There are few districts which can compete with north Oxfordshire in respect to the number of beautiful churches rich in architectural details, and still retaining much of the ornate work so lavishly bestowed upon them during the middle ages; and Banbury, once itself possessing a magnificent church, may well be selected as a convenient centre for the student of our ecclesiastical architecture.

The Joint Expedition of the British Museum and the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania has now completed its second season's work in Mesopotamia. This time I had with me Mr. C. J. Gadd, of the British Museum, for work upon the inscriptions; Mr. F. G. Newton (who came from Egypt to join us in January) for the architectural side; and Mr. G. M. FitzGerald for general archaeological work: to all three I am indebted for a companionship as pleasant as their help was invaluable. From Carchemish I brought two of my old native foremen, Hamoudi and Abd es Salaam, and the son of the former; owing to their presence we were able to undertake two sites at once, and while the bulk of the men were employed on clearing the Ziggurat at Ur, under the supervision of Messrs. Gadd and FitzGerald, I could devote most of my time to the excavation of Tell el Obeid, where Hamoudi was in charge of sixty local Arabs camped in tents on the ruins. The two excavations, being quite distinct in character and geographically, will be dealt with in two reports: the present account treats of Tell el Obeid, the more ancient site.

The little ivory figure which our Fellow Captain Acland, curator of the Dorset County Museum at Dorchester, has been kind enough to allow me to show here this evening is certainly of very remarkable beauty and interest (pl. XXIX, 1). It has not hitherto been published or described in any way. In its present state it measures just over five and an eighth inches in height (thirteen centimetres), and the missing feet would I suppose have brought it up to about six inches. It is carved in morse ivory (walrus-tooth) which has acquired an exquisite greyish-brown patina giving it something of the appearance of onyx. There is a rather serious split running all round the edge. The surface, except in the few places where it has been worn away, is highly polished and has been worked with the utmost delicacy, particularly noticeable in the hair, in the elaborately folded drapery over the right thigh and knee, and in the uncovered right hand. The face has been slightly rubbed, but the left side is still in the main well preserved, and has a curious flavour of archaic Greek sculpture about it. The eyes are drilled out, evidently for the insertion of small beads of jet or black glass.

Professor T. Zammit was so kind as to invite me, during a short visit to Malta in March and April 1921, to conduct supplementary excavations under the torba floors of the sanctuary at Hal-Tarxien, which he had discovered and excavated. The results are not without interest both for the history of the building and from the nature of the objects found. They bear out Professor Zammit's conclusions as to the relative date of the various portions of the building; and we may add that the spiral decorations and small niches found in the temple of the second period all appear to belong to the latest (third) period in the history of the whole. It also unfortunately seems clear that we have not, as I had hoped, acquired any information to help us in the dating of the various forms and decorations which we find in the pottery of Malta. The excavations in those parts of the building which belonged to the first and second periods revealed in almost every case the existence of an earlier floor below that which had previously been cleared. Taking the earliest building first, we found that the slabs in the right-hand apses BB, DD (which are alone preserved, the left-hand apses having been destroyed by subsequent alterations) rested upon the rock, which had been cut away so as to follow their curve, and were kept in place by inclination against one another, smaller stones being placed to block up the interstices between them.

On the 15th July, 1099, Jerusalem was captured from the infidels by the knights and soldiers of the First Crusade. The decisive attack was delivered from a remarkable wooden tower, designed and constructed by Guglielmo Embriaco, commander of the Genoese. There were days and I dare say weeks of rejoicing by the victorious host, and then it began to melt away. The object of the crusade seemed to have been attained; in batches large or small the crusaders returned to their homes by sea or by land. Thus when Baldwin became king of Jerusalem he had only three hundred horse and as many foot soldiers left to defend the city, and it must have fallen if the Saracens had delivered an attack. Just at this time, in the spring of 1101, a Genoese fleet of thirty-six galleys, six ships, and eight thousand fighting men, under the aforesaid Admiral Guglielmo Embriaco arrived at Jaffa. It will easily be understood that the crusade itself and the consequent settlement of parts of Palestine and Syria by European immigrants had created a considerable opportunity for trade between the Levant and Italy. Venice had already a strong position at Constantinople, and practically controlled the trade from that capital. The Pisans had made good their position at Antioch and thereabouts. The Genoese realized that, if a share of this lucrative trade was to be theirs, it behoved them to bestir themselves and obtain privileges for the South.

