ArchÆology, in its broadest sense, is one of the most recent of the sciences, and may be said to be a creation of the nineteenth century. In its restricted sense, however, it dates back to the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. For it was at this period that the collector's zeal began to manifest itself, and that were brought together those priceless treasures of ancient art which are to-day the pride of the museums of Rome and Florence. It was then that Pope Sixtus IV and Julius II, his nephew, laid the foundations of the great museums of the Capitol and the Vatican, and enriched them with such famous masterpieces as the Ariadne, the Nile, the Tiber, the LaocoÖn and the Apollo Belvidere. Their example was quickly followed by such cardinals as Ippolito d'Este, Fernando de' Medici, and by representatives of the leading princely houses of the Italian peninsula. In rapid succession the palaces of the Borghese, Chigi, Pamphili, Ludovisi, Barbarini and Aldobrandini became filled with the choicest Greek and Roman antiques. In the course of time many of these treasures found their way to the museums of Venice, Madrid, Paris, Munich and Dresden, while still others were purchased by wealthy art connoisseurs in various parts of Europe and Great Britain.

In the beginning these antiques in marble and bronze were used chiefly for decorative purposes. "Courts, stairs, fountains, galleries and palaces were adorned with statues, busts, reliefs and sarcophagi applied in such a manner as to become incorporated in contemporary art and thereby to gain fresh life."[215]

These treasures of antiquity, statues, bas-reliefs, mosaics, coins, medals, busts, sarcophagi, and productions of ceramic art, although at first used almost exclusively for decorating palaces and villas and enriching museums, were eventually to become of inestimable value in the study of the history of art and the civilization of Greece and Rome, as well as of the various nations of antiquity with which they had come into contact. Besides this, they supplied the necessary raw material not only for classical archÆology, but also for that more comprehensive science of archÆology which deals with the art, the architecture, the language, the literature, the inscriptions, the manners, customs and development of our race from prehistoric times until the present day.

Among the women who took a prominent part in collecting material toward the advancement of archÆologic science were those illustrious ladies—as celebrated for their knowledge and culture as for their noble lineage and their patronage of men of letters—who presided over the brilliant courts of Urbino, Mantua, Milan and Ferrara.

PreËminent among these were Elizabetta Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, and Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua. The palace of the former—"that peerless lady who excelled all others in excellence"—was famous for its precious antiques in bronze and marble, but above all for its superb collection of rare old books and manuscripts in Greek, Latin and Hebrew.

Isabella d'Este, who was through life the most intimate friend of Elizabetta Gonzaga, was acclaimed by her contemporaries as "the first lady in the world." She was a true daughter of the Renaissance, in the heart of which she was brought up; and "the small, passing incidents of her everyday life are to us memorials of the classic age when the gods of Parnassus walked with men."[216] She was an even more enthusiastic collector than the Duchess of Urbino, and her magnificent palace in Mantua was filled with the choicest works of Greek and Roman art that were then procurable.

She has been described as one who secured everything to which she took a fancy. She had but to hear of the discovery of a beautiful antique, a rare work in bronze or marble uncovered by the spade of the excavator, when she forthwith made an effort to procure it for her priceless collection. If that was not possible, she would not rest until she could secure something else even more precious. She aimed at supremacy in everything artistic and intellectual, and would be content with nothing short of perfection. Hence it is that her collection of antiques, like those of her friend, the Duchess of Urbino, is rightly regarded as having been of singular value in preparing the way for the foundation of scientific archÆology—a foundation that was laid by the eminent German scholar, Winckelmann, in the eighteenth century by the publication of his masterly work—History of the Art of Antiquity.

The first woman of eminence to take an active part in archÆologic excavation was the youngest sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, "the beautiful, clever and ambitious Caroline." When Joachim Murat became king of Naples, after his brother-in-law, Joseph Bonaparte, had in 1808 been transferred to the throne of Spain, his wife, Queen Caroline, gave at once a new impetus to the work of the excavation of Pompeii along the lines planned a few years before by the eminent Neapolitan scholar, Michele Arditi. She exhibited the keenest interest in the work, and the notable discoveries which were made under her inspiring supervision of this important undertaking show how much classical archÆology owes to her intelligent and munificent patronage.

