The excavation conducted by Sir Leonard Woolley in 1936 and 1937 at the site near al Mina, at the mouth of the Orontes, produced material of interest not only for archaeological study but also for Oriental history. The eighth to the fourth centuries of the pre-Christian era, to which the material remains belong, are also represented at other sites in Syria and Palestine that have been excavated by scientific expeditions. But the Phoenician cities, Byblos and Sidon, the north Syrian cities, Carchemish and Sinčirli, the sites on the plain of Aleppo reported on by the Syrian expedition of the Oriental Institute of Chicago, and Palestinian sites, have not yielded the same material of one special kind as al Mina, or only stray examples of it. There Cycladic and proto-Corinthian sherds and later developments of early Greek vases show conclusively that there was trade between the little Syrian port on the one side and the Aegean islands and the Greek mainland on the other, between the beginning of the eighth century and the end of the seventh. Similarly Attic pottery and coins are a proof of the encouragement given to Athenian trade at the same port from the time of Darius I to that of Artaxerxes III. In this respect new knowledge is to be gained from the finds at al Mina as to the history of the north Syrian coast during five centuries. The conclusions that may be drawn form an interesting footnote to what is known, and to some of the assumptions, about general Oriental history.

The Council, being of opinion that the Fellows should have a full knowledge of the conditions under which the Society is carrying on its work at the present time, has authorized the following statement.

The first concern has been for the safety of the Society's possessions.

Thirteen thousand five hundred books, weighing about thirty-four tons, have been removed from Burlington House to twenty-five country repositories in Wales, south-west England, the northwest Midlands, the Chilterns, and elsewhere. The remaining books at Burlington House have been stacked and protected as far as is possible against fire. Those selected for evacuation were valuable manuscripts and rare books, topographical works, periodicals (English and foreign), with special reference to their usefulness and the difficulty of replacing them. The Library Index of about 500,000 cards, the Indexes of Lantern Slides and of Prints and Drawings, as well as a selection of the Society's stock of early publications, have also been removed.

Once more the Society's Anniversary Meeting takes place beneath that shadow which has impended for two and a half years, and, though its intensity may appear to wax or wane as fate may tip the balance one way or the other, it is evident that the decisive hour is not yet. These circumstances must inevitably place the activities of the Society under severe restraint, a restraint which must become more pressing as the intensity of our effort and the stringency of our material resources, for any but one purpose, become more and more pronounced. Excavation, except in cases dictated by military emergency, has practically ceased, research based upon our national collections and archives is almost equally impossible, and the shortage of paper will soon operate imperatively on the extent and material quality of our publications.

The architectural history of Malta has yet to be written. The thought is a depressing one at a moment when the work of centuries is being blasted to fragments, but it may serve as an excuse for publishing a few illustrations of medieval architecture in the island. At best they will furnish a reminder of the work that remains to be done; at worst they will serve as a record of what has gone. My own photographs and notes are in Valetta, and I owe the illustrations to the courtesy of the Colonial Office and of H.M. Government of Malta. I have also to thank Mr. G. L. M. Clauson, who in 1938 showed some of these pictures before a meeting of the Society, and Lt.-Col. A. V. Agius, Trade Commissioner for Malta; also my many friends in Malta and, in particular, Chev. H. P. Scicluna, librarian of the Royal Library, Valetta, and Mr. J. Galea, who gave me every possible help and assistance. I would like to make it clear from the start that this is in no sense a finished study of the medieval remains in Malta, but rather the desultory jottings of one who had hoped one day to make such a study.

It is by no means improbable that many standard works of reference owe their being to sheer exasperation of spirit. It is not, certainly, ascertained that there has ever been compiled any Dictionary of Bricklaying and Masonry, for example, by a working Cabinet Minister. But such an association of subject and author would not be more far-fetched than that of a quite well-known civil engineer in his day, Sir George Grove, and his even better-known Dictionary of Music; or of the medical man Peter Mark Roget and his verbal Thesaurus. The amateur, it may be supposed, hampered in the prosecution of one of his secondary interests by the lack of any comprehensively encyclopaedic work on it, must snatch time from his main calling in order to provide such an adjunct, though he might have counted on finding it ready done for him by experts. Papworth and his Ordinary of Arms offer a reasonably close parallel to those other cases. The practising architect would trench upon his scanty leisure to labour at an index of coat-armour—felt as indispensable as it was lacking to a fuller pursuit of his heraldic studies—because an adequate one done by specialists was not to hand.

The two gauntlets which were exhibited to the Society by kind permission of the Archdeacon of Richmond, on 26th November 1941, form part of the funeral achievement of Sir Edward Blackett (died 1718), hanging above his monument in the north transept of Ripon Cathedral. The achievement consists of a close-helmet of the sixteenth century with a wooden funeral crest of a falcon (for Blackett); a tabard; a cruciform sword in its scabbard, of the heraldic pattern of the early eighteenth century; and two iron gauntlets. The wooden escutcheon and pair of spurs which must once have completed the group are now missing.

