CATALOGUE OF ANTIQUITIES

EXHIBITED IN THE MUSEUM FORMED DURING THE ANNUAL

MEETING OF THE ARCHÆOLOGICAL INSTITUTE,

HELD AT CHICHESTER, IN JULY, 1853.

Antiquities brought from Foreign Countries, comprising Ancient Objects, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman, not connected with Britain.

Two Chests or Arks of sycamore wood, found in tombs at Thebes, in Egypt. The more ancient of these objects appears, by the hieroglyphics painted on one side, to have been made in the reign of Amenophis I, who died в.c. 1550; it is consequently of a period nearly sixty years earlier than that to which the ark of the covenant made by Bezaleel (Exodus xxxvii) is assigned (B.c. 1491). It was used to contain images of the Egyptian deities and other sacred objects. The hieroglyphics, painted in a light-blue colour, relate that this ark was dedicated by a priestess of Ammon and .Amenophis, the judge of Thebes, to the goddess Nepthys, Osiris, and Isis. The second ark is of inferior interest: it is of smaller dimensions, painted black, the hieroglyphics on one side being in yellow: they record a dedication to Osiris, lord of the region of the dead. The date of this ark is uncertain, as no royal name appears on it; it is however not less ancient than six hundred years before the Christian era, and it may be of as remote a period as B.C. 1300, being that to which most of the tombs near the place where it was found, are to be assigned. On a wall of the temple of Medinet Abu, at Thebes, there is a representation of a procession in which an ark of this kind is carried on two poles, in like manner as the ark of the covenant described in the book of Exodus.1

Two tablets of the dark red granite of Mount Sinai, on which are inscribed the Ten Commandments, the first four on one of them,

1 See a more full account of these remarkable reliques, in the address delivered by the Hon. Robert Curzon at the Chi

VIII.

chester Meeting-Report of the Proceedings, p. 22. (Sussex Arch. Coll., vol. VII.)

36

and six on the other tablet. The writing is on both sides of the tablets, in accordance with the description given in Exodus xxxii, 15, and is in the ancient Samaritan character. The tablets are ancient, but the writing is not considered to be of any great antiquity. They measure about twelve inches in height, and are rounded at the top like certain tablets found in Egypt.2

A rod or walking-staff, cut from the tree growing in the garden of the monastery of St. Catherine, at the foot of Mount Sinai, and which, according to the legend, grew from the rod with which Moses smote the Red Sea to prepare a passage for the children of Israel, and afterwards smote the rock in the desert of Zin. (Numbers xx, 11.) The tree is a large shrub resembling the lilac, with a golden coloured bark. The species to which it belongs has not been ascertained.

An alabaster vase for ointment, with a cover, found in a tomb in Egypt, and still containing the unguent deposited in it. This is an example of the small unguentary vases anciently made at Alabastron, in Upper Egypt, mostly of the material there found and which thence received the name of alabaster. It is interesting as an illustration of the passage in the Gospels regarding the "alabaster box of very precious ointment" with which Mary anointed the feet of our Lord. (Matt. xxvi, 7; Mark xiv, 3; John xii, 3.) The date of this vase has been assigned to the first century B.c.3

A silver horn, worn by the females of note amongst the Druses on Mount Lebanon; it is the distinctive mark of the married state. The veil, or coverchief, is thrown over it. To this fashion it has been supposed that certain passages of the Prophets and Psalms refer, in which allusion is made to the horn being exalted.

Three early Christian reliques from the Catacombs at Rome, comprising a fragment of one of the large tiles with which the bodies are there closed up: it bears a circular impressed mark

with the Christian monogram formed of the Greek letters X and P combined, around which is the name CLAVDIANA, supposed to be the name of the lady there interred, about the second or third century of the Christian era. Similar impressed tiles are preserved in the Museum of Christian Antiquities in the Vatican.-A bronze lamp with the cross on the handle, and a terra-cotta lamp bearing the Christian symbol of a fish, in low relief on the upper

side. (Compare a lamp given by Aringhi, lib. vi, c. 38; Mamachii Orig. Christ. lib. i, p. 54; lib. iii, p. 60.)

A Greek helmet of very graceful form, a flat belt with its original fastening by two hooks, a pair of greaves, and two spear-heads, the whole of bronze, from the Terra di Bari in Apulia, south of Naples.

A volume of fragments of early MSS., including a facsimile of a MS. found in a tomb at Alexandria, and brought to Venice A.D. 815. It was supposed to be the tomb of St. Mark, and the MS. to be the Gospel written by his own hand. This MS. no longer exists, the facsimile therefore possesses additional interest.

The Hon. Robert Curzon, Jun.; from his Collections

at Parham Park, Sussex.

Roman fictile lamps, brought from Italy: one bears the potter's mark—CLARIVS; one, of red ware, found near Baiæ, is stamped c; also a very diminutive Etruscan vase; portions of mosaic pavement; a model, in peperino, of the Tomb of the Scipios; and a model of the city of Jerusalem.-Mr. H. W. Freeland.

Model of a sepulchral chamber discovered in Magna Græcia, showing the arrangement of the vases, lamps, and other funeral appliances around the corpse.-Sir J. C. Clarke-Jervoise, Bart.

