;-HRLf, VH m 9 mm Hfl Hon JUS ■HHfl HP BBHRnffaK Mhw mwWWBWB ■WWifMlwMmiinTlTiliini Km ingguD IHt_ BUnk MWMf WWHBBHWniWnl BDflDQO QfifnlG SDDBIOSOQOfMDnOGiHfl BraSaoNo InHKiHflRuam IIIWIII DCBHODUOOPg ■brhddbbhbpi eaBSSBBmSSSSntmSt MWnHWl UfDOufjOUuuuOQOQQuilO] ■BBBRoOBGCuKMOQuDwODIXiOU flflui nBHHHHSH INTRODUCTORY LECTURE OX ARCHAEOLOGY. PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, HI. A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON ARCHAEOLOGY Beltberefc before tjje 3Hm'bersttji of (Eamforfoge. BY CHURCHILL BABINGTON, B.D., F.L.S. DISNEY PROFESSOR OF ARCHAEOLOGY, SENIOR FELLOW OF ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE, OF THE NUMISMATIC AND SYRO-EGYPTIAN SOCIETIES, HONORARY MEMBER OF THE HISTORICO-THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LEIPSIC, AND OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF ROME. CAMBRIDGE : DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. LONDON: BELL AND DALDY. 1865. - LOG£ cc so s HROP c PREFACE. The following Lecture was divided in the delivery into two parts; illustrative specimens being ex- hibited after the conclusion of the delivery of each portion. It has been suggested that I should add in the form of notes a few books which may prove useful to the students of particular branches of Archaeology ; my best thanks are due to the Rev. T. G. Bonney and the Rev. W. G. Searle for their kind and valuable assistance in drawing up certain of the lists. For ancient art and archaeology K. O. Midler's Manual, so often referred to, will in general sufficiently indicate the bibliography, and it is only in a few departments, in numismatics more especially, that it has been deemed necessary to add anything to his refer- ences. M. Labarte's Handbook, from which a great part of the concluding portion of this lecture is derived, will do the same thing, though in a far less complete manner, for medieval art. 620 CONTENTS. Plan of the Lecture, pp. 1 — 3. Archaeology defined, and the principal kinds of archaeological monuments specified, pp. 3 — 6. Nature of the Disney Professorship of Archaeology explained; its comprehensive character ; the advantages of this, pp. 6—13. Sketch of the existing remains of Antiquity among different nations, beginning with primeval man, pp. 13 — 21. The Egyptians, pp. 21 — 26. The Babylonians, pp. 26, 27. The Assyrians, pp. 27, 28. The Persians, pp. 28, 29. The Jews, pp. 29—31. The Phoenicians, pp. 31, 32. The Lycians, pp. 32, 33. The Greeks, pp. 33—41. The Etruscans, p. 41. The Romans, pp. 42 — 46. The Celts, pp. 43, 44. The Byzantine empire and the Euro- pean nations during the middle ages, pp. 46 — 61. Re- capitulation, pp. 61, 62. Qualifications necessary for an archaeologist. He must be a collector of facts and objects, and be able to reason on them. He must also be a man of learning. Exact scho- larship, an appreciation of art, and a knowledge of natural history often useful or necessary for the archaeologist, pp. 63—68. Pleasures and advantages which result from archaeology. It illustrates and is illustrated by ancient literature. Modern art aided by archaeology. Archaeology deserving of culti- vation for its own sake, as an ennobling and delightful pursuit, pp. 68 — 74. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON AKCH.EOLOGY. Following the example of my distinguished predecessor in the Disney Professorship of Archae- ology, I open my first Course of Lectures with an introductory Lecture on Archaeology itself, so far as the very limited time for preparation has allowed me to attempt one. I cannot indeed conceal from myself, and still less can I conceal from you, that no introductory Lecture which I could give, even if I were to take my own time in writing it, would bear any comparison with the compositions of his elegant and learned pen. It certainly does not proceed from flattery, and I hope not from an undue par- tiality of friendship to say of him, that in his power of grasping a complicated subject, of pre- senting it in a clear light, of illustrating it with varied learning, and of expressing himself in rela- tion thereto in appropriate language, I have rarely seen his equal. To how great a disadvantage 1 Z INTRODUCTORY LECTURE then must I necessarily appear, when I have had only six weeks' time in which to get ready this as well as five other Lectures, and have been moreover compelled to devote a considerable part even of that short time to other and not less important duties. A great unwillingness how- ever that the Academical year should pass over without any Archaeological Lectures being deli- vered by the Disney Professor, has induced me to make the attempt more quickly than would under other circumstances have been desirable or even justifiable ; and I venture to hope that when allow- ance is made for the exigency of the case, I shall find in you, who have honoured this Lecture by your presence, a clement and even an indulgent audience. In an introductory Lecture which deals with generalities, it is hardly to be expected that I either can say or ought to try to say much which is absolutely new to any of my hearers ; and I shall not affect to say anything peculiarly striking, but shall rather attempt to bring before you in a plain way a view of the subject, which aims at being concise and comprehensive ; and in connexion therewith respectfully to submit a few observa- tions which have relation to other Academical studies, as well as to the character of this parti- cular Professorship. What I propose then to do is this, first to ex- plain what Archaeology is ; next to put in a clear light what the character of this Professorship is ; ON ARCHEOLOGY. 3 after that to attempt a general sketch of the exist- ing remains of Antiquity ; then to point out the qualifications necessary or desirable for an archaeo- logist; and in conclusion, to indicate the pleasure and advantage which flow from his pursuits. The field of Archaeology is vast, and almost boundless; the eye, even the most experienced eye, can hardly take in the whole prospect ; and those who have most assiduously laboured in its exploration will be most ready to admit, that there are portions, and those large portions, which are to them either almost or altoo-ether unknown. For what is Archaeology ? It is, I conceive, the science of teaching history by its monuments 1 , of whatever character those monuments may be. When I say history, I use the word not in the limited sense of the history of dynasties or of governments. Archaeology does indeed concern itself with these, and splendidly does it illustrate and illuminate them ; but it also concerns itself with every kind of monument of man which the ravages of time have spared. 1 Perhaps it would be more correct to say ' by its contem- porary sensible monuments,' so as to exclude later copies of ancient writings, or the monumertta litterarum, which fall more especially to the province of the scholar. A MS. of Aristotle of the thirteenth century is an archaeological monument of that century only ; it is a literary monument of the fourth century B.C. But a Greek epigram or epitaph which occurs on a sepulchral monument of the same or any other century B.C. is an archaeological as well as a literary monument of that century . 1—2 4 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE Archaeology concerns itself with the domestic and the social, as well as with the religious, the commercial, and the political life of all nations and of all tribes in the ages that have passed away. All that men in ancient times have made, and left behind them, is the farrago of our study. The archaeologist will consequently make ob- servations and speculations on the sites of ancient cities where men have dwelt; on their walls and buildings, sacred and profane ; on their altars and their market-places ; on their subterranean con- structions, whether sepulchres, treasuries, or drains. He will trace the roads and the fosses along which men of the old world moved, and on which men often still move ; he will explore the routes of armies and the camps where they have pitched, and will prowl about the barrows in which they sleep ; Exesa inveniet scabra robigine pila, Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris. He will also collect and classify every kind of object, which man has made for use or for orna- ment in his own home, or in the city ; in the fields, or on the water. He will arrange the weapons of offence and defence according to their material and age ; whether of stone, of bronze, of iron, or of steel ; among which some are so rude that a prac- tised eye alone distinguishes