‘Observation not guided by ideas, even hypothetical ideas’, says Professor Wolf, ‘is blind ; just as ideas not tested by observation are empty’. The student of megalithic monuments has as constantly to regret that early antiquaries were not more aware of the necessity of making accurate plans and of recording morphological and constructional details of the monuments—many alas, now ruined or vanished—which they visited, as he has to deplore their delight in formulating theories which they never tested by fieldsurvey ; but he has also to cope with evils more dangerous even than these, namely observation so dominated by false or imprudent hypotheses that it results in a distorted vision worse by far than mere blind observation or empty ideas. Some of these hypotheses—like the Druids, the Ancient Egyptians, the metal-working Prospectors, the megalithic race, solstitial and clock-star alignments,—to mention only a few, have been disproved by research and flourish today only among perverse and illogical archaeologists. Others—such as the concept of the Montelius dolmen here examined in its relation to southern Britains—while just as inadequate and inaccurate, are the comrnonplaces of modem text-books.

When excavating in the hill-fort of Cissbury a few years ago the writer found nothing by which to date a certain group of pits except a piece of a revolving handmill (FIG. 23). Even this could not supply the necessary chronological evidence, because the developmental history of the quern or hand-mill had not yet been worked out in sufficient detail to enable one to say that a certain form is characteristic of a certain period. Being thus impressed with the need for such a study the writer endeavoured to collect data, but was met at the outset with the difticulty that of all the hand-mills preserved in our Museums extremely few have been dated at all closely by associated finds of pottery—at least so far as records go—while it seems to be exceptional even for modern excavators to note such associations when querns are found. After all, it is, as Pitt Rivers said, the common objects that are often more important than the rare ones, just because they are common, and it is surely one of the prime objects of excavation to obtain data for the study of the evolution, not only of pottery, but of all common objects.

WE are often far too ready to apply to Egyptian art the same standards which we use in dealing with Greek, Roman, medieval and modern works. Thus, for example, we are apt to speak of Egyptian ‘masters’ or ‘master-hands’, expressions which constantly occur in connexion with Greek sculpture or Renaissance painting; or we assume that the identity of an Egyptian portrait can be established just as if it were a question of a definite Renaissance personality. Now one of the chief characteristics of Egyptian art is its impersonality. The Egyptians had no conception of a work of art produced, so to speak, from pietas, to perpetuate the features of some dear departed, or such as it would be pleasant to possess from sheer delight in artistry; in particular, the artistic contemplation and enjoyment of a work of art as we understand it could scarcely have been understood by an Egyptian.