A bronze Greek helmet, a bronze greave, and two spear-heads; brought from Greece. The helmet has the nasal, and the sides are formed so as to protect the cheeks; the margin is elaborately ornamented: it resembles one from Pompeii in the Goodrich Court Armory. (Skelton's Illustr. vol. i, pl. 44.) A bronze statuette, representing Mercury seated on a rock. It formed part of an important discovery of antique works of art at Paramythia in Epirus, of which great part came into Payne Knight's collection, now in the British Museum. Engraved by the Dilettanti Society, vol. ii, pl. 20. The rock which forms the base is a restoration by Flaxman.-Mr. J. Heywood Hawkins, Bignor Park.

A gold plate, found amongst the ruins of Canopus, between Alexandria and Rosetta, and bearing a Greek inscription which records the dedication of a temple to Osiris by Ptolemy Euergetes. (247-222 B.C.) The inscription has been thus explained:-King Ptolemy (son) of Ptolemy and Arsinoe, deified brethren, and Queen Berenike, the sister and wife of him, (dedicate) this temple to Osiris. This inscription was deposited between two plates of vitrified paste, of opaque blue and green colours; of these plates portions have been

preserved, and were sent for examination. They are about a quarter of an inch in thickness, but the surfaces are not quite uniform. This valuable memorial was sent by Mehemet Ali, Governor of Egypt, as a present to Sir Sidney Smith, and subsequently came into the possession of the late Earl of Guilford. It is now preserved at Sheffield Place, Sussex.-The Earl of Sheffield.

An inscribed tablet of white marble, a Christian memorial from an interment in the Catacombs of San Lorenzo, at Rome. -Mr. W. J. Bernhard Smith.

Circular bronze brooch, said to have been found in France, and representing a figure enthroned, holding a Victory; the whole evidently copied from a medallion of the Lower Empire, such as that of Priscus Attalus, A.D. 409-416, engraved in Akerman's Roman Coins, vol. ii, pl. H. The inscription is blundered, but evidently intended to read-INVICTA ROMA VTERE FELIX. Coins and medallions were often mounted for use as ornaments, both during the later times of the Empire, and by the Anglo-Saxons. This brooch, probably a relique of the fifth century, is now in the British Museum. Figured in Archeologia, vol. xxxv, page 493.—Mr. A. W. Franks.

Early British Antiquities, Roman Antiquities discovered in Britain, Romano-British, and other Antiquities of the earlier Periods.

A celt of mottled flint, found in trenching ground near Horndean, Hants. Length, eight inches; greatest width, about two inches. From its dimensions it may have served as the head of a spear. A quantity of conglomerate of small stones and irony matter, which apparently had undergone the action of fire, was found near it.-A bronze palstave with the side-loop, found at Rotherfield Park, near Alton, Hants.-A Roman flanged roofing tile, found near Horndean in a field known by the name "Bosvil"; it had been used for flooring, as occasionally found in Roman buildings; the impress of the foot of a cat appeared in several places on this tile, and on a fragment of another found at the same time is the print of a dog's foot. -A small Roman olla of grey ware, found in garden-ground at Rowland's Castle, Hants; and nineteen brass Imperial coins, chiefly of Constans and Constantius, part of a considerable number found in ploughing near the same place; the coins were in an urn, which was broken. Many Roman vestiges may be traced around that

village; and the curious intrenched mound known as "the Castle," now in great part destroyed in quarrying chalk, shows a stratum of black mould full of fragments of Roman pottery, Samian vessels, &c.-Sir J. C. Clarke-Jervoise, Bart.

A large flint celt, found in dredging on the coast of Sussex, towards the western parts of the county. Length, nine inches; greatest width, three inches.-The Rev. F. Leicester, Hayling.

A flint celt, found on Pyecombe Hill, Sussex; another celt, described as of granite, from Westmeston; and a flint celt, one of eight found in 1803, deposited side by side, on Clayton Hill. Length nearly twelve inches. The largest of the eight measured thirteen inches. Another from the camp on Wolsonbury Hill. Also a bronze palstave from the Devil's Dyke, and another from Clayton; a socketed celt from Ditchling, and a pair of bronze armlets found on Pyecombe Hill, of the peculiar looped form, resembling those found on Hollingbury Hill by Dr. Mantell, another pair found in Sussex by the late Mr. F. Dixon (Sussex Arch. Coll. Vol. II, p. 265), and a pair, in possession of Mr. Crawhall, Stagshaw Close House, Northumberland, found as supposed in the south of England, and exhibited in the Museum of the Institute at the Newcastle Meeting, 1852. A singular little urn of the class described by Sir R. Colt Hoare as thuribles. The lower part is formed with diagonal slits all round, and the upper part and inner margin of the rim rudely ornamented with impressed lines. Height, two inches and a half; diameter, three inches and a quarter. In form it resembles the little vase found at Winterbourne (Ancient Wilts, pl. 13). It was found on Clayton Hill, and contained a pendant ornament of bright blue vitrified paste, almost identical with the porcelain of which numer