It too often happens, among biographers and genealogists, that erroneous dates and lineages, given by the first writer, are adopted without inquiry by those who follow him. Generations are thus not unfrequently omitted in pedigrees, and members of a family, bearing the same Christian name, become confounded with each other. Puzzling as every one engaged in such investigations must have found this practice in private descents, errors of this description are magnified in importance, when they have reference to persons of note and position; involving as they must do the difficulty of connecting the real parties with the facts that relate to them.

There are few subjects within the range of archæological inquiry which present to us greater interest than that which arises from a consideration of the antiquities of Egypt, and particularly of those points which bear reference to the religion, the ceremonies, and the customs of the ancient Egyptians in connexion with the dissolution of the body, and the modes adopted to arrest the progress of decay. The reasons which induced them to take such extraordinary care in the preservation of the bodies of their deceased is, I believe, to be sought for in their religious opinions; and, it is most probably to be explained, upon their adoption of the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul. Upon this subject it is not my intention here to enlarge, as I have already treated of it in my “History of Egyptian Mummies.” I am anxious, however, upon this occasion, to introduce to the Society an account of the examination of a Mummy, belonging to the Museum in the Island of Jersey, which presents to our notice some peculiarities differing from those which have been hitherto observed in the process of embalming. I owe to our respected member, my friend Sir George Staunton, intelligence of this Mummy, which was brought from Thebes by the late John Gosset, Esq. who travelled in Egypt in 1835 in company with E. Lane, Esq. the author of a most excellent work on Modern Egypt. Mr. Gosset died at Paris returning from his travels; and his entire collection of Egyptian Antiquities, consisting of several articles of great curiosity and interest, has been presented by his father, Isaac Gosset, Esq. to the Island of Jersey, and has formed the commencement of a Museum, which promises to rise rapidly into distinction.

The following description of the Church of Mạ́rtula Máriam in Abessinia, built by the Empress Helena in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and restored by the Jesuits in the century following, the ruins of which were discovered by me during my recent journey in that country, may perhaps be considered of sufficient interest to be submitted to the Society of Antiquaries.

Since I submitted to you the paper which the Society of Antiquaries has done me the honour of printing in the thirty-third volume of the Archæologia, pp. 269-278, I have met with a valuation of another manor, Shifford, in the same parish, anno 1608, in which the “yeard of land” is said to contain “above thirty-five acres by estimation.”

It is generally prudent to regard foreign coats in any rolls of arms with circumspection: they not infrequently depart widely from the versions accepted at home. Yet it sometimes happens that records of arms are found earlier in foreign than in native documents. Thus the first occurrence so far known anywhere of the arms of a Count of Chalon is in our Fitzwilliam and Camden Rolls. So, too, the lion and battle-axe of the King of Norway in the same two rolls, and also in the Segar Roll, give earlier news of the colours, it is said, than have ever yet been found in that country. And there are other examples of the kind. This is not surprising, seeing that we have more copious resources surviving from earlier times than other countries. The coats now to be spoken of are the more unexpected that they show the converse case: points of heraldry appertaining to these isles have been recorded in several continental rolls, but do not appear in our rolls at all.

RIB 1389 is an inscription, found in 1751, that records building work on Hadrian's Wall in ad 158. The stone is lost and there have long been doubts about its exact findspot. The source for the reading of the inscription and the discovery of the stone is a manuscript in the British Library. Re-examination of this shows that: 1. the inscription was found in the Newburn area (Wall Mile 8 or 9) and not near Heddon as is usually stated; 2. RIB 1389 certainly came from the curtain of Hadrian's Wall or one of its structures, and not from a fort; 3. there is a second contemporary illustration of the inscription which confirms that the previously published text is without doubt correct. The stone can be seen as part of a group of stones whose inscriptions indicate an extensive building operation. Given that it is now generally accepted that the Antonine Wall in Scotland was only held for a brief single period, the building programme of ad 158 can be seen as marking the decision to abandon Scotland and make a permanent return to the Wall on the southern isthmus.

In Northern mythology Wayland the Smith corresponds to the Roman Vulcan or the Greek Hephaestus; and his name cannot have been attached to the well-known group of sarsen slabs in Berkshire till the Teutonic invaders reached the upper Thames in the fifth century. This cunning worker in metals appears on the Franks casket in the British Museum, dating from soon after 700; and the monument is mentioned under the name of Wayland's Smithy in a charter of King Eadred to Aelfheh dated 955.

In the month of December 1794, a labourer, employed to dig a drain through a marshy piece of ground, on the south side of the Quantock Hills in Somersetshire, found, about six feet beneath the surface, two rings, one lying on the other; within each of which was placed a celt, as represented in the annexed plate; he took them away with him when he left work; and on his return the following day he perceived the ground, where they had lain, was sunk, as if it had been hollow underneath: unfortunately, he searched no further. Of these curious articles of antient workmanship two celts, and one ring, which proved to be a torques, [Pl. XXIII.fig. 2.] were soon after sent to me; the other torques, I understand, is in the possession of the owner of the estate. Concluding from the circumstance of the ground's sinking, that bones, or other sepulchral relicks, might be found, I obtained permission to open the place; which I accordingly did with the person who had made the discovery, but without success. This may, in some degree, be ascribed to a road having been made, and to other difficulties in ascertaining the exact spot which we were anxious to explore.

At the close of the year 1834, my attention was drawn to the excavations then in progress for sewers, and foundations of houses, in the extensive City improvements, from conviction, founded on former observations, but which opportunity did not then admit my taking advantage of, that the projected line of work at depths varying from twenty to fifty feet, could not fail to afford the means for obtaining some additional and corroborating information illustrative of the ancient occupation of the soil; and, finding that investigation was likley to be attended with some little success, I persevered in examining with all possible diligence the several excavations, and now submit to your notice, though necessarily in an abridged shape, an account of the result of my labours. I shall venture no further on your patience than will be consistent with recording the principal features in the City discoveries, without theorising or wandering from a statement of facts.

Preliminary study for a group of perspective reconstruction drawings of the exterior of Durham Cathedral has led to a reappraisal of the original design and of its progress towards completion. The west towers may be fifty or more years earlier than the generally accepted date of c. 1200, preceding the Galilee chapel. The paired eastern towers strongly suggest links with the ‘imperial’ churches of the Rhineland, and are not readily paralleled in Normandy. Some English churches with eastern towers are listed, indicating that they were not especially rare.

Durham was built on the largest scale to house the body and shrine of St Cuthbert. It was an avant-garde showpiece indicating the wealth and importance of its bishop and monastic community at both English and European levels.

I have lately had an opportunity of inspecting the numerous collection of Roman sepulchral vessels preserved in the library of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and which were found in the year 1821, on one of the College estates at Litlington near Royston, contiguous to that part of the Ickenild Street called the Ashwell Street Road. I hardly need observe, that this ancient way, crossing the kingdom from Norwich towards Old Sarum, had its appellation from the district of the Iceni, in which it began its course, and from its great antiquity was known in the Saxon times as the Iken-eld Strete, that is, the old street or way of the Iceni.