Volume 1 — LEARNED SOCIETIES, Etc.

THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES

INTEREST in the Near East is maintained, and a useful lead was given in 1913 by the Cyprus Government, who entrusted Professor Myres, assisted by the Keeper of the Cyprus Museum and Mr. L. H. D. Buxton, with a good round sum to conduct excavations in the island. The results were described at length and illustrated on the screen, the most notable discovery being a ruined sanctuary containing a collection of stone statues with many of the painted surfaces in brilliant preservation, ranging in date from the seventh century B.C. to Greco-Roman times. Elsewhere many antiquities of the Bronze Age were brought to light, but at present there are few, if any, traces of a Stone Age in the island. The first stratified series of Cypriote pottery was provided by a complete section of the Bamboula Hill at Larnaca, and the situation is full of promise.

A marble statuette, now in the Ashmolean Museum, was the text of Professor Langdon's discourse, and gave scope for surmise as well as scholarship. It was found by the 14th Sikh Regiment when entrenching before the battle of Istabalat, eight miles below Samara on the Tigris. The object originally carried on the head has disappeared, but the standing figure still holds a "boomerang" or sceptre, and the dress was made in imitation of the fleece, a fashion to which Aristophanes is supposed to refer in the Wasps, perhaps three thousand years later. Various prehistoric specimens from England exhibited to the Society have an interest of their own, but cannot compete with relics from the cradle of civilisation, and at present the watch-word is Ex oriente lux.

THE EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND

The third of a series of lectures arranged by the Egypt Exploration Fund (to which we referred in our December number) was given at the rooms of the Royal Society at Burlington House on January 23rd, by Professor T. Eric Peet. The subject of the lecture was "El Amarna, the City of Egypt's Heretic King." The lecturer said that from the evidence of the mummy generally supposed to be his, Amenhotep IV. appears to have been little more than a boy when his father died. Nevertheless, as early as the fourth year of his reign, he introduced the worship of the Aton, the Disk of the Sun, and did his utmost to establish it as the State religion, and to suppress the worship of Amon and all other Egyptian gods. The new religion was purely monotheistic in character, for the Aton was regarded as the creator, not of Egypt only, but of the world. The new deity was represented in the art of the period by a picture of the disk of the sun, from which emanated numerous rays, each terminating in human hands, some of which are holding out the sign of life to the worshippers. The king changed his own name from Amenhotep ("Amon is content") to Akhenaton ("The Disk is pleased"), and he shifted his capital from Thebes to El Amarna.

Excavations at El Amarna have brought to light remains of a temple dedicated to the Aton, and a palace erected for the use of the king, with beautifully painted floor, fragments of which show a freedom of drawing and lack of convention which distinguish this period from most other Egyptian art. The remains of many private houses have also been discovered, and from these it is comparatively easy to gather the size, design, and general construction of the houses of the nobles of that time. Most of them seem to have been built on the same plan, and comprise a central hall, with small apartments surrounding and leading from it. Some of these smaller rooms were used as workrooms, and in one house excavated a number of plaster casts were found, obviously taken from living models, proving that the Egyptians of this period were experts in this work. There were also many finished and unfinished statues of the Royal family, some of which were in very natural positions, quite unlike the usual Egyptian statues of other sites.

The tombs of the officials of the Court were discovered in the cliffs behind the town, their walls being covered with sculptured scenes depicting the everyday life of the capital.

At the close of the lecture the Chairman, Colonel H. G. Lyons, F.R.S., pointed out the extreme importance of systematic and scientific excavations in Egypt and other countries, and the gains which might accrue to science.

THE GEOLOGISTS' ASSOCIATION

At the meeting held at University College, Gower Street, W.C.1, on Friday, December 5th, 1919, the following lecture was delivered: "Geological Work on the Western Front," by W. B. R. King, B.A., F.G.S. A short description was given of the geology of that part of Belgium and France over which military operations were conducted by the British Armies between 1915 and the summer of 1918. It was mainly confined to the lithological divisions and did not deal with the palæontological side of the subject. The main physical features were taken, showing how they are connected with the geological structure. The effect of the geology and geological structure on certain questions of military operations was dealt with, notably with regard to water supply and military mining and dug-out construction. Particular attention was paid to the problem of obtaining water from boreholes in the Landenien (Thanet) sands, the causes and effect of the seasonal variation of water-level in the chalk, and the problem of the military mines near Messines, Givenchy-les-la-Bassée, and Souchez. The lecture ended with a description of certain maps which were prepared for the armies in France, and notes on several other problems which had to be dealt with by the geologists attached to General Headquarters.

