It was in the middle of the nineteenth century that the site of Ur was identified and the excavation of its ruins begun by G. E. Taylor, consul at Basra, acting on behalf of the British Museum. A number of antiquities was brought back to London, but the unsensational character of the finds in southern Mesopotamia caused them to be overshadowed by the striking discoveries then being made in the northern mounds, and work was abandoned, not to be resumed until the Great War put the British in temporary possession of the country and gave it a fresh interest in the eyes of the public. In the latter part of the war Mr. R. Campbell Thompson, working for the British Museum, made soundings at Ur, but did not carry out extensive excavations; in 1919 Dr. H. R. Hall was sent out by the Trustees and began a systematic investigation of the site, employing a considerable force of men for nearly three months, and obtaining important results. Dr. Hall's work made it evident that if the site of Ur was to be tackled seriously, a whole series of campaigns extending over many years and involving very heavy outlay would be required, campaigns to which the post-war finances of the British Museum were by no means adequate. Fortunately the Trustees were at this juncture able to join forces with the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, and it was decided that an expedition should take the field at the joint expense of the two institutions, which should also share with the Iraq Government in the material results of the work. Of this joint expedition I was asked to take charge. Mr. F. G. Newton came as architect of the party, Mr. Sidney Smith of the British Museum dealt with the inscriptions, and at the end of the year we were joined by Mr. A. W. Lawrence. Hamoudi, my Carchemish foreman, was put in charge of the men; the actual labourers were the Muntafik Arabs of the district. Digging started at the beginning of November and went on without interruption, owing to an unusually clement winter, until halfway through February.

The manner of discovering the objects found was unusual, and their presence quite unlooked for. It was as follows. A carriage drive leading to a modern house was being repaired during the early days of January of the present year (1923). One of the men employed on the work brought up the neck of an earthenware pitcher on the point of his pick, which upon examination suggested Roman origin. The remainder of the pitcher was unearthed, and further investigations made. The ground was of stiff clay mixed with flints, and much blackened with an admixture of charcoal. Digging was difficult as the weather was very wet at the time and water flowed freely into the excavation.

The inscription reproduced in the accompanying plate is cut on the abacus of the northern pier of the chancel arch in the little church of St. James at Clapton, set on the hill-side above Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire. Attention wasfirstcalled to it by the late Mr. Ulric Daubeny, who assigned the building to the last quarter of the twelfth century. The lettering is of the Early Gothic (popularly called ‘Lombardic’) type, which prevailed from about 1200 to 1350, and therefore the inscription is probably not older than the thirteenth century. But the forms of the letters are sometimes peculiar, if not unique; and they seem to have been produced partly by the use of compasses. Some letters (e.g. E and 1) are not always formed in exactly the same way; while others, as we shall see, appear to be minuscule forms, such as are found in manuscripts of the period. The whole gives the impression of being the work of an amateur rather than of a professional carver.

The late Bronze Age founder's hoard, which I have the honour of exhibiting, was found during excavations at the ‘Wandsworth Works’ of the Wandsworth, Wimbledon, and Epsom District Gas Company on IIth April 1923. The site is 150 yards south from the Thames, and was formerly known as ‘Church Walk’ and ‘Warple Road’, now both done away with. The soil had been considerably made up, and the hoard, which was in yellow sand, was about six feet from the present surface, but probably not more than about two feet from the original ground level. The weight of the hoard is about 9¾ lb. The objects, which were found together in a heap, are seventeen in number, and of these eight are lumps of founder's metal weighing together 6½ lb. From the dark red colour of the bronze it would seem that the percentage of tin is small, or it may be copper cake.

The parish church of St. James, Nayland, Suffolk, on the Essex borders, dates mainly from the fourteenth and early fifteenth century. The rood-loft stairs are visible on the south side of the chancel arch, but the rood-screen itself has entirely gone. It was taken down apparently in the eighteenth century, or perhaps earlier, and portions of its framework, consisting of three arches, can be seen incorporated in the grained and varnished partition, fitted in front with three large ‘horse-box’ pews, below the gallery at the west end of the church.

The interesting but detestable creature, the subject of these notes, does not seem hitherto to have inspired any enthusiasm in the antiquarian breast, for I have been unable to find any paper relating to it in the journals of archaeological societies. There is, however, a popular account in Princess Mary's Gift-book for 1914, consisting of a translation by the late Teixeira de Mattos of J. H. Fabre's story of the ant-lion and its habits, with a coloured plate, both of which accurately reproduce its pernicious activities.

A stretch of about four yards of the Roman Stane Street, or rather the core of it, which I have recently laid bare at Alfoldean, near Slinfold, Sussex, was made up of two layers of biggish slabs of local stone set in sand on top of the local clay. The surface of the Roman road had been used in the make-up of the modern road (1810), but plenty of it is scattered about in the fields, and i t is quite obvious that it was composed of three elements: chert from the lower greensand at Petworth and Fittleworth, flints from the South Downs, and sea-pebbles from the south coast, probably Shoreham. This definite datum, and the knowledge that near Rowhook on the line of the Rowhook-Farley Heath road, as marked on the Ordnance map, was a field traditionally called ‘Stone Field’, prompted me to test the line for road-metal, after having obtained permission from Mr. Lee Steere, of Ockley, and a series of friendly landowners and farmers.