Gifts.
Mr. W. K. Jewett of Pasadena, California, an Indian collection consisting of 243 baskets, beadwork and ornaments. The collection also contains a few specimens from Africa, the Philippines and the South Seas. This collection, which will be fully described in a later issue of the JOURNAL, is to be known as The Patty Stuart Jewett Collection, in honor of the late Mrs. Jewett, to whose interest in matters of art and to whose skill as a collector this important collection is due.
Mrs. William Pepper, thirty-one North American Indian baskets.
Mrs. Orlando Metcalf, eight miscellaneous Indian specimens.
Mrs. Charles S. Leiper, a beaded and quilled Indian pipe bag.
Mrs. William F. Jenks, three pieces of Algerian metalwork and nine volumes of the Art Journal.
Mr. E. S. Vanderslice, three pieces of Chinese porcelain.
Dr. Judson Daland, a swimming board from the Hawaiian Islands.
Mrs. George de Benneville Keim and Mrs. William Lyttleton Savage, a coin of Alexander the Great, a coin of Ptolemy Soter and a coin from the Island of Rhodes found under the obelisk at Alexandria when it was being removed for transportation to New York.
Purchases.
Ten pieces of early Chinese pottery dating from the Han Dynasty to the Sung, inclusive, and including a large pottery model of a Han Dynasty house.
A collection of four hundred and fifty American Indian baskets.
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The several articles contained in this JOURNAL cover a period extending from 2500 B. C. to about 900 A. D. Dr. Sayce assigns the tablets of which he writes to the earlier of these dates and Mr. Bishop places the two colossal stone heads in the T’ang Dynasty which ended in 907 A. D. Dr. Langdon writes of a Babylonian tablet of the sixteenth century B. C. and another of 1200 B. C. The Chinese bronzes described by Mr. Bishop have come down to us from the first and second millenniums B. C. and the large statue belongs to the sixth century A. D. The particular objects in the Museum collections which are described in this issue of the JOURNAL cover, therefore, a range of approximately three millenniums and a half. It is interesting to observe a certain continuity of thought and experience which is inherent in these things, a continuity which has persisted to our own times, for the same thoughts and experiences are quite familiar in the world today. A Chinese poet living in the ninth century of our era, wrote the following lines.
“The hills and rivers of the lowland country
You have made your battle-ground.
How do you suppose the people who live there
Will procure firewood and hay?
Do not let me hear you talking together
About rank and promotions;
For a single general’s reputation
Is made out of ten thousand corpses.”
This poet, by name Ts’ao Sung, lived during the Tang Dynasty, an era that was great in many ways, but especially in painting and sculpture. The author of these lines was nearly a contemporary of the artist who made the two stone heads described by Mr. Bishop.
Reports from the Egyptian Expedition show that work was resumed at Memphis on the 28th of March. Workmen are now engaged in clearing parts of the palace of Merenptah adjoining the courts already excavated by the Expedition.
Mr. Van Valin remained at Point Barrow throughout the winter and will spend the summer making explorations in that vicinity along the Arctic Coast and into the interior.
Mr. Shotridge has continued his work of recording the myths and customs of the Tlingit Indians and has been successful also in assembling important collections to add to those already received from him.
Mr. Theodoor de Booy left the United States on the 1st of May to undertake explorations in the Sierra de Perija in Venezuela. He arrived at Maracaibo on May 13th and was at La Horqueta, two days westward from Lake Maracaibo, on May 20th. At this point Mr. de Booy was making his preparations for his contemplated exploration of unknown mountain regions in the Sierra de Perija.
Four of the curators are now absent on military and naval duty.
Dr. Stephen Langdon, who was appointed Curator of the Babylonian Section last year and who was reappointed for the current year, is in the British Army and for this reason has been unable to return to America.
Mr. H. U. Hall is with the American troops in France.
Dr. Stephen B. Luce, Jr., received his commission as lieutenant in the Navy and has been assigned to duty in the Naval Intelligence Bureau.
Dr. William Curtis Farabee has received a captain’s commission in the Army and has been ordered to Washington.
At a stated meeting of the Board of Managers, held on May 17th, a resolution was passed to the effect that the dues of members who are in the country’s service be remitted during the term of that service.
On May 15th the Exhibition of Mohammedan Art was opened to the public. This exhibition is installed from the main stairs through William Pepper Hall and includes the vestibule which leads into Harrison Hall. Upon the landing of the stairway is exhibited the Mihrab, a Persian work built of tiles and dated 1264 A. D. On the landing also are two wooden shrine doors and an inscription on a large stone slab. In Pepper Hall are shown many rare pieces of Persian and Asia Minor pottery and a number of selected textiles and rugs of unusual interest. In the vestibule of Harrison Hall are exhibited several cases of pottery, one case of bronze and a group of miniatures, together with textiles and rugs. In the Greek Hall to the left are shown the principal group of miniature paintings of Persia and India.
The collection has met with general approval and has called forth much admiration on the part of visitors. Great credit is due to the collectors who have brought these things together and who have generously lent them to the Museum. The public has never heretofore enjoyed such an opportunity of seeing the products of Mohammedan Art from the earliest times until the seventeenth century and it is unlikely that so good an opportunity will be afforded again in many years.
Dr. Edward Sapir, formerly an Assistant in the University Museum, now Curator of Anthropology in the Royal Victoria Museum at Ottawa, has been at work upon a volume of Paiute texts which he began while employed in this Museum. Most of these texts were obtained at that time from a Paiute Indian, Tony Tillohash, who was borrowed from the Carlisle School by the Museum. Others were obtained during a trip made for the Museum by Dr. Sapir in Utah during the summer of 1909. These texts have now been finished by Dr. Sapir and have been received by the Museum.
Dr. Sapir has also completed for the Museum a grammar of the Paiute language which was begun at the time when the author was connected with the Museum and which was based on studies made by Dr. Sapir in the Museum and during his trip on its behalf in 1909. This Grammar of the Paiute language has been donated by the Museum to the Bureau of American Ethnology for the Handbook of American Indian Languages edited by Professor Franz Boas.