them from the broken flint stones lying in the field, others again so elaborate as to rank among the most beautiful productions both of classical and medieval art ; he ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 5 will not disdain to preserve the bricks and the tiles, which have once formed parts of Asiatic cities or of Roman farms'; he will excavate the villas of the ancients; unearth their mosaic pave- ments; clean their lamps and candelabra; he will mend or restore their broken crockery, and glass ; he will even penetrate into the lady's chamber, turn over her toilet, admire her brooches and her bracelets, examine her mirrors and her pins; and all this he will do in addition to studying the nobler works of ancient art, such as engraved gems and medallions; works chased, carved and em- bossed in the precious metals and in ivory ; frescoes and vase-paintings; bronzes and statues. He will, likewise, familiarise himself with the alphabets of the ancient nations, and exercise his ingenuity in deciphering their written records, both public and private ; whether these be contained in inscrip- tions on stones or metal plates, or in papyrus- rolls, or parchment books; or be scratched on walls or on statues ; or be painted on vases ; or, in fine, surround the device of a coin. I have now mentioned some of the principal objects of archceology, which, as I have said, embraces within its rano-e all the monuments of the history and life of man in times past. And this it does, beginning with the remains of prime- val man, which stretch far beyond the records of all literary history, and descending along the stream of time till it approaches, but does not quite reach time actually present. No sharp line of 6 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE demarcation separates the past from the present; you may say that classical archaeology termi- nates with the overthrow of the Western Empire ; you may conceive that medieval archaeology ceases with the reign of Henry the Seventh ; but, be this as it may, in a very few generations the objects of use or of ornament to us will become the objects of research to the archaeologist; and, 1 may add, may be the subjects of lectures to my successors. For the founder of this Professorship, whose memory is never to be named without honour, and the University which accepted it, together with his valuable collection of ancient sculptures, undoubtedly intended that any kind or class of antiquities whatever might fitly form the theme of the Professor's discourse. I say this, because a misconcejDtion has undoubtedly prevailed on this subject, from which even my learned pre- decessor himself was not free. " Every nation of course/' says he, "has its own peculiar archaeo- logy. Whether civilized or uncivilized, whether of historic fame or of obscure barbarism, Judaea, Assyria, and Egypt; Greece and Pome; India, China, and Mexico; Denmark, Germany, Bri- tain, and the other nations of modern Europe, all have their archaeology. The field of in- quiry," he continues, "is boundless, and in the multitude of objects presenting themselves the enquirer is bewildered. It has been wisely pro- vided therefore by the founder of this Profes- ON ARCHEOLOGY. 7 sorship, that we shall direct our attention more immediately to one particular class of Antiqui- ties, and that the noblest and most important of them all, I mean the Antiquities of Greece and Rome 1 ." Very probably such may have been Mr Disney's original intention; and if so, this will easily explain and abundantly pardon the error of my accomplished friend; but the actual words of the declaration and agreement between Mr Disney and the University, which is of course the only document of binding force, are as follows : " That it shall be the duty of the Professor to deliver in the course of each acade- mical year, at such days and hours as the Vice- Chancellor shall appoint, six lectures at least on the subject of Classical, Mediaeval and other Anti- quities, the Fine Arts and all matters and things connected therewith." Whether he would have acted wisely or not wisely in limiting the field to classical archeology, he has in point of fact not thus limited it. And, upon the whole, I must confess, I am glad that he has imposed no limitation. For while there are but few who would deny that many of the very choicest relics of ancient art and of ancient history are to be sought for in the Greek and Hoinan saloons and cabinets of the museums of Europe, yet it must at the same time be admitted that there are other branches of archaeology, which are far too 1 Marsclen's Introd. Led. p. 5. Cambr. 1852. 8 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE important to be neglected, and which have an interest, and often a very high interest, of their own. Let it be confessed, that the archaeology of Greece has in many respects the pre-eminence over every other. "It is to Greece that the whole civilized world looks up," says Canon Marsden, " as its teacher in literature and in art ; and it is to her productions that we refer as the standard of all that is beautiful, noble, and excellent. Greece excelled in all that she put her hand to. Her sons were poets and orators and historians; they were architects and sculptors and painters. The scantiest gleanings of her soil are superior to that which constitutes the pride and boast of others. Scarcely a fragment is picked up from the majestic ruin, which does not induce a train of thought upon the marvellous grace and beauty which must have characterized the whole ! Quale te dicat tamen Antehac fuisse, tales cum sint relliquise." These eloquent and fervid words proceed from a passionate admirer of Hellenic art, and a most successful cultivator of its archaeology. Nor do I dare to say that the praise is exagge- rated. But at the same time, viewed in other asj)ects, the archaeology of our own country has even greater interest and importance for us. What man is there, in whose breast glows a spark of patriotism, who does not view the monuments of his country which are everywhere spread around ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 9 him, (in this place above most places,) which con- nect the present with the remote past, and with many and diverse ages of that past by a thousand reminiscences, with feelings deeper and nobler than any exotic remains of antiquity, how charm- ing soever, could either foment or engender 1 This love of national antiquities, seated in a healthy patriotic feeling, has place in the speech of an apostle himself: " Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried; and his sepulchre is with us unto this day." The same feeling prompted Wordsworth thus to express himself in reference to our ancient colleges and their former occu- pants : I could not always liglitly pass Through the same gateways, sleep where they had slept, Wake where they waked; I could not always print Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps Of generations of illustrious men, Unmoved Their several memories here Put on a lowly and a touching grace Of more distinct humanity. And not only the buildings, but the other archaeological monuments of the University (for so I think I may be permitted to call the pictures and the busts, and the statues, and the tombs, which are the glories of our chapels, our libraries and our halls) teach the same great lessons. They raise up again our own worthies before our very eyes, calling on us to strive to walk as they walk- 10 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ed, dead though they be and buried ; for their effigies and their sepulchres are 'with us to this day.' I must repeat, then, that I am glad that the Disney Professor is not obliged to confine himself to classical archaeology, sorry as I should be if he were wholly unable to give lectures on one or more branches of that most interesting department, which has moreover a special con- nexion with the classical studies of the Univer- sity. It is manifest that the University intended the Professor to consider no kind of human anti- quities as alien from him ; and I think this in itself a very great gain. For, if the truth must be confessed, antiquaries above most others have been guilty of the error of despising those branches of study which are not precisely their own. I forbear to adduce proofs of this, though I am not unprovided with them ; and even although you would certainly be amused if I were to read them; classicists against gothicists; gothicists against classicists. I could wish that the learned and meritorious writers on both sides had profited by the judicious remarks of Mr Willson, prefixed to Mr Pugin's Specimens of Gothic Architecture in England. "The respective beauties and conveniences pro- per to the Grecian orders in their pure state or as modified by the Romans and their successors in the Palladian school may be fully allowed, without a bigoted exclusion of the style we are accustomed to term Gothic. Nor outfit its merits to be as- ON ARCHEOLOGY. 