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The observing of resemblances and differences, and the memory of physical appearances required for this, are absolute requisites for carrying on the duties of excavating. Here we deal with the appearances in a land of sun-dried brickwork, where the accumulations are great, as in Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia. In a rocky land, such as Greece, there is not the same sheltering mud, and the appearances are therefore very different.

Temples.

The nature of a site can be guessed pretty closely from its aspect. A wide open space with mounds around it is almost certainly a temple site; and if there are stone chips strewn over it, no doubt remains as to its nature (Figs. 6, 7). The temples being of stone from the XIIth Dynasty onwards, they were ruined by the removal of the material in each age of disruption; but the houses of the towns, being always of mud brick, continually crumbled and decayed, and so filled up the ground with rubbish. In Egypt mud-brick towns accumulate at about 20 inches in a century; or in the rainy Syrian climate at about 50 inches. Herodotus describes walking on the roofs of the houses and seeing down into the temple precincts; and in every great site in Egypt, such as Tanis, Buto, Bubastis, Memphis, or Koptos, the plain of temple ruins had the house mounds far above it on all sides. The temples were ruined both for building-stone and for lime-burning. It is rare to get any portions of a limestone building left; sandstone is often found, and all the great temples which remain are of sandstone; granite generally has lasted, except where it has been split up in Roman times for millstones. The search for limestone has led to whole buildings being upset in order to extract the limestone foundations. The basalt pavement of Khufu, the granite pylon of Crocodilopolis, and probably the granite temple of Iseum, have been overthrown thus. Especially in the Delta, where no limestone hills are accessible, this destructive search for lime has been unrelenting in all ages; and it is seldom that ancient limestone is now met with. Hence all that can generally be seen of a temple site is a plain of dust with a few tumbled blocks of granite, the exposed tops of which are entirely weathered as rounded masses. Five or ten feet down there may be a rich harvest of carvings and inscriptions.

Fig. 8. Mounds of fort, Defeneh.

Fig. 9. Sarcophagi at Zuweleyn.

Towns.

A town site is always recognised (Fig.8) by its mounds of crumbling mud brick, strewn with potsherds if in Upper Egypt, or with burnt red bricks on the later mounds of the Delta. Whenever a native begins to describe a site in Lower Egypt, one inquires if there is red brick, and if so there is no need to listen further. Generally it is possible to date the latest age of a town by the potsherds lying on the surface; and to allow a rate of growth of 20 inches a century down to the visible level; if that gives a long period we may further carry down the certainly artificial level by 4 inches in a century for the Nile deposits when in the cultivated ground. For instance, there are mounds in the Delta about 40 feet high, ending about 500 A.D.; this gives about 40 feet of rise, equal to about 2400 years, or say 2000 B.C., for the age at the present ground level. But the visible base was about 5 feet lower at 500 A.D.; and the human deposit rising at 20 inches a century has been overlaid at the rate of 4 inches a century by the Nile deposit. Hence the age may be reckoned by a depth of 45 feet accumulated at 16 inches a century before 500 A.D. or about 2900 B.C. No exact conclusion could be based on this; but it is a valuable clue to the age to which the yet unseen foundation of a town may most likely belong. Town mounds and ruins of buildings have generally symmetrical forms, weathered away uniformly on all sides. But around towns are often heaps of rubbish thrown out, the best-known example of this being the immense heaps behind Cairo; and such accumulations usually show their nature by the two slopes, the gradual walk-up slope, and the steep thrown-down slope.

Cemeteries.