Queen Caroline proved her interest in the excavations that were to contribute so much to our knowledge of antiquity "by appearing frequently at Pompeii and stimulating the workmen to greater efforts. She frequently spent entire days, during the great heat of summer, at the excavations, to encourage the lazy workmen and to reward them in the event of success. The funds were increased so as to make the employment of six hundred men possible. The Street of Tombs was next uncovered, forming a complete and solemn picture, greatly impressing the beholder even to-day. For the first time a complete outline of an ancient marketplace and its surroundings could be obtained. The market, closed and inaccessible to wheeled traffic, was surrounded by a colonnade filled with monuments, with the great temple in the background, and beyond the arcades were other temples or public buildings, among the principal being the stately Basilica. Constant and increased efforts were thus crowned by important results. The Queen did not withhold generous assistance. The French architect, Fr. Mazois, received from her fifteen hundred francs while preparing his monumental work at Pompeii."[217]

It is not too much to say that Queen Caroline's archÆological work at Pompeii was as far-reaching in its results as was that of her illustrious brother in the land of the Pharaohs. It drew in the most impressive manner the attention of the world to the vast treasures of art which lay concealed under the earth-covered ruins of the once noted cities of the ancient world, and stimulated scholars and learned societies to undertake similar researches in Sicily, Greece, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and the almost forgotten islands of the Ægean Seas.

While this energetic sister of the great Napoleon was occupied in bringing to light those priceless treasures of art which had for seventeen centuries lain beneath the ashes of Vesuvius, a bright, refined, spirituelle young girl, born in Dublin and bred in England, was unconsciously preparing herself for a brilliant career in the branch of archÆology known as Christian iconography. Her name was Anna Murphy, better known to the world as Mrs. Jameson. At an early age she gave evidence of unusual intelligence, and she had hardly attained to womanhood when she was noted for her knowledge of languages and for her remarkable attainments in art and literature. Numerous journeys to France, Italy and Germany and a systematic study in the great museums and art galleries of these countries, but, above all, her association with the most distinguished scholars of Europe, completed her education and prepared her for those splendid works on Christian art which have made her name a household word throughout the world.

Mrs. Jameson was a prolific writer, but those of her works on which her fame chiefly rests are the ones which are classed under the general title, Sacred and Legendary Art. They treat of God the Father and Son, of the Madonna and the Saints, as illustrated in art from the earliest ages to modern times. So masterly and exhaustive was her treatment of the difficult subjects discussed in this chef d'oeuvre of hers that no less an authority than the eminent German archÆologist, F. X. Kraus, writes of this elaborate production as follows:

"Neither before nor since has the subject matter of this work been handled with such skill and thoroughness. The older iconographic works were mere dilettanteism. For the first time since classical archÆology had applied the principles of modern criticism to Greek and Roman iconography, and had presented an example of scientific treatment free from such reproach, was a serious iconography of our early Christian monuments possible. Mrs. Jameson was the first to attempt this on a large scale. It was clear to her—and here lay the advance which her work reveals—that in order to accomplish her colossal task two things must be realized. She must not build on a foundation of material that is imperfect or brought together in a haphazard way. She must not only see and test everything available in the way of monuments, but she must likewise place the productions of literature and poetry beside those of the plastic arts. It was clear to her, also, that, in this case, one would throw light on the other, and that the investigator who would lay claim to the name of archÆologist must, moreover, study the spirit of a people in all its monumental and literary manifestations.

