CHAPTER XX.

THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHEOLOGY.

The study of the natural sciences is essentially objective, and hence in teaching them it is indispensable that the instructor have at his command collections of objects to illustrate the facts and principles he brings forward. This has long been recognized by the University, and in its medical, biological, and chemical departments it has gathered ample stores of specimens for the use of instructors and students. It is only quite recently, however, that attention has been directed to securing objects relating to ethnography, archæology, and paleontology.

The nucleus of this museum was the Assyrian antiquities obtained by the Babylonian Exploring Expedition, which are fully described on another page. In the autumn of 1889 it was decided to give this feature of a museum of illustrative objects the prominence merited by its importance, and to organize branches including the whole subject of the past of the race, and also that of palaeontology. A large room was set apart for this purpose in the main building of the University, a portion of the valuable collection of Maxwell Sommerville, esq., was installed in it, and the branch of American archæology was provided for by the appointment of Dr. Charles C. Abbott as curator.

The scope of the collections is intended to embrace not only the regions thus intimated, but to take in the whole field of ethnography and archæology. For this reason its officers are in relation to the Univer sity Archeological Association and expect to obtain rich results from the Egyptian and Assyrian, as well as the American exploration funds. Indeed, already an abundant harvest of valuable specimens has been sent in by these various bodies, as will be seen by a brief reference to the contents of the cases as they were in April, 1891, only sixteen months after the organization of the museum.

AMERICAN SECTION.

In the Department of American Archaeology the curator has aimed to obtain examples of the weapons, utensils, domestic implements, ornaments, objects of worship, as idols, fetishes, amulets, etc., in use now or in other ages by the American Indians of any part of the continent. Appreciating how much more valuable are objects collected by officers of the museum or under their direction than those of which the history and exact locality are less clearly ascertained, efforts have been made to

build up the museum as much as practicable by original explorations. These have been prosecuted in the valley of the Delaware and at various other points in the States of New Jersey and Pennsylvania with gratifying results.

From prehistoric ash-pits near Trenton, N. J., have been derived large numbers of bone implements, broken or worn out, that had been discarded, rude stone implements, fragments of pottery, and the bones of such animals as were used for food or other purposes. The deer bones are greatly in excess, but those of the bear, elk, raccoon, wolf, fox, skunk, beaver, and small rodents also occur. Also bones of the sturgeon, turtles, and various fishes. Unio shells, too, proved of frequent occurrence. Near the ash-pits, in several instances burials were discovered and skeletons exhumed. The crania vary considerably in their character, but all are essentially "Indian." The shell-heaps along the seacoast of New Jersey have also been examined, and more particularly in Atlantic County, and much valuable material obtained. From the celebrated Flint Ridge quarries in Licking County, Ohio, a superb series of stone hammers, from the largest to the most diminutive, masses of flint, cones, plates, refuse pieces, and finished imple ments, as spearheads, arrow points, perforators, scrapers, and drills, have been obtained, and, collectively, beautifully illustrate the flintchipping industry at that locality.

A number of additions have also been made, owing to the kindness of friends of the institution, who have either given or deposited collections of authentic remains from different points. In a few instances purchases have been effected through the liberality of intelligent citizens when objects of especial merit have been brought to the notice of the curator. Thus a remarkable collection of copper implements from a well-localized village site in Wisconsin was bought and added to the treasures of the museum. It is, in some respects, the most interesting set of copper specimens yet obtained within the area of the United States.

In the arrangement of the American branch of the museum the plan adopted will combine as far as possible the advantages of both the technical and geographical systems. When a sufficient number of specimens permit, they will be so arranged as to illustrate in one series the developments of the arts of life, and in another to portray the general condition of culture of the tribe from whom they are derived.

Along with such objects of art, the effort has been steadily made to secure anthropologic specimens, such as crania, skeletons, photographs, and measurements, some typical skulls from graves in New Jersey, attributable to the Lenape Indians, are among objects collected by officers of the museum during the past winter.

By the 1st of April, 1891, there were nearly ten thousand entries in the American department of the museum, representing about thirty thousand objects, besides material which was still on hand, but at that date not entered in the catalogue.

In this list the United States was represented by objects, mostly in

stone, from thirty-six States and six Territories; others were from Canada and the West Indies, while the Pacific islands are fairly represented by specimens from New Zealand, the Fijian group, the Samoan Islands, the New Hebrides, the Solomon islands, Torres Strait, and Australia. From Italy and Great Britain small but useful prehistoric series have been presented by local friends of the institution. Several boxes of remains from the Swiss lake dwellings, and others illustrating the bronze age in central Europe, are waiting to be catalogued and displayed on the shelves.

EGYPTIAN SECTION.

The Egyptian section, by coöperating with the Egypt Exploration Fund Association, through whose organized effort since the year 1883 many important sites in the Delta have been explored, has secured for the museum a number of objects of peculiar interest.

Not less important is the collection procured through Mr. W. Flinders Petrie, which contains carefully selected series of representative specimens found by himself and accurately described in his works.

The value of these collections is not only derived from the immense antiquity of the civilization which they represent, but is due principally to the light thrown by them upon the gradual development of human culture and upon the share which the civilizations of the remote past have had in preparing the evolution of our own.

These are not mere relics of a bygone age; they form part of an ethnological series in which each object has a well-defined place, and illustrates some special stage in the development of human arts and industries or suggests some historical vicissitude.

The men intrusted with the excavations at Pi-tum, Zoan Tanis, Tell Dejenneh, Tel Nebesheh, Naukratis, Bubastis, Gurob, Kahun, Hawara, etc., all of which sites are represented in the collection, are well known men of science who have conducted the work in a thorough and scholarly manner.

Alive to the requirements of modern methods, they have noted every detail, leaving literally no stone unturned in their effort to establish the history of every object, however trifling, which has been recovered by them.

It is evident that, for purposes of study, a small collection obtained under such conditions is immeasurably more useful than a more extensive one picked up in or out of Egypt by dealers or travelers and the origin of which is often unknown and generally doubtful.

There is here no room for deceit of any kind. We not only know the precise locality from which each object was derived, but in many cases we can pick out on a plan of the ruined city the very house of its former owner, and even occasionally the latter's name or profession are known to us.

By singular good fortune Mr. Petrie has been able to identify certain