British Museum Sir F. G. Kenyon, K.C.B.

Victoria and Albert Museum Sir Cecil Harcourt Smith,
C.V.O.



PART II

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The aim of the special sections contained in Chapters III-VIII is to
describe, not the objects usually to be seen in Museums, but only
such things as will be found lying out on mounds and sites, and as
are more or less distinctive of a period. Thus certain comparatively
trivial objects are named, because they are peculiar to a period, and
likely to be found in a casual passage over a site, whereas other
objects, common to several periods, are ignored. Only the
distinctive, key objects are mentioned. The great features of Greek
Art, for instance, are not dealt with in Chapter II; nor are coins,
the probabilities of finding them being too slender, and the
possibilities too wide. Nevertheless, coins when found should be
carefully quoted. Pottery naturally takes the largest place, as it
was abundant, and its fragments are a good guide to period, and being
practically indestructible and of no intrinsic value are most likely
to be met with. The difference between pottery made with the use of
the wheel and that made without is important to be noted. The use of
the wheel can usually be detected through the slight inequalities of
the clay that make a series of parallel lines on the inner surface.
The diagrammatic representations of the pot-forms characteristic of