In the following pages I propose, first, to give a short account of the locality in which the remarkable inscriptions which accompany this memoir were found, and of the circumstances which led to their discovery, and then to offer a few remarks on the nature of the inscriptions themselves, and of the method I have employed in endeavouring to decipher them.

This curious and, I believe, unique relic of antiquity is in the form of an ordinary Indian lotah, and measures as follows: Total height, 6¼ in.; diameter, 5½ in.; ditto at neck, 2 in.; with a projecting circular lip of ½ in. It is apparently wrought in some fine alloy of brass, copper, and spelter (?), the brass prevailing, and has resisted corrosion in a very remarkable manner; for the date which I would, from external evidence, assign it is between 200 and 300 A.D. It has evidently been treated with the greatest care; for we do not find upon it any signs of the constant polishing with sand and ashes which the lotahs of the natives undergo when in constant use, and which in a few years wears them quite thin.

The object published in these pages for the first time is of major interest for the history of Iranian metalwork. This eagle in the round is the largest animal bronze of the Sassanian period known to this day. It is of the highest quality and in comparatively good condition in spite of the accident which caused its two wings to be broken at some unknown time. I should therefore like to express my warmest thanks to Dr. von Manteuffel, Director of the Sculpture Department at the Berlin Dahlem Museum, and to Dr. Ursula Schlegel for generously giving me permission to publish this outstanding work of art. My gratitude goes also to Dr. Viktor Elbern, who very kindly encouraged me in this publication.

Tamil literature, particularly the earliest writing, is notoriously difficult to date. The body of factors influencing a decision in the matter is complex, and the degree of parochialism of the writer is not always the least important. Age is often assumed to be a synonym of quality, and it therefore appears desirable to push the beginnings as far back in time as possible if quality is to be proved. Without such efforts, however, an objective observer can safely say that Tamil contains literary works of a high standard dating from a period much further back in time than any other Indian language apart from Sanskrit. How far back is another question.

In a well-known collection of ritual notes, the Ta Tai Li (The Rites of the Elder Tai), considered to be earlier than the Han period (206 B.C.), there is a calendar section (No. 47), termed Hsia Hsiao Chêng (The Lesser Canon of the Hsia), which is traditionally regarded as a true relic of the Hsia dynasty (about 2000 B.C.). It was translated by DouglasR. K.Professor (Orientalia Antiqua, 1882) and was regarded by him and some other students as of great antiquity. On the other hand, it is very difficult to understand, in the light of modern discoveries as to the Shang culture (circa 1200 B.C.), how such a document could have been produced in 2000 B.C., and the more conservative students are unwilling to admit that it can be much older than, say, 500 B.C.

In reviewing the discoveries that have been made by the Archæological Department in India during the year 1908–9, I propose to start with one of unique historical interest—the only lithic record that has yet been found in which reference is made to the Indo-Greek rulers of the Panjab.

It is a matter of great importance that Bhāmaha's work on Rhetoric has been discovered, and we are now able to judge of his position among Sanskrit authors. A careful and critical study of the work will amply repay the trouble of the reader ; but from a cursory reading I have been able to gather the following particulars of the author and his work, which I trust may be of general interest to the Sanskritists of the present day.

The irruption of the Mongols led to profound changes in the political, cultural and confessional climate of the thirteenth-century Near East. While many did not survive the initial onslaught and the years of turmoil that followed, and rulers that opposed the Mongols were largely swept away, the communities and dynasties that remained were forced to seek some sort of accommodation with the new overlords. While subjection to the Mongol yoke was far from desirable, rulers could seek to make the best of the situation, in the hope that the ambitions of the Mongols might come to match their own, or that the Mongols might be persuaded to support their cause. This paper will consider how certain Christian groups in the Near East sought to reconcile themselves to the Mongol presence, and how they sought to place these alien invaders within a more familiar framework. In particular it will examine the visual evidence for this process by looking at a couple of appearances of recognisably Mongol figures within Christian artwork, dating from the time of the second major Mongol invasion of the region, led by the Ilkhan Hülegü, which by 1260 had extended Mongol power into Syria and to the borders of Egypt.1

The subject on which I propose to address you possesses a certain degree of interest, if it be only for its novelty. We have heard, it is true, for a series of years, of races of Hill-people in different parts of India; and latterly the accounts of them have crowded in upon us from many directions. Some have called them aborigines, without troubling themselves about their origin; while others have considered them Hindus expelled from their caste for some misdemeanour; but no one seems to have entertained the idea that the numerous communities which have been found spread over the surface of India, were the inhabitants of the country before the Hindus, or that those communities had one common origin. This idea appears to have occurred to no one that I am aware of till about six years ago, when I had occasion to refer to several papers on this subject in the Transactions of this Society, and those of the more ancient Society in Calcutta. When I began to compare the various accounts one with another, I did not fail to perceive the very close general analogies of their customs and their institutions. This led to fuller inquiries into their physiological, and eventually, into their philological peculiarities, till at length I arrived at the conclusion that all these various tribes were of one and the same race; and I shall endeavour to lead you to coincide with my sentiments on this interesting question.

In 1972 Fr Charles Coüasnon, O.P., gave the Schweich Lectures to the British Academy on this subject. As consultant architect to the restoration work he seemed well qualified to do so. But work continued until 1980, and it was not until 1982 that Fr Virgilio Corbo, O.F.M., published a definitive account of the work, Il Santo Sepolcro di Gerusalemme, in three handsome volumes. I did not succeed in obtaining a copy until 1984. Thus it was not surprising that Canon Ronald Brownrigg's Come, See the Place: the ideal companion for all travellers to the Holy Land, 1985, still treats Fr Couasnon as having had the last word, and prints plans some of which are erroneous. Only since then has an article in Le Monde de la Bible, Mars-Avril, Paris, 1984, no.33, in a number devoted entirely to the Holy Sepulchre, by Fr Florentino Dfez Fernandez, O.S.A.,3 reached me, describing in a summary form his excavations for the Greek Orthodox Community on the site of Golgotha, and for the Armenian Community behind the Crusader Chapel of St Helena. A definitive account of his work is eagerly awaited, for his work adds to our knowledge and corrects some previous misconceptions of the chronology of the site.

Having had the advantage of journeying through the Deltas, and for nearly 400 miles up the two famous rivers of Asia and Africa (the Indus and the Nile), I venture to record briefly my general impressions on these two grand features of nature.

The Nile runs in a direction directly contrary to that of the Indus, and has its source in the most torrid regions of the globe, whilst the Asiatic stream rises in perpetual snow. The climates, therefore, are directly reversed; yet, passing through the same degrees of latitude, there are in some portions of the countries penetrated by the two rivers very curious coincidences in. productions and climate, to which we will refer hereafter.

The first five objects described in this note are the property of Squadron-Leader M. Blaymires, R.A.F., and are at present on loan to the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery. I am much indebted to Squadron-Leader Blaymires for permission to publish them, and to Mr. Oswald, Keeper of Archaeology and Local History in the Museum, for the facilities which he has afforded me of examining them.

The short tenth century account of the Nile in the Delta, which is published here for the first time, is an extract from a unique Arabic MS. on geography preserved at the British Museum (23379 Add.).