Pacific coast during 1899 were in continuation of researches made on the same field during the preceding two summers, and were designed, in the State of Washington, to extend existing knowledge of the distribution and character of cairns and burial mounds; to make reconnoissance of the shell heaps of Puget Sound and the western coast, with special reference to the determination of their character and the distribution of the southern limits of north Pacific coast culture in North America, and of any possible influence from the region of the lower Columbia; and to learn if the shell heaps of the lower Fraser river had any analogy with those of this area. In British Columbia a further investigation was desired of the cairns and shell heaps of northeastern Vancouver island. It was further necessary to study the archæology of the Lilooet valley with reference to possible communication of coast culture with the interior and vice versa. The southern limit of north Pacific coast culture and the southern limit of important influence from the Columbia valley seemed to coalesce in the region from Shoalwater Bay to Seattle.

Explorations carried on under the direction of the American Museum of Natural History among the relics of the Zapotecs in the state of Oajaca, Mexico, were to be continued during the winter of 1900-1901, under the superintendence of Prof. Marshall H. Saville. The Zapotecs are one of the hardiest of the native races of Mexico, exhibiting affinities with the Mayas in language and with the Nahuas in religion and some of the features of their architecture. Their ancient capital was Mitla, a city the ruins of which are extensive and important, and have received much attention from Americanists. The present work of exploration is directed to ruins in the vicinity of Cuilapa, Tectipac, and Maculixochitl, all of which are situated within a radius of 50 miles. The previous explorations made by Prof. Saville have left some curious problems to be solved. At a site known as the Mogotes de Xoxo royal tombs were found, seven of the mounds being arranged in a group, while others were detached. One is marked by a pyramid of the style common in Central America, 60 feet high, with a base 160 feet square. Within the mounds were cemented floors and ruins of walls of adobe. Vessels were found, some not ornamented, one bearing the figure of a large

clawed foot of a carnivorous animal. In one mound was a statuette of a man with a tiger's head. In another mound, where a cemented wall was discovered running along at a considerable depth under the ground, the workmen came upon a series of earthenware pipes, 36 feet in length, the smaller end of each section being cemented into the larger end of the preceding section, running apparently from the entrance of the tombs down toward the valley. As the situation affords little need for drainage, the possibility of finding some other motive for this construction-perhaps a mythological one has been suggested. A more thorough examination of this work will be one of the objects of the present exploration. Pieces of similar pipes have been observed on Mount Alban and at two or three other points in Mexico, but nowhere before in place. Curiously shaped fu

78 chapels which, according to Sahagun, surrounded the main temple have been discovered. As much of the anthropological department of the American Museum of Natural History in New York as has been put in order was opened Oct. 29. It comprises at present five collections: the north Pacific collection, containing costumes, household implements, and ceremonial masks of the tribes of that region, the fruits of the Jesup expedition of 1897-1900; the Mexican collection, consisting of casts and specimens from the ruined cities and temples of Mexico and Central America; the South American gallery; the Indian gallery, in which is a very complete collection of the clothing and utensils of the Eskimos of the Arctic coast on both sides of the Pacific; and the collections made by missionaries in Japan and other Asiatic countries, which were shown at the Ecumenical Con

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nereal urns were found in different situations. Of one group of five such urns, the central figure embodied a portrait of a man, while those to the right and left of it wore grotesque masks. Other tombs contained human relics and fragments of domestic pottery. Among the objects that have been found in different tombs are censers, like some that have been discovered at Oajaca, and a terra-cotta statue measuring about 6 feet in length, which has been placed in the National Museum of Mexico. Additional value is given to the Zapotecan collection of the American Museum by the fact that the history of every article in it is known, the place where it was found, the name of the finder, and the circumstances of the discovery being all recorded.

In the course of excavations for public works in the city of Mexico numerous Aztec relics, images, censers, implements, and other objects, have been recovered from the site of the ancient temple of Huitzilopotchli, the god of war. Two of the

ference of Missions in 1899 and afterward presented to the museum. The museum has several exploring parties at work, which are maintained by private contributions. Their fields during the last year were Peru, the western Indians, the Eskimos, and the whole region of the north Pacific. Explorations have been begun and are to be continued in the neighborhood of New York city, where some sites of former Indian villages are supposed to exist.