11 serted to the disadvantage of the classic style. Each has its beauties, each has its proportions 1 ." One of the most eminent Gothic architects, Mr George Gilbert Scott, expresses himself in a very similar spirit. " It may be asked, what influence do we expect that the present so called classic styles will exercise upon the result we are imagin- ing, (i e. the developement of the architecture of the future). Is the work of three centuries to be unfelt in the future developements, and are its monuments to remain among us in a state of isolation, exercising no influence upon future art ? It would, I am convinced, be as unphilosophical to wish, as it would be unreasonable to expect this 2 ." To turn from them to the classicists. " See how much Athens gains," says Prof. T. L. Donaldson, "upon the affections of every people, of every age, by her Architectural ruins. Not a tra- veller visits Greece whose chief purpose is not centred in the Acropolis of Minerva .... But in thus rendering the homage due to ancient Art it were unjust to pass without notice those sublime edifices due to the Genius of our Fathers. It is now unnecessary to enter upon the question, whe- ther the first ideas of Gothic Architecture were the result of a casual combination of lines or a feli- citous adaptation of form derived immediately 1 P. xix. London, 1821 . 2 Scott's Remarks on Secular and Domestic Architecture, present and future, p. 272. London, 1857. 12 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE from Nature : But graceful proportion, solemnity of effect, variety of plan, playfulness of outline and the profoundest elements of knowledge of construc- tion place these edifices on a par with any of ancient times. Less pure in conception and detail, they excel in extent of plan and of disposition, and yield not in the mysterious effect produced on the feelings of the worshipper. The sculptured pre- sence of the frowning Jove or the chryselephan- tine statue of Minerva were necessary to awe the Heathen into devotion. But the presence of the Godhead appears, not materially but spiritually, to pervade the whole atmosphere of one of our Gothic Cathedrals 1 ." The Editor of The Museum of Classical Antiquities, well says, "As antiquity embraces all knowledge, so in- vestigations into it must be distinct and various. Each antiquary labours for his own particular ob- ject, and each severally assists the other 2 ." It should be borne in mind moreover that archa3olo- gical remains of every kind and sort are really a part of human history ; and if all parts of history deserve to be studied, as they most assuredly do, being parts, though not equally important parts, of the Epic unity of our race, it will follow even with mathematical precision that all monuments 1 Preliminary Discourse pronounced before the University College of London, upon the commencement of a series of Lec- tures on Architecture, pp. 17 — 24. London, 1842. 2 Museum of Classical Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 1. London, 1851. ON ARCHEOLOGY. 13 relating to all parts of that history must be worthy of study also. I desire therefore to express in language as strong as may be consistent with propriety, my entire disapproval of pitting one branch of archaeo- logy against another, or indeed any study against another study. And on this very account I rejoice that the Disney Professor's field of choice is as wide as the world itself, so far as concerns its archae- ology. There is no country, there is no period about which he may not occupy himself, or on which he may not lecture, if he feel himself qualified to do so. He is in a manner bound by the tenure of his office to treat every branch of archaeology with honourable respect ; and this in itself may not be without a wholesome influence both upon his words and sentiments. I have been somewhat longer over this matter than I could have wished ; but T thought it desirable that the position of the Disney Professor should be rightly under- stood ; and I have also endeavoured to shew the real advantage of that position. His field then is the world itself; but as this is so (and as T think rightly so) there is a very true and real danger lest he and his hearers should be mazed and bewildered at the contemplation of its magnitude. Yet in spite of that danger I will venture to invite you to follow the outlines of the great entirety of the relics of the ages that have for ever passed away. I say the outlines, and even this is almost too much, for I am compelled 14 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE to shade some parts of the picture so obscurely, and to throw so much of other parts into the background, that even of the outlines I can dis- tinctly present to you but a portion. Thus I will say little more of the archaeology of the New World, than that there is one which reaches far beyond the period of Spanish conquest, comprising among many other things ruins of Mexican cities, exquisite monuments of bas-reliefs and other carv- ings in stone ; I will not invite you into the far East of the Old "World, to explore the long walls and Buddhist temples of the ancient and stationary civilisation of China, or to dwell upon the objects of its fictile and other arts ; but leaving both this and all the adjacent countries of Thibet, Japan and even India without further notice, or with only passing allusions, spatiis conclusus ini- quis, I will endeavour, so far as my very limited knowledge permits, the delineation of the most salient peculiarities of the various remains of the old world till the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, and then attempt to trace briefly the remains of successive medieval classes of antiqui- ties, until we arrive at almost modern times. I can name but few objects under each division of the vast subject ; but these will be selected so as to suggest as much as possible others of a kindred kind. In addressing myself to such an audience, I may, if anywhere, act upon the as- sumption, Verbam sapient i sat est : a single word may suggest a train of thought. If I cannot ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 15 wholly escape the charge of tediousness, I must still be content : for I am firmly convinced after the most careful consideration that I can pursue no course which is equally profitable, though I might take many others which might be more amusing. It would now appear probable that the earliest extant remains of human handicraft or skill have as yet been found, not on the banks of the Nile or the Euphrates, but in the drift and in the caverns of Western Europe. Only yesterday, as I may say, it has been found out that in a geo- logical period when the reindeer was the denizen of Southern France, and when the climate was possibly arctic, there dwelt in the caverns of the Perigord a race of men, who were unacquainted with the use of metals, but who made flint and bone weapons and instruments ; who lived by fishing and the chase, eating the flesh of the reindeer, the aurochs, the wild goat and the chamois ; using their skins for clothes which they stitched with bone needles, and their bones for weapon handles, on which they have etched repre- sentations of the animals themselves. Specimens of these things were placed last year in the British Museum ; and a full account of the dis- coveries in 1862 and 1863 may be seen in the Revue Arclieologique. Some distinguished anti- quaries consider that they are the earliest human remains in Western Europe. Various other dis- coveries in the same regions of late years have tended towards shewing that the time during 16 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE which man has lived upon the earth is much greater than we had commonly supposed. The geological and archaeological circumstances under which the flint implements were found at Abbe- ville, and St Acheul, near Amiens, in the valley of the Sonnne, left no doubt that they were anterior by many ages to the Roman Empire. They have a few points of similarity to those found in the caverns of the Perigord, and as they occur along with the remains of the Elephas antiquus and the hippopotamus, Sir Charles Lyell infers that both these animals coexisted