The cemetery sites on the desert have always been more or less plundered anciently. A prehistoric site may have no external trace, as the blown sand may cover it so evenly that there is no suspicion of anything lying beneath. But on a gravel surface there are generally some indications left of the hollows of the graves, and scraps of broken pottery left about by the plunderers (Fig.9). The historic cemeteries are generally easier to see, as they are in rising ground, and the holes of the tomb pits show on the surface. The difficulty is not to find the site of a cemetery, but to find a grave in it which still contains anything. As a rule, any tomb pit which appears still undisturbed has been left either because it belongs to an unfinished tomb with nothing in it, or because the tomb has already been reached from elsewhere. At Medum an untouched walling up of a chamber had been left, because the plunderers had tunnelled under the mass of the tomb and broken through the floor of the chamber. At Dendereh the floor of the chamber was entire, with the lid of the sarcophagus sunk in it, yet untouched; it had been left so because the plunderers had mined through from the outside under the floor to the sarcophagus, and broken through the side of it without touching the chamber. Some untouched tombs were left because the burials in them were known to be so poor that they were not worth opening. All this points to the plundering being mostly done during the lifetime of those who saw the burial. Usually only one tomb in ten contains anything noticeable; and it is only one in a hundred that repays the digging of the other ninety-nine.

Indications.

In general, on looking over a site every indication must be observed. Sometimes there may be a slight difference in vegetation, showing the positions of walls or of pits. In colder climates differences are shown by the melting of hoar frost or snow; as in the square of S. Domenico at Bologna, where some large patches—probably of ashes—show through the cobble paving during a thaw. A shower of rain will show much in drying; and, after a rare storm in Egypt, there are two or three precious hours when the buried walls show clearly on the ground, and should be hurriedly scored down before the hot sun removes the traces. A driving wind will bare the ground so that the harder walls show through the sand; or even a crowd of people passing will tramp into the softer filling and show the constructions. At sunrise or sunset ground should be carefully looked over to pick out the variations of level and slope, which will often show then, though quite invisible in full light. Prehistoric camp sites are noticed by the difference of tone of the ground in walking over them; the ashes holding so much air that the reverberation to the foot-step is quite different from that on ordinary desert. The appearance of the surface of disturbed desert differs much from the undisturbed: there may be slight hollows filled with sand, which are the traces of deep pits; there may be pebbles from deep beds thrown up, or fragments of limestone; or—best of all—chips of worked stone or of hard rocks may tell the tale of a building whose ruins lie beneath. The mastabas of the XIIth Dynasty at Dahshur left scarcely any surface trace, as the stone walls had been removed, and the gravel filling had spread out and denuded down to a level surface. The great wall of the camp at Daphnae 40 feet thick, had been ploughed by denudation until it was even lower than the desert on either side of it, and the lines of it were only visible by the absence of potsherds upon the site of the wall.

Mid,Late,Ist,IIIrd,VIth,XIIth,XVIIIthDyn.

Prehistoric.

Fig. 10.—Development of copper and bronze adzes. 1:6.

Productions.

Besides the discrimination of sites there is a vast subject in the discrimination of objects and of styles. The first requisite acquirement of a digger—his archaeological experience—consists in discriminating and distinguishing the differences between products of various dates. An Egyptian copper adze (Fig.10) of the ages of middle prehistoric, late prehistoric, early dynastic, IIIrd, VIth, XIIth, or XVIIIth Dynasties can be told at a glance, and we only need more dated examples to be able to separate them still more finely. A cutting-out knife (Fig.11), a pair of tweezers, a comb, can be dated almost as certainly. But it is when we can look not only to differences of form, but also to variations of colour and texture, that we have the widest scope for discrimination. The great variety of beads in each country, the hundreds of details of form, materials, and colour in Egypt alone, give them an importance archaeologically above most other things. In the prehistoric age there are a dozen materials, and many different forms, not one of which can be confounded with later products. In the Old Kingdom new and distinctive styles are met with, and a profusion of small amulets on necklaces. In the XIth and XIIth Dynasties magnificent beads of amethyst, green felspar, and carnelian outshine those of every other age. In the XVIIIth Dynasty the immense variety of glass and glazed beads defy enumeration, and yet are sharply characteristic of different reigns of that age. The later times of degradation also produce new and distinctive forms and colours; and when we reach the Roman period a flood of glass work imitates the fashionable beryl, amethyst, rock crystal, and other stones, with the mimicry of a forger.

Fig. 11.—Development of cutting-out knives. XIIth–XIXth Dynasties. A-A and B-B cutting edges.