On Friday, January 2nd, 1920, Dr. A. E. Trueman, F.G.S., read a paper on "The Liassic Rocks of the Cardiff District." The author said that the greater part of South Glamorganshire, from Cardiff westwards to beyond Bridgend, consists of lower Liassic rocks (Hettangian and Lower Sinemurian), which are well seen in some 20 miles of magnificent cliff sections. Only meagre descriptions of these rocks have been hitherto published. A detailed study has been undertaken, first because nowhere else in this country are such continuous sections of these rocks available, and, secondly, because the normal deposits consisting of limestones and shales seen near Cardiff, when traced westwards, pass into a littoral facies of massive limestones and conglomerates. In the present communication an account of the normal Liassic rocks of the Cardiff district is given, as this will form a basis for the correlation of the modified deposits further west. The lecture was illustrated by lantern-slides and specimens.

THE MODERN HUMANITIES RESEARCH ASSOCIATION

The January number of the Bulletin of the Modern Humanities Research Association contains a summary of the Presidential Address delivered in October, 1919, by M. Gustave Lanson, the famous French scholar and critic. The Association, which, though founded only in June, 1918, numbers nearly 500 members, is now penetrating to some of the remoter quarters of the globe; among the last candidates to be elected were some from Czecho-Slovakia, the Malay States, New Zealand, and Western Canada, and most of these were at once put into touch with members at home belonging to subject groups representing their particular interests. The Hon. Secretary (Mr. E. Allison Peers, 24 Beaufort Road, Kingston-on-Thames) writes in the Bulletin of proposals submitted to the Association that it should produce a comprehensive Bibliographical Annual, a task which a body with so wide a membership seems peculiarly fitted to attempt.

The Modern Humanities Research Association is fulfilling another obligation which rests upon all who speak the English language in its efforts to bridge the Atlantic and unite those on both sides who are engaged in higher studies in Modern Languages and Literatures. Its membership is growing in the United States so rapidly that an American Secretary (Professor M. Blakemore Evans, of the Ohio State University) has been appointed. At its most recent London meeting, on January 6th, too, Professor Carleton Brown, of Minnesota, was among the speakers on "Conditions of Postgraduate Study." Such interchange of help and information as the Association brings about between England and America can have none but good effects.

Among the Vice-Presidents of the Association, prominent names are those of Sir Sidney Lee (its first President), Dr. Walter Leaf, Sir A. W. Ward, M. Jusserand, Signor Farinelli, Professor Jespersen, Professor Oliver Emerson, and Sr. Menéndez Pidal.

THE ROYAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY

At the January meeting of the Royal Numismatic Society the Rev. E. A. Sydenham read a paper on the "Coinages of Augustus." He began by giving a chronological summary of the various series and groups of coins under Augustus. There were seven species of mints: (a) the Senatorial Mint of Rome; (b) Military Mints; (c) Mints in Senatorial Provinces; (d) Mints in Imperial Provinces; (e) Autonomous Mints (issuing bronze only); (f) the "Imperatorial Mint"; (g) the Imperial Mint. After brief notes on the Senatorial Mint (43-36 B.C.), the military coinage of Octavius in Gaul and Italy (41-39 B.C.), incidentally attributing the S.C. coins to camp mints of Northern Italy, Mr. Sydenham proceeded to discuss the Asiatic coinages (28-15 B.C.) and the Imperatorial Mint (21-15 B.C.). Besides coins generally attributed to Asiatic mints the reader proposed to give the undated silver and gold with CAESAR DIVI F to Asia rather than Rome, and criticised Laffranchi's attribution of certain coins to Phrygia and Gabrici's to Athens. The CA bronze coins he attributed to Asia reading the CA as Commune Asiæ. The coins attributed to the "Imperatorial" Mint are very distinctive in style and were probably issued under direct control of Augustus. These coins had been attributed by Grueber to Rome and by Laffranchi to Spain. Mr. Sydenham gave cogent arguments against these views and added reasons for considering them a distinct Imperatorial issue. A theory on which a good deal of the argument turns is that in 28 B.C. Augustus made a formal surrender of his triumviral office and the extraordinary powers pertaining to it. Included in the powers was probably the right of coinage. The surrender of this right was merely an act of policy which Augustus did not regard as permanently binding. But he held to it to this extent that for five or six years he issued no coins of any sort on his own authority, and even down to the end of his reign he issued no coins in Rome. After an experimental coinage through P. Carisius in Spain (24-22 B.C.) he inaugurated his "Imperatorial" Mint, but confined its operations to the provinces. Finally he fixed the Imperial Mint at Lugdunum (14 B.C.).

THE SOCIETY OF GENEALOGISTS OF LONDON

The Society of Genealogists of London is collecting lists of books, articles, deeds, MSS., and documents generally in reference to specific families and places. It has many such lists and references to documents, as well as collections of documents themselves, and wishes to add to them to facilitate research. Readers kindly supplying such lists, long or short, are assured that they are filed at once by the Society in such a manner that they are immediately available for reference. An excellent example of the form such lists might take is provided in Mr. Walter Rye's Norfolk Topography. Communications should be addressed to 5 Bloomsbury Square, W.C.1.