with man ; and perhaps on the whole we may consider them rather than those of the Perigord to be the earliest European remains of man, or of man at all. Similar weapons have been found in the drift in this country, in Suffolk, Bedfordshire, and elsewhere. At Brixham, near Torquay, a cavern was examined in 1858, covered with a floor of stalagmite, in which were imbedded bones of the reindeer and also an entire hind leg of the extinct cave-bear, every bone of which was in its proper place ; the leg must conse- quently have been deposited there when the sepa- rate bones were held together by their ligaments. Below this floor was a mass of loam or bone- earth, varying from one to fifteen feet in thickness, and amongst it, and the gravel lying below it, were discovered about fifteen flint knives, recog- nised by practised archaeologists as artificially formed, and among them one very perfect tool close to the leg of the bear. It thus becomes ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 17 manifest that the extinct bear lived after the flint tools were made, or at any rate not earlier ; so that man in this district was either the con- temporary of the cave-bear, or (as would seem more probable) his predecessor. But shortness of time forbids me to do more than to indicate that in western Europe generally, as well as in Britain, we have an archaeology beginning with the age of the extinct animals or quaternary geological epoch and connecting itself with the age of the Roman Empire, when the first literary notices of those countries, with slight exceptions, commence. The antiquaries and naturalists of Denmark conjointly (these indeed should always be united, having much in common ; and I am happy in being able to say that a love of archaeology has often been united with a love of natural science by members of this University, among whom the late and the present Professor of Botany may be quoted as examples) — these Danish archaeologists and naturalists T say, have made out three distinct periods during this interval : the age of stone contemporary with the pine forests ; the ao-e of bronze commencing' with the oak forests which lie over the pine in the peat ; and the aee of iron co-extensive with the beech forests which succeeded the oak, and which covered the country in the Roman times as they cover it now. The skulls belonging to the oldest or stone age re- semble those of the modern Laplanders ; those of the second and third are of a more elongated type. 2 18 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE The refuse- heaps along the shores of the is- lands of the Baltic, consisting of the remains of mollusks and vertebrated animals, mingled with stone weapons, prove the great antiquity of the ao-e of stone; the oyster then flourished in places where, by reason of the exclusion of the ocean from the brackish Baltic, it does not now exist. None of the animals now extinct, however, occur in these Kjokkenmodding, as they are called, except the wild bull, the Bos primigenius, which was alive in Roman times; but the bones of the auk, now, in all probability, extinct in Europe, are frequent; also those of the capercailzie, now very rare in the southern districts of Scandinavia, though abundant in Norway, which would find abundant food in the buds of the pines growing in pre- historic times in the peat bogs. Similar refuse- heaps, left in Massachusetts and in Georgia by the North American Indians, are considered by Sir C. Lyell, who has seen them, to have been there for centuries before the white man arrived. They have also been found, I understand, very recently in Scotland in Caithness. The stone weapons have now been sharpened by rubbing, and are less rude and probably more recent than those of the drift of the Somme valley, or of the caverns of the Perigord. The only domestic animal belonging to the stone age, yet found in Scandinavia, is the dog; and even this appears to have been wanting in France. In the ages of bronze and iron various domestic animals existed; ON ARCHEOLOGY. 19 but no cereal grains, as it would seem, in the whole of Scandinavia. Weapons and tools be- longing to these three periods, as well as frag- ments of pottery and other articles, are very widely diffused over Europe, and have been met with in great abundance in our own country (in Ireland more especially), as well as near the Swiss- lake habitations, built on piles, to which attention has only been called since 1853. It is strange that all the Lake settlements of the bronze period are confined to West and Central Switzerland : in the more Eastern Lakes those of the stone period alone have been discovered. Similar habitations of a Paeon ian tribe dwell- ing in Lake Prasias, in modern Poumelia, are mentioned by Herodotus, and they may be com- pared, in some degree, with the Irish Lake-dwell- ings or Crannoges, i.e. artificial islands, and more especially with the stockaded islands, occurring in various parts of the country: and which are accompanied by the weapons and instruments and pottery of the three aforesaid periods. Even in England slight traces of similar dwellings have been found near Thetford, not accompanied by any antiquities, but by the bones of various animals, the goat, the pig, the red deer, and the extinct ox, the Bos longifrons, the skulls of which last were in almost all instances fractured by the butcher. As to the chronology and duration of the three periods I shall say nothing, though not ignorant that some attempts have been made to determine 2—2 20 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE them. They must have comprehended several thousand years, but how many seems at present extremely uncertain. I should perhaps say that Greek coins of Marseilles, which would probably be of the age of the Roman Republic, have been found in Switzerland in some few aquatic stations, and in tumuli among bronze and iron implements mixed. The cereals wanting in Scandinavia ap- pear in Switzerland from the most remote period ; and domestic animals, the ox, sheep, and goat, as well as the dog, even in the earliest stone-settle- ments. Among the ancient mounds of the valley of the Ohio, in North America, have been found (besides pottery and sculpture and various articles in silver and copper) stone weapons much resem- bling those discovered in France and other places in Europe. Before passing from these pre-historic remains, as they are badly called, to the historic, let me beg you to observe a striking illustration of the relation of archaeology to history. Archae- ology is not the handmaid of history ; she occupies a far higher position than that : archaeology is, as I said at the outset, the science of teaching history by its monuments. Now for all western and northern Europe nearly the whole of its early history must be deduced, so far as it can be deduced at all, from the monuments themselves; for the so-called monuments of literature afford scanty aid, and for that reason our knowledge of these early ages is necessarily very incomplete. Doubtless, many a brave Hector and many a brave Agamemnon lived, OX ARCHAEOLOGY. 21 fought, and died in the ages of stone and of bronze; but they are oppressed in eternal night, unwept and unknown, because no Scandinavian Homer has recorded their illustrious deeds. Still, we must be thankful for what we can get ; and if archaeological remains (on which not a letter of an alphabet is inscribed) cannot tell us everything, yet, at least, everything that we do know about these ages, or very nearly so, is deduced by archae- ology alone. We must now take a few rapid glances at the remains of the great civilised nations of the ancient world. Mr Kenrick observes that the seats of its earliest civilisation extend across southern Asia in a chain, of which China forms the Eastern, and Egypt the Western extremity; Syria, Mesopota- mia, Assyria, and India, are the intermediate links. In all these countries, when they become known to us, we find the people cultivating the soil, dwelling in cities, and practising the mechanical arts, while their neighbours lie in barbarism and ignorance. We cannot, he thinks, fix by direct historical evidence the transmission of this earliest civilisation from one country to another. But we may determine with which of them ancient history and archaeology must begin. The monuments of Egypt surpass those of all the rest, as it would appear, by many centuries. None of the others exercised much influence on European civilisation till a later period, some exception being made for the Phoenician commerce; but the connection of 22 