Fig. 12.—One typical form of pottery of each period.

Pottery.

Pottery is, however, the greatest resource of the archaeologist. For variety of form and texture, for decoration, for rapid change, for its quick fall into oblivion, and for its incomparable abundance, it is in every respect the most important material for study (Fig.12), and it constitutes the essential alphabet of archaeology in every land. Think for a moment how few people know the appearance of a common jug a century old, how the crocks of Georgian times have all vanished, and new forms are made. Even of decorated china not one piece in a thousand in England is before the last century, and not one in a million is three centuries old; so rapidly does breakable ware perish, and become unknown. This not only prevents its being handed on from earlier times, as ornaments or weapons may descend, but it prevents the copying of older forms, and gives a free scope to rapid variation. No doubt some standard forms may continue to be made, because they are so simple, and so adapted to common wants, that the same causes continue to produce them. But it is only the simplest and least characteristic types which thus continue; the more detailed and specialised the form, the more rapidly it changes, and gives way to new styles. In the prehistoric age of Egypt alone there are about a thousand different forms of pottery; and when the historic times shall be as fully recorded, probably two or three times as many will demand notice. In Italy and Greece there is apparently as great a variety, though—apart from painted vases—it is very far from being fully placed on paper. And when we come to know the archaeology of other lands, their pottery will doubtless prove as varied and distinctive in its styles. It is then in a thorough knowledge of pottery that any sound archaeology must be based; and there is no wider or more important field for discrimination. With the brief view of Palestinian pottery gained in a few weeks, on one site at Tell Hesy (Lachish), I found it possible to ride over mounds of ruins and see the age of them without even dismounting.

Style.

Beside the discrimination of broad physical differences there is the more subtle observation of style. This cannot be discussed, or even shown to exist, without a very wide collection of examples; yet in a trained observer a long series of experience should result in an unexpressed—almost intangible and incommunicable—sense of the style of each country and each age, such that a piece of work can at once be referred to its proper place, though not a single exact comparison can be quoted for it. Special motives, outlines, curves, tastes, belong to various sources so certainly and characteristically that they show their origin at a glance. A good example of this is seen in the bronzes of Minusinsk in Central Asia; this site is almost equidistant from the North Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the China Sea, and the style seems to recall by its details almost equally the taste of Northmen, Persians, and Chinese. A good practice for such discrimination is the analysis of common ornament around us: a rug or a wall pattern may be analysed into its sources—here a bit from Assyria, there from Egypt, here from Japan, there from Norway, all hashed together by the modern designer. And until the common and obviously distinctive patterns of each country can be named at sight, and separated into their various sources, the observer cannot hope to gain that far more essential sense of the national taste of each people, and the sympathetic feeling of the relationship of any form or curve that may chance to be seen,—that conviction of the family and source of each object, which is the illumination of an archaeologist, the guide to fresh suggestions and researches, the mental framework which holds all memories in place.

Visual Memory.

But beside this sublimated use of the permanent memory and discrimination, there is another very crude and transient discrimination which is also needed in actual work. A visual memory of the site and excavations should be constantly in mind; the master should be able to go over the whole site, and every man at work on it, entirely from memory; he should be able to realise at once, on seeing the place next day, exactly how every one of fifty different holes looked the day before; and know at once where the work stood, and what has been done since, so as to measure it up without depending on any statements by the workmen. If a boy comes with a message that Ibrahim or Mutwali needs direction, the master should be able to visualise the place, inquire what has been done, and how each part now stands, and then give sufficient temporary direction entirely from memory of the site, and memory of what he expected to do, or to prove, or to find, from that particular hole. The extent of this visual memory is never realised until one meets with some who are so unlucky as not to possess such an apparatus, and who are therefore unable to know what has been done, and have to begin each day’s work as if they were strangers to the place. Of all inherent mental qualifications there is perhaps none more essential to a digger than this permanent picture of a site in the mind. And the transient memory from day to day should include the appearance of every hole on all sides, the meaning of it and the purpose for which it is being dug.