The eighth season of the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania started at Ur on 1st November 1929, and ended on 19th March 1930. The staff consisted of my wife, who as usual was responsible for the type-drawings of objects, the planning of the cemetery, and for a share in the field-work; Mr. M. E. L. Mallowan, general archaeological assistant; the Rev.E. Burrows, S.J., epigraphist; and Mr. A. S. Whitburn, architect. Hamoudi was, as always, head foreman, with his sons, Yahia, Ibrahim, and Alawi acting under him; owing to the fact that work was always going on in at least two spots fairly far apart, greater responsibility than usual was thrown on the younger foremen, who answered admirably to the demands on them; Yahia combined this work with that of staff photographer. The number of men employed varied slightly at different times, but was always over 200 and for most of the season kept at about 240, anumber well in excess of the average of past seasons; the amount of work done wascorrespondingly great. I have to thank the Royal Air Force in Iraq for help of many sorts and not least for an air photograph of the site (pl. XXVIII) taken at the close of the season and of much value for purposes of comparison with earlier photographs; Lt.-Colonel Tainsh, Director of the Iraq Railways, for facilities enabling me to undertake a short experimental dig at Meraijib, a prehistoric site some ten miles south of Ur; and the Director of Antiquities, Iraq, for his help in this Meraijib work and to the Expedition in general. I must also acknowledge my indebtedness to the staff of the British Museum Laboratory, where the work of restoring and cleaning was as usual carried out, and in particular to Mr. E. C. Padgham for his success with the silver objects; Mr. Evan Watkin of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities undertook the mending of the stone vases, and for the mending of the pottery the services of Mrs. F. W. Bard were secured.

The changes which have taken place of late years in the procedure at our Anniversary Meetings have materially altered the position in which the President finds himself on these occasions. Formerly the whole programme of reports, elections, and address was carried through in the afternoon, doubtless with the intention of leaving the evening free for a dinner, if the Fellows decided to have one. To that end elections, report, and address were taken simultaneously, with the result that the two latter were periodically held up by the declaration of the opening of ballots or of their results. From the President's point of view the procedure had its disadvantages and also its advantages. It was doubtless irksome to have to break off in the course of a carefully-prepared speech, but it must be remembered that a good part of that speech consisted of records of elections and deaths of Fellows, with obituary notices, all prepared by the Society's officers and entailing on the President no more mental effort than that required by the reading of them. Now it is far otherwise: the annual dinner is becoming only legendary, and the President's address occupies its place in the programme; nor is it now his office to refer to the state of the Society's boilers, or to note the setting up of a flagstaff on the Society's premises. He is left to his own resources, and, as I myself can vouch, is torn between the apprehension of producing a discourse bearing too close a likeness to the general run of former addresses, and that of straying into side issues of small practical value.

In a recently published paper the conclusion was reached that Stonehenge was built at different periods, and that the Aubrey circle with the bank and ditch represent an older monument. In conclusion it is said ‘that Stonehenge was built after the Aubrey circle is certain’. There is, however, evidence that leads to a different theory, and this being so, it is desirable that it should be stated; otherwise it might appear that those interested agreed with the conclusion, or at least had no evidence to the contrary. A fact used to support the two-date theory is that the end of the ditch overlaps the avenue. There is general agreement that this ditch was levelled and obliterated on the surface in order that it should not obstruct the avenue. The critical point is when this filling-up took place. According to the two-date theory it was only when the later Stonehenge. was built, and therefore a long time after the ditch was first dug. But if the evidence from the excavation is carefully examined it becomes plain that this part of the ditch must have been refilled almost immediately after it was made.

Early in 1929 the British Museum acquired a lot of two dozen small bronzes. Mr. Reginald Smith gave a preliminary account of them and illustrated eighteen in the British Museum Quarterly. The Society is indebted to the Trustees of the British Museum for the loan of these plates (our 1 and 11). Mr. Smith was good enough to suggest that I should treat them in greater detail in the Antiquaries Journal.