"Mrs. Jameson strove to learn the mind and the mode of early Christian times from the works of the Fathers. She saw in the hymns of the Middle Ages and in the writings of the mystics the sources of the art ideas which disclose themselves in the wall and glass paintings of our cathedrals and in the entrancing creation of a Fiesole. She had also the special advantage of being thoroughly imbued with Dante's ideas of the plastic arts of the Middle Ages.

"And all this is evidenced in a form which exhibits neither dry dissertation nor wearisome nomenclature. Each of her articles is a little essay. It teaches us what place the Madonna, or St. Catherine, or some other saint has held in the memory and in the imagination of past centuries. We behold the sainted forms flitting before our eyes in all the charm of poetic perfection which was given them by the childlike phantasy of the Middle Ages, and in all the power which they exercised over men's minds, and which, however we may view the religious side of the question, certainly had the effect of creating forms of infinite beauty and pictures of unspeakable reality."[218]

When we recollect that Mrs. Jameson achieved so much before the foundations of Christian archÆology had been fully laid; before de Rossi's monumental publications had supplied the means of interpreting early Christian sculpture; before critics and archÆologists were at one regarding the significance of early Christian and Middle Age symbolism, or agreed on the principles that were to guide to a correct understanding of the pictures of Roman and Gothic art, and while students were yet in ignorance as to the real influence of Byzantine art on that of western Europe, we cannot but wonder at the courage and the energy of this gifted woman in undertaking and in bringing to a happy issue a work which, even to-day, with all our increased facilities and greater array of facts, would be considered a herculean task.

As we read her admirable volumes on Sacred and Legendary Art we can, as did a close friend of hers, see the enraptured author "kindle into enthusiasm amidst the gorgeous natural beauty, the antique memorials and the sacred Christian relics of Italy," and we are prepared to believe, with the same friend, that there was not "a cypress on the Roman hills, or a sunny vine overhanging the southern gardens, or a picture in those vast somber galleries of foreign palaces, or a catacomb spread out, vast and dark, under the martyr churches of the City of the Seven Hills, which was not associated with some vivid flashes of her intellect and imagination." And we can also understand how "the strange, mystic symbolism of the early mosaics was a familiar language to her," and why she should experience special delight when she found herself "on the polished marble of the Lateran floor or under the gorgeously somber tribune of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, reading off the quaint emblems or expounding the pious thoughts of more than a thousand years ago."[219]

It is gratifying to know that Queen Victoria recognized the surpassing merits of this noble woman by placing her on the civil list, and that our own Longfellow was able to say of her masterpiece, Sacred and Legendary Art, "It most amply supplies the cravings of the religious sentiment of the spiritual nature within."

A countrywoman of Mrs. Jameson and her contemporary, who also deserves an honorable place in the literature of archÆology, is Louise Twining. Although inferior in intellectual attainments and literary activity to the accomplished author of Sacred and Legendary Art, her two works on Types and Figures of the Bible Illustrated by Art and Symbols and Emblems of Early MediÆval Christian Art have given her a well-deserved reputation on the Continent as well as in the British Isles. The latter volume Mrs. Jameson herself declares in her Legends of the Madonna to be "certainly the most complete and useful book of the kind which I know of."

A third woman who has won fame for her sex in the island kingdom in the domain of archeology is Miss Margaret Stotes. Her activities, however, have been chiefly confined to the antiquities of Ireland, on which she is a recognized authority.

The notable part she took in editing Lord Dunraven's great work, Notes on Irish Architecture, established her reputation on a firm basis. Among her other important works are Early Christian Art in Ireland and Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language, chiefly collected and drawn by George Petrie, one of the annual volumes of the Royal Historical and ArchÆological Association of Ireland. This work has justly been described as an epoch-making contribution to Christian epigraphy and to our rapidly developing knowledge of Keltic language and literature. The learned Dr. Krauss, than whom there is no more competent judge, in referring to this splendid performance, does not hesitate to affirm, "No man could have done better than this brave college girl, whom I would wish to greet across the Channel with a cordial Macte virtute."

