This note by D. N. Hall, Fenland Field Officer, Cambridgeshire Archaeological Committee, is to report recent findings that will be discussed in detail in a future article.

This magnificently produced volume is in itself a tribute to the devoted and rewarding work which Claude Schaeffer, aided by many skilful collaborators, began at Ras Shamra-Ugarit 36 years ago. The frontispiece illustrates a 5000-pound Syrian banknote, engraved with designs of Ugaritic ivories, a mark of honour in addition to that which was bestowed when the author was made a ‘Freeman’ of the city of Latakia. His many friends and admirers in this country will rejoice that he is held in esteem and affection in the East no less than in the West.

The account here presented describes the discoveries made in the 18th and 19th campaigns of 1954-5, and includes a full-scale map of the ‘Grand Palais’ and the ‘Petit Palais’ which, besides being buildings of great architectural interest, have yielded historical and archaeological treasures in abundance. Associated with the former building we have the remains of a royal garden, a parterre which, with its surrounding paths, is an ancient forerunner of Louis XIV's achievement at Versailles, but 31 centuries older, and in another court we find an ornamental pond bordered with a low stone parapet. Not far away was a furnace for the baking of cuneiform texts; some of them had never been removed from the ashes.

Ever since the beginning of recorded history, Ancient Egypt was dependent upon the goodwill of the Phoenician overlords of the mountain land of the Lebanon for supplies of timber in the long running lengths required for the construction of large ships, especially those intended for use on long voyages by sea ; fine timber was also in considerable demand for the making of the elaborate wooden sarcophagi of nobles and of members of the royal family as well as for furniture of superior quality. This lack of suitable native timber made the Egyptians late comers in sea-trading ; indeed, it restricted progress so seriously that their water-borne commerce was limited to traffic with Nubia and the South by way of the Nile waterway, to occasional expeditions down the Red Sea to Southern Arabia and to Somaliland (Punt) and to short coasting trips to Phoenicia to buy timber logs and to the coasts of the Sinai Peninsula in search of copper.

The history of North Africa is dominated by the Sahara, which has always been a vital factor in the lives of the peoples of Barbary and the Western Sudan. The cultural and economic development of both has been profoundly affected by intercourse between the two. Yet they are separated by a desert which forms one of the world's greatest barriers to human intercourse.

A slight increase in the aridity of the Sahara would so extend the waterless stages that the caravan routes would become impassable to camels and therefme to men—leaving, of course, mechanical transport out of consideration. A correspondingly slight increase in rainfall would quickly multiply the waterholes and desert pastures and render man independent of the now necessary camel. The question of climatic change in historic times is therefore a matter of importance to the student of the history of northern Africa.

For its importance in throwing light upon a dark period of history, and for the intrinsic beauty and archaeological significance of its contents the Sutton Hoo Ship burial has been rightly described as the greatest find ever made in England. The Ship was fully excavated in July and August 1939, and the treasures found therein were taken to the British Museum, where the most urgent preservative measures were immediately undertaken. During the War these valuable finds were hidden underground. Recently they were returned to the British Museum, where they are now being unpacked, cleaned, and made ready for exhibition. In anticipation of their full publication it has been decided to make a report upon some individual pieces when, from time to time, they become available for exhibition.

The early nineteenth century witnessed a remarkable reversal of judgment on the American pre-Columbian cultures. Prescott's romantic histories and Lord Kingsborough's monumental Mexican Antiquities are inspirations of earlier and less sceptical eras. Such pleasing imaginings as that the Spaniards ‘overthrew in Mexico a greater civilization than their own’ received scant support from the archaeologist who had displaced the antiquary, or from the critical historian who interpreted him. Dr Robertson1 summed up the verdict of the new investigators;:—‘The inhabitants of the New World were in a state of society so extremely rude as to be unacquainted with those arts which are the first essays of human ingenuity in its advance towards improvement’. He characterized Cortes's ‘emperors’ as ‘headmen’, the gorgeous palaces of the Conquest as ‘huts or mounds of rubble’, the Aztec Empire as a ‘league of primitive tribes’. Research, both among the ruins of the Mexican Valley and in the histories of the more prosaic conquistadores, established a singular lack of anything on the pre-Columbian continents which could be described as other than a tawdry barbarism.

1. In the September number of ANTIQUITY (no. 123, pp. 124–130), I suggested that the language of Linear A was Semitic. I leaned toward narrowing down the probabilities to West Semitic, but indicated the possibility of East Semitic (= Akkadian or Assyro-Babylonian) too. The clue to the identification of the language proved to be ga-ba MAN 62 (= Akkadian gabba awîlū 62) ‘ all the men = 62 ’ (p. 128, n. 14aa). Subsequently I observed that the regular Mycenaean Greek totalling formula (e.g. to-so MAN 17 ‘ so many men: 17 ’) was as exact an equivalent of my Akkadian reading as one could expect in so different an idiom. From that moment on I approached Linear A with Akkadian in mind.