Recent explorations among the ruins of the cliff dwellers by Dr. George I. Cole, of the University of Southern California, included an examination of the structure called the castle of Montezuma on Beaver creek, Arizona, which, although a very large ruin, yielded few antiquities; and the region of Mesa Verde, a mountain district of considerable extent. The numerous side cañons along the Maricos river, in which very ancient ruins were found, were fortified at their openings by large watch towers. The cities were built on the sides of sheer

precipices, the entrances to many of the dwellings being 700 feet above the river, and accessible only by climbing up from the bottom or down from the top. One building in this region had 1,500 rooms, and another, a pyramidal structure, was 3 stories high, with 500 rooms on the ground floor. Many skeletons, representing different Indian races, were recovered.

The Archæological Institute of America has for several years sustained an archæological school at Athens, which has accomplished much that is valuable in the exploration of Grecian sites. The new school at Rome had in 1899-1900 a year of successful work with American and Italian teachers. A school of Oriental studies in Palestine was to open in October, 1900.

An expedition is in course of organization under the direction of President William R. Harper, of the University of Chicago, Bishops Potter and Hurst, and others, to explore the ruins of Ur of the Chaldees, the city of Abraham. The site was visited by Mr. Tayler, an English consul, in 1854, who made sufficient excavations to reveal the wall of an ancient temple which was described as being an unusually perfect specimen of Babylonian architecture. In some of the graves Mr. Taylor found inscribed tablets, pottery, and ornaments of gold, silver, and precious stones. Ancient inscriptions uncovered by Arabs quarrying bricks from the mounds are to be found lying on the surface of the ground. From the importance of Ur in very ancient times, the excavations are expected to afford results of great value.

British. Closing his presidential address before the anthropological section of the British Association on The Early Ethnology of the British Isles as studied from the sides of language and folklore, Prof. John Rhys summarized his conclusions by saying that "the first race we have found in possession of the British Isles consisted of a small, swarthy population of mound dwellers, of an unwarlike disposition, much given to magic and wizardry and, perhaps, of Lappish affinities; its attributes have been exaggerated or otherwise distorted in the evolution of the little people of our fairy tales. The next race consisted of a taller, blonder people, with blue eyes, who tattooed themselves and fought battles. These tattooed or Pictish people made the mound folk their slaves, and in the long run their language may be supposed to have been modified by habits of speech introduced by those slaves of theirs from their own idiom. The affinities of those Picts may be called Libyan, and possibly Iberian. Next came the Celts in two great waves of immigration, the first of which may have arrived as early as the seventh century before our era, and consisted of the real ancestors of some of our Goidels of the Milesian stock and the linguistic ancestors of all the peoples who have spoken Goidelic. That language may be defined as Celtican so modified by the idioms of the population which the earlier Celts found in possession that its syntax is no longer Aryan. Then, about the third century B. C., came from Begica the linguistic ancestors of the peoples who have spoken Brythonic, but in the majority of cases connected with modern Brythonic they are to be regarded as Goidels who adopted Brythonic speech, and in so doing brought down into that language their Goidelic idioms, with the result that the syntax of insular Brythonic is no less non-Aryan than that of Goidelic, as may be readily seen by comparing the thoroughly Aryan structure of the few sentences of old Gaulish extant." The author had proceeded in his study on the principle that each successive band of conquerors had its race, language, and institutions eventually

more or less modified by contact with those whom it had conquered, and he had endeavored to substitute for the supernatural beings of Celtic legend a possible series of peoples. These views await confirmation by archæology.

The excavations at Silchester, prosecuted from July 20 to the end of August, 1899, consisted very largely in the exploration of the granary, where the marks of destruction by fire and the fall of the floor and roof into the vault of the hypocaust were very evident. On a paved floor between two walls of an adjoining building, supposed to be the prætorium, were found three coins-including a second brass of the second century and a third brass of the third. Between two other walls was a piece of solid masonry, somewhat resembling a doorway. At another point a small turret was found, which proved to be a guard chamber of the westerly gateway. Among the smaller objects turned out were a first brass coin of Antoninus Pius and a third brass of Constantine the Great, a somewhat delicate pair of tweezers with a ring clip, a bone bodkin, a pin, several pieces of stamped and ornamental pottery, and a broken pillar, about 9 inches high, bearing six letters of a former inscription.

