Mummies, Fossils

Excavators in the torrid and semi-torrid zones of the earth are in the full swing of another season. A chronicle of their recent doings must mention the following (TIME, Oct. 22, Oct. 29):

Egypt. Work in the Valley of the Kings at Luxor proceeded with painstaking slowness incomprehensible to the layman who would prefer to tear the secrets of the ages from TutankhAmen’s breast in a day. Howard Carter and his staff have removed large quantities of highly decorated treasures, many of which are on exhibition in Cairo. Aided by 10,000 candlepower lights in the tomb, telephones and all the paraphernalia of civilization and modern archeological science, they are patiently removing and restoring the canopies and accessories surrounding the sarcophagus of the Pharaoh. But the casket itself will probably not be opened this year, nor will two other chambers crammed with rare objects. It is quite probable that the tomb may be found to contain the mummies of two Egyptian kings, for the outer door has two cartouches. Khu-n-aten, Tut’s father-in-law, may have held the throne jointly and have been buried with him. The chief problem of the investigators is to keep the material reasonably intact. The golden screen is in momentary danger of crumbling to dust. It has to be reinforced with waxed linen, which puts a dingy gloom on the brilliance of four millenniums ago.

Mesopotamia. The joint expedition of the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania under C. Leonard Woolley resumed work at Ur of the Chaldees. The Temple of the Moon God, dating from about 3200 B. C., discovered last year, and only partly cleared, will be the main object of attack. Cuneiform tablets from Ur are arriving in Philadelphia. The U. of P. Museum goes halves with the British Museum on the finds. Dr. George B. Gordon and Sir Frederick Kenyon, the respective directors, shook dice to divide the booty.

Palestine. Traces of the ancient city and citadel of David on Mount Ophel, near Jerusalem, were discovered by the joint expedition of the London Daily Telegraph and the Palestine Exploration Fund, under Prof. R. A. S. Macalister. The remains of a Jebusite wall and tower they found are believed to be the mysterious “Millo” mentioned in II Samuel, V, 9, “And David built round about from Millo and inward.” The evidence appears to show that “Millo” was a tower or fort which existed even before the Hebrew conquest.

At Beisan (Old Testament Beth-Shean) the University of Pennsylvania expedition found a sarcophagus inscribed with the name of Phalion, uncle of Herod the Great. Further monuments of the period of Egyptian domination under Rameses II and Seti I give the first corroboration from Egyptian sources of the fact that the Hebrews were at one time enslaved in Egypt, and built cities for Rameses.

Europe. Ruins of what was probably an Etruscan city antedating Rome by 1000 years were found near Ferrara, with many tombs and a temple.

¶Italian archeologists planned to secure government support to raise and salvage two large ancient Roman ships at the bottom of Lake Nemi, in the crater of an extinct volcano. The vessels have been examined by divers, and were probably luxurious houseboats used by the Caesars.

¶In northwestern Esthonia, ancient Arabic coins were unearthed, dating from as early as 715 A. D., several of which were unknown to numismatists.

China. Henry Fairfield Osborn, who had gone to inspect the Asiatic fields, and Roy Chapman Andrews, director of the third Asiatic expedition, came home full of their subject, and in lectures and articles have been busily expounding the fossil wealth of Mongolia. They brought with them the famous 25 dinosaur eggs, upon which a tentative value of $2,000 apiece was set. Several will be sold. Further revelations serve only to increase the certainty of the conclusions drawn about central Asia.

Java. Professor J. Howard McGeorge, of the department of zoology of Columbia University, returned from a visit to the Teyler Museum, Amsterdam, where he studied the fossil remains of the so-called Trinil apeman, or Pithecanthropus erectus, discovered in Java in 1891-2 by Professor Eugen Dubois, Dutch Army surgeon, and since very strictly guarded and accessible to few scientists. The fossils comprise only the upper three-fifths of the brain case, the left femur (thigh-bone), two molar teeth, and a premolar tooth which may not belong to the same skeleton. They are generally agreed to be about 500,000 years old, and bear no close relation to the Piltdown, Neanderthal and Cro-magnon men, later human types. Dr. McGregor, in contradistinction to Dubois’ opinion, believes the Trinil ape-man is nearer man than ape, but he regards it not as a direct progenitor of Homo sapiens, but a sort of “great-uncle” or collateral line of development. The brain capacity is about 900 cubic centimeters, as against 500 for apes and 1700 for civilized man. Professor McGregor believes the “apeman” was a woman, as the femur is oblique, adapted to support a wider pelvis.

(Recent diggings and findings in South and Central America and in the United States will be listed in TIME for Jan. 7, 1924.)