On the 29th of June, 1910, at the consecration of Westminster Cathedral, a curious piece of ritual was performed called ‘The Ceremony of the Alphabet’, almost identical with a ceremony which had been witnessed by the London of a by-gone day at the dedication of Westminster Abbey in 1065. The Times of 29 June 1910 described the ceremony as follows:

‘On the floor of the spacious nave, from the main entrance to the sanctuary, were painted in white two broad paths, which connected the corners diagonally opposite, and intersecting at the centre of the nave formed a huge figure x, or St. Andrew’s Cross. Where the lines converged was placed a faldstool ; and here the Archbishop, still in cope and mitre, knelt in prayer, while the choir continued to sing the ancient plainsong of the “ Sarum Antiphoner ” … Meanwhile attendants were engaged in strewing the nave with ashes. This meant the laying of small heaps of the ashes, about two yards apart, along the lines of the St. Andrew’s Cross. Beside each heap of ashes was placed a piece of cardboard containing a letter of the alphabet–the Greek on one line and the Latin on the other. The Archbishop then went towards the main entrance, attended by the deacon and sub-deacon, and preceded by the Crucifix carried between lighted candles. Starting first from the left-hand corner Dr Bourne advanced along one path of the St. Andrew’s Cross, tracing with the end of his pastoral staff the letters of the Greek alphabet on the heaps of ashes ; and returning again to the main entrance repeated the process on the other path, tracing this time on the heaps of ashes the letters of the Latin alphabet. This curious ceremony is variously interpreted as symbolizing the union of the Western and Eastern Churches, or the teaching of the rudiments of Christianity, and as a survival of the Roman augurs in laying their plans for the construction of a temple, or as the procedure of Roman surveyors in valuing land for fiscal purposes’.

The Horn of Ulph is one of the principal treasures of York Minster. It is exhibited in the Chapter House, and is well-known to visitors; but in spite of its fame this celebrated antiquity cannot be studied quickly and conveniently away from the Minster,l and the Dean of York has therefore rendered an important service to scholars by allowing Mr C. J. P. Cave to take the fine photographs reproduced here (PLATES I-V).

The horn is one of the so-called ‘oliphants’, i.e. horns made from tusks of elephant-ivory, and it is a particularly noble example, being both large and handsome, with a maximum length of 2 feet 4 inches and a mouth 5 inches in diameter. The ivory has coloured to a warm orange brown with rich cloudings and gradations in tone, the sunken fields in the carved zones having darkened almost to black; but though it is thus venerable in appearance, the horn is excellently preserved, and the unimpaired lustrous gIeam of the figures in relief and of the unornamented surface does much to enhance the mellow beauty of this magnificent piece. The shaft is faceted on the top and bottom with a gentle ribbing, as soft as the ‘bone’ of a good Malacca cane; but the flanks are rounded, and the section near the mouth is a natural oval. The metal fittings are silver-work of the 17th century, and consist of a plain rim and two inscribed bands to which are fastened the ends of the chain. The Latin inscription on the mounts states that the horn, having been given [to the Minster] by Ulph, a chieftain of western Deira, with all his lands, was subsequently lost or stolen, and afterwards restored and re-mounted by Henry Lord Fairfax in 1675.

Brunanburh was fought in the late summer of 937 between king Athelstan and all the might of England on one side, and the viking Olaf Guthfrithson, king of Dublin and claimant to the throne of York, and his ally Constantine II, king of Scots, upon the other. The thousandth anniversary of this British battle of the nations is an occasion for reviewing critically the evidence upon the disputed question of its site. The well-known poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, being impressionist rather than narrative, provides only two or three slight clues; the Latin poem preserved by William of Malmesbury,l of early but uncertain date, helps us only a little further; and the Northumbrian annals used by Symeon of Durham seem to have supplied him with an alternative name for the battlefield but no other indication of its locality. Judgment must therefore be based largely upon the names by which the battle was known and upon traditions preserved by writers who had no claim to be contemporary; and the reliability of such evidence must be tested.