Roman. At the time of the suspension of the excavations of the Basilica Emilia, in the winter of 1899-1900, although the section laid bare was less than half of the total area, yet, according to Prof. Rodolfo Lanciani, by reason of the symmetry of the lines, a sufficient knowledge of the general plan and elevation of the structure had been gained. The building comprised three parts: a central hall, divided into nave and aisles by a double line of columns; two rows of cells or taberna on either side of the central hall, opening on the outside porticoes; and these porticoes, which decorated the longitudinal side of the building the side facing the forum, the only one as yet brought to light. The decoration of the front, on the side of the argiletum, and of the back, on the side of Faustina's Temple, has not been made clear. The basilica, or central hall, resembles in design that of Trajan, except that it has only two aisles instead of four. The line of separation between the aisles and the nave was marked by a row of columns, of which hardly any sign is left. The wall runs plain and flat, without any pilasters corresponding to the columns. The pavement of both aisles and nave is in a good state of preservation. It is composed of large slabs of giallo, portasanta, africano, cipollino, etc., all rectilinear and arranged so as to harmonize in design with the site of the columns. This pavement was found covered with loose copper coins of the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century, which with other rubbish bore marks of the action of fire. central hall had an upper story or colonnade-a kind of structure which, according to Vitruvius, was set aside for the women of the audience. The Corinthian capitals are very graceful and skillfully executed. "In fact," says Prof. Lanciani, “every particle of the architectural decoration of this building is absolutely perfect." A commemorative inscription was engraved on the frieze of the lower order, of which only two fragments have been recovered. The Basilica Emilia, originally constructed B. C. 179, underwent five restorations, the last under Tiberius. from whose time the fragments discovered date.

The

Among the epigraphic discoveries described by Prof. Rodolfo Lanciani as having been made in the excavations of the Basilica Emilia is a fragment of the Fasti Consulares, which before its mutilation contained the list of the military tribunes from A. U. C. 374 to 378 and the list of consuls

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from 422 to 433. The block of marble on which the lists were inscribed had been taken from the walls of the Regia many hundred years ago and turned into a threshold at the entrance door of a public office lodged among the ruins of the basilica. About four fifths of the inscriptions had been worn away, so that only the names of the tribunes for the year 374 and of the consuls for the years 422-424 were left. To value rightly the importance of these records," says Prof. Lanciani, we must remember that the mention of the Tribuni Militum for 374 is to be found only in Diodorus, xv, 50, and Livy, vi, 27, both being incorrect as regards the number and the names of those officers. Diodorus mentions only seven, Livy six; the newly found Fasti nine, with names and genealogy in full, ending with the record that toward the end of the same year, on the approach of the Prænestinian army to the walls of the city, T. Quintius Cincinnatus Capitolinus was elected dictator rei gerundæ caussa, and that he chose as the head of his staff Aulus Sempronius Atratinus." The column of consular names begins with that of Spurius Postumius Albinus, A. U. C. 422, and ends with that of Lucius Plautus Venno, consul with Lucius Papirius in 424. Record is made between them of the dictatorship of Cnæus Quintius Capitolinus clavi fingendi causa-or for the ceremony of driving a nail on Sept. 13 on the right side of the cella of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitol. This custom, which was a very old one, was derived from the Etruscans, who used it to keep account of the years. But in process of time the ceremony came to be performed only in extraordinary circumstances in this case on account of a terrible mortality among the patrician families.

