It was Dr Margaret Murray, my predecessor in charge of the Flinders Petrie Collection of Ancient Egyptian Antiquities, whose 100th birthday we look forward to celebrating this year, who encouraged me to re-study as many as possible of the antiquities found at Hierakonpolis; for she holds that the original publication was, as is not surprising, inadequate by modern standards.

We have in the Petrie Collection two pieces of large yellow limestone macehead (UCI4898 and 14898A). They have hitherto been considered to belong to the same macehead, being published by Quibell and Green as the first of three great maceheads, of which no. 2 is in Cairo and no. 3 in the Ashmolean at Oxford. It is not surprising that our two fragments should have been thought to have come from the same mace, for the subject of the relief decoration on each is the conquest of the Pigtail people, and both are of yellow limestone. But I am indebted to my artist, Mr W. Masiewicz, who drew FIGS. 1 and 2, for drawing my attention to points indicating that they are not from the same macehead.