The women archÆologists so far mentioned, with the exception of Queen Caroline Murat, were conspicuous as writers rather than active investigators in the field. There have been, however, quite a number who have won distinction as "archÆologists of the spade"—women who, either alone or with their husbands, have superintended excavations in different lands, which have yielded results of untold scientific value. Among the most conspicuous of these are Mme. Sophia Schliemann, Mme. Dieulafoy and the enterprising Yankee girl, Miss Harriet A. Boyd.

Of these the first named is the wife of the late Dr. Henry Schliemann, who immortalized himself by his famous excavations at Troy, Tiryns and MycenÆ—enterprises which solved for us the great problem of nearly thirty centuries and demonstrated in the most startling manner "the truth of the foundations on which was framed the poetical conception that has for thousands of years called forth the enchanted delight of the educated world." During his meteoric career as an archÆologist, Schliemann was able to realize the dreams of his youth, and succeeded in unveiling the mystery that had so long hung over Sacred Ilios, and to give the heroes of the Iliad a local habitation on the rediscovered Plain of Troy. And his glorious achievements we must credit largely to that brave and devoted woman—his wife—who was ever at his side to share in his trials and labors and to raise his drooping spirits in hours of depression, or when hostile criticism treated him as a visionary in the pursuit of a chimera.

Mrs. Schliemann is a Greek lady who was born and bred under the shadow of the Acropolis and a worthy descendant of those proud Athenian women who wore the golden grasshopper in their hair as a sign that they were natives of the City of the Violet Crown. She was not only dowered with intellectual gifts of a high order, but she was also her husband's most congenial companion and sympathetic friend in all his literary work, while she was his very right hand in those glorious enterprises at Hissarlik and MycenÆ, which secured for both of them undying fame.

Dr. Schliemann was the first to attest the never-failing assistance which he received from this noble woman who, as he informs us, was "a warm admirer of Homer" and "with glad enthusiasm" joined her husband in executing the great work which he had conceived in his early boyhood. Usually they worked together, but at times Mrs. Schliemann superintended a gang of laborers at one spot while the Doctor was occupied at another in the immediate vicinity. Thus it was she who excavated the heroic tumulus of Batieia in the Troad—that Batieia who, according to Homer, was a queen of the Amazons and undertook a campaign against Troy.[220]

Mme. Jane Dieulafoy is noted as the collaborator of her husband, Marcel Dieulafoy, in the important archÆological mission to Persia that was entrusted to him by the French government. The results of this mission, in which Mme. Dieulafoy had a conspicuous part, were published in Paris in 1884 in five octavo volumes.

It was during this expedition to the ancient empire of Cyrus and Artaxerxes that this indefatigable couple became interested in the ruins of Susa, the ancient capital of the Persian kings. On their return to France they succeeded in securing money and supplies for conducting excavations among these ruins which, in the end, yielded results which were, in some respects, as important as those which rewarded the labors of the Schliemanns in Greece and Asia Minor.

So completely had Susa—the City of the Lilies—been buried and forgotten for nearly two thousand years that even its site was almost as much a matter of dispute as was that of ancient Troy. And yet it was one of the greatest and richest cities of antiquity—the city of Esther and Daniel, the city of the mighty Assuerus who reigned from India even unto Ethiopia, over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces—the city where the great Alexander celebrated his nuptials with Statira, the daughter of Darius, with a magnificent festival at which, according to Plutarch, "there were no fewer than nine thousand guests, to each of which he gave a golden cup for the libations."