Among the many ancient stone monuments in the British Isles there are few which are so little known as the small related group found standing chiefly on high moorland overlooking the Cheshire Plain on the southeast side of Manchester.

Four survive in various stages of decay, and they take the form of large roughly rectangular or oval blocks of stone with two adjacent circular or rectangular sockets on their upper faces, which sockets either still contain or have contained upright stone pillars.

Some important archaeological finds have been made in the course of recent excavations in Thrace, throwing a completely new light on its relations with Greece. Among the most important are the tholos-tombs or bee-hive tombs (Kuppelgräber) of Mezek.

Mezek is a village in southern Bulgaria, quite near the Greek frontier ; it lies at the foot of the easternmost outlier of the Rhodope range, about 6 km. southwest of the railway station of Svilengrad, from which it can easily be reached in a car. Several tumuli can be seen near the village, chief among them being the hill called Mal-Tepe (the ‘ hill of the treasure ’), 14 m. high and about 90 m. in diameter. As far back as 1903, when Mezek was still in Turkish hands, the bronze statue of a boar was discovered near the hill, and four years later was placed in the museum at C~nstantinople. This find led the museum authorities to make excavations there, but with no result of any note, and it was not until 1931 that some of the local residents were able to penetrate to the burial-place beneath the hill. All their finds are carefully preserved in the national museum at Sofia. At the same time, the Bulgarian Archaeological Institute has undertaken a complete investigation on the actual site, with the result that a number of important details have been ascertained.

The first historical account of the JUEGO DE LOS VOLADORES of the Mexican Indians is to be found in Fr. Juan de Torquemada's De la Monarquía Indiana. The relevant passage, which internal evidence shows to have been written in 1612, is to be found in book 10 chapter 38. Preserving the complexities and angularities of the style it may be translated as follows:-

Among other forms of diversion, which these Western Indians had and with which they increased the solemnity of their festivals and gave pleasure to those present, was a manner of flying which they had, describing circles through the air, fastened by cords which hung from a stout, tall mast; and for the greater solace of the reader I will describe in words how it was done.

Periodical reference to the ‘Mysterious Ruined Cities of Somaliland’, citing them as an ‘unsolved riddle of Africa’, have appeared in books and articles from time to time. The majority of these ruined towns lie in the west of British Somaliland, within the present administrative district of Borama, or across the frontier in the adjacent areas of Ethiopia, roughly half way between the ancient port of Zeila and the walled town of Harar. The Somalis of today can throw no light on their history.

A series of investigations were carried out by Captain R. H. R. Taylor and myself during the week-ends available in 1934. The sites of ten ruined towns were already more or less vaguely known, while eleven new sites, off the beaten track and overgrown with bush, in both Ethiopia and British Somaliland, were one by one traced and visited as leave permitted. Circumstances did not permit of excavation beyond the clearing out of two houses and the sinking of a trial trench across a refuse heap, but notes were made and a careful record kept of all surface finds. The representative collection of relics brought home and presented to the Department of Ethnology of the British Museum amounted to several thousand items, mostly fragmentary. The numerous types of objects were classified and made it possible to assign the period of occupation of the towns to the 15th and 16th centuries.

TIl-BArsib. Par F. Thureau-Dangin et Maurice Dunand avec le concours de Lucien Cavro et Georges Dossin. Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1936. pp. 166 with Album of 53 plates and 5 plans. 200 francs.

This volume is a most important contribution to the archaeology of Syria. Tell-’Ahmar, which lies on the left bank of the Euphrates, 20 kilometres below Carchemish, marks the site of the ancient city of Til-Barsib. As long ago as 1908 the late Dr Hogarth had suggested the identification of this mound with Barsib, and in 1911 Dr Campbell Thompson proved the correctness of Hogarth’s surmise by copying and translating an Assyrian inscription which lay on the mound. After making preliminary soundings in 1927 a French Expedition under the auspices of the MusCe du Louvre set to work in 1929 and the excavations, involving a total of seven months’ work in all, were concluded in 1931. This volume, lavishly illustrated, describes in detail the remarkable results.