carpenters and joiners of that age had led them to invent the most perfect forms of chisels; and our mortising chisel and flat chisel with a tang have not received any improvement in the details of their form for 2700 years. The bronze age is the source of the objects we now use. Thence these types were carried into Egypt a couple of centuries later by the Greeks. When we descend further we see this independent culture of Europe prominent. The Saxons and Northmen did not borrow their weapons, their laws, or their thoughts from Greece or Italy. The Celts swamped the south of Europe at their pleasure; and, against the fullest development of Greek military science, they were yet able to penetrate far south and plunder Delphi. They were powerful enough to raid Italy right across the Etrurian territory. When we look further east, we see the Dacians with weapons and ornaments and dresses which belong to their own civilization, and were not borrowed from Greece. In short, Greece and Italy did not civilize Europe; they only headed the civilization for a brief period. And the Italian influence, which was much the more powerful, only lasted for a couple of centuries. From Caesar’s campaigns to the end of the Antonines is the whole time of Italian supremacy. After that there never was a Roman emperor, excepting a few ephemeral reigns. The centre of power and authority in Europe was in the Balkan peninsula. The emperors were mainly natives of that region; and the northern Holy Roman Empire of Germany has its roots practically in the third century. Civilization in Europe is, then, an independent growth, borrowing from, and lending to, the East. In the van of this group of races have come in turn Mykenaean Greece, then Etruria, Hellas, Rome, Dacia and Pannonia, the Lombards, and the Northmen; and each in turn have impressed their character on those peoples who were less advanced. Our common belief in the overshadowing importance of Rome in all our history is probably largely influenced by our literary history being derived from Roman sources, and this Italian view being fed for ecclesiastical purposes in the Middle Ages. In the broader view of the history of civilization in Europe, the spread of law and Latin in Southern Europe is perhaps Rome’s main result. But we must not forget that the Italian supremacy was quite as brief, if more potent, than that of other races who have led the way before and since. We can now see somewhat of the wide results which have come to a great extent from the study of Egyptian civilization recorded in these pages, and the comparison of it with other countries. That vastly more remains to be worked out is painfully seen. We are only yet on the threshold of understanding the sources of the knowledge, the arts, and the culture, which we have inherited from a hundred generations. CHAPTER XII. THE ART OF EXCAVATING.