In December, 1884, the two brave and venturesome explorers were on their way to Susa with high hopes, but not without a full knowledge of the difficulties and dangers that they would have to confront among the fanatical nomads of Arabistan, where the very name of Christian inspires rage and horror. It meant, as Mme. Dieulafoy herself tells us, "to cross the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the deserts of Elam three times in less than a year; to pass whole weeks without undressing; to sleep on the bare ground; to struggle nights and days against robbers and thieves; to cross rivers without a bridge; to suffer heat, rain, cold, mists, fever, fatigue, hunger, thirst, the stings of divers insects; to lead this hard and perilous existence without being guided by any interest other than the glory of one's country."[221]

In spite, however, of all the opposition which they encountered among the fanatical Mussulmans of Arabistan and of the dreadful sufferings incident to living in a desert where it was at times impossible to secure the necessaries of life, their mission was successful, and their account of their finds in the ancient capital of Elam was as thrilling in its way as anything reported of the excavations at Troy or Pompeii. Their splendid collection of specimens of ancient Persian art and architecture, now on exhibition in the Museum of the Louvre, testifies to the successful issue of their expedition and to their indomitable energy in conducting researches under the most untoward conditions.[222] So highly did the French government value the part Mme. Dieulafoy had taken in this arduous enterprise that it conferred on her a distinction rarely awarded to a woman for scientific work—that of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

As an archÆologist, the gifted and energetic American woman, Miss Harriet Boyd—now Mrs. C. H. Hawes—has achieved an international reputation for her remarkable excavations in the island of Crete. She is a frequent contributor to archÆological journals; but it is upon her splendid work in the field that her fame will ultimately rest.

Her first work of importance was undertaken as Fellow of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. This was in 1900, and the field of her investigations was the Isthmus of Hierapetra in Crete. Here she excavated numerous tombs and houses of the early Geometric Period, circa 900 B.C., and paved the way for those brilliant discoveries which rewarded her labors during the following three years.

The investigations conducted during these three years under Miss Boyd's directions yielded results of transcendent value. Assisted by three young American women—the Misses B. E. Wheeler, Blanche E. Williams, and Edith H. Hall—she superintended the work of more than a hundred native employees whom she had on her payroll. By good fortune in the choice of a site for excavation and by well-directed efforts she was soon able to unearth one of the oldest of Cretan cities and to expose to view the ruins of what was probably one of the ninety cities which Homer tells us in his Odyssey graced the land of Crete—"a fair land and a rich, in the midst of a wine-dark sea."

So remarkable were the finds in this long-buried Minoan town and so well preserved are its general features that it has justly been called the Cretan Pompeii. It antedates by long centuries the oldest cities of Greece and was a flourishing center of commerce ages before the heroes of the Iliad battled on the plains of Troy.

It is not too much to say that the extraordinary discoveries made by this enterprising Yankee girl at Gournia, no less than those made by British and Italian archÆologists at Knossos and PhÆstos, have completely revolutionized our ideas respecting the state of culture of the inhabitants of Crete during the second and third millenia before the Christian era. They have thrown a flood of light on the origins of Mediterranean culture, and have, at the same time, supplied material for a study of European civilization that was before entirely wanting.

An enduring monument to Miss Boyd's ability as an archÆologist is her notable volume containing an account of her excavations at Gournia, Vasilike and other prehistoric sites on the Isthmus of Hierapetra. It will bear comparison with any similar productions by the Schliemanns or the Dieulafoys. A later work on Crete, the Forerunner of Greece, which she wrote in collaboration with her husband, Mr. C. H. Hawes, is also a production of recognized merit. As a study on the origin of Greek civilization it opens up many new vistas in pre-history and illumines many questions that were before involved in mystery.

Besides Mrs. Hawes, three other American women have achieved marked distinction by their archÆological researches. These are Mrs. Sarah Yorke Stevenson, Miss Alice C. Fletcher and Mrs. Zelia Nuttall.

Mrs. Stevenson has long been identified with the progress of archÆological research, especially with that in Egypt and the Mediterranean. A prominent member of many learned societies, she is likewise a writer and lecturer of note. She enjoys the distinction of being the first woman whose name appears as a lecturer on the calendar of the University of Harvard. In acknowledgment of her scholarly ability and eminent services in the development of its Department of ArchÆology, the University of Pennsylvania has conferred upon her the honorary degree of Doctor of Science.

