The Proper Study
Mesopotamia. By Seton Lloyd. (Lovat Dickson. 6s.) Ancient Rome. By A. W. Van Buren. (Lovat Dickson. 68.) Mexico. By Thomas Gann. (Lovat Dickson. 6s.)
Tim publishers have chosen a good moment to bring out this series of handbooks. At a time when even the most opti- inistie must feel some misgiving over the fate of our own Civilisation, it is both profitable and consoling to consider the remains of those who have walked the same road before us. The volumes are attractively produced, easy to read and to Handle, and offer, space and price considered,, a good selection of plates and maps.
Mr. Seton Lloyd has had the largest area to cover in his 200 Pages, and has discharged his task with skill and conciseness. Ile starts with a brilliant account of the history and problems of digging in Mesopotamia, an account which will send many back to Layard and Wallis Budge, most inspiring of atchs&- logical fighters. He then, aided by a most helpful plan; gives an account of the main Sumerian sites and Primitive Cultures, which makes clear the three great cultural provinces of Western AtiV=Iranian, Anatolian and Syrian, best exemplified by the finds of Dr. Campbell Thompson and Mr. Mallowen at Nineveh. With the Early Dynasties (whose dating is still the subject of pleasantly acrimonious discussion) we come to a- discussion of the Sumerian and Akkadian temples, including the pleasing temple of Ishtar at Ashvor, where you could leave a statue of yourself to represent you, if you found it inconvenient to attend service in person : and so to Sir Leonard Woolley's great tomb finds at Ur, with their ghouliih ritual sacrifices, and us' famous Golden Wig. Chapter VII gives us an account of the Sargonid Empire and a just but vivid estimate of the life and religion of the age of Akkadian supremacy. In conclusion, Mr. Seton Lloyd breaks a lance with art criticism in general, and Mr. Wilenski in particular; over the archaeologist's right to appreciate his finds aesthetically ; and his remarks are both sensible and sensitive. The whole book is most helpful to the layman ; it is well written, clearly arranged, and purged of superfluous detail and comment.
Professor Van Buren has had the harder task of makiag bricks without straw. The excavations of the last decade in Rome,-though of great teehnical interest to archaeologists, and imposing to the eye in the fine new conceptions of the Via degli Impero and the Via del Mare, have not in fact produced any-
thing of striking interest aesthetically, and have perhaps posed more problems than they have solved. • We have accordingly an entire chapter devoted to the Skull of an Early Quaternary Elephant and two Middle Quaternary ladies (one doubtful) ; another -to the failure to identify, though " neither learning, nor eulogy nor ingenuity has been lacking," four Republican
Temples, and yet another of eleven pages to the Apse in the
Roman Temple. We turn with eagerness to the chapter on " Inscriptions from Imperial Fora," and find precisely nothing, padded by an astounding suggestion that the Empress Sabina, " shamefully neglected by her imperial spouse, in her times of ennui found some amusement in observing " elephants ! The chapter on " documentary inscriptions " yields hardiy richer fruit ; *Idle in the Chapter on graffiti, instead of the quotation which perhaps space or propriety forbade, we find a tepid scholastic discussion of the names of a schoolmaster and the evils of a dice board.
Turning further to Trades, Crafts and Professions, we find mentioned shortly the interesting terra-cottas of everyday life from Port of Rome, but come then to a discussion of the use in childbirth of chairs with hollow seats similar to the one found, oddly enough, in the Baths of Caracalla. The chapter closes with a pearl of academic emendations. The scene is a mosaic boxing-ring in which " the exultant trainer of the successful contestant is provided with the words A.MEL/- AT.TI/Cv." This is not a name, says Professor Van Buren. MEL is the word for honey ; met allieurn means " At Honey." " And what more felicitous form of words could greet the ears of a successful prize-fighter from his faithful trainer than ` Ah ! real Attic Honey ! ' " What, indeed IV
In fairness to Professor Van Buren, it must be said that he has struggled nobly with recalcitrant material, vast in bulk but deficient in interest. There is an excellent and useful chapter on the present museums, and an admirable map of Rome and plan of the Imperial Fora.
Dr. Gann has had a very different task in an almost untitled field, and every word of his book is of fascinating and appalling interest. We start with an account of'the Mayas, who com- pressed their head backwards, cultivated a squint and painted their faces red, white and black. They had an astonishing number of gods, an equivalent priesthood, and a calendar of unrivalled complication, culminating in a period of 18,9$0 days each with h different designation. Thai civilisation, which died for no explained reason, was succeeded by tile Toltecs, the Golden Age of Mexican Antiquity, and they in their turn by the Aztecs, whose empire died with Monte- zuma whom " pride, fear and superstition " made an ealy victim to the Spaniard. Never surely has a race so waded in its own blood, poured out unceasingly to gods with names as cruel as the knives of sacrifice. It is sometimes a physical effort to turn Dr. Gann's pages, so real is the dread of the horror that may, lie overleaf.
Th'g book is admirably arranged and givesa most valuable account of a sinister and little-known people.
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