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE European with Egyptian civilisation is both direct and important. "From Egypt," he remarks, "it came to Greece, from Greece to Rome, from Rome to the remoter nations of the West, by whom it has been carried throughout the globe 1 ." As regards its archaeology, which is very pecu- liar and indeed in some respects unique, I must now say a few words. The present remains of Memphis, the earliest capital, said to have been founded by Athothis, the son of Menes, the first king of the first dynasty, are not great; but so late as the fourteenth century they were very con- siderable. Temples and gateways, colossal statues and colossal lions then existed, which are now no more. Whether any of them approached the date of the foundation it is useless to enquire. Now, the most remarkable relic is a colossal statue of Rameses II., which, when perfect, must have been about forty-three feet high. This monarch is of the XYIIIth dynasty, which embraces the most splendid and flourishing period of Egyptian his- tory; and though much uncertainty still prevails for the early Egyptian chronology, it appears to be well made out and agreed that this dynasty began to reign about fifteen centuries before the Christian era. But the pyramids and tombs of Ghizeh, and of several other places at no great distance from Memphis, are of a much earlier date; and the great pyramid is securely referred 1 Ancient Egypt, Vol. i. p. 3. London, 1850. OX ARCHAEOLOGY. 23 to a king of the fourth dynasty. " Probably at no place in the entire history of Egypt/' says Mr Osburn, " do the lists and the Greek authors harmonize better with the historical notices on the monuments than at the commencement of this dynasty 1 ." The system of hieroglyphic writing was the same (according to Mr Kenrick) in all its leading peculiarities, as it continued to the end of the monarchy. I regret to say that some emi- nent men have tried to throw discredit, and even ridicule, on the attempts which, I think, have been most laudably made with great patience, great acuteness, and great learning, to decipher and interpret the Egyptian and other ancient languages. Many of us, doubtless, have seen a piece of pleasantry in which Heigh-didcUe-diddle, The cat and the fiddle is treated as an unknown language; the letters are divided into words — all wrongly, of course — these words are analysed with a great show of erudition, and a literal Latin ver- sion accompanies the whole. If I remember (for I have mislaid the amusing production) it proves to be an invocation of the gods, to be used at a sacrifice. Now, a joke is a good thing in its place; only do not let it be made too much of. Every archaeologist, beginning with Jonathan Oldbuck, must sometimes fall into blunders, when he takes inscriptions in hand, even if the language be a known one ; and, of course, a fortiori, when 1 Monumental History of Ugypt,Yol.i.-p. 262. London, 1854, 24 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE but little known. My own opinion on hiero- glyphics would be of no value whatever, as I know nothing beyond what I have read in a few modern authors, and have never studied the subject; but, allow me to observe, that I had a conversation very lately with my learned and excellent friend, Dr Birch, of the British Museum, who is now engaged in making a dictionary of hieroglyphics, and he assured me that a real progress has been made in the study of them, that a great deal of certainty has been attained to ; while there is still much that requires further elucidation. To the judgment of such a man, who has spent a great part of his life in the study of Egyptian antiqui- ties, though he has splendidly illustrated other antiquities also, I must think that greater weight should be attached than to the judgment of others, eminent as they may be in some branches of learn- ing, who have never studied this as a specialty. The relation of archaeology to Egyptian history deserves especial notice. We have not here, as in pre-historic Europe, a mere multitude of unin- scribed and inconsiderable remains; but we have colossal monuments of all kinds — temples, gate- ways, obelisks, statues, rock sculptures — more or less over-written with hieroglyphics ; also sepul- chral-chambers, in many instances covered with paintings, in addition to a variety of smaller works, mummy cases, jewelry, scarabsei, pottery, &c., upon many of which are inscriptions. By aid of these monuments mostly, but by no means ex- OX ARCHAEOLOGY. 25 clusively, the history of the Pharaohs and the manners and customs of their people are recover- ed. The monumenta litterarum themselves are fre- quently preserved on the monuments of stone and other materials. For the pyramids of Ghizeh and the adjoining districts, for the glorious temples of Dendera, of Karnak, the grandest of all the remains of the Pharaohs, as well as for those of Luxor, with its now one obelisk, of Thebes, of Edfou, of Philse, likewise for the grottoes of Benihassan, I must leave you to your own imagination or recol- lection, which may be aided in some degree by a few of the beautiful photographs by Bedford, which are now before your eyes. They extend along the banks and region of the Nile — for this is Egypt — from the earliest times down to the age of the Ptolemies and of Cleopatra herself, and even of the Boman empire, in the case of Den- dera, where the portico was added by Tiberius to Cleopatra's temple. Before quitting these regions I would remark, that the extraordinary rock-hewn temple of Aboo-Simbel in Nubia, which includes the most beautiful colossal statues yet found — their height as they sit is more than fifty feet — bears some similarity to certain Indian temples, espe- cially to the temple of Siva at Tinnevelly, and the Kylas at Ellora, which last has excited the asto- nishment of all travellers. " Undoubtedly," says Mr Fergusson, " there are many very striking points of resemblance... but, on the other hand, 26 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE the two styles differ so widely in details and in purpose, that we cannot positively assert the actual connexion between them, which at first sight seems unquestionable 1 ." The archaeology of the Babylonian empire need only occupy a few moments. The antiquity of Babylon is proved to be as remote as the fifteenth century b. a, by the occurrence of the name on a monument of Thothmes III., an Egyptian mon- arch of the XVIIIth dynasty. It may be much older than that; but the archaeological remains of the Birs Niinroud (which was long imagined to be the tower of Babel) hitherto found are not older than the age of Nebuchadnezzar. This palatial structure consisted, in Mr Layard's opinion, of successive horizontal terraces, rising one above another like steps in a staircase. Every inscribed brick taken from it, — and there are thousands and tens of thousands of these, — bears the name of Nebuchadnezzar. It is indeed possible that he may have added to an older structure, or rebuilt it; and if so we may one day find more ancient relics in the Birs. But at a place called Mujelibe (the Overturned) are remains of a Babylonian palace not covered by soil, also abounding with Nebuchadnezzar's bricks, where Mr Layard found one solitary fragment of a sculptured slab, having representations of gods in head-dresses of the Assyrian fashion, and indicating that the Baby- 1 Handbook of Architecture, p. 101. London, 1859. ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 27 Ionian palaces were probably similarly ornamented. A very curious tablet was also brought from Bagdad of the age of Nebuchadnezzar, giving, according to Dr Hincks, an account of the tem- ples which he built. Besides these, "a few in- scribed tablets of stone and baked clay, figures in bronze and terra cotta, metal objects of various kinds, and many engraved cylinders and gems are almost the only undoubted Babylonian antiquities hitherto brought to Europe." Babylonia abounds in remains, but they are so mixed — Babylonian, Greek, Roman, Arsacian, Sassanian, and Christian — that it is hard to separate them. Scarcely more than one or two stone figures or slabs have been dug out of the vast mass of debris ; and, as Isaiah has said, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods hath Jehovah broken unto the ground 1 ." The most splendid archaeological discovery of our age is the disinterment of the various palaces and other monuments of the Assyrian Empire. The labours of Mr Layard and M. Botta have made ancient Assyria rise before our eyes in all its grandeur and in all its atrocity. In visiting the British Museum we seem to live again in ancient Nineveh. We behold the sculptured slabs of its palaces, on which the history of the nation is both represented and written ; we wonder at its 1 See Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, chapters xxii. xxiii., especially pp. 50±, 528, 532. London, 1853. 