The publication of Dr Sophus Müller's Urgeschichte Europas in 1905 naturally revived the controversy, which is never entirely dormant, as to the relative shares of East and North-west in the creation of the first European civilisation. Dr Sophus Müller saw no reason, in this latest summary, to modify his well-known view of the preponderant influence of the East. The directly contrary view is restated with a good deal of recent evidence by Dr M. Much in Mittheilung d. Anthrop. Gesellsch. z. Wien, xxxvi. pp. 57-91, who emphasises particularly the effect of regional influences in determining the course of human development.

Another contribution to knowledge of the relations between the early Aegean and the North, emerges from controversy between Drs H. Schmidt and T. Teutsch in Zeitschr. f. Ethnologie, xxxix. pp. 108 ff., 121 ff., as to the early phases of the decorative art of neolithic pottery in Southeastern Europe. The question concerns the priority of the use of white pigment as ground-colour or as vehicle of decorative detail, and leads to the discussion of the place of origin of the pottery styles with white incrustation and similar decorative techniques, which are widespread in Central and South-eastern Europe, but are not typically represented within the Aegean area.

In the Bulletin des Correspondances Helleniques, xxxi. pp. 115 ff., M. Pottier publishes a number of Aegean painted vases, which have been acquired in recent years by the Louvre. The most important group is the equipment of a chamber-tomb from Legórtino in the plain of Gortyna, including a fine bull's-head rhyton and craters with designs of wild goats and palm trees, which resembles, on the one hand, some of the late Minoan styles of Crete itself, and on the other comes near to that of the Cypriote style, usually assigned to the early Iron Age, of which the Ashmolean Vase (also with goats or deer and palm trees, though more conventionalised), is the supreme example. M. Pottier raises the question whether these paintings had originally a magical significance, but concludes that for their creators they were probably already purely decorative. He also thinks it

necessary to discuss again the Vallisneria spiralis speculations of M. Houssaye. It is a pity that the sarcophagus which was the centre-piece of this Legórtino group is not published with the vases, but is reserved for M. Savignoni: see, however, Monumenti Antichi, xiv. 655-9.

Other vases published by M. Pottier include a fine "bird

" of the Cypriote style above mentioned, which he assigns to the eighth or seventh century (unfortunately, like most of this class of vases, it arrives without escort); a curious clay wall-bracket, also Cypriote, with bulls' heads and mainly geometrical painting; a clay bull's head from Ceramus in Caria, comparable with the Late Minoan bulls' heads of Crete; and a painted fragment from Kaesarich in Cappadocia, showing a winged man in a very rude geometrical style. M. Pottier thinks it is early. In some ways it resembles the painted fragments from Kara Eyuk in the same district, published in Chantre's Mission Archéologique en Cappadoce.

The first number of Memnon (I. 1907), pp. 44-69, contains a memorandum by Mr A. Reichel on the similarity between Minoan conventional representation of earth, and certain decorative motives of Chinese art under the Shang dynasty, which was approximately contemporary with the Minoan Age. He notes evidence of the use of silk in the West at an early date, as proof that communication was possible between China and the Aegean. But is there any evidence of silk in the Aegean in Minoan times?

Two useful pieces of cataloguing have been completed by G. Nicole, in his descriptions of the collections of Cypriote pottery in the Museums of Athens and Constantinople. They are published in the Bulletin de l'Institut Genevois, xxxvii., but may be obtained separately. The Athens collection was acquired in 1899 at Alexandria: it consists of 318 vases, fairly representative of all the principal styles of Cypriote ceramic, but one and all devoid of history or locality in consequence it is of morphological value only. But it contains some interesting vases, and two or three very rare fabrics.

The Constantinople collection was presented in 1873 by

the late General di Cesnola. It contains 857 vases of various value: the localities, where they are stated, are subject to the same doubts as in the case of others from that series of excavations. Several specimens are of peculiar fabrics, and a number are unique in form, but this feature must be discounted in view of the prevalence of fantastic forms in the pottery of Cyprus.

Both the Athenian and the Constantinopolitan list are drawn up in close conformity with the morphological schedule adopted in the Cyprus Museum Catalogue of 1899.

Four papers on early weapons of the Mediterranean world may be mentioned together. In Rev. Archéologique, ix. pp. 243-52, A. J. Reinach discusses the origin and development of the Roman pilum, with a full collection of the evidence, which was much to be desired. But his paper is not yet concluded, and detailed treatment of his argument must be reserved.

