The Treasury of Atreus is one of the most important monuments of the Bronze Age in Greece and is universally recognized as the supreme example of Mycenaean architecture. It is also the finest of all the many beehive or tholos tombs which are such a striking feature of Mycenaean culture. The beehive-tomb is essentially a creation of the architecture of the Greek mainland and of Mycenaean as opposed to Minoan building. In Crete so far three beehive-tombs of Bronze Age date are known, two of which—one at Hagios Theodoros and another just found at Knossos—date from late L.M. III, the very end of the Bronze Age. The third, found at Knossos in 1938, is not to be dated earlier than 1500 B.C. All three are small and poorly constructed. The Early Bronze Age circular ossuaries of Mesarà in Crete, often erroneously described as beehive-tombs, are, as Professor Marinatos has provel nothing of the kind. On the other hand, on the Greek Mainland and in the islands immediately adjacent to it, at least forty beehive-tombs are so far known. These figures are enough to indicate that the beehivetomb is a product of Mainland or Mycenaean rather than of Cretan or Minoan architecture. More accurate information about the date and construction of the Treasury of Atreus, the finest of all the beehivetombs, cannot fail to enlarge our knowledge of the history and art of the Mycenaean civilization.

One of the many pitfalls encountered in the search for evidence of roses in ancient times is the use of the word ‘rose’ in connexion with flowers having no association whatever with roses, e.g. the Rose of Jericho and the Rose of Sharon. This is particularly true of references in the Old Testament, although some of them, notably in Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom of Solomon and Esdras, undoubtedly refer to the rose and rose bushes. Wild roses flourish in Palestine, an attractive type being Rosa phoenicea, whose clusters of creamy-white bloom are sufficiently striking to invite attention. This rose would be known to the ancients, for it is found scattered in numerous localities in the Troad and Syria. It is, of course, impossible to record with reasonable certainty the full tale of roses with which the ancient world was familiar, but sufficient sources of information remain to enable a fair appraisal to be made. Some of the roses have stayed in cultivation down the centuries, and are still grown in gardens. Others, such as the ‘.twice-blooming’ roses of Paestum, have vanished, and an exact description is impossible.

The study of Greek board-games is almost wholly inconclusive, owing to the scanty and extremely imprecise evidence available. Difficulties would in any case be inevitable, since most games are better grasped in actual play than by studying a set of written rules; and here the technicalities are expressed in a foreign language and were sometimes not clear even to their users, who cheerfully omit what they do not understand, or take it for granted that the reader is familiar with the main details. Further, the games so described by our authorities had often been long obsolete. Some of the difficulties may be realized by trying to reconstruct a game of Ombre entirely from Pope’s Rape of the Lock, or a game of cricket from Dickens’ account of All Muggleton v. Dingley Dell (even with the help of Mr A. G. Macdonell’s searching critique of that famous match). Here is an example of a rather different kind, which well shows the pitfalls of unfamiliar teiminology; it is translated from K. Silex’s John Bull xu Hause, and is an attempt to explain cricket to Germans. ‘Two teams of II men oppose each other; two “wickets” are set [how ?] in the ground at a distance of 20 metres, being three wooden sticks [how high ?], over which two rods (Stäbe) are laid [how?]. The aim is to hit the wicket with a ball [how big?] or to knock off the rods with it. One side defends the wicket, the other attacks; the defenders post before each wicket [where ?] a “batsman” with a striker (Schläger): the other side opposes him with a “bowler” who tries to hit the wicket with the ball [how?]. Two men only of the defence are in actual play, the rest wait their turn’ … etc.

The wonderful find at Trelleborg: near Slagelse in Denmark is all too little known in this country. In fact the name of Trelleborg itself is practically unknown, or confused with the town of the same name in Sweden.

The site is one of the most important earthworks in Denmark. The rampart measures 25 metres in thickness. It lies on the eastern shore of the Great Belt, and as Herr Poul Nörlund, the explorer of the site, himself says of it: ‘Trelleborg lies even now so much out of the way that there are few places in the much built-up coast of Vestsjæland which are so difficult to find, with no direct road leading to it’.

Whithorn in Galloway and Kirkmadrine nearby are famous to the archaeologist and historian as the homes of the oldest Christian monuments in Scotland, namely the memorial stones still to be found there. They were erected in a district where the church history of Scotland originated through the efforts of St. Ninian. A few lines in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, III, 4, contain the earliest traditions about him which have come down to us. According to this late record, ‘Nynia’ was a British bishop who brought the Christian faith to the southern Picts (australes Picti). He had got his spiritual instruction in Rome, and had his episcopal see and his last resting-place amidst other saints-at Whithorn, Ad Candidam Casam, so called after the church dedicated to St. Martin which he built of stone, a fashion unusual to the Britons. As to his age, Bede merely says that he was at work a long time before St. Columba came to the northern Picts in 565. The intercourse with Rome can hardly have been later than the fifth century; a dedication to St. Martin who probably died in 397, cannot have been made before the same century. When Bede finished his History in 731, Whithorn was under Northumbrian rule, belonging to the northern ‘province’ of Bernicia. An English episcopal seat had been erected there shortly before, having Pecthelm as first bishop (Hist. eccl v, 23); he had been a long time deacon and monk in Wessex with Aldhelm, the abbot of Malmesbury and bishop of Sherborne, famous for his writings, who died in 709. Pecthelm was one of Bede’s authorities (ib., v. 13, 18); so it has been suggested that the latter was indebted to Pecthelm for his knowledge of Ninian. Pecthelm was one of the correspondents of St. Boniface who also came from Wessex, and who wrote him a letter on a question of canonical law shortly before he (Pecthelm) died in 735. It must also be noted that Bede distinguishes clearly between Whithorn, situated amongst the British, and the Pictish country, the scene of Ninian’s missionary efforts.

On the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire, the upland country of northern England always belonged to the military zone. Even today, anyone traversing the wild fells of Pennine or Cheviot, which form its backbone, can soon appreciate why this should be: and understanding becomes complete when imagination has pierced the dark vista of medieval forest and outlaws’ haunts and apprehended a state of affairs when the bounds between man and nature were still more loosely defined. No Anglian settler had yet begun to clear the overgrown dales for farm, hamlet and township. Man was eking out an unenviable existence between forest and fell, selecting where he could the limestone shelves whose natural drainage afforded him good pasturage and meagre tillage. Two closely related factors thus determined the political character of the country. Forest and fell not only gave cover to enemies and outlaws but at the same time prevented the growth of flourishing agricultural communities, such as were capable of developing social instincts receptive of civilization. The result was chronic unrest and potential hostility to civil government.

To understand the beginnings of civilization in the Far East, we must view them in the light of the laws that govern cultural progress everywhere. Especially must we consider the region’s geographical position and relationship to other lands. As a glance at a map, or better still a terrestrial globe, will show, it occupies a marginal portion of the Eurasiatic continent taken as a whole. That this fact carries with it certain implications, the study of culture-building in general abundantly shows.

The Roman villa at Lockleys, Welwyn (the excavation of which was described in Antiquaries Journal, 1938, XVIII, 339–76), happened to provide more evidence than is usual of the character of the superstructures which once stood upon the surviving foundations. It has therefore seemed worth while to attempt a restorcation-drawing of the house as it appeared in Roman times. The drawing, which is reproduced in the accompanying plate, is the work of Mr H. C. Lander, who has based it upon the results of the excavation, supplemented where necessary by analogies from other sites. It obviously cannot hope to claim complete accuracy of detail, but probably it does give a not wholly untrustworthy picture of a small middle-class native farmer’s house in the late second or early third century A.D.