its tradition and taste. Archaeology has certainly done a great deal to enlarge our horizons
and to correct erroneous views based merely on a written text, but we must not fall on the
other side. We cannot pretend to reconstitute history with potsherds only; and even in the
dating of monuments like tombs, where pottery is a very important element, it is not enough.
The inferences derived from it have to be supported by other objects, by the general features
which are characteristic of a monument.

For three years after the excavations of the mixed cemetery tomb-digging has been going
on at Abydos, so that with all that was found before there is now a considerable material
from which we may derive a true picture of what the funerary art has been in that place
from the earliest times. This picture I should like to be drawn without any attempt to fit
the results into the chronological classes limited by certain dynasties. The date would have
to be derived from the circumstances of the place, whether they clash or not with what has
been observed in other places.

Local classification of pottery or other archaeological objects, and a closer observation of
what may be seen at the present day, not only among primitive people, but among civilized
nations, such seem to me the principles to be applied in the excavation and study of a site
like the mixed cemetery of Abydos.

Natural history, the study of the animals and plants remains of which have been preserved,
is also of material help for the knowledge of the remote past. Therefore I cannot but welcome
Miss Kathleen Haddon's contribution on the cemetery of dogs.

EDOUARD NAVILLE.

GENEVA,
November 1913.

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