In 1860 the British Museum purchased at Christie's a remarkable volume of illustrations to the Book of Genesis, which is now numbered Egerton MS. 1894. It formed part of a miscellaneous collection known as the Vienna Museum, which was said in the sale-catalogue to have been begun by the Emperor Maximilian I and enlarged by his grandson the Emperor Rudolph II, and to have been sold in 1782 to a certain Chevalier von Schönfeld, who added his own collection to it and opened it to the public under the title of the Technological Museum of Vienna. When sold in 1860 it was the property of Messrs. Lowenstein brothers of Frankfort on the Main.

It has for many years been disputed whether the existing structure of the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem were that built by Constantine, in the first half of the fourth century, or a later restoration or rebuilding under Justinian, some two centuries later. The documentary evidence is insufficient to decide the point, as no unequivocal description of the present church exists earlier than that of Sophronius in A. D. 635, which describes the building as τρίκογχος, triple-vaulted, or tri-apsidal. Unfortunately, this comes a century too late to decide the point at issue (pl. XIII).

Reports on the excavations at Al Mina during the two seasons 1936 and 1937 have already appeared in the Antiquaries Journal, and Sir Leonard Woolley has now invited me to give a more detailed account of the finds dating from the medieval period. The Board of Education granted me special leave from my duties at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and I was thus able to assist at the excavations during the whole of the 1937 campaign.

The sculpture of Dark Age France is still almost unknown to archaeologists This is due not to any shortage of material, some of it of a high quality, but rather to an absence of adequate publication. A certain number of objects have been reproduced ad nauseam in the major works of reference. But with the exception of the illustrations in Coutil, L'Art mérovingien et carolingien (an extremely valuable, if inaccurate, body of material) and in De Lasteyrie, L'Architecture religieuse en France à l'époque romane, and of sporadic records in the journals of local societies, there is little else that is available for study. It ishardly surprising that even the main lines of development of French sculpture in this period are quite uncertain; and that uncertainty is at present likely to remain. In the absence of published material the most that can be attempted is the identification and description of single groups of sculpture, which may ultimately provide the bricks for some more imposing structure.

In the angle between the rivers Ogwr and Ewenny on the northern margin of the Vale of Glamorgan, east of the town of Bridgend, Brackla Hill (287 ft.) is the outstanding feature. Its pastoral slopes are linked to higher ground on the north by a saddle, on the east side of which there is a gentle fall to a tributary of the Ewenny, and on the west to a rivulet which flows into the Ogwr. Coity village lies at the point where the saddle merges into the upland.

Complete agreement has not yet been reached among students as to the part played by Egypt in the history of Early Christian and Early Byzantine art. There are two problems around which discussion has chiefly centred. The first concerns Alexandria. Some authorities believe that this town remained a stronghold of Hellenistic art throughout the Christian period, and that it maintained the highest classical standard at a time when most of the Mediterraneancountries were already submerged in what are commonly called the Dark Ages. This theory has, however, been contested by other writers who think that Alexandrian art sank as early as the fifth century to the level of provincialism, and that from that time onwards Constantinople was the chief centre in which the classical tradition was preserved.

At the outset of the 1937 excavations, we had certain main objects in view. The most important, since it affected the history of Anatolia as a whole, was to decide what culture was represented by our third and latest period, called C. The particulars wherein C differed from the preceding periods, B and A, were obvious: during B, which may have come to an end in the twentieth century, the settlement clearly belonged to the ‘west Anatolian group’, known from Troy, Lesbos, Yortan, and the Pisidian sites; A could be regarded as an earlier stage of B, not yet modified by western influence (see p. 237, below); C, however, seemed hard to parallel. The acquisition of fresh material, and a careful study of the collections in the museums at Ankara and Istanbul has now enabled us to recognize C as Hittite in the wide sense of the term used by archaeologists to-day. The C pottery has many points in common with the monochrome Hittite wares of Alişar II, Alaca Hüyük, Haşhüyük and even Bogazköy, while the smaller antiquities from C and Alişar II are much closer than was previously supposed. That Kusura should display local peculiarities is not surprising, when we consider its distance from the larger Hittite centres.

The priory of Colne, situated in north Essex near the river of the same name, was one of the smaller priories, and would probably have been passed over in monastic histories with a brief notice, if it had not been, during its entire history, intimately associated with the family of De Vere, who for more than five centuries and a half held the earldom of Oxford. The De Veres founded it, endowed it, and save in a few exceptional cases were buried in its precincts during the whole period of its existence.

The roof of the nave of Peterborough Cathedral (pl. xc) was erected in the latter years of the twelfth century and the ceiling was probably painted about 1220. It has frequently been stated that the ceiling was raised when the tower arch was changed from round to pointed, but there is no documentary evidence for this. If the original ceiling had been flat it would have had to have been widened by about 1 ft. 6 in. at each side to bring it to its present canted form, but there is nothing in the present condition of the painting to lead one to suppose that the roof was ever widened in this way. It has also been suggested that the ceiling was originally canted and that it has been raised by the width of the side boards which are painted in a different style from the rest of the roof, but it is difficult to believe that so great a work could have been undertaken for the sake of 20 in.

On the 27th February 1930 I gave to this Society a preliminary account of the armour which had for centuries passed unrecognized in the Sanctuary church of the Madonna delle Grazie near Mantua. My observations on that occasion were based on notes made from the top of a ladder, and the illustrations were from photographs of the figures taken in situ in the niches of the gallery which runs round the nave of the church. The true appearance of the armour was at that time concealed under a thick coating of paint and accumulated layers of dust. Component parts of individual suits were distributed among different figures, often quite incongruously and mixed with supplementary parts supplied in papier mâché. The neglected and shambling appearance of the figures went far to explain why the true character of the armour that clothed them had not previously been realized. In summing up I ventured to predict that ‘if the armour at Grazie were cleaned and well set up, it would present a very different appearance from what it does at present, and would almost certainly reveal some interesting armourers' marks. Nine of the seventeen suits include Gothic pieces, in some cases virtually complete’