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California. The U. S. is strong in ancient low life but not in ancient man. The "Minnesota Maid&" (TIME, Nov. 25, 1932), first dated at 20,000 years ago and thus a likely prospect for champion U. S. oldster, was later set down by many a scientist as an "intrusion"—a polite word which experts apply to material that does not belong to the geological layer in which it is found. This year, WPA workmen digging a storm drain for Ballona Creek near Los Angeles found a human skull. Dr. Aberdeen Orlando Bowden, head of the University of Southern California's anthropology department, pronounced it that of a 70-year-old woman with a long, narrow head. Dr. Bowden stated that the skull could not possibly be an "intrusion" since it was under a 13-ft. deposit of clay, referred it definitely to glacial times, put its age tentatively at 30,000 years. "The Ballona Woman," he wrote, "gives a more conclusive proof than any yet found of very early prehistoric man in America." He found remains of a Pleistocene elephant nearby.
Egypt. At Gizeh, near the great pyramids of Chephren and of Cheops, Professor Selim Hassan of Cairo gouged into a bank of mud and sand left by the encroaching Nile, came upon the limestone tomb of a princess whom he took to be the daughter of Chephren. This Pharaoh was of the Fourth Dynasty, which experts variously locate between 3,100 and 2,800 B. c. The sarcophagus was completely sealed with mortar, evidence that thieves had never broken in.
The princess lay on her back with her head to the north. Most of the mummy and its wrappings had disintegrated, but the head was well preserved. With the skeleton were bracelets, anklets, two necklaces of gold and a copper girdle, a gold headdress with streamers of copper and gold. Atop the sarcophagus was an ala baster headrest, shaped like a crescent moon on a pedestal (see cut). Professor Hassan found four sculptured gold fingers, searched for six more gold fingers and ten gold toes. Director John A. Wilson of Chicago's rich Oriental Institute called Chephren's daughter, "one of the best finds in recent years!"
Few days later, undeterred by the fact that a native laborer stabbed his foreman in the back. Professor Hassan opened four other tombs, including that of Prince Khnumba-ef, Chephren's son, whose name means "His soul is the Creator"; and of Kishnofer, a provincial governor whose burial place bore the inscription, "First under the King."
Greece. Continuing his long delving on the site of ancient Athens, Dr. Theodore Leslie Shear of Princeton found the base of a statue bearing the signature of the famed sculptor, Praxiteles. The figure itself had vanished, but an inscription disclosed that it had been ordered by Kleiokrateia, daughter of Polyeuctus, wife of Spoudias. This woman was referred to in the 4151 oration of Demosthenes (361 B.C.), arguing a suit over the will of Polyeuctus, but scholars had not previously known her name.
Another trophy was a fragment of a marble sign, probably from the Library of Trajan, which bore this warning: "No book shall be taken out. We have sworn it! The library will be open from the first hour until the sixth."