Grecian. The latest publication by the Hellenic Society is the Plans and Drawings of Athenian Buildings, a part of the work upon the topography of Athens begun by the late Dr. Middleton shortly before his death, with a view to producing a book similar to his work on ancient Rome. The sketches made by the author have been revised on the spot by Mr. T. D. Atkinson, architect. During the year 1901 the society hopes to issue the record of the excavations carried out by the members of the British school at Athens upon the site of Phylakopi, in the island of Melos. These excavations have revealed the existence of a primitive city comparable to the ruins of Tiryns and Hissarlik. A successful beginning of excavations in the island of Crete has been made by Mr. Hogarth, director of the British school, and the discoveries made by him in the Dictæan cave and by Mr. Arthur Evans, of the Cretan Exploration Fund, on the site of Cnossus, are mentioned in the report of the society as being of such a character as to promise a rich harvest in the future.

The explorations at Corinth were continued under the auspices of the American investigators. In the excavations on the west side of the Propylæa numerous architrave blocks and parts of statues were met with. Two figures, 8 feet high, wearing the Phrygian cap, were found attached to pilasters at the back, to the tops of which Corinthian square capitals were attached. The tops of the heads of the statues were cut away, so that they might come closer up against the capital, which was also cut away a little. The figures thus appeared to assist in bearing the architrave, and were analogous to the caryatides. The bases of these statues were also found. Two other large, fine female heads were discovered, evidently belonging to the same series. No foundations were found to fit these and other pieces of superstructure, and they were therefore sup

posed to have come from the Propylæa, of which massive buttresses remain. About 75 feet southwest of the west end of the Propylæa was a platform with a façade which extended beyond it as a balustrade. Digging from here, about 25 feet from the surface which they had broken the explorers came upon the floor of an irreg ular quadrangular room. In the west wall of this room were two lions' heads of bronze with wide-open mouths, as if for the flow of water. Beneath these heads were the round holes in the pavement in which pitchers were placed for filling. Above them the edge of the native ledge projected forward. This was an ancient Greek fountain, remaining absolutely intact, the only example of the kind known, for the other fountains that have been discovered had been changed in some way. But although it is certain that this fountain is Greek, the balustrade at the top of the steps leading to it is Roman, and made from the temples which Mummius destroyed. Pausanias mentions a single fountain situated in the Agora, on which stood a bronze statue of Poseidon with a dolphin at his feet ejecting water from its mouth. A base was found on the platform, which may have been connected with this statue.

In a summary of the results of the excavation of the Argive Heræum issued in advance of the official publication Dr. Waldstein, agreeing apparently with Dr. Dörpfeld, assigns the remains of the earliest Greek civilization yet found to the third millennium B. C. A continuous indigenous development from that period is shown in buildings, pottery, and other features, for the study of which the Heræum, a religious center from the most remote period of the Argive territory, affords excellent facilities. The earliest constructions found on the site date, according to Dr. Waldstein, from the nineteenth century B. C., a dating which corresponds with the old Greek tradition of the number of generations of kings who ruled in Argos, and goes about four hundred years back of the Mycenæan age.

The final report by Prof. Dörpfeld of the latest excavations at Hissarlik was announced for publication during the winter of 1900-1901. Besides Prof. Dörpfeld's own contributions respecting the positions of the several buried cities, the work contains accounts of the archæological researches of his colaborers, Winnefeld, Schmidt, Brückner, Götze, and Wiberg, concerning the earlier and later finds.

Cretan. Archæological interest has been directed to Crete since about 1881, when Mr. W. J. Stillmann reported the discovery of the remains of a wall at Cnossus, fragments of Mycenaean pottery, and curious signs upon stone blocks on the hill of Cephala, near Candia. He desired to excavate there, but was not permitted by the author ities to do so. Dr. Schliemann also tried to secure the right to explore the site, but could not come to terms with the Turkish officers. In 1894 Mr. Arthur J. Evans announced that he had discovered the existence in this island of a system of writing long anterior to that of historic Greece, and at the same time distinct from the Phoenician and from the Hittite script of Anatolia. The writings were found on seal stones bearing groups of pictographs and characters in the linear style. Researches continued since then have added to the data, and have culminated in the discovery in the Dictean cave of Zeus of part of a steatite libation table of Mycenæan date, consisting of nine similar characters cut in the monumental style. Characters in the linear style were also found at Cnossus in 1894 and afterward. In 1896 Mr. Evans acquired an undivided interest in the hill at