One of the most revolutionary reconstructions of history propounded by Professor Rostovtseff in his recent book on Iranians and Greeks in Southern Russia (Oxford University Press, 1922), would appear to have passed unchallenged; and yet, if it were accepted, it would surely mean that no inconsiderable part of the history of the Roman Empire and its invaders would have to be rewritten, or at least conceived in a new light. From the results of the excavation of German graves in South Russia dating apparently from the first century B.C. and from the first and second centuries of our era, he has demonstrated that the Dnieper basin was gradually occupied by German tribes during the early period of the Roman Empire, and that it is only in the light of this fact that we are able fully to understand the invasion of South Russia by the Goths. ‘The Gothic invasion was not the first, but the last act of the activity of the Germans in South Russia.’

Park Brow is a ridge of the South Downs, running roughly north and south. The southern end of the hill, upon which three early inhabited sites have been found, abuts on the valley from which rises the higher hill crowned by Cissbury camp. On Park Brow there is clear evidence of the presence of man in ancient days. Very many lynchets or steep banks are found, a sunken trackway runs along the southern crest of the hill, adjoining which, where it passes the Early Iron Age site, is seen an embanked pit; while over the greater part of this area, as well as in the adjoining valleys, fragments of ancient pottery, rough flint scrapers, and other implements, together with many flint flakes, can be picked up.

Although the Romans were mining lead in the Mendips by A. D. 49, it seems almost certain that they did not begin seriously to work the Cornish tin-mines for another two hundred years. We only know of one site at which they appear to have mined tin in the first century: the earthwork at Tregear, close to Bodmin, was probably occupied by Roman tin-workers under Vespasian, but it does not seem to have outlasted the reign of Trajan. Cornwall contains no other Roman site of the first or second century; and the isolated finds of that period, which are almost exclusively single coins, are evidence of trade and not of occupation.

Four and a half miles west of Witney on the south side of the high road from that town to Burford, and immediately opposite the point at which the by-road to the villages of Asthall and Swinbrook descends steeply into the valley of the Windrush from the high ridge along which the main road passes, stands Asthall Barrow (fig. 1), one of the most prominent landmarks in the whole county. It commands an unrivalled view of the Thames valley from Lechlade to Wytham Hill. Northwards across the Windrush valley Leafield Barrow stands out on the sky-line; southwards appear Faringdon Hill and beyond it the Berkshire Downs at White Horse Hill, while to the south-east across the high ridge on the right bank of the Thames at Tubney, Sinodun Hill near Dorchester comes into view with the Chilterns in the distant background.

The Dolmen goddess, who is represented in somewhat varying forms on the statue-menhirs of France, is of doubtful origin. M. Salomon Reinach suggests the western world: M. Déchelette, in his Manuel d'Archéologie, favours the eastern, and says that as the cult becomes more sporadic the farther it spreads from the regions of the Mediterranean, so should its origin be sought in a region neighbouring the Aegean littoral, or at least further south than France; he refers to finds of Sir Arthur Evans in Crete, and Dr. Schliemann at Hissarlik. M. Louis Siret would persuade us that the earliest and less distinct figures on the stones represent but primitive symbols of the deified elements.

The Shrine of St. Swithun was, next to that of St. Thomas of Canterbury, perhaps the most famous and important in the south of England. Indeed, many of the pilgrims going to Canterbury broke their journey at Winchester in order to pay their vows at this shrine, and to rest their weary limbs for a day or two in the Guest House of St. Swithun's monastery.

Fourteen bronze axe-heads of the palstave type were found in an earthen bowl 3 ft. below the surface in Southend Brickfield at a spot approximately 200 ft. from the west corner of the Girls' National School, and 510 ft. from the south-west corner of No. 1, Dodinga. The bowl was broken, and the base and the greater part of the lower part were not recovered; but sufficient of the upper part was saved to give the approximate diameter and enough of the sides to give the profile except at the base. It is hand-made and burnt a dark brown. After restoration in May 1923, it has a diameter at the mouth of 7⅞ in., and a maximum diameter of 9¾ in. The lip is slightly incurved and 1½ in. below it a shallow irregular groove ½ in. wide encircles the bowl. Below this, 2¼ in. from the lip, is a single row of impressed double circles, approximately ¼ in. in diameter and in. apart. Below these a band ¾ in. wide of six horizontal uneven lines, the row of circles being repeated below. The total width of the ornamental band, consisting of two rows of circles and the six lines between, is 1⅝ in.