That American women have not been behind their sisters in Europe in their enthusiasm for archÆological investigation is evinced by the researches and writings of Miss Alice C. Fletcher and Mrs. Zelia Nuttall, both of whom enjoy an international reputation in the learned world.

Miss Fletcher's chosen field of labor has been in ethnology and anthropology. Her studies of the folk lore and the manners and customs of various tribes of North American Indians have a distinct and permanent value, while those of her contributions which have been published by the Smithsonian Institution and the Bureau of Ethnology—contributions based on personal knowledge of a long residence among the tribes she writes about—show that she has exceptional talent for the branches of archÆology to which she has devoted many years of earnest and successful study.

Mrs. Nuttall is the daughter of an American mother and an English father. Thanks to the care that was bestowed on her education by her parents and to her long residence in the different countries of Europe, she is proficient in seven languages. This knowledge of tongues has been of inestimable advantage to her in her researches in European libraries and in those historical and archÆological investigations which have rendered her famous. She has devoted special attention to the early history, languages, religions and calendar systems of the primitive inhabitants of Mexico and Central America, in all of which she is a recognized authority.

When, some years ago, the mysterious ruins of Mexico began to attract the special attention of archÆologists, Mrs. Nuttall was selected by the University of California as the field director of the commission which it sent to pursue archÆological researches in this Egypt of the New World. A more competent or a more enthusiastic director could not have been chosen. Her finds in the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon at Teotihuacan and elsewhere in our sister republic were especially important. In recognition of her achievements President Porfirio Diaz nominated Mrs. Nuttall honorary professor in the Mexican National Museum. She was also offered the position of curator of the archÆological Museum of Mexico; but this office she declined. She holds membership in a large number of learned societies in America and Europe and is a frequent contributor to numerous magazines on historical and archÆological subjects. She has had the good fortune to discover a number of important manuscripts illustrating the early history of Mexico. Chief among these are a Hispano-American manuscript which she dug out of one of the libraries of Madrid and another which was found in a private collection in England and reproduced in facsimile in this country. In honor of its fair discoverer it is now known as the Codex Nuttall, and is regarded by experts as one of the most precious records of ancient Mexico.

What is probably Mrs. Nuttall's most valuable contribution to archÆological science is her erudite work entitled The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations. It is a comparative research based on a study of the ancient Mexican, religious, sociological and calendar systems, and represents thirteen years of assiduous labor. It is a worthy monument to the scientific ability of this gifted Americanist, and one which brilliantly illumines some of the most controverted points of comparative archÆology.

The Nestor of women archÆologists is Donna Ersilia Caetani-Bovatelli—the daughter of the famous Dante scholar, the late Duke Don Michel Angelo Caetani-Sermonetta. Since the days of Boniface VIII, whom Dante scornfully denounced as lo principe de' Pharisei, the family of the Caetani has been one of the most illustrious of the Roman nobility, and is to-day ranked with those of the Colonna and Orsini.

Besides his thorough knowledge of Dante, whose Divina Commedia he regarded as the great artistic production of the human mind—a work which he knew by heart—the Duke of Sermonetta was deeply versed in philology and archÆology. No one was more familiar with the history and antiquities of Rome than he was, nor a greater friend and patron of scholars of every nationality. The Palazzo Caetani was the resort of not only the savants of Rome, but also and especially of those who gathered from all quarters of the world to study the rich collections of antiquities for which the Eternal City is so famous. Here the ablest authorities in history and archÆology discussed the latest discoveries among the ruins of Greece and Asia Minor, and the most recent finds in the Forum or amidst the crumbling ruins of the palaces of the CÆsars.

Having such a father and brought up in such an environment it is not surprising that Donna Ersilia acquired at an early age that taste for archÆology which was, as events proved, to constitute the chief occupation of her long and busy life. Having enjoyed and studied literature and the languages under the best masters in Rome, she was thoroughly prepared for the work of deciphering Greek and Latin inscriptions and for an intelligent study of the ancient monuments of Italy and Hellas.

