phrase. One of these graffiti, found at Dêr Sim'ân, probably the ancient Tell Neshe (Telanissus), contains only the words "Saint Simeon, holy one!" written in a very good hand. This is, as far as I know, the only case in which the famous pillar saint is mentioned on stone. Another quite long graffito in the same place was written by a priest who wished to tell his brethren a wonder that consisted in a heavy hail. Fifty-two out of the sixty-five inscriptions were found in the places around the Djebel Shekh Berekât, especially to the north and northeast of it: this shows that we must look for the centre of Syriac life in that very region, the region of Tell Ada and of Tell Neshe. The farther south we go, the less Syriac inscriptions we find. The southernmost preIslamic Syriac inscriptions were found in the 'Alâ, east of Hama; but they are very short and number only three, viz. one at Ḥalbân, one at Abū il-Kudûr, and one at ir-Ruḥaiyeh. At Sadad, a large Jacobite town east of Homs, twenty-five short Karshuni inscriptions, legends of paintings of saints in the church of St. Sergius, were copied; they are counted, however, as one inscription in the present list: their age is not quite certain; but they are scarcely more than two hundred years old. Arabic. Outside of Bosra and the places near it, no long stop was made at any real centre of Arabic civilization. Damascus was visited but not studied; Hama and Homs were seen only in passing through. Nevertheless, in some out-of-the-way places we found Arabic inscriptions and graffiti, indicating that at a certain period a sort of Arabic civilization was flourishing there. The total number of Arabic inscriptions copied is 138. Only one pre-Islamic Christian Arabic inscription was found: it is written on a stone in the spring of a church arch at Umm idj-Djimâl. The characters are very difficult to read, and differ considerably even from those in the early Arabic inscriptions at Harrân and Zebed. The inscription probably contains a prayer to God, the name of the architect, and the parts of the church which he built. Of the Mohammedan inscriptions some are very early, and in beautiful regular Kufic characters. The large majority, however, is written in different kinds of naskhi script. The dates range from the second century A.H. to the tenth. The real inscriptions are on many different classes of buildings: mosques (djâmi“, masdjid); schools (medreseh); tombs or tomb-mosques (turbah, meshhed); fortresses (kal'ah); towers (burdj); bridges (djisr); inns (funduk, khân, ḥānūt); wellhouses (sabil), etc. About a dozen of Kufic and Arabic graffiti were found in the Ḥarrah, among the Safaïtic inscriptions. Many of the people who wrote or had their names written here belonged to the Banu Hilal. It is even now a tradition among the Bedawin of this region that the Banu Hilal came to this part of Syria, and in the middle ages the Djebel Haurân is called Djebel Banu Hilal by Arabic authors. One of these Bedawin had a masdjid at il-'Isâwi, probably a real Bedawin mosque, consisting of a small precinct made of rough stones. Quite a large number of Mohammedan tombstones was copied for historical and palaeographical reasons. In many a place where no other inscriptions indicate Mohammedan activity, or where, for the lack of dates, the age of evidently Mohammedan ruins cannot be determined, dated tombstones are of great help. Several times the tombstones of men prominent in the history of their own town, men who erected mosques and other public buildings, were copied in the ancient cemeteries. Furthermore, these tombstones furnish a great deal of palaeographical material, serve to illustrate the history of the Arabic script, and sometimes even fill a gap in this history. The style and the wording of these documents vary with the different localities: it deserves notice that in Bosra and surroundings the tomb is called bait al-hakk. Hebrew. At 'Arâk il-Emîr the famous old Hebrew inscription, which is found over two different caves, was copied, measured in all details, and photographed; it reads . ENNO LITTMANN. of Classical Studies at Athens GEOMETRIC VASES FROM CORINTH 1 [PLATES XI-XVI] DURING the recent excavations made at Corinth by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, one of the most interesting of the smaller finds was a group of geometric vases. They were found in two instalments, four2 being unearthed on April 30, 1898; these, seemingly unimportant, claimed little attention as compared with the great discovery of the year-Peirene. But during the last days of the excavations of the following year, May 25 and 26, 1899, in the process of excavating more thoroughly the region where the first four were found, twelve 3 more vases of the same' period came to light. The entire group is of value, even should no more of the same class be found later in the process of excavating, since it adds one more to the carefully 1 For the privilege of publishing these vases I am indebted to Professor Richardson, former Director of the American School at Athens. My thanks are due also to Mr. Herbert F. De Cou for helpful suggestions and for reading the manuscript. Mr. Sherwood O. Dickerman kindly made investigations and observations for me at Corinth and in the Museum of Eleusis, and supervised the photographing of the vases. 2 These were as follows: a. Large amphora (PLATE XI). b. Large oinochoe (PLATE XII, A 2). 8 These were as follows: a. Large oinochoe (PLATE XIII, B 1). b. Large oinochoe (PLATE XIII, B 2). c. Large oinochoe (PLATE XV). d. Small oinochoe (PLATE XIV, B 4). e. Cylix (PLATE XIV, B 5). f. Cylix (PLATE XIV, B6). c. Small oinochoe (PLATE XII, A 3). d. Cylix (PLATE XII, A 4). g. Cylix (PLATE XIV, B 7). i. Cylix (PLATE XVI, B 9). j. Support for vase (PLATE XV). k. Handmade vase (PLATE XVI, B 11). 7. Handmade vase (PLATE XVI, B 12). American Journal of Archaeology, Second Series. Journal of the 411 Archaeological Institute of America. Vol. IX (1905), No. 4. classified list, already published by Wide (Jahrbuch d. kais. Deutsch. Arch. Inst. XIV, 1899, pp. 26-43, 78-86, 188-215; and XV, 1900, pp. 49-58), of places where local styles of geometric pottery have been found to have existed. This group of vases was found about 42 m. a little west of north from the centre of Peirene, and about 7 m. a little north of east from the paved road which led from the Agora to Lechaeum, near the north end of the steps leading up to the entrance to the Agora. Farther to the northeast, beyond the modern village square, lies a hill which, to quote from the Report of 1897, is "honey-combed with a burial-place of very ancient date." In these graves were found the pre-Mycenaean vases published in 1897.1 Between the pre-Mycenaean burialplace and the site of the finding of our group, in trial Trench IV, not far to the southeast of the modern square, a pocket yielded a few geometric fragments. Close by the place where these vases of ours were found, were discovered the remains of the small Greek Temple; this could not have been standing in the day of Pausanias, as the back of the eastern portico along this road was built over a part of it.2 The spot where the first instalment was found was near the embankment which marked the eastern limit of the excavation area of 1898, but which has since been dug away for some distance with no further yield in pottery in that direction. To the southwest, however, at the spot marked A in the photograph (Fig. 1), the second instalment appeared in 1899. The large amphora (PLATE XI) was found standing upright, 4.50 m. from the surface of the earth, with the cylix (PLATE XII, A 4) on the top, apparently as a cover, as is shown in the photograph; near by were the fragments of the two oinochoae, since restored (PLATE XII, A 2, A 3); not far to the southwest of the amphora, on a level with its base, lay a stone plate, 1 A.J.A. I (1897), p. 313, 'Pre-Mycenaean Graves in Corinth,' by T. W. Heermance and G. D. Lord. 2 A.J.A. VI (1902), p. 441, 'Lechaeum Road at Corinth,' by J. M. Sears, Jr., and pl. xvii. |