Indications.
In general, on looking over a site every indication must be observed. Sometimes there may be a slight difference in vegetation, showing the positions of walls or of pits. In colder climates differences are shown by the melting of hoar frost or snow; as in the square of S. Domenico at Bologna, where some large patches—probably of ashes—show through the cobble paving during a thaw. A shower of rain will show much in drying; and, after a rare storm in Egypt, there are two or three precious hours when the buried walls show clearly on the ground, and should be hurriedly scored down before the hot sun removes the traces. A driving wind will bare the ground so that the harder walls show through the sand; or even a crowd of people passing will tramp into the softer filling and show the constructions. At sunrise or sunset ground should be carefully looked over to pick out the variations of level and slope, which will often show then, though quite invisible in full light. Prehistoric camp sites are noticed by the difference of tone of the ground in walking over them; the ashes holding so much air that the reverberation to the foot-step is quite different from that on ordinary desert. The appearance of the surface of disturbed desert differs much from the undisturbed: there may be slight hollows filled with sand, which are the traces of deep pits; there may be pebbles from deep beds thrown up, or fragments of limestone; or—best of all—chips of worked stone or of hard rocks may tell the tale of a building whose ruins lie beneath. The mastabas of the XIIth Dynasty at Dahshur left scarcely any surface trace, as the stone walls had been removed, and the gravel filling had spread out and denuded down to a level surface. The great wall of the camp at Daphnae 40 feet thick, had been ploughed by denudation until it was even lower than the desert on either side of it, and the lines of it were only visible by the absence of potsherds upon the site of the wall.
Mid, Late, Ist, IIIrd, VIth, XIIth, XVIIIth Dyn.
Prehistoric.
Fig. 10.—Development of copper and bronze adzes. 1:6.
Productions.
Besides the discrimination of sites there is a vast subject in the discrimination of objects and of styles. The first requisite acquirement of a digger—his archaeological experience—consists in discriminating and distinguishing the differences between products of various dates. An Egyptian copper adze ([Fig. 10]) of the ages of middle prehistoric, late prehistoric, early dynastic, IIIrd, VIth, XIIth, or XVIIIth Dynasties can be told at a glance, and we only need more dated examples to be able to separate them still more finely. A cutting-out knife ([Fig. 11]), a pair of tweezers, a comb, can be dated almost as certainly. But it is when we can look not only to differences of form, but also to variations of colour and texture, that we have the widest scope for discrimination. The great variety of beads in each country, the hundreds of details of form, materials, and colour in Egypt alone, give them an importance archaeologically above most other things. In the prehistoric age there are a dozen materials, and many different forms, not one of which can be confounded with later products. In the Old Kingdom new and distinctive styles are met with, and a profusion of small amulets on necklaces. In the XIth and XIIth Dynasties magnificent beads of amethyst, green felspar, and carnelian outshine those of every other age. In the XVIIIth Dynasty the immense variety of glass and glazed beads defy enumeration, and yet are sharply characteristic of different reigns of that age. The later times of degradation also produce new and distinctive forms and colours; and when we reach the Roman period a flood of glass work imitates the fashionable beryl, amethyst, rock crystal, and other stones, with the mimicry of a forger.
Fig. 11.—Development of cutting-out knives. XIIth–XIXth Dynasties. A-A and B-B cutting edges.
