Corsica is now, without any doubt, regarded in the Mediterranean as 'the island of statue-menhirs'. These Corsican monumental statues are 2 to 3 m. in heightwell above the size of a normal human beingand are the work of artists belonging to the last phase of the island's megalithic culture which we would date from the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. [I]: These statue-menhirs of which at least 60 are now known from all over the island, are almost all of a very hard granite: all were worked without the use of metal tools. Since the first publication of the important site of Filitosa [2] there have been many excavations, and we can now see clearly the succession of cultures in prehistoric Corsica, and particularly the succession and interrelation of the two important cultures which interest all prehistorians so much, namely the Megalithic Culture, that is to say the culture of the builders of the megaliths, and the Torrean Culture, that is to say the builders of the torre or stone towers. This latter, the civilisation torrknne as it is described in French, was entirely unknown in Corsica before 1954. The author has now excavated and studied ten sites of the Torrean cultures-cult-sites, fortified towers, and living sites-of which at least a hundred are known south of a line from Ajaccio to Solenzara [3].

The first indication of the 3rd temple's existence appears in the work of the 3rdcentury author Solinus. Writing of Britain he describes the hot springs, evidently at Bath, which he says are presided over by Minerva, in whose temple burns a perpetual fire. The work of Solinus was known to Geoffrey of Monmouth, from whom the idea of the existence of the temple passed into the minds of medieval historians. By the time of the later topographers, Camden, Guidott and Stukeley, the tradition was firmly established and it was further believed that the Temple lay beneath the Abbey church.

The first major archaeological discoveries were made in the autumn of 1790, when the western part of the Pump Room, fronting on to Stall Street, was rebuilt [I]. The new foundations, dug to a depth of 12 ft., were laid upon a Roman pavement and during the work a large quantity of sculptured stonework was recovered, including parts of two major monuments, the Pediment and the Faqade of the Four Seasons. In addition a flight of steps was noted, but no precise details or locations were recorded. Englefield, who visited the works at the time, informs us that on the Roman structures 'the foundation of the present new buildings is laid; and it will of course be for a long time covered from future excavations' [2]. In December 1964. during the recent series of research excavations,. the steps and part of the paving were again uncovered.

In recent years there have appeared a number of books about the Etruscans. These have for the most part been devoted to Etruscan art and culture of the historical period, and touch only lightly on the so-called mystery of Etruscan origins. This mystery is a peculiar thing, for no one regards the origin of other ancient peoples such as the Greeks or the Romans as mysterious. It is simply assumed that they developed where they are found at the beginning of history out of various prehistoric elements that had already arrived.

The Etruscan mystery arises in part from the remarkable differences both in language and in civilization between the Etruscans and the other peoples of pre-Roman Italy. The ancients also speculated about it, and the puzzle is in part due to contradictory statements made by them. Herodotus in the 5th century B.C. said that the Etruscans came from Lydia, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the 1st century B.C. said that they did not come from anywhere but originated in Italy. The aim of much discussion in recent times has been to determine which was right. I should say at once that it seems to me that there is something in both views. But the statement of Herodotus can hardly be taken literally, since there is insufficient specific connexion between the ancient language and culture of Lydia and anything in Etruria. I shall return to that part of the story later.

The astronomical significance of Stone- henge has been the subject of intermittent debate and speculation ever since 1740, when Stukeley [I] first observed that the axis of the sarsen structure and of the Avenue pointed at least approximately to the sunrise at the summer solstice. Apart from Sir Norman Lockyer [z], however, few professional astronomers concerned themselves with this question, until the appearance in,Nature of the two articles by Gerald S. Hawkins, Professor of Astronomy at Boston University, in 1963 and 1964 [3]. The first of these claimed the discovery of a number of additional alignments of astronomical significance, marked by pairs of stones and other features of the site; and the second suggested that the Aubrey Holes had been used as a neolithic 'computer' for the prediction of movements of the moon and of eclipses. Subsequently these theories received much wider publicity, in Britain as well as in the United States, through a CBS television programme, The Mystery of Stonehenge, which provided a superb example of partiality and tendentiousness in the presentation of an academic controversy.

Professor Hawkins has now elaborated his ideas in a book whose title, Stonehenge Decoded, leaves no doubt of his confidence in the rightness of his conclusions-a confidence explicity echoed in his text. 'There can be no doubt that Stonehenge was an observatory; the impartial mathematics of probability and the celestial sphere are on my side' (p. vii). 'I think I have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that the monument was deliberately, accurately, skilfully oriented to the sun and the moon' (pp. 146-7). 'I think I have put forward the best theory to account for the otherwise unexplained holes' (p. 147). 'I think there is little else in these areas that can be discovered at Stonehenge'(p. 147).