To attempt a new restoration of the Tomb of Mausolus may seem to some a hopeless, and to others an unnecessary, task. But I have never felt satisfied with any of those hitherto proposed; and only that of Cockerell (dating originally from before the excavation of the monument by Sir Charles Newton in 1857) and that of Mr. J. J. Stevenson appear to me to explain in any way its reputation in antiquity, especially for lightness and beauty, or its inclusion among the ‘Seven Wonders.’ The sources of evidence as to the construction of the building are the well-known description given by the elder Pliny and the facts disclosed by Newton's excavation; it will be best therefore to quote the passage and briefly to state the facts. Pliny's words are: Scopas habuit aemulos eadem aetate Bryaxim et Timotheum et Leocharem, de quibus simul dicendum est quoniam pariter caelavere Mausoleum. Sepulchrum hoc est ab uxore Artemisia factum Mausolo Cariae regulo, qui obiit Olympiadis CVII anno secundo. Opus id ut esset inter septem miracula hi maxime fecere artifices. Patet ab austro et septentrione sexagenos ternos pedes, brevius a frontibus, toto circumitu pedes CCCCXI, attollitur in altitudinem xxv cubitis, cingitur columnis XXXVI. Pteron vocavere circumitum. Ab oriente caelavit Scopas a septentrione Bryaxis a meridie Timotheus ab occasu Leochares, priusque quam peragerent regina obiit.

The four centuries with which this study of Greek tondos is concerned cover a period which begins in the reign of Gyges of Lydia and ends shortly before the accession of Alexander the Great. Most of the tondos which have survived are of small size. The Strangford shield is an exception. No doubt other statues had decorated shields, but we know nothing about them, nor have we any evidence that the round form was used for large pictures. We are concerned with circles seldom more than a foot, and sometimes as little as a quarter of an inch, in diameter, with cups and plates, mirrors and coins. Nevertheless, in spite of their small size, and the consequent restriction of the composition to a small number of figures, these works are often of the first quality, and always reflect the style and ideas of their period.

The geometric style gave Greek artists certain principles which they never entirely forgot, although they adhered to them more strictly at some times than at others. These principles are definition and symmetry. On Geometric vases, scene is marked off from scene and part from part; transitions are never slurred, and the defining lines are clearly drawn. The great structures and the minor parts within them are held together by the echoing of motives and figures, symmetrically balanced. Other features of the geometric style are less long-lived, the filling ornament, the angularity of the figures and the refusal to represent depth; yet they are not finally and completely abandoned until the sixth century or even later.

I return to this subject, on which I wrote in 1921, because there is a good deal to be said which is new and which should, I think, be pretty conclusive. I have recently been compelled to write once again on Alexander's universalism, and the two matters are interconnected; also Professor Wilcken has put forward a new view of the principal plan, that for the conquest of the Mediterranean basin, which I think is untenable. The importance of the question of this plan for our ideas of Alexander needs no emphasising.

The document which contains the plans is given in Diodorus xviii, 4, 2–5, and Wilcken, like every German scholar to-day, believes that that document comes from Hieronymus and is therefore true. I have traced this belief back as far as I can, and cannot find that anyone has ever attempted to prove it; it arises from the unquestioned fact that (Agathocles apart) the basis and much of the detail of Diodorus' books xviii–xx are from Hieronymus. But the question of xviii, 4, 2–5 stands thus, xviii, 5 is certainly from Hieronymus.

Dr. Jacobsthal's learned and ingenious discussion of the himation described by Pseudo-Aristotle in de miris auscult. 96, 838a (JHS lviii, 1938, 205 ff.) is not wholly satisfying. In general it remains strange that so splendid a work should belong to one of the later revivals of Sybaris, and in detail the use of зῴδια for views of cities is unnatural, while the interpretation of Πέρσαι as Persepolis, though just sufficiently attested, is hardly convincing.

The difficulty centres in Σούσοις. Apart from this word everyone would translate Πέρσαις ‘ Persians, ’ and it is easy to imagine for the lower border a processional composition of Oriental warriors. Heyne's Σούσοις is not plausible, since no Greek is likely to have differentiated Susians from Persians.

I would suggest that Σούσοις is a corruption of Σκύθαις. We need not press the ethnic names: it is enough to suppose two friezes of distinguishable barbarians. The assumed corruption is easy, since C and Θ are notoriously similar in uncials, while K is often confused with IC, I is often lost, and C is often confused with O. A little illegibility in an uncial ancestor would account for all the misreadings, and the names Σούσων and Περσῶν occur only two lines apart in c. 27 supra, and may have been running as a pair in the scribe's head. The tendency of manuscripts of this treatise to miswrite proper names is illustrated by their disagreement over Alkisthenes in this passage and by other corruptions, such as Μηδικὴν for Μαιδικὴν (c. 1), κύὴνπρῳ for Γυάρῳ (c. 25), and Κολούσοις for Λουσοϊς (c. 125).