Cephala to which Mr. Stillmann had directed at tention, but was still not able to excavate. Finally, after a succession of difficulties, including a law suit, a forced sale of the property, and other complications, Mr. Evans became sole owner of the site and began excavations early in 1900. A building was revealed, which there seemed every reason to believe was a palace of the Mycenæan kings. Nothing was found that could be regarded as later than the fourteenth century B. C. The structure appeared to be of unsurpassed magnitude and magnificence, with fresco paintings and stone carvings of which the author declared, in the first letter announcing his discovery, "the remains excelled anything of the time yet found in Greece," the royal bathroom displaying a luxury not found in Mycenæ itself. Of even greater interest than this palace were the clay tablets bearing the characters which had already attracted attention. They were in shape generally more elongated than the cuneiform tablets of Babylon, but otherwise analogous to them, except that the records they bore were in Mycenaean script. These tablets were oblong slips of hand-molded clay, flat on the engraved side, with almost adzelike ends, but thickening toward the center of the back, and of lengths varying from about 2 inches to 7 inches, and in breadth from half an inch to 3 inches. Lines were ruled at intervals for the convenience of the scribes, one of the largest of the tablets showing 18 such lines-a certain proportion of them left blank. The most usual type consisted of two lines, or even a single line, of inscription, written from left to right lengthwise along the tablet, but some of the broader tablets had the lines arranged across the narrower diameter. The majority of the tablets were broken in consequence of a great conflagration they had passed through, but it may be possible to reconstitute some of them. The tablets had been deposited in several chambers and corridors. Some of them were in a clay chest shaped like a bath, some in wooden coffers, the remains of some of which have come to light, with the bronze hinges, and even the clay seals with which they were secured, still bearing impressions of Mycenæan gems. Fresh material of this sort was accumulating daily. Some of the signs in the inscriptions are identical with later forms, others suggest forms of the Cypriote syllabary, as well as Lycian and Carian characters; others are ideographic, and others are unquestionably numerals." Some of the tablets have indorsements and additional inscriptions on the back. These palace archives of Cnossus," says Mr. Evans, “not only prove to demonstration that a system of writing existed on the soil of Greece at least centuries before the introduction of the Phoenician alphabet, but they show that already at that remote date this indigenous system had attained a most elaborate development. These inscriptions are the work of practiced scribes, following conventional methods and arrangements which point to long traditional usage. Yet this development has been arrived at on independent lines; it is neither Babylonian nor Egyptian, neither Hittite nor Phoenician; it is the work on Cretan soil of an Ægean people. It is the fitting product of a country to which all later Greek tradition looked back as having supplied the earliest model of civilized legislation. There is, indeed, an air of legal nicety about these documents themselves the effect of which is enhanced by an interesting particular as to the method by which they were originally secured. It was not thought sufficient for the official concerned with their safe-keeping simply to impress with his signet gem the clay seals that made sure the coffers containing the tablets

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while the clay was still moist, but the impression of the intaglio itself and the back of the seal were in several cases signed and countersigned with incised characters in the same Mycenæan script." These inscriptions were written in a linear and highly developed script, with only occasional resort to more pictorial forms, while the previous studies of the seal stones had made it clear that there had existed in the island, from a very remote period, another form of writing, of a pictographic kind, and in its general aspect recalling Egyptian hieroglyphics, but in which "the methodical recurrence of groups of signs in the same collection sufficiently showed that one had here to do with a kind of writing and not with a mere aimless parody of Egyptian or Hittite forms." On further excavation a deposit of clay tablets was found of different forms from those exhibiting the linear script, and inscribed with a hieroglyphic type of writing identical with that of the prism seals. These tablets were of a variety of shapes. Together with the pictographic, they contained a proportion of signs as purely linear as any of the other category; and it was remarked that the written forms assumed in many cases a much more alphabetic character than their glyptic equivalents as seen on the seal stones, showing " a distinct step in the evolution of writing out of mere pictorial signs." Two examples of this sort are illustrated in the accompanying figures, the first of which is taken from a four-sided bar and the second from a three-sided crescent "label." For reasons which he sets forth, Mr. Evans believes that these pictograph characters and those upon the seal stones were the work of the Eteocretan stock, or the race which preceded the Mycenæan.

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