Antiquities from the Ancient East

Abstract

ON July 11 two exhibitions of antiquities found in the course of excavations during the past season were opened in London, at University College, Gower Street, and at the British Museum. At University College, Sir Flinders Petrie has on exhibition the finds of the expedition of the British School of Archaeology in Egypt at Tell el-Ajjul, the ancient Gaza. The antiquities from the Hyksos levels will give an added attraction to the exhibition in the estimation of the general public; but the real interest of the collection as a whole lies rather in its extent and completeness in range over Palestinian cultures from the copper age to the time of the eighteenth dynasty and later. A quantity of pottery from the Ægæan and Mycenæan civilisations, from Egypt, Cyprus, and elsewhere, indicates the importance of the site as an early meeting point of international lines of communication. Particularly to be noted among the exhibits are fine daggers of the copper age, alabaster vases of the eighteenth dynasty, and glass of the same period. Two finds to which attention has been directed in preliminary reports on the season's work' the group of battered vessels and gold and silver, associated with burnt bones, which seem to be of the nature of a comminatory offering, and the gold ornament of torc form for which Irish affinities have been suggested' will certainly attract notice. The exhibition will remain open for four weeks.