28 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE strange compound divinities, its obelisks, its elegant productions in metal, in ivory, and in terra cotta. By patient and laborious attention to the cuneiform inscriptions, aided by the notices in ancient authors, sacred and profane, men like Sir H. Bawlinson and Dr Hincks have recovered something like a succession of Assyrian kings, ranging from about 1250 B.C. to about 600 B.C., and many particulars of their reigns, some of which bring out in a distinct manner the accurate knowledge of the writers of the Old Testament. The remains of ancient Persia are too consider- able to be passed over. Among other monuments at Pasargadse, a city of the early Persians, is a great monolith, on which is a bas-relief, and a cuneiform inscription above, " I am Cyrus the king, the Achaemenian." Here is the tomb of the founder of the empire. At Susa, the winter seat of the Persian kings from the time of Cyrus, Mr Loftus and Sir W. F. Williams have found noble marble structures raised by Darius, the son of Hystaspes (424 — 485 b. c), whose great palace was here : commenced by himself and completed by Artaxerxes II. or Mnemon (405 — 359 B.C.). Both here and at Persepolis, the richest city after Susa (destroyed, as we all remember from Dryden's ode, by Alexander), are ruins of magnificent columns of the most elaborate orna- mentation, and many cuneiform inscriptions, deci- phered by Lassen and Pawlinson. Mr Loftus remarks on the great similarity of the buildings OX ARCHEOLOGY. 29 of Persepolis and Susa, which form a distinct style of architecture. This is the salient feature of Persian archaeology, and to him I refer you upon it 1 . I cannot dwell upon other ruins in these regions, or on the minor objects, coins, cylinders, and vases of the ancient Persian empire; and still less on the very numerous coins of the Arsacidse, and Sassanidse, who afterwards succeeded to it. Of ancient Judaea we possess as yet very scanty archaeological monuments indeed before the fall of the monarchy. The so-called Tombs of the Kings are now, I believe, generally considered to belong to the Herodian period. Of the Temple of Jerusalem, the holy place of the Tabernacle of the Most Highest, not one stone is left upon another. And we may well conceive that nothing less than its destruction would effectually convince the world of the great truth that an hour had arrived in which neither that holy mountain on which it was built, nor any other in the whole world, was to be the scene of the exclusive worship of the Father. The sites of the Holy Places, however, have naturally excited much attention, and have been well illustrated by several distin- guished resident members of our University, and also by a foreign gentleman who for some time resided among us. Dr Pierotti had the singular 1 See his Travels and Researches in Chaldcea and Susiana, ch. xxviii. London, 1857 ; also Smith's Diet, of Greek and Roman Geography, s. v. Pasargada?, Persepolis, Susa; and Vaux's Nineveh and Persepolis. London, 1850. 30 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE good fortune to discover the subterranean drains by which the blood of the victims, slaughtered in the Temple, was carried off; and this discovery afforded valuable aid in determining various pre- viously disputed matters in connexion with the Temple. He likewise came upon some masonry in the form of bevelled stones below the surface, which was not unreasonably supposed to belong to Solomon's Temple; but it now appears that this opinion is doubtful. Besides these, we have the sepulchres of the patriarchs at Hebron, guarded with scrupulous jealousy; and tanks at the same place, which may be as old as the time of David, and perhaps one or two things more of a similar kind. We may well hope that the explorations which are now being set on foot for bringing to light the antiquities of Palestine may add to their number. In the relation of Jewish archaeology to Jewish history we have a case quite different to all those that have gone before it: there the native archae- ology was more or less extensive, the independent native literature scanty or non-existent; here, where the archaeology is almost blotted out, is it precisely the reverse. We have in the sacred books of the Old Testament an ample literary history: we have scarcely any monumental re- mains of regal Judaea at all. With regard to the New Testament the matter is otherwise; archreological illustrations, as well as literary, exist in abundance, and some very striking proofs ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 31 from archaeology have been adduced of the vera- city and trustworthiness of its authors. My predecessor bestowed great attention on the nu- mismatic and other monumental illustrations of Scripture, and herein set a good example to all that should come after him. Archaeology is worthily employed in illustrating every kind of ancient literature; most worthily of all does she occupy herself in the illustration and explanation and confirmation of the sacred writings, of the Book of books. The antiquities of Phoenicia need not detain us long. Opposite to Aradus is an open quad- rangular enclosure, excavated in rock, with a throne in the centre for the worship of Astarte and Melkarth; this is the only Phoenician temple discovered in Phoenicia, except a small monolithal temple at Ornithopolis, about nine miles from Tyre, of high antiquity, dedicated apparently to Astarte. I wish however to direct your attention to the characteristic feature of Phoenician architecture, its enormous blocks of stone bevelled at the joints. You have them in the walls of Aradus and in other places in Phoenicia. They are also found in the temple of the Sun at Baalbec, and may with great probability, I conceive, be regarded as Phoe- nician; though the rest of the beautiful architec- tural remains there are Greco-Poman of the Imperial period, and perhaps the best specimens of their kind in existence. Among other Phoeni- cian antiquities we have sarcophagi, and sepulchral 32 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE chambers for receiving theru, also very beautiful variegated glass found over a good part of Europe and Asia, commonly called Greek, but perhaps more reasonably presumed to be Phoenician. Most of the remains found on the sites of the Phoenician settlements are either so late Phoenician, or so little Phoenician at all, as at Carthage, that I shall make no apology for passing over both them, and the few exceptions also, just alluding however to the exist- ence of a remarkable hypsethral temple in Malta, which I myself saw nearly twenty years ago, not long, I believe, after it was uncovered. With regard to the strange vaulted towers of Sardinia, called Nuraggis, they may be Phoenician or Carthaginian, but their origin is uncertain. "All Phoenician monuments/' says Mr Kenrick, " in countries un- questionably occupied by the Phoenicians are re- cent 1 ." He makes the remark in reference to the Lycian archaeology. Whether the Lycians were of Phoenician origin or not, their rock-temples and rock-tombs, abounding in sculptures (illustrative both of their mythology and military history), shew that they were not much behind the Greeks in the arts. With the general appearance of their Gothic-like architecture, and of their strange bilingual inscriptions, Greek and Lycian, we are of course familiarised by the Lycian Room in the British Museum. With regard to the relation of Phoenician and Lycian archaeology to the history 1 Phoenicia, p. 88. London, 1855. See also Smith's Diet, of Greek and Roman Geography, s. v. Phoenicia and Lycia. ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 33 of the peoples themselves, it must be sufficient to say, that their history, both literary and monu- mental, is quite fragmentary; in the case of Phoenicia the literary notices perhaps preserve more to us than the monumental; in regard to Lycia the remark must rather be reversed. From Phoenicia, which first carried letters to Greece, let us also pass to Greece. But Greece, in the sense in which I shall use it, includes not only Greece Proper, but many parts of Asia Minor, as well as Sicily and the Great Greece of Italy. And here I must unwillingly be brief, and make the splendid extract from Canon Marsden, quoted before, in some degree do duty for me. But think for a minute first on its architecture, I do not mean its earliest remains, such as the Cyclopian walls and the lion- gate at Mycenae, and the so-called treasury of Atreus, which ascend to the heroic ages or farther back, but its temple architecture. Before I can name them, images of the Parthenon, the Erectheum, the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius at ^Egina, the temple of Apollo Epicurius at Phigalia or Bassae, that of Concord (so called) at Agrigentum, the most per- fect in Sicily, the three glorious Doric temples of Paestum, the Ionic ruins of Branchidae, will, I am confident, have arisen before your eyes. Many of us perhaps have seen some of them ; if not, we all feel as though we had. Think of its sepulchral monuments, which are in the form of temples ; and first of Queen Artemisia's Mausoleum, the most 3 34 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE sjDlendid architectural expression of conjugal affec- tion that has ever existed, the wonder of the world, with its colossal statue of her husband and its bas-reliefs by Bryaxis and Scopas and other principal sculptors; and remember that we have these in our national museum. Various fine rock- tombs, likewise in the form of temples, occur in Asia Minor, e.g. that of Midas at Nacoleia, the Lion-tomb at Cnidus, the necropolis at Telmessus. The transition from temples and tombs to sta- tuary is easy, as these were more or less decorated with its aid. Although we still possess the great compositions of some of the first sculptors and brass- casters, for example, the Quoit-thrower of Myron, the Diadumenos of Polycleitus, (i.e. a youth bind- ing his head with a fillet in token of an athletic victory,) and perhaps several of the Venuses of Praxiteles; yet it is needless for me to remind you that these with few exceptions are considered to be copies, not originals. But yet there are exceptions. "The extant relics of Greek sculpture," says Mr Bunbury, "few and fragmentary as they undoubt- edly are, are yet in some degree sufficient to enable us to judge of the works of the ancient masters in this branch of art. The metopes of Seli- nus, the ^Eginetan, the Elgin, and the Phigaleian marbles, to which we now add the noble frao-ments recently brought to this country from Halicar- nassus, not only serve to give us a clear and defi- nite idea of the progress of the art of sculpture, but enable us to estimate fir ourselves the mighty ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 35 works which were so celebrated in antiquity 1 ." Of bronzes of the genuine Greek period, which we may call their metal statuary, the most beauti- ful that occur to my remembrance are those of Siris, now in the British Museum. They are con- sidered by Bronsted to agree in the most remark- able and striking manner with the distinctive character of the school of Lysippus. But most of the extant bronzes are, I believe, of the Koman period, executed however, like their other best works, by Greco-Roman artists. With the Greek schools of painting, Attic, Asiatic, and Sicyonian, no less celebrated than their sculpture, it has fared far worse. There is not one of their works surviving; no, not one. Of these schools and their paintings I need not here say anything, as I am concerned only with the archaeological monuments which are now in ex- istence. But the loss is compensated in some degree by the paintings on vases, in which we may one day recognise the compositions of the various great masters of the different schools, just as in the majolica and other wares of the 1 Edinburgh Review for 1858, Vol. ctiii. p. 382. I follow common fame in assigning this article to Mr Bunbury ; few- others indeed were capable of writing it. Besides the sculp- tures named by him w r e have in the British Museum a bas- relief by Scopas, as it is thought, who may also be the author of the Niobid group at Florence ; likewise the Ceres (so-called) from Eleusis, and the statue of Pan from Athens, now in our Fitzwilliam Museum. For other antique statues and bronzes and for the later copies see Midler's Ancient Art, passim. 3—2 36 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 1 6th and following centuries we have the com- positions of Raffaelle, Giulio Romano, and other painters. "The glorious art of the Greek painters," says K. O. Mliller, the greatest authority for an- cient art generally, " as far as regards light, tone, and local colours, is wholly lost to us; and we know nothing of it except from obscure notices and later imitations ;" (referring, I suppose, to the frescoes of Herculaneum and of Pompeii more es- pecially ;) "on the contrary, the pictures on vases with thinly scattered bright figures give us the most exalted idea of the progress and achieve- ments of the art of design, if we venture, from the workmanship of common handicraftsmen, to draw conclusions as to the works of the first artists 1 ." But of this matter and of the vases them- selves, which rank among the most graceful re- mains of Greek antiquity, and are found over the whole Greek world, I shall say no more now, as they will form the subject of my following lec- tures. We have also many terra cottas of delicate Greek workmanship, mostly plain, but some gilded, others painted, from Athens, as well as from a great variety of other places, of which the finest are now at Munich. Relief ornaments, sometimes of great beauty, in the same material, were im- pressed with moulds, and Cicero, in a letter to 1 Ancient Art and its Remains, p. 119. Translated (with additions from Welcker) by Leitch. London, 1852. This invaluable work is a perfect thesaurus for the student, and will conduct him to the most trustworthy authorities on every branch of the subject. ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 37 Atticus, wishes for such typi from Athens, in order to fix them on the plaster of an atrium. Most of those which now remain seem to be of Greco- Roman times. Of the art of coinage invented by the Greeks and carried by them to the highest perfection which it has ever attained, a few words must now be said. The history of a nation, said the first Na- poleon, is its coinage : and the art which the Greeks invented became soon afterwards, and now is, the history of the world. Numismatics are the epi- tome of all archaBological knowledge, and any one who is versed in this study must by necessity be more or less acquainted with many others also. Architecture, sculpture, iconography, topography, palaeography, the public and private life of the ancients and their mythology, are all illustrated by numismatics, and reciprocally illustrate them. Numismatics give us also the succession of kings and tyrants over the whole Greek world. In the case of Bactria or Bactriana, whose capital Bactra is the modern Balk, this value of numismatics is perhaps most conspicuous. From coins, and from coins almost alone, we obtain the succession of kings, beginning with the Greek series in the third century B.C., and going on with various dynasties of Indian language and religion, till we come down to the Mohammedan conquest. " Ex- tending through a period of more than fifteen cen- ■ turies," says Professor H. H. Wilson, " they furnish a distinct outline of the great political and reli- 38 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE gious vicissitudes of an important division of India, respecting which written records are im- perfect or deficient l ." Coins are so much more durable than most other monuments, that they frequently survive, when the rest have perished. This is well put by PojDe in his Epistle to Addison, on his Dis- course on Medals : Ambition sighed, she saw it vain to trust The faithless column and the crumbling bust, Huge moles whose shadows stretched from shore to shore, Their ruins perished and their place no more. Convinced she now contracts her vast design, And all her triumphs shrink into a coin. A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps, Beneath her palm here sad Judaea weeps; Now scantier limits the proud arch confine ; And scarce are seen the prostrate ISTile or Rhine ; A small Euphrates thro' the piece is rolled, And little eagles wave their wings in gold. The Medal, faithful to its charge of fame, Through climes and ages bears each form and name; In one short view subjected to our eye, Gods, emperors, heroes, sages, beauties, lie. Regarded simply as works of art the coins of Magna Graecia and Sicily, more especially those of Syracuse and its tyrants, as well as those of Thasos, Opus, and Elis, also the regal coins of Philip, Alexander, Mithridates, and some of the Seleucidse, are amongst the most exquisite produc- 1 Ariana Antiqua, p. 439. London, 1841. For the more recent views of EDglish and German numismatists on these coins, see Mr Thomas's Catalogue of Bactrian Coins in the Numismatic Chronicle for 1857, Yol. xix. p. 13 sqq. ON ARCHEOLOGY. 