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, Berk-. shire. 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

head, and nearly parallel with the river, was uncovered in preparing for the foundations of the new post-office, and was bared for fortyfive feet; under it ran a carefully constructed drain. At another place were found two Corinthian capitals, finely carved in limestone, but in considerable decay. Upon the mount, which has always been rich in Roman remains,

in Northumberland, in which have been found two or three inscriptions that are attributed to the reign of Alexander Severus.

Greek Inscription at Brough-under-Stainmore.Interest has been directed to a stone containing a Greek inscription, discovered in 1879 under the porch of the church at Broughunder - Stainmore, Westmoreland. It was

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. 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.

A

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 archaeologist 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

LEAD EN 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.

uppermost and most recent of which he regarded as the historic or Roman Ilium. In his older surveys he supposed that the third city from the bottom was the Troy of Homer. His later researches showed that this was a mistake, and that it was the second city that should have been regarded as corresponding with that Troy. The mistake arose from the fact, which was made apparent on further examination, that the people of the third city had built their houses among the colossal masses of calcined ruins of the second city, without attempting either to level or remove them, and that these ruins were at first confounded with the houses of the same stratum in which they appeared, instead of being assigned to the stratum whence their foundations rose. From the more careful examination of the second stratum of ruins, and the extension of the investigations into the surrounding level, Dr. Schliemann now claims to have finally proved that "in a remote antiquity there was in the plain of Troy a large city destroyed of old by a fearful catastrophe; that the hill of Hissarlik was only the Acropolis of this city, occupied by its temples and a few other large edifices, while the lower city extended east, south, and west, on the site of the later Ilium; and that, consequently, this city answers perfectly to the Homeric description of the site of sacred Ilios.'" This city was laboriously fortified, and its fortifications were in time renewed and extended. The walls and some of the chief edifices were constructed of sun-dried bricks, and were baked by fires raised against them after they were built up. The relics found in the ruins indicate that iron was not in use in this city; that implements and weapons of stone were equally prevalent with those of bronze; and that the gold-maker's art had attained a high degree of development.

Of the later Ilium have been found inscriptions, coins, architectural and sculptural fragments of two Doric temples, parts of a theatre capable of accommodating six thousand spectators, and portions of the walls.

American Archæological Research at Assos.-The Archæological Institute of America, after two years of work, has completed its excavations of Assos in the Troad. This city, which Joseph T. Clarke identifies with the city described by Homer as the steep and lofty Pedasos, the capital of the Leleges and the residence of King Altes, the father-in-law of Priam, and with the "Pedasa " mentioned in an Egyptian papyrus as a state whose people assisted the Hittites in the wars of Rameses II, was situated in a volcanic crater that rises directly and steeply from the sea to a height of about eight hundred feet, and commands an imposing view. The remains discovered in the excavations display the various phases of Greek civilization during twenty-four centuries. Before the work of exploration was begun, Col. Martin Leake, an English archæologist, contemplating the solid and accurate masonry of a part of the

walls, which date from the fourth century B. o., had spoken of the ruins of Assos as presenting the most perfect idea of a Greek city that had hitherto been obtained. The first year's excavations of the Archæological Association were made about the temple upon the Acropolis. Among the archaic bas-reliefs and sculptures which decorated the building were found the crouching sphinxes that formed the coat-ofarms of the city, combats between lions, wild boars, and deer, in the Assyrian style, and a scene from the episode of Hercules and the Centaurs, which is worthy of especial mention as being the only known monumental work of art yet discovered in which the Centaurs are represented as having human fore-legs. An ancient bridge, which was partially excavated, is the only known example of a Greek bridge. The excavations made during the two years in the market-place revealed the Agora to be a more interesting work, and made it more completely known, than even the Forum of Pompeii. Along one of its sides extended a twostoried colonnade, or stoa, 350 feet long, made of the andesite of the mountain, which strikingly resembled the colonnade around the Temple of Athena at Pergamon. Next to it is the Bouleuterion, apparently of the same date, in which the archives of the city were kept. On the south side of the Agora stood a building that forms the only known example of a Greek bath, and is the only four-storied structure of antiquity ever recovered. A complete ideal restoration of it was made. It consisted, according to the description given by Mr. Joseph Thacher Clarke, "of an enormous hall, going through two stories, with twenty-six chambers upon one side; above this structure was a colonnade, the floor of which was upon a level with the Agora. In front of the stoa was an enormous basin for the reception of rain-water, covered by stone slabs, and so paved in that it was not visible to persons on the market-place; from it ran a subterranean conduit to the lower story of the bath, whence there were arrangements for the water to flow into the thirteen lower cells. The refuse water was drawn off into a larger basin beneath the bath-building, where there was again another reservoir to receive the clean water from its roof. This last reservoir was connected with the street, and so formed a grand public fountain, supplying pure water for the consumption of the people, while the water of the refuse basin adjoining it was used for the cooling of the theatre in the lower town. Next to the bath was built, in later times, a small temple (Heroon), in which the bodies of the benefactors of the city were deposited; their names were still found inscribed upon the entablature. At the east end of the Agora was the bema, the tribune of the orator in addressing a crowd. The level here was raised above the marketplace, and flagged, while the remainder, like all Greek streets before the Christian era, was unpaved." The theatre was well recovered;