During the last twenty years the study of Samian ware has made great advancesand, notwithstanding the disfavour with which the ‘intrusive fragment’ and ‘pots and pans’ are still regarded by a certain class of historian, the value of this fabric for dating purposes is now generally recognized. Weare now familiar with most of the decorative types that are characteristic of thepre-Flavian (circa A. D. 25-68), Flavian, and late Hadrianic-Antonine ages, but much remains to be learnt with regard to the ornamental detail of the intervening period, broadly speaking the first third of the second century. Although late South Gaulish ware, ornamented in the Flavian manner, continued to be imported down to about A. D. 110, a number of new decorative types, derived from Centralor from early East Gaulish potteries, began to appear late in the first century and early in the second.

Before considering the actual gun which forms the title of this paper, it may be of some interest to give some details of the manufacture and use of gigantic guns for oriental war operations, for these present certain problems of manufacture, transport, and practical use which deserve more than passing consideration. A great deal of this material has been collected by that indefatigable student of all matters connected with artillery, General Sir Henry Lefroy, who was responsible for the foundation of the Royal Artillery Institution in 1838, and, in addition to his military duties, was a keen scientist and particularly interested in meteorological survey work, which he carried out in the observatories of St. Helena, Toronto, Lake Athabasca, and elsewhere.

This paper is mainly intended to be read as supplementary to ‘Roman London; Its Initial Occupation as evidenced by early types of Terra Sigillata’, by Mr. T. Davies Pryce and Dr. Felix Oswald (Archaeologia, lxxviii), and as emphasizing the conclusions reached in that paper by furnishing some additional examples of the Tiberio-Claudian and Claudian styles of decoration found in London. Mr. Davies Pryce has very kindly read the proofs, and suggestions made by him have been incorporated.

The last Interim Report on the excavations at Glastonbury was read before this Society on 29th November 1928, and a precis of this report was printed in vol. lxxiv of the Proceedings of the Somersetshire Archaeological Society.

Dr. Johnson thought that a pax was a pyx, and amended Shakespeare accordingly. Since the issue of the Dictionary, however, the pax has more than once been thesubject of communications by Fellows of our Society, and the ‘Ignorance, madame, sheer ignorance’ to which the Doctor might have pleaded would now be more difficult to excuse. Nevertheless, the salient features in the usage and history of the pax may perhaps be restated very briefly.

On July 4, 1928, I had an urgent message to call at the Bursledon Brick Co's. works as the men were again working on the site described in the Journal, which they had abandoned n i October 1927 for another sector of the clay pits, and had found evidence of a deeper shaft.

I do not propose on this occasion to make any contribution to the exceedingly obscure and difficult question of the origin of the law of treasure trove. The writer who has most recently discussed the subject, Mr. Cecil S. Emden, states the object of his article as being ‘to emphasize that, the law of treasure trove being indefinite, the practical difficulties in its administration which may arise are due not so much to the complexity attaching to particular cases as to the haze in which the origin of the law rests, and to the casual manner in which the rules have taken shape’. Where many better qualified writers have too often, like the celebrated ‘Mr. Parker, made the case darker, which was dark enough before’, further discussion by one who has no legal qualification is hardly to be encouraged. I shall confine myself therefore to a consideration of the definition of the subject, of the rules governing the administration in recent times, with especial reference to this country, and to the bearing of these rules on the interests of archaeology. Such references to older law and usage as cannot be avoided are made without any claim to original research.

The northern end of the Isle of Man is a low plain, a legacy of the Ice Age, consisting of boulder clay, sands, and gravels, bordered round the coast by a range of sandhills rising from 100 ft. at the break made by the Lhen to over 300 ft. where they cluster around the little village of Kirk Bride. The mouth of the Lhen at a distance of five miles from the foot of the hills, the pre-glacial coastline of the Island, is the reputed landing-place of the Scandinavian settlers who came sailing down from the western isles of Scotland; and for their small and shallow vessels the gravel beach, still known by their name of ‘the Ayres’, was admirably adapted.

Since Sir John Evans read his paper on ‘Discoveries of Stone Implements in Lough Neagh’ before the Society in January 1867, the older flint industry of the Lower Bann valley has come to possess a full literature. Much of that literature includes some reference to the characteristic implements found from time to time within the beds of diatomaceous earth along the river's ancient flood-level, but the many papers on the subject fail curiously to discuss the clue afforded by these finds to the age of this widely known culture. It is true that in 1909 Mr. Wilfred Jackson, in the course of a report on the diatomite deposits, gave a more particular account of the prehistoric material disclosed in the diggings, but little of value has been contributed to the problem's solution from the geological standpoint.

