Readers of ANTIQUITY are already aware that the second campaign at Ras Shamra—that of the spring of 1930—brought to light several new Phoenician texts. Amongst these pride of place must be given to ten fragments representing in all about a thousand lines of a kind of epic poem, whose various scenes are all laid in the world of the gods. The fragmentary state of the poem increases the difficulties of interpretation, which in any case would have been considerable ; nevertheless, by means of the careful analysis of certain episodes we can now form some sort of general conception of Phoenician mythology as it was about the time of the Ramessids and Amenophis (c. 16th-13th cent. B.c.). In the present article I propose to give a summary account of the results of my researches in this direction.

The gods and goddesses thus brought to life again are more than fifty in number. But two stand out from amongst the rest, and these two are precisely those whom one would expect to find holding higher rank in a document emanating from Phoenicia-El and Baal.

In his classic work on the Bronze Age pottery of Britain the late Lord Abercromby adopted the old division of the class of beaker pottery into three types originally proposed by Dr Thurnam as far back as 1871. In order that Abercromby may not be misrepresented I propose to quote the essential portions of his definitions. In type A, the ‘ high-brimmed globose beaker ’, ‘ the body is more or less globular ; the upper part, separated from the body by a constriction, frequently very defined, spreads out like the calyx of a flower and forms a brim or neck that almost equals the body in height. The sides of the neck or rim . . . are straight and not recurved at the lip ’. In type B, the ‘ ovoid beaker with recurved rim ’, ‘ there is no distinct demarca- tion between the body and the rim, but the one glides into the other by a gradual curve ’. Finally type C, the ‘ low-brimmed beaker ’, ‘ may be regarded ’, in Abercromby's own words, ‘ as a debased variety of our first type ’.

It should be clear already I think that in labelling his types A, B, and C Abercromby has given the false impression that we have three types of beákers, whereas what we really have are two types, of which one has a ‘debased variety’. We therefore suggest that a less misleading classification would be, for instance, A(x), A(Y), and B. This may seem a trifling point but we believe it has helped to obscure the proper recognition of the true dual character of the Beaker invasion of this country. We propose to substantiate the validity of our suggestion in the course of this short paper.

One of the most important finds made during last (1929–30) season's excavation at Nineveh, is the collection of beads from 0 what Dr Campbell Thompson, the Director, calls the bead- layer. This layer was about 6 feet thick and situated at a depth of from 27 to 33 feet below the surface on a portion of the site called A and B. In addition, some other beads were found at lesser depths on the part of the site called H, which I think I can show are very closely connected with those from the bead-layer.

How such a large number of beads came to be collected together here it is difficult to explain. As they were found in what appears to be the bed of a small rivulet they may have been washed down.1 The lie of the land at this point makes it probable, but if so they must have been washed out from a large cache at a period when they were very much stronger than today. In their present condition a few minutes rolling in a stream would disintegrate most of the faience beads. Possibly they came from the remains of a bead factory, and the fact that a number of pieces of slag have been found tends to make this theory plausible.

When one phase of decorative art for reasons historical, social, or religious, passes out of existence and is succeeded W by another, there generally occurs what is technically termed an ' overlap '. This is so common that it is often accepted without consideration as universal, and the expression ' Saxo-Norman overlap' is employed with reference to architecture of early twelfth century where it has validity, but also to decorative sculpture where it possesses no solid ground or meaning. Saxon stone carving is on different lines from Norman and the two do not coalesce, the Norman enriched tympanum carrying the Norman art, the free- standing carved cross the Saxon art. The above must be left for the moment as a statement which will later on receive its due explanation and support, but the subject of the present brief paper is germane to it.

It so happens that we possess datable specimens of late Saxon and early Norman sculpture in the shape of carved heads belonging to Saxon crosses that stood on the future site of the Norman Chapter House of Durham Cathedral and may be dated early in the eleventh century, and Norman enriched capitals of columns in the early Castle Chapel that can be placed in date before the year 1100.

During my leave to England in the spring of 1930, I revisited Iraq to acquaint myself further with the objects on view in the Baghdad Museum. As a result of excavations since I left that country the museum had acquired a large increase of material that I was not familiar with before, and I am now able to add to the links between the cultures of the Indus Valley and of Sumer which I have already pointed out in Mohenjo-dam and the Indus CiviZization,' to be published almost immediately.

On plate 146,fig. 43, of that book there is reproduced a red carnelian bead, bearing a somewhat elaborate design in white, that was found in the uppermost levels of the vs area. Several almost exactly similar beads found by Woolley in the early graves at Ur are now in the Baghdad Museum. The slight difference between the two designs, in that there are concentric circles on this first found Indian bead of the type in place of the single circles on the specimens from Ur, is negligible in face of the general similarity ; and especially in view of the fact that another of these beads has since been discovered at Mohenjo-daro with single circles, so that the design is identical with that on the beads from Ur (fig. 2).

Every archaeologist has at one time or another no doubt idly toyed with the attractive, if utterly impractical, idea of travelling backwards in time, and has seen himself, arrived within his ' period ', solving many problems by merely looking around him. Students of earthworks would give much to have been present at the building of a hillfort, for even if conversation with the builders were impossible, a great deal might be learned by watching the work in progress. We today, dealing with hillforts completed some two thousand years ago, find it difficult even after excavation to visualize the exact methods of construction of these defences.

There is however one example of a hillfort which is in that same unfinished state as our time-traveller might find were he on the Wessex Downs in the first few centuries B.C. True that he (lucky man !) would find the ditches newly dug and the rampart fresh piled chalk, while we today see them grass-grown and denuded; but never- theless these earthworks on Ladle Hill do help us to understand how they made those great green ramparts to protect their villages.