The eighth season of the Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania started at Ur on 1st November 1929, and ended on 19th March 1930. The staff consisted of my wife, who as usual was responsible for the type-drawings of objects, the planning of the cemetery, and for a share in the field-work; Mr. M. E. L. Mallowan, general archaeological assistant; the Rev.E. Burrows, S.J., epigraphist; and Mr. A. S. Whitburn, architect. Hamoudi was, as always, head foreman, with his sons, Yahia, Ibrahim, and Alawi acting under him; owing to the fact that work was always going on in at least two spots fairly far apart, greater responsibility than usual was thrown on the younger foremen, who answered admirably to the demands on them; Yahia combined this work with that of staff photographer. The number of men employed varied slightly at different times, but was always over 200 and for most of the season kept at about 240, anumber well in excess of the average of past seasons; the amount of work done wascorrespondingly great. I have to thank the Royal Air Force in Iraq for help of many sorts and not least for an air photograph of the site (pl. XXVIII) taken at the close of the season and of much value for purposes of comparison with earlier photographs; Lt.-Colonel Tainsh, Director of the Iraq Railways, for facilities enabling me to undertake a short experimental dig at Meraijib, a prehistoric site some ten miles south of Ur; and the Director of Antiquities, Iraq, for his help in this Meraijib work and to the Expedition in general. I must also acknowledge my indebtedness to the staff of the British Museum Laboratory, where the work of restoring and cleaning was as usual carried out, and in particular to Mr. E. C. Padgham for his success with the silver objects; Mr. Evan Watkin of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities undertook the mending of the stone vases, and for the mending of the pottery the services of Mrs. F. W. Bard were secured.

During the last twenty years the study of Samian ware has made great advancesand, notwithstanding the disfavour with which the ‘intrusive fragment’ and ‘pots and pans’ are still regarded by a certain class of historian, the value of this fabric for dating purposes is now generally recognized. Weare now familiar with most of the decorative types that are characteristic of thepre-Flavian (circa A. D. 25-68), Flavian, and late Hadrianic-Antonine ages, but much remains to be learnt with regard to the ornamental detail of the intervening period, broadly speaking the first third of the second century. Although late South Gaulish ware, ornamented in the Flavian manner, continued to be imported down to about A. D. 110, a number of new decorative types, derived from Centralor from early East Gaulish potteries, began to appear late in the first century and early in the second.

Dr. Johnson thought that a pax was a pyx, and amended Shakespeare accordingly. Since the issue of the Dictionary, however, the pax has more than once been thesubject of communications by Fellows of our Society, and the ‘Ignorance, madame, sheer ignorance’ to which the Doctor might have pleaded would now be more difficult to excuse. Nevertheless, the salient features in the usage and history of the pax may perhaps be restated very briefly.

In the following paper a preliminary account is given of some archaeological research which is being carried out, under a grant from the Percy Sladen MemorialFund, in the Hunstanton district of north-west Norfolk.