intended to avert evil from the dead. A separate half-mask (No. =680=) of this type is exhibited here, and another will be found with the objects illustrating superstition in Case 106. In these masks we can see the innate Italian tendency to preserve the features of the dead, and we may perhaps recognise in them the origin of the waxen portrait masks of his ancestors which the Roman noble set up in his hall. The portrait is again found on the lid of the sixth-century Etruscan funeral urn (No. =681=; fig. 262) in Case 59. Here a draped woman lies on a couch of elaborate form, decorated below with a relief of two lions devouring a bull. A kindred type of Etruscan funeral monument will be seen in the two large terracotta sarcophagi in the Terracotta Room. [Illustration: FIG. 260.--CANOPIC URN (NO. 678). Ht. 1 ft. 11 in.] [Illustration: FIG. 261.--ETRUSCAN FUNERAL MASKS (NO. 679). Ca. 1:6.] [Illustration: FIG. 262.--ETRUSCAN FUNERAL URN (NO. 681). L. 1 ft. 11-1/2 in.] [Illustration: FIG. 263.--ROMAN FUNERAL URN (NO. 682). Ht. 1 ft. 5-1/2 in.] With rare exceptions (conspicuously in the case of members of the noble families of the Cornelian house and all infants) the Romans, during the period of the Republic, burned their dead. This system continued under the early Empire, but gradually gave way to burial under the influence of Christianity. Several examples of Roman cinerary urns and sepulchral relief are here shown. These urns are of various shapes, but the altar-form (No. =682=; fig. 263) was specially favoured. The inscription gives the names of L. Dexius Clymenus and C. Sergius Alcimus. The latter, a child of three and a quarter, is stated to have received his portion of corn on the tenth day at the office of distribution numbered XXXIX, a curious side-light on the practice of free distribution of corn under the Roman Empire, already noticed above (p. 11). Other Roman funeral urns which may be mentioned are the vase (No. =683=) with the remains of L. Laelius Victor, a soldier of the fourteenth city cohort, and the alabaster caskets numbered =684= and =685=. These urns of the wealthier classes were generally deposited in a vault underneath a monument placed at the side of one of the great roads leading from the city gates. Those, however, who could not afford such expensive monuments subscribed for a joint tomb (_columbarium_), a large chamber containing in its walls numerous niches for the urns. An interesting tablet (No. =686=) in Case 62 throws light on the arrangements adopted in the case of these joint tombs. It is inscribed with the name of P. Sontius Philostorgus and marked the niche in which the urn containing his ashes was placed. The inscription reads: "Lot I in block III." From other inscriptions of the same character it appears that the niches were arranged in five horizontal rows of thirty-six, and that each of the members of the burial club was allotted one place in each of the five rows.