With the Diggers

Archeological and paleontological progress since it was last recorded in TIME (March 3, April 28, May 12) is here summarized:

Egypt. Excavations at Thebes (Valley of the Kings) have been discontinued for the summer, but will be resumed next season by Howard Carter, American collaborator of the late Lord Carnarvon. The treasures found in TutankhAmen's tomb (including the throne, chairs, alabaster vases, shrines, caskets, bedsteads, and boxes elaborately carved of inlaid ivory, ebony and gold) have been removed to Cairo by a 500-mile boat trip, and will be exhibited in the museum there under the Egyptian Department of Antiquities until a decision is reached regarding those to be brought to England and America.

Palestine. The University of Pennsylvania mission at Beisan (the Old Testament Bethshean), 55 miles northeast of Jerusalem, has unearthed substantial Egyptian buildings and inscriptions of Seti I and Rameses II (19th dynasty, about 1366 B. C.), suggesting military occupation of Palestine at that time.

Babylonia. The joint expedition of Oxford University and the Field Museum, Chicago, under Prof. S. Langdon, has uncovered the ruins of Kish, an early capital of the Accadian kings, eight miles east of the site of Babylon, including the great tower of the temple to the war god Ilbaba, built about 2,100 B. C.

The Anglo-Pennsylvania expedition at Ur of the Chaldees, under C. Leonard Woolley, has made progress in revealing the great temple of the Moon God and his consort, erected by early Sumerian kings about 3,600 B. C., and remodeled by Nebuchadnezzar, the Assyrian conqueror, more than a score of centuries later.

Carthage. The excavations under Count Byron Kuhn de Prorok and the Prince de Waldeck have been suspended, but a more systematic scheme of operations will be started later by arrangement with the French authorities. A Roman chapel and Punic tombs were unearthed. The government has been aroused by indiscriminate vandalistic excavations, and future work at Carthage will be limited to those having permits from the resident-general at Tunis.

Europe. The recent excavations at Pompeii, under Prof. Vittorio Spinazzola, have made greater progress than all previous ones. To date, 530 meters of street have been uncovered by modern methods, which preserve the architecture intact. Old-fashioned excavation was carelessly done by workmen, digging into buildings from below and bringing valuable material down in ruins. Today ashes and rubbish are removed from above, walls and roofs are strengthened and supported, and all details are preserved, including the brilliant original colors of the frescoes.

The blocks of the Druidical circle at Stonehenge, England, must have been transported 180 miles from mountains in Pembrokeshire, the nearest location of similar rock, according to an announcement of Dr. H. H. Thomas, British petrographer. The average weight is 2½ tons.

South Africa. A skull believed older than that of the Rhodesian man of the Broken Hill mine has been found at Belingwe, near Bulawayo. Sir Arthur Keith, who estimated the age of the other skull as older than the Neanderthal man (50,000 years), will examine it. If further remains are found in South Africa, it may prove to be one of the earliest homes of the race, rivalling Java.