The Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund for April contains a detailed report of Mr. F.J. Bliss's excavations at Tell-el-Hesy, the site of Lachish, during last winter, illustrated with several plans and woodcuts. The most interesting objects found were a number of bronze weapons, and fragments of pottery with markings, both from the lowest or Amorite town. Mr. W.M. Flinders Petrie adds a note on the weights discovered, almost all of which belong to the Phœnician and Aeginetan systems.
ARMENIA.
SEALS OF KING LEO II AND LEO V.--At a meeting of the Acad. des Inscr. M. Schlumberger communicated three magnificent bulls or gold seals of Leo II, king of Lesser Armenia. These gold bulls, appended to letters from this king to Pope Innocent III, written early in the XIII century, are preserved in the Vatican archives, and are probably the only examples of the king in existence. Leo II, in royal costume, is on one side; the lion of Armenia on the other. Another royal Armenian seal is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale. It is that of Leo V, the last king of the dynasty, who died, an exile, in Paris.--Chron. des Arts, 1892, No, 6.
CAUCASUS.
THE IRON AGE.--M. Ernest Ghautre has given a statement of his ideas on the iron age in the Caucasus and elsewhere in a pamphlet entitled, Origine et Ancienneté du premier age du fer au Caucase, Lyon, 1892. He says: "Necropoli of unequalled richness have been discovered in the Great Caucasus and on several points of Transcaucasia. These necropoli, in which inhumation appears to have been almost exclusively used, should be divided into two large groups. The most ancient corresponds to the Hallstatt period; the later to the Scythian period in the East and the Gallic period in the West. The Hallstatt type or that of the first iron age is met with especially in the most ancient tombs of the necropolis of Kobau, in Ossethia; those of the second iron age are to be found essentially in the necropolis of Kambylte in Digouria and certain localities of Armenia. The first iron age was introduced into the region of the Caucasus between the XX and XV century B.C. by a dolichocephalic population of Mongolo-Semitic or Semito-Kushite and not of Iranian origin. It was transformed toward the VII century by the invasion of a brachycephalic Scythian people of Ural-Altaic origin.
ANI.--The Russians are excavating at Ani, in Turkish Armenia, the ancient capital. They have found some ecclesiastical and other antiquities.--Athenæum, Sept. 3.
ASIA MINOR.
PRIVATE GREEK COINAGE BY REFUGEES.--The Persian kings accorded to certain illustrious Greeks who had sought refuge in Asia Minor on Persian territory the right to coin money. To this they joined the privileges inherent in the title of hereditary despot which was granted to them. The principal coinages are those of Themistokles at Magnesia, of Georgion at Gambrium, and of Euripthenes at Pergamon. M. Babelon read a memoir on the subject before the Soc. des Antiquaires, giving genealogical details regarding those families of exiles.--Chron. des Arts, 1892, No. 16.
COMPARISON OF HITTITE AND MYCENÆAN SCULPTURES.--M. Heuzey has read before the Acad. des Inscr. (Oct. 14) a comparative study on an engraved gold ring found at Mycenæ and a relief in the Louvre which belongs to the series of Hittite reliefs and was found at Kharpout, in the Upper Euphrates region on the frontier of Armenia and Cappadocia. The relief is surmounted by two lines of ideographic inscription. The subject on both is a stag-hunt; the stag is hunted in a chariot, as was always done before the horse was used for riding, that is before the VIII century B.C. The relief is a rustic variant of the Assyrian style; certain details prove it to belong to the IX century. The stag is of the variety called hamour by the Arabs, characterized by horns palm-shaped at their extremities. On the ring the attitudes are far more lively and bold, but the identity of the subject is none the less striking.--Revue Critique, 1892, No. 43.