The site here to be described was discovered in November 1940, when the writer was examining mechanical excavations near Longdown Lane, Epsom, for archaeological material; and it consists of a shallow pit containing remains attributable to the Iron Age. The site (fig. 1) lies about 330 ft. above O.D. on a northward sloping spur of the North Downs. Thus the subsoil is Upper Chalk (Marsupites Zone); but in places this is capped with Tertiary clay, and occasionally there are deep flaws in the rock, also filled with clay. The modern plough-soil hereabouts is 1 ft. thick, and below it is a layer of old plough-soil visible as brown clay with small chalk particles, on an average 6 in. deep. In the edge of the mechanical excavation above mentioned there was seen (fig. 2) a pit sunk through the brown plough-soil into the natural clay pocket, and its top had of course been removed by modern ploughing. The pit was filled with dark soil; its floor was flat and lay 2 ft. from the surface and was 2 ft. 2 in. wide. The dark filling contained small potsherds, tiny particles of charcoal, bone burnt and unburnt, and the lower stone of a saddlequern.

The writer salvaged as much as was practicable on the spot, and later obtained permission to empty the whole pit; but it was not possible to clear any large area and search for post-holes. When cleared, the pit was seen to have a level floor and to be roughly circular with a diameter of 3 ft. The walls were not undercut, but sloped steeply down to the flat floor (fig. 2).

The five volumes of this invaluable work appeared within two years, but it was not, I think, till a study of the Stanton family appeared in the Archaeological Journal for 1928 that use was made of the information to be found in them regarding English sculptors of the period. Unfortunately, there seems to be no evidence, either internal or external, determining the date at which Le Neve began his Collections other than the two advertisements in the Postboy (14th August 1716) and the Evening Post, 16th October of the same year, quoted in Nichols (Lit. Anec. i, 127): the first refers to a lost Proposal for the work as ‘lately printed’, the second states that ‘John Le Neve, Gent. having often advertised his intended Collection of monumental inscriptions … again repeats his request to all Lovers of Antiquity to communicate any worth printing’, with an especial appeal to incumbents. Like his other ventures, the book was a financial failure, and, taking Orders, he was presented to the living of Thornton-le-Moor, where the chalice he gave to the church still exists, as Mr. G. S. Dixon tells me, and where he ‘filled in the Registers in his fine clear hand’ save during the year December 1722–3, when he was imprisoned in Lincoln jail by his rapacious creditors. After his release he carried on his clerical duties, his successor being appointed on 23rd May 1741; the exact date of his death has apparently not been determined.

The remarkable miniature of the Virgin and Child reproduced here (pl. 1) is found in a copy of St. Augustine's Commentary on Psalms ci-cl now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It is drawn on the blank recto of the first folio of the text. The verso of the leaf has the opening words of the work set out in capitals with an elaborately decorated initial letter. The Virgin is seated on a throne whose arms end in dogs' heads, and the whole composition is framed by a mandorla. She holds the Infant Christ on her left knee and supports Him with her left hand. In her right hand is a long sceptre ending in a trefoil upon which a bird perches. The bottom of the sceptre has a curious indent where her fingers grasp it. This may be an allusion to the ‘radix Jesse’, since it slightly resembles a root.

The hoard which has given its name to the type was found in 1735 on Arreton Down in the centre of the eastern half of the island. Part was exhibited to the Society that year and a further ten pieces in 1736, drawings being made of the last exhibit. In 1855 Mr. A. W. Franks (later Sir Wollaston Franks) described in detail the hoard as then known, i.e. six pieces in the British Museum and the remainder recorded by the drawings made in 1736 (Archaeol. xxxvi, 326–31). In 1909 the well-known socketed spear-head and a tanged one were acquired by the British Museum from Canon Greenwell's collection. The hoard consisted of ten spear-heads, two daggers, and four flanged axes. They are referred to below as ‘Franks, no. —’; ‘B.M.’ if in the British Museum, ‘D’ if now known only by a drawing.

The work of the French mission under Ghirshman, at Tepe Sialk near Kashan, on the Iranian plateau, has now given us a picture of the use of copper from the earliest times up to 3000 B.C., when the copper industry became firmly established. The present paper is an attempt to trace the development of the metallurgy of prehistoric copper in the light of the new evidence which is now available.

The Glendarragh sub-megalithic circle and its adjoining alignments are situated in the parish of Marown at a height of 450 ft. on the northern slope of The Mount, a north-east outlier of the southern Manx hill-mass(O.S. 1 in. Sheet 19, Sq.K.6). Drainage from the surrounding fields collects at the site into a small southern tributary of the river Dhoo, which flows eastward to Douglas. The valley of the larger stream forms the south-eastern half of the middle gap of the Isle of Man, an important routeway in prehistoric and Early Christian times. The site commands the wide slopes above the marshy alluvial tracts of this south-eastern portion of the middle gap, and on the sky-line are the magnificent broken uplands which form the heart of the northern hill-mass. The view is known locally as ‘The Plains of Heaven’. The name ‘Glendarragh’ is said to signify in the Manx ‘The Valley of the Oaks’.

The site is to be found on sheet 38 W. of the 6 in. O.S. in the area surrounding the small cross-roads (B.M. 255 ft.) about three-quarters of a mile north-west of Standlake church on the way to Hardwick. From the gently rising ground at this point one can look across the valleys of the Windrush and Thames (210 O.D. at New Bridge), and over the Faringdon–Cumnor Corallian ridge to the Berkshire Downs beyond. The arable fields which to-day cover the slope (‘Standlake Down’) are rather bleak and featureless, as the gravel terraces in this sector of the Oxford Basin tend to be; but from the Bronze Age onwards they were sufficiently attractive to maintain a relatively large population.