In the following paper a preliminary account is given of some archaeological research which is being carried out, under a grant from the Percy Sladen MemorialFund, in the Hunstanton district of north-west Norfolk.

The top of a censer in champlevé enamel recently dug up at Barnham, Sussex, was exhibited by the kindness of Mr. F. C. Eeles at the ordinary meeting of the Society on 30 January 1930. It was found in the earth at the east end of the chancel of the church. It is possible that further excavation may bring to light some further fragments of what must originally have been a very attractive object. As will be seen from the representation it is pyramidal with four tiers. The lowest was adorned with four raised foliated ornaments, somewhat like leopards’ faces, fixed on by pins to the smooth surface, which is ornamented with a running water-leaf pattern which shows clearly in the illustration. One of these applied ornaments has come off, but the pin shows the place where it has been. To the rim below were attached four loops for the chains to run in. One of these is lost, but the holes for its attachment can be seen on the right of the spectator. They are fixed at points exactly half-way between the applied bosses, though lower down. The tier above the lowest is pierced with 12 keyhole-shaped holes in groups of three, divided by a semicircular ornament in the space vertically above the bosses on the lowest tier. The tier above this again is pierced with 11 holes, similar though not quite so long vertically. These are divided by small vertical dotted lines in pairs, and below are 16 triangular insets for enamel or composition. These are divided into pairs by eight holes for pins. Two only of the pins remain. Their use is not apparent. The top tier has ornament all over it, forming four triangles patterned, divided by broad bands to the top and slightly tapered downwards. These bands are ornamented with double lines of dots as are the divisions between the holes in the tiers below.

The Musée du Louvre has lately received as a gift from the City of Paris–in whose historical museum, the Carnavalet, they had been preserved–five English alabaster reliefs: a ‘Betrayal’, complete, but with a weathered surface; a fine ‘Christ led to Judgement’; a fragmentary ‘Christ before Pilate’; a ‘Naming of St. John’; and a ‘St. Michael and the Blessed Virgin’.

The village of Ballineen is on the railway-line, 9 miles west of Bandon, or 25 miles westward from the city of Cork. Three-quarters of a mile southward from Ballineen, on a farm named Curraghcrowly West, a remarkable Souterrain was discovered in April 1929. See 6-in. Ordnance Map, Cork, 109. The geographical position is Lat. 51° 43′ 23″ N.; Long. 8° 57′ 17″ W. Ireland, 1 in. Sheet 194.

In the course of the restoration in 1853 of the great church of St. Botolph at Boston in Lincolnshire the floor of the nave was removed and excavation took place with a view to determining the site of a more ancient church thought to have existed before the great nave was built. In the course of these works certain small objects were discovered in the ground, and a list of them is given in the History of Boston by Pishey Thompson, Boston, 1856. One of them, which is preserved in the library over the south-west porch, is a copper disc with Limoges champlevé enamel. It was exhibited before the Society at its ordinary meeting on the 30th January 1930 by the vicar of Boston, the Rev. Canon Hutchinson, at my invitation, as it had attracted my attention when I visited the library in June 1929. It is represented on pl. XIII, and Mr. Thompson, who considered it not of much interest, describes it as the foot of a candlestick of latten with shields of arms and foliage of the fourteenth century. It is possible to differ with him as to the interest of the object, for that appears to be quite considerable. As to its date, it is probably quite early in the fourteenth century, if not at the end of the thirteenth. As to its use, that must in any case be quite doubtful.

In a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Series B, vol. 209, pp. 329–50, 1920) I described the relationship of the rostro-carinate flint implements of the East Anglian Pliocene deposits, to the later palaeolithic hand-axes, and illustrated my remarks by means of several specimens of transitional form found in various parts of this country. Since this paper appeared I have examined a large number of implements which show, in the clearest manner, the above-mentioned relationship, and this is especially the case with the two specimens described in this note.