Before being presented to the British Museum by Mr. G. W. Smith, two pottery vessels of exceptional interest were exhibited to the Society on 6th December 1923, and are here illustrated from photographs. Both have been made up from fragments, but the result is unusually successful inasmuch as the fractures were recent and very little was missing in either case, the profiles above all being complete and the bases unquestionable.

Some few hundred yards west of Minster church there is a small farm known as ‘Watchester’, a name which is significant and suggests the place has a Roman origin. Standing there and looking south over the flat expanse of the Minster Marshes, one can well imagine it the landing-place of vessels when the area was covered by the sea. Northwards from this village the road leading to Birchington is doubtless also Roman; almost at the top of the first hill, in digging graves in the modern cemetery, many fragments and complete vessels of pottery have for some years past been unearthed.

Our Fellow Mr. E. T. Leeds, in his account of the Asthall barrow in Oxfordshire (Antiquaries Journal, iv, 122), records the occurrence of a vase of wheelmade ware decorated with an angular pattern impressed with a roller stamp. This is dated by the associated bronzes, which are of seventh-century type.

In the course of a search for material likely to be useful in an inquiry into the evolution of the sailing ship in Northern Europe I was attracted to the surviving mural paintings of St. Christopher, for now and then we find a masted vessel or row boat in the stream through which the saint wades. The immediate result was disappointing, for I found only twenty-three pictures with vessels of any kind; moreover the small size of the latter precludes insertion of the details of rigging or other gear, besides which a mural painting is a work of the picture-poster order, strong lines to produce an impression at a distance. The only instance of a vessel of particular value to a student of nautical archaeology I found is in the well-preserved paintings in Breage (St. Breaca's) church in Cornwall, which is seen on the left side of fig. 18. The picture is c. 1490, the date of the church, and for that time the topsail is noticeably large, while the sheets being led to the yard-arms of the main course is a point of interest in view of the controversy whether early topsails, which came into use in the second half of the fifteenth century, were usually sheeted to the tops or to the yard-arms below. As material accumulated it seemed worth while attempting a summary of our knowledge of the mural paintings of St. Christopher in English churches, in respect of their distribution, survival, and the details of the conventional representation.

The following notes consist of brief accounts of, and comments upon, some examples of English alabaster work, most of which have been exhibited before the Society at different times and are at present (1924) on loan at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington.

The five matrices of ecclesiastical seals exhibited to-night were bought by the writer from a dealer in antiquities in the county of Durham. Of their previous history nothing appears to be known. The writer is unable to identify two of them with any certainty, but it is hoped that their publication may lead to their identification being established. The silver matrix of the armorial seal (no. 6), exhibited by our Fellow Mr. R. C. Bosanquet, was recently found by him among a collection of family seals, medals, etc., dating from the early part of the nineteenth century; there is no record of how or when it came into the possession of his family.

A study of this great earthwork proves that at some period of our history a resident people or a retiring nation wished to cut off the whole of south-west England from a northern enemy. To accomplish this purpose a huge bank with its ditch to the north was carried from near Portishead in Somerset right across Wiltshire, ending somewhere near Andover (Hants), between which place and the sea the low-lying watery valleys of the Anton and Test would in themselves be sufficient protection without an earthwork: thus the whole of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, and Dorset, together with parts of Wilts, Somerset, and Hampshire, were shut in and completely protected. After drawing the above line on a map it will at once be noticed that the usual rule of human effort—to do things with the least possible labour— has not been followed, as the left flank of the dyke, instead of resting on the Avon at or near Bath, has been at great labour carried across the stony Somerset hills to the open sea: this extra length was dictated by some powerful reason, the explanation being (as I read the evidence) that the enemy was in command of a fleet of small boats by which they could at any time land on the southern bank of the Avon (the Somerset shore). To guard against this the dyke Was built south of and above the Avon valley: we may suppose also that the invaders were without boats large enough to face the open sea or that the inhabitants of the Somerset and Devon shores were numerous or brave enough to defend themselves.

A recent addition to the Museum of Archaeology and of Ethnology, Cambridge, is due to Mr. G. E. Daintree, of Boughton, Stoke Ferry, Norfolk, and I have to thank the Curator, our Fellow Mr. L. C. G. Clarke, for permission to publish it.