Peogeess of Egyptology.
of the Vth Dynasty at Memphis, and the Gambia goose, Plectropterus
ruppelli, from the tomb of Ti, thus adding two interesting birds to the
Egyptian bestiary. Bee. de Trav. xxxiv. 163.
A contribution by the late Professor Lieblein to the Christiania
Videnskabs Selskabs Forhandl. (1910, 1) on anti being incense, not myrrh,
is reviewed by Jequiee, Sphinx, xvi. 27.
It appears that iron was already smelted and worked to a certain extent
in predynastic times. Wainweight describes the occurrence of iron beads
along with gold, carnelian, agate, etc., in two predynastic graves at
El Gerzeh, 40 miles south of Cairo, and figures one of the tomb-groups.
Dr. Gowlaxd, on analysing them, found that they must be of wi-Qught
iron. Man. 1911, ]STo. 100, also in Rev. Arch. xix. 255. In a rich tomb of
the Middle Kingdom at Haifa, Woolley and MacIvee found a spear-head
of iron which they illustrate in Buhen.
Naville publishes some examples of modern hand-made pottery from
Egypt, and suggests that, considering the variety which reigns in the local
forms and fabric of pottery, it is a mistake to suppose that ordinary
pottery can be used for dating purposes in excavating ancient cemeteries.
Anthropologic, xxiii. 313.
Whittemoee describes and figures some stone bowls in common use
among the Bisharin, and observes that they find them more suitable than
fragile pottery in their nomadic life. Man, 1912, No. 65.
Boechaedt describes a small portable sundial of fayence from Egypt,
made on the Greek principle, whereby the hour is told not by the length
but by the direction of the shadow. A.Z. xlix. 65.
Peteie, in a special memoir, The Formation of the Alphabet, traces the
origin of the alphabet in pot-marks and other meaningless "conventional"
signs to which sounds were eventually attached. He finds such pot-
marks used anciently over a wide area with a certain uniformity, but
considers that the process of selection from this " signary" for the
ultimate alphabet was especially localised in North Syria. The argu-
ment is supported by an elaborate table of signs from various parts of the
Mediterranean world. There is also a plate of ostraca of the New
Kingdom inscribed with unusual characters; it may be remarked that
similar ostraca were published by Daeessy in his memoir on the tomb
of Amenhotp II.
Meinhof illustrates the theoretical stages in the development of writing-
by the usages of design and of primitive writings amongst the modern
African peoples, some of whom, the Vei and Bamum, have invented
modes of writing recently. A.Z. xlix. 1.