In Rendiconti Accad. Lincei, xvi. pp. 3-4, W. Helbig gives reason for supposing that the hasta pura among the dona militaria, used also by the pater patratus in declaring war, was really a primitive pike with head hardened in the fire, and that this explains its name.

The weapons of the Villanova period in Italy are the subject of a paper by A. Grenier in Revue Archéologique, ix. 1907, pp. 1-17. He notes the rarity of swords, daggers, and spearheads, in comparison with axe and palstave types, and the absence of defensive weapons: the palstave he inclines to identify with the cateia.

A paper on the Sigynnae of Herodotus, by J. L. Myres, published in a volume of Anthropological Essays, dedicated to Professor E. B. Tylor, is noted here (though mainly ethnological), because it examines the possibility that the “Cypriote spear,” to which the name σιγύνη or σίγυμνον was given, may have been an Early Iron Age type, which is found in Cyprus, with a very long socket and mid-rib, and almost no "wings" or head. From this description it will be evident that morphologically this spear is closely similar to the Roman pilum, and the suggestion is made that both

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the pilum and the sigynna have a common transalpine origin, and that the name of the latter may commemorate early metal-workers belonging to the people whom later, in the iron-working region of the Jura, the Romans knew as the Sequani.

Monsieur P. Marguerite de la Charlonie provides, in Revue des Études Grecques, xx. (1907), pp. 232 ff., a discussion of the cause of the smoked appearance of certain ancient vases, under the title Sur les vases antiques dits enfumés. He bases his conclusions upon the evidence of experiments conducted by himself. Fragments of ancient vases were exposed to the smoke of burning wood, both green and dry. The blackening was found first to affect the surface, then to penetrate into the thickness of the vase, and then, if the heat was raised considerably, the carbonaceous matter was decomposed, and the fragments when cooled appeared no longer black, but a kind of dirty red, recalling their original tint. This experiment showed, first, that the black colour produced by smoking varies in intensity from the surface to the interior; second, that it affects different vases in different degrees, and the same fragments differently on different points; third, that it follows from this that it would be extremely difficult to impart by this means a uniform surface to the whole vase.

A comparison of ancient vases with smoky appearance showed the necessity of classifying them in two groups; in the one group the black surface could be wholly removed by simply scraping the vase: in this case the smoke probably proceeded from the funerary combustion. In the other series the dark colour penetrated deeply into the substance of the vase: in this case the grey colour is due to some other cause than funerary combustion. This grey type of pottery is represented both among vases and among terra-cotta figurines.

The cause of this thorough grey colour has of course been much discussed; the following theories have been widely held: (1) that the vases were intentionally smoked before being painted; (2) the vases were smoked after com

pletion, in the same way as the wedged wood and Danish black fabrics of modern times (Le Chatelier, Société d'encouragement, 1906). Such fabrics may be either quite black or of a regulated tint of grey; but this process needs very careful regulation, and there exists no reason for its application in cases where the surface of the pottery was to be painted, or otherwise concealed, as in the case of some of the ancient examples; (3) the clay may have been grey to begin with, and M. de la Charlonie quotes examples of such clays in France, from Montereau, from the forest of La Londe, which serves for the pottery of Rouen, and at Urcel (Aisne). The author has made experiments in firing the vases made of these clays, which lose their grey tint in the kiln more or less completely, and sometimes go red, but this red is always dull, or dirty, like that of the ancient vases under consideration; (4) it would be quite easy to regulate the depth of the grey tint in such clays, either by blending different clays, or by adding some ordinary matter before making the vases. Similar clays containing a considerable quantity of carbonaceous matter have been noted, by the geologist De Launay, in Euboea, at Koumi in Lemnos, Imbros, and in the Dardanelles. An Euboean locality is particularly important, because the ancient vases under consideration came mainly from Attica, and the statuettes from Boeotia.

It is clear that such carbonaceous clays must have been baked in a kiln from which the air was more or less completely excluded; otherwise the carbonaceous matter would be burned away by oxidation. In any case the fire must be very gentle, and this accounts both for the comparative softness of the finished vase, and for the ease with which such vases absorbed smoke stains from the funerary pyre. This fabric must always have been difficult to produce successfully, and examples of it were probably always rare. It is possible that one of the inducements to produce it was its superficial likeness to oxidised silver; this is particularly apparent in the vases Louvre 430, Musée Dutuit 320, and Bibliothèque Nationale 445. The author proposes to extend his investigations to vases in other European