Carved wooden chests to contain the bones of the dead are peculiar to New Zealand and constitute a fine artistic achievement of the Maori people; they are little known or appreciated outside their country of origin. They include some macabre and disturbing imagery, consisting of a variety of divine or heroic figures both male and female, which are decoratively patterned in either incised or relief style. Some 60 examples are known, mostly in the museum collections at Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin, with a few more in small museums in New Zealand and a few in museums overseas, including one in the British Museum (Museum of Mankind) (Cranstone, 1953, 58). They have not hitherto been the subject of a special study and an archaeological appraisal is overdue.

This paper falls a little outside the normal scope of a paper for the Chateau Gaillard conference. It may not even be a paper, but—to use contemporary language—rather an anti-paper. Possibly, it will shock some of the audience. If so, I would like to say that such people need the shock.

The paper will not bring news from excavations, neither any new interpretations nor suggestions for new excavations. On the contrary, it deals with what should be left unexcavated. I intend to advance the opinion that generally too much is too ruthlessly excavated in places where the archaeological remains are not threatened by destruction.

This last phrase is the important one. It is evident that where archaeological sites are going to be removed anyhow due to construction of new roads, building activities or whatever may be the cause, it will always be an act of merit to squeeze every piece of archaeological information out of them by excavation beforehand. Therefore, the points of view advanced in this paper do not comprise rescue operations, but only the excavation of sites protected by the law, or by considerate owners, and consequently not exposed to any immediate danger of removal or other destructive activities.

James Mellaart’s attempt to demonstrate a ‘high’ chronology for Egypt and the Near East for the period of c. 4000-1500 BC will undoubtedly stimulate much discussion among historians and archaeologists. He has forcefully pointed out various problems which have arisen in trying to reconcile the standard historical chronologies established between and within individual countries. It is probably true that some scholars have treated the so-called ‘middle’ chronology as if it was almost sacred, and certainly some individuals have ignored radiocarbon dates (especially calibrated dates) if they appeared to be in conflict with results obtained from traditional historical and archaeological sources. But neither these faults, nor others pointed out by the author, justify his own methods of trying to demolish the middle chronology in favour of a significantly higher one. Since elsewhere in this issue Barry Kemp is presenting a critical review of Mellaart’s Egyptian historical data, and has included some remarks on the Egyptian radiocarbon dates, I will restrict my own remarks here largely to the Palestinian radiocarbon materials, and will only comment on the Egyptian C14 dates as they pertain to Palestinian Early Bronze Age chronology.

Mellaart is not the first, even in recent times, to query the Egyptian astronomical data, and in particular the reliability of the source for the Sothic date in Senusret 111’s reign which seems to offer the earliest independently fixed date in the Near East. In 1974, R. D. Long published an attack in the journal Orientalia, xLrIr, 261-74. This provoked a lengthy and careful response from the scholar whose name is most closely associated with the mathematical aspects of Egyptian calendars and chronology, R. A. Parker. This response provides a ready-made answer to Mellaart’s criticisms, and readers are referred to Parker’s paper for more detail (Parker, 1977). Mellaart makes two main points on this issue: the Egyptians may have made a mistake in the observation; the papyrus fragment in question is dated by indirect means and does not bear the name of the king in whose reign scholars have placed it.

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to a major change in the internal iconography of the Giant since it was first illustrated in 1764. If, as is highly probable, that illustration was substantially correct, the navel has in the meantime, through the vicissitudes of periods of neglect alternating with renovations from time to time, ceased to have a separate existence and has become added to the penis, increasing the length of the latter by some 5 or 6 feet (1.5-1.8m). If the change did not originate with the renovation of 1887 when the Giant was cleaned by order of General Pitt-Rivers, it was certainly perpetuated under his direction.

Apart from a reference to ‘illustrious Stanengs and his Cangick Giants’ (Gibbons, c. 1670), which is most unlikely to refer to the Cerne Giant, the earliest known definite allusion to this hill-figure was made by Francis Wise (1742, 48), who refrained from describing it in detail because he considered it preferable to leave the task to the Reverend John Hutchins, then working on his History of Dorset (1774 and later editions). The earliest known illustration to date was in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1764 (FIG, I a), accompanying a letter addressed to the editor, ‘Silvanus Urban’, unsigned but apparently not by Hutchins, who had supplied slightly different measurements to William Stukeley in October the previous year (Lukis 1883, 129-33).

One of the most widely-known narratives contained in Judaeo-Christian literature is that of ‘Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood’. The version best known to most English readers is derived from the translation of Genesis VI-VIII contained in the 1611 King James Version of the Bible and its subsequent revisions. According to this account, near the end of the Biblical Deluge, the Ark rested ‘upon the mountains of Ararat’. From this locality, according to the story, the ancestral stock of all terrestrial life, including mankind, left the Ark with the order that they ‘be fruitful and multiply upon the earth’. The Hebrew word which has been transliterated as Ararat in English texts may have been ultimately derived from an expression meaning ‘highlands’, and apparently referred to a region at the headwaters of the Tigris River which lay within the ancient boundaries of the Urartu of Assyrian records (Mellick, 1962).

‘A cairn supported at its edge by large stones may be removed. … The ring which is left looks like a stone circle.’ (Thom, 1967, 65).

Professor A. Thom has surveyed a large number of archaeological sites (Thom, 1967; 1971). These surveys provide the basis from which he deduces the existence of the Megalithic Yard (MY), Megalithic Geometry and Megalithic Astronomy. In considering his evidence for these aspects of ‘megalithic science’ it is pertinent to enquire of each site: Does it date from the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age? Is it correctly identified? Do the stones occupy their original positions? Is the site plan accurate? Has the site already been discussed, or since discussed, in the archaeological literature? The example of Unival, discussed in detail later, shows that here Thom has made a serious error in identifying the site, and very probably made surveying errors. These errors vitiate part of his discussion of an important site. This mis-identification, and similar ones, could have been avoided if the archaeological literature had been consulted.