The inscription from Kythera (Fig. 1) to which Miss Thomas drew attention in the last part of the JHS (lviii, p. 256), is an early Babylonian cuneiform inscription which has already been the object of considerable study on the part of Assyriologists. It was first discussed by Hugo Winckler (SB Preuss. Akad. Wiss. 1897, 262–4) as part of an article by Ulrich Kohler (Ueber Probleme der gr. Vorzeit, l.e., 258–274). Winckler successfully deciphered lines 4 and 5, and established the correct reading of some of the signs in the first lines. He thought the inscription dated between 1500 and 1200 b.c., and thus, as Köhler added, from the finest period of Mycenean culture. Köhler (p. 265) further said that the cuneiform tablet might have been brought to Kythera at that time with other oriental bric-á-brac, like the Egyptian scarabs found in Rhodes and in the plain of Argos.

Many years later the study of this inscription was again taken up by Eckhard Unger (Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte xiii (1929) p. 313, pl. 58A), who went beyond Winckler and succeeded in reading the third line as well. On the other hand, his deciphering of the first two lines, his restoration of the third and fourth, his assertions on its place of origin (according to him Tilmun in the region of the Persian Gulf), and the date he gives it are not proof against criticism. For this, however, he is hardly to blame, since it is only very recently that the American excavations in Western Asia have shed light upon the author of this inscription.

One of the more complicated problems that confronts the art student to-day is that of maintaining touch with all the material relative to the sphere of his own researches that is published in numerous periodicals. For this reason a short note, referring to a recent article in Ars Islamica (Michigan, 1938, Vol. V, Pt. I, pp. 55–86) may be of service to Byzantinists. In the article, which is entitled ‘ Mediaeval Graves in Cyprus ’ and is by Miss du Plat Taylor, associated curator of the Nicosia Museum, a quantity of late Byzantine pottery is published. Excellent outline drawings and photographs are given, and our familiarity with these later polychrome sgraffito wares, common over the whole Mediterranean world, is considerably widened. Most important, the vessels come from graves, where they were in many cases found in association with coins. They can thus be definitely dated to quarter centuries or even to decades during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Miss Taylor is to be congratulated on her excavations and on this full publication of them.

In Mr. Scranton's publication of the inscriptions found by the American School at Phlius in 1924 (Hesp. V, 1936, p. 235 ff.) he comments (p. 238) on the unusual form which occurs in no. 2 in the words and suggests that it may have been a modification of another letter, as or or , intended to represent ɳ). In this connexion, attention may be drawn to another example of this letter-form, though apparently without the central dots, in an inscription from Asprókampo, near Perachora. It is given by L. Ross (Arch. Aufs. II, p. 661): , σᾶμα. A facsimile of Ross’ original drawing from his diary is also published in IG IV. 414, Röhl IGA 18. Forchhammer, who also made a copy, (Halcyonia 1857, 14) saw the third letter as , and Le Bas (RA I, 174: Voy. Arch. II, 77, pl. IV, no. 6) did not see the first five letters at all, while Röhl (loc. cit.), taking Forchhammer's reading as correct, suggested σᾶμα. Kirchhoff (Geschichte3 p. 88) gives Ross’ facsimile without commenting on the form of the third letter, and in the fourth edition mentions the inscription without giving the facsimile.

That Ross himself was convinced that this form was on the stone, and was intentional, is shown by his attempts (loc. cit.) at connecting it with other similar signs from the Greek and other alphabets.1

In his notice of the above paper in the last number of the JHS, p. 287, the reviewer makes one remark which is likely to pepetuate an old error. ‘ In 1909,’ he writes, ‘ Butler found the base of a composite pier ’ etc. What I wrote was that ’ there was no trace of any [such] pier and it is evident that he [Butler] made some mistake when he was working up his notes in America ’ (op. cit., p. 8). The point is crucial, and in a previous account of the church I published photographs to show that the pier never can have existed : see the Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement for January 1936, Plate II.

Professor Thomas A. Brady, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, U.S.A., has recently published privately a repertory of statuary and figured monuments relating to the cult of the Egyptian Gods. He desires to make his collection as complete as possible before eventual publication of the photographs. Copies of the repertory are available free of charge. Those interested in the subject are requested to send any information bearing upon the materials, as well as photographs of pieces. Prompt payment will be made for photographs and for any other expense involved.

The Sixth International Congress of Archaeology will take place in Berlin from the 21st to the 27th of August.

In accordance with the tradition established in previous congresses, emphasis will be laid chiefly on Greek and Roman cultures and on their origins and dissemination; in other words, on the Mediterranean countries and such others as were under Roman influence, covering the period from the earliest connection with the ancient Orient to late Antiquity.

The management of the Congress is under the direction of the Archäologisches Institut des Deutschen Reiches. Requests for information and enrolments should be sent to the VI. International Congress of Archaeology, Maienstrasse 1, Berlin W. 62.