and thoroughness, and thus revealed to us pretty much all we know at present about Babylonian funereal customs; yet here again too little attention was paid to the pottery, and the actual date of the cemetery is still uncertain. It may belong to the Babylonian period, but it may also not be older than the Persian or even Parthian age. [Illustration: THE TELL OF JERABIS (PROBABLY THE ANCIENT CARCHEMISH).] The Germans are once more working in the lands of the Euphrates and Tigris, but in Babylonia their labours have been mainly confined to the Babylon of Nebuchadrezzar, where comparatively little has been discovered. Since 1904, however, the chief strength of the expedition has been directed upon Qal’at Shirqât, where Assur, the primitive capital of Assyria, formerly stood, and here we may expect that archæological results of first-class importance will at last be obtained. But the work there has not yet advanced far enough for more to be done than the mapping out of the old city, the ascertainment of certain architectural facts, and the recovery of inscriptions of great historical value. It will be seen, therefore, that the reproach brought against excavations in Egypt by Mr. Rhind in 1862 still holds good of excavations in Babylonia and Assyria. The first stage in their history is only just passing away. The idea that excavation is a trade which any one can take up without previous training, and that all the excavator need think about is the discovery of objects for a museum, is only beginning to disappear. In 1862 Rhind could write of Egyptian tombs: “I am not aware that there can be found the contents of a single sepulchre duly authenticated with satisfactory precision as to what objects were present, and as to the relative positions all these occupied when deposited by contemporary hands. Indeed, for many of the Egyptian sepulchral antiquities scattered over Europe there exists no record to determine even the part of the country where they were exhumed.... There have thus been swept away unrecorded into the past illustrative facts of very great interest, which cannot now, according to any reasonable probability, be replaced, at all events in the degree which there are grounds to believe were then possible.”[41] Happily, Mr. Rhind’s words are no longer true of Egypt, where he himself set the first example of showing how scientific exploration ought to be carried on, and the result is that the ancient civilization and culture of Egypt are now known to us even better than those of classical Greece or Rome.