39 tions of antiquity. Not even in gem-engraving, an art derived by Greece from Egypt and Assyria, but carried by her to the highest conceivable per- fection, do we find anything superior to these. I must, before quitting the subject of numismatics, congratulate the University on the acquisition of one of the largest and most carefully selected private collections of Greek coins ever formed, viz. the cabinet of the late Col, Leake, which is now one of the principal treasures of the Fitzwilliam Museum. Inferior as gems are to coins in most archaeologi- cal respects, especially in respect of their connection with literary history, and though not superior to the best of them artistically, gems have nevertheless one advantage over coins, that they are commonly quite uninjured by time. Occasionally (it is true) this is the case with coins; but with gems it is the rule. Of course, to speak generally, the art of gems, whose material is always more or less precious, is superior to that of coins, which were often carelessly executed, as being merely designed for a medium of commercial exchange. High art would not usually spend itself upon small copper money, but be reserved for the more valuable pieces, especially those of gold and silver 1 . The subjects of gems are mostly mythological, or are connected with the heroic cycle ; a smaller, but more inter- 1 This remark however must not be pressed too closely. Certain small Greek copper coins of Italy, Sicily, tfcc, are exceedingly beautiful. 40 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE esting number, presents us with portraits, which however are in general uninscribed. At the same time, by comparing these with portrait-statues and coins we are able to identify Socrates, Plato, Aris- totle, Demosthenes, Alexander the Great, seve- ral of the Ptolemies, and a few others ; most of which may have been engraved by Greco-Poman artists. But the catalogue of authentic portraits preserved to us, both Greek and Roman, is, as K. O. Muller observes, now very much to be thinned. With regard to ancient iconography in general, coins, without doubt, afford the greatest aid ; but no certain coin-portraits are, I believe, earlier than Alexander 1 . The oldest Greek portrait-statue known to me is that of Mausolus, now in the British Museum ; but the majority of the statues of Greek philosophers and others are probably to be referred to the Poman times, when the for- mation of portrait-galleries became a favourite pursuit. With the Greeks it was otherwise ; the ideal was ever uppermost in their mind : they executed busts of Homer indeed and placed his head on many of their coins ; but of course these were no more portraits than the statues of Jupi- ter and Pallas are portraits. With regard to the relation of Greek archaeology to the history of Greece, both the monuments and the literature are 1 I am aware that there are reasons for believing that a Persian coin preserves a portrait of Artaxerxes Mnemon, who reigned a little earlier. ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 41 abundant, and they mutually illustrate one ano- ther ; and the same remark is more or less true for the histories of the nations afterwards to be men- tioned, upon which I shall therefore not comment in this respect. From Greece, who taught Rome most or all that she ever knew of the arts, we pass to the contem- plation of the mistress of the world herself. She found indeed in her own vicinity an earlier civili- sation, the Etruscan, whose archaeological remains and history generally are amongst the most ob- scure and perplexing matters in all the world of fore-time. The sepulchral and other monuments of Etruria are often inscribed, but 10 ingenuity has yet interpreted them. The words of he Etruscan and other Italian languages have been recently collected by Fabretti. There is some story about a learned antiquary after many years' research coming to the conclusion that two Etruscan words were equivalent to vixit annos, but which was vixit, and which annos, he was as yet uncertain. We have also Etruscan wall-paintings, and vari- ous miscellaneous antiquities in bronze, and among them the most salient peculiarity of Etruscan archaeology not easily to be conjectured, its ele- gantly-formed bronze mirrors. These, which are incised with mythological subjects, and often in- scribed, have attracted the especial attention of modern scholars and antiquaries, who have gazed upon them indeed almost as wistfully as the Tuscan ladies themselves. 42 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE But Greece had far more influence over Roman life and art than Etruria. Graecia capta feruni victorem cepit, et artes Intulit agresti Latio. Accordingly, Greek architecture (mostly of the later Corinthian style, which was badly elabo- rated into the Composite) was imported into Rome itself, and continued to flourish in the Greek provinces of the empire. Temples and theatres continued much as before; but the triumphal arch and column, the amphitheatre, the bath and the basilica, are peculiarly Roman. The genius of Rome however was essentially military, and the stamp which she has left on the world is military also. Her camps, her walls, and her roads, strata viamm, which, like arteries, connected her towns one with another and with the capital, are the real peculiarities of her archaeo- logy. The treatise on Roman roads, by Bergier, occupies above 800 pages in the Thesaurus of Gnevius. Instead of bootlessly wandering over the width of the world on these, let us rather walk a little over those in our own country, and as we travel survey the general character of the Roman British remains, which may serve as a type of all. In the early part of this lecture, I observed that we, in common with the rest of Western Europe, find in our islands weapons which belong to the stone, bronze, and iron periods; and here also, as in other places, the last-named period doubtless connects itself with the Roman. But besides ON ARCHAEOLOGY. 43 these, we have other remains, many of which may- be referred to the Celtic population which Caesar had to encounter, when he invaded our shores. These remains may in great part perhaps (for I am compelled to speak hesitatingly on a sub- ject which I have studied but little, and of which no one, however learned, knows very much) be anterior to Bonian times. Of this kind are the cromlechs at Dufferin in South Wales, in Anglesey, and in Penzance, of which there are models in the British Museum; of this kind also are, most probably, the gigantic structures at Stonehenge, about which so much has been written* and disputed. The British barrows of various forms and other sepulchral remains may also be referred, I should conceive, in part at least, to the prc-Boman Celtic period. The earlier mounds contain weapons and ornaments of stone, bronze and ivory, and rude pottery; the later ones, called Boman British barrows, appear mostly not to contain stone implements, but various articles of bronze and iron and pottery; also gold orna- ments and amber and bead necklaces. Other sepul- chral monuments consist merely of heaps of stones covering the body which has been laid in the earth. Many researches into this class of remains have of late years been made, and by none per- haps more patiently and more successfully than by the late Mr Bateman, in Derbyshire. The archae- ology of Wales has also been made the special ob- ject of study by a society formed for the purpose. 44 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE Some tribes of the ancient Britons were cer- tainly acquainted with the art of die-sinking, and a great many coins, principally gold, are extant, some of which may probably be as early as the second century before Christ. They are, to speak generally, barbarous copies of the beautiful gold staters of Philip of Macedon, which circulated over the Greek world, and so might become known to our forefathers by the route of Mar- seilles. With these remarks I leave the Celtic remains in Britain; all attempts to connect together the lite- rary notices and the antiquities of the Celts and Druids, so as to make out a history from them, have been compared to attempts to " trace pictures in the clouds 1 ." Still we may say to the Celtic archaeologist, Qapaeiv xp*]i