the gymnasium was in a good state of preservation; and a great palace-hall, or atrium, of late date, has an arch appearing with purely Hellenic details. The Street of Tombs presents monuments of every period, one of which can not be later than the seventh century B. C., while many are as recent as the eleventh or twelfth Christian century. One of the large mausoleums offers a perfect parallel to the tombs of the kings at Jerusalem. One hun. dred and twenty-four sarcophagi were opened for the first time, and many archaic cinerary urns were found. Inhumation and cremation appear to have been maintained side by side. In the sarcophagi were discovered ornaments of gold, terra-cotta figurini, small vases, and glasses, including some fine specimens of thin, transparent glass, and several thousand coins. The walls, of which the chief masses date from the fourth century B. C., are more than two miles in length, are remarkably well preserved, and rise in many places to within one or two courses of their original height of sixty feet and over.

Villas of Ancient Roman Nobles.-Advantage has been taken of the works of reconstruction and public improvement that have been going on in the city of Rome, to make a careful examination of the ruins and relics of ancient Roman life that are from time to time in the course of the work rendered accessible: and by this means much progress has been made toward an ideal restoration of the city as it was during the imperial period. The Via Nazionale, which has been in the course of opening and building during the past twelve years, passes close to the line of the ancient Vicus Longus, which ran through one of the most aristocratic quarters of the town. In this region, starting from the modern Piazza di Magnanapoli and advancing toward the baths of Diocletian, the remains of the "superb mansions of between fifteen and twenty Roman nobles have been brought to light, but the explorations of them, which were made during the earlier period of the excavations, were "irregular and merely accidental," and the information that was gained respecting them was not as accurate or exhaustive as is desired. A more important and regular work, the building of the office of the Minister of War, is giving the opportunity of exploring under better auspices that portion of the district which extended from the Vicus Longus to the Vicus Porte Collinæ, and from the Templum Salutis to the baths of Diocletian. The war office covers an area of 15,000 square metres which formerly belonged to the monastery of the Barberine nuns. The ground was explored in a desultory manner when the monastery was built, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, but the value of the information it might have yielded was not then appreciated. The new exploration of the same ground has been attended with the discovery of the town residence of Vulcacius Rufinus, the uncle of Juli

an the Apostate, who became consul in A. D. 347, prefect of the Prætorium, A. D. 349, and again, A. D. 368, governor of Numidia, member of the privy council, etc. The vestibule of the palace is a large hall, paved with marble incrustations of the rarest kind, and the lower part of the walls is covered with the same. On the left side of the entrance was found a marble pedestal dedicated to Vulcacius Rufinus by the township of Ravenna, the information contained in which, compared with that given by writers of the time, makes it possible to trace closely the successive steps of the distinguished citizen's career. This residence, which faced the street on the south, was surrounded by other palaces on the north and east sides, and an imperial warehouse on the west.

The remains of a very extensive villa containing numerous works of art have been discovered on the line of the road leading from Rome to Marino, near the railway-station called Il Sassone. The palace proves to have belonged originally to a Voconius Pollio, and to have afterward passed into the hands of the Valerii. It stands in the center of a platform, which was raised artificially above the level of the Campagna by a long line of arched substructures. It was built at the end of the first century, in the reticulated style of masonry, and was rebuilt two centuries later, with bricks and small cubes of peperino. It contained reception, bath, and sleeping rooms, a central hall shaped like a basilica, and gardens surrounded by porticoes, basins, and fountains. The pavements of the first period are laid down in chiaroscuro mosaics; those of the second period are incrusted with polychrome marble; and the columns of the porticoes are cut in rough local stone and coated with painted stucco. Among the numerous works of sculpture that have been brought to light are a Marsyas tied to a tree, in pavanazzetto marble; the statue of an athlete; a bearded satyr; a winged Victory; a group of an eagle carrying up to the skies a half-devoured lamb; a semicolossal Apollo, "equally remarkable for good preservation and for excellent workmanship"; an aged man, representative of a new type of sculpture, the exact character of which has not been determined; a Hercules with the spoils of the Nemean lion, from which the head and feet are missing; a youthful and merry Bacchus; and a bust of Paris.

Exploration of the Atrium Vesta.-The house of the Vestal Virgins in Rome has been excavated, and several statues or parts of statues or inscriptions of chief Vestals of the third century have been recovered from it. The house, which appears to have been rebuilt after the destruction of the Atrium Vestæ in A. D. 191, is a rectangular oblong building, and was surrounded by streets on every side. The entire block was 115 metres long and 53 metres wide, and the Atrium Vestæ proper, which gave its name to the whole building, was 67 metres long and 24 metres wide. The archi