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On Selsey Beach, West Sussex, Kate Ray, governess, picked up a golden circlet of which she thought so little that she let her charges use it as a collar for their small canine. A Chichester silversmith saw it, notified the British Museum authorities, who pronounced it a priceless specimen of ancient British art, an armlet made for a royal child who doubtless lived about 300 B. C., when there was a big village where Bosham town now stands.** A jury of Selsey residents pronounced the find royal property, under the ancient law of treasure trove, entitling Miss Ray to 80% of the value fixed by the Museum.
From Moscow, archeologists reported having definitely located the historically uncertain site of Tschesilow, Moscow's 12th Century rival as chief Russian metropolis. Ruins were found on the banks of the Oka River, 70 miles south of Moscow. In neighboring caves and dugouts, glass ornaments, armlets, iron arrows, bone combs came to light, carrying the settlement's history back five centuries B. C.
At Ur of the Chaldees (Mesopotamia), diggers from the University of Pennsylvania and the British Museum continued laying bare buildings and opening mounds; found 4,000-year-old statues of Bau, goddess of the poultry yard, and Dungi, a builder monarch; also, "the most beautiful example of Sumerian sculpture yet found"—a head of the moon goddess Nin-Gal in white marble inlaid with lapis lazuli and shell. The expedition's object: to trace the ground-plans of Ur from 2,300 B. C. to 500 B. C.†
Near Kish (Mesopotamia), diggers from Oxford University and the Field Museum (Chicago) poked among mounds on the Biblical plain of Shinar for the ruins of three Sumerian cities older even than Ur—notably Opis. Pottery unearthed was highly colored, with geometrical designs. Clay tablets with linear inscriptions dated the cities back 5,000 years.
In the Desert of Sind (India,, Sir John Marshall, government archeologist, exhumed the remains of a finely built city of 5,000 years ago, with layers of older structures underneath. Close affinities were noted between this pre-Aryan culture on the banks of the Indus and the contemporary Sumerian culture far westward in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys.
In Mongolia, between Urga and Karakorum, a Russian expedition came upon remarkable rock sculptures and inscriptions: a giant tortoise, a sphinx, women, chieftains, tombs of ancient Mongolian khans.
In Korea, Japanese and Chinese archeologists, under Dr. Shukuto Harada of Tokyo Imperial University, have been investigating thousands of mounds containing relics of a high civilization, distinct from any known, that flourished 2,000 years ago.
At Cologne, excavations for an athletic park unearthed "by far the most important Roman settlement ever found in Germany." There were eight major buildings, evidently a manor house and adjacent cottages, arranged in a square 800 ft. on the sides, underlaid by an excellent sewer system. A kitchen contained complete cooking utensils and banquet hall plate. The date: First Century A. D.
*Founded in 1882 by Dr. Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard, and ever since then the training ground for most Greek scholars and many a leading architect of the U. S.
**Legend has it that King Canute stood on the shore at Bosham and commanded the waves to retreat, which they did not.