Her learned countryman, A. de Gubernatis, assures us that she has such a thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek that she writes both with ease and elegance, and that she is endowed with an admirable memory for philology and archÆology. Besides being a mistress of several modern languages, she is also familiar with Sanscrit.

Since the death of her husband, in 1879, she has devoted all her time, outside of that given to the care and education of her children, to the pursuit of classical archÆology, in which she has long been regarded as an authority of the first order. Her salon, unlike those of the frivolous leaders of high life, has for many years been the favorite rendezvous in Rome of learned men and women from every clime. Here were seen the noted historians Gregorovius, Theodore Mommsen, and Giovanni Battista de Rossi, the illustrious founder of Christian archÆology. Here the representatives of the French, German and American schools of archÆology meet to exchange views on their favorite science and to find inspiration in the knowledge and enthusiasm of their gifted hostess, who always takes an active part in their recondite discussions, and never fails to contribute her share to these meetings, which have contributed so much toward the advancement of science and the history of antiquity. Whether the discussion turn on the deciphering of an ancient text, the inscription of a monument or a recently excavated sarcophagus, Donna Ersilia's opinion is eagerly sought, and her judgment is generally unerring.

This cultured and erudite daughter of sunny Italy has been a prolific writer on her favorite branch of research. Besides contributing to such publications as the Nuova Antologia and the bulletins of the archÆological commissions in Rome, she has found time to prepare for the press a number of volumes of the highest value on divers questions of Roman and Greek archÆology.

It is interesting, in this connection, to note the fact that, after Mme. Curie had been refused admittance into the French Academy, one of the members of this institution, who had voted against her on the ground that she was a woman, had occasion to attend a meeting of the Academy of the Lincei in Rome, an association which plays the same rÔle in Italy as does the French Academy in France, and found, to his astonishment, that the dean of the department of archÆology, as well as the presiding officer of some of the most important meetings of the academy, was a woman. She was no other than Donna Ersilia Caetani-Bovatelli, the learned and gracious scion of an honored race. So taken aback was the Gallic opponent of feminisme that he could but exclaim: "Diable! they order things differently in Italy from what we do in la belle France."

Considering their attainments and achievements, the two women who occupy the highest place as archÆologists in the English-speaking world are Mrs. Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson. They are the twin daughters of the Rev. John Smith, an English clergyman, and have long enjoyed an enviable reputation among Scriptural scholars and Orientalists.

During their youth they had the advantage of instruction under the best masters, and, among other things, acquired a wide knowledge of the modern and classical languages. Subsequent study and frequent visits to Greece and the Orient made them proficient in modern Greek, Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac. Becoming interested in the search for ancient manuscripts, they resolved to make the long and arduous journey to the Greek convent of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai.

In the latter part of January, 1892, these two brave and enterprising women left Suez for their destination in the heart of the Arabian desert. They were accompanied only by their dragoman and Bedouin servants. Eleven camels carried the two travelers, their baggage, tents and provisions for fifty days. They had laid in supplies not only for the two or three weeks they were to spend on the way to and from Sinai, but also for the month they expected to remain at the Convent of St. Catherine.

Arriving at the end of their journey, they were most cordially received by the monks, who afforded them every facility for examining the treasures of their unique and venerable library. They immediately set to work, and before they left the room in which the manuscripts were preserved they had made one of the most remarkable finds of the century. For, in closely inspecting a dirty, forbidding old manuscript whose leaves had probably not been turned for centuries, they discovered a palimpsest, of which the upper writing contained the biographies of women saints, while that beneath proved to be one of the earliest copies of the Syriac Gospels, if not the very earliest in existence.

No find since the celebrated discovery by Tischendorf of the Sinaitic Codex, in the same convent nearly fifty years before, ever excited such interest among Scriptural scholars or was hailed with greater rejoicings. It was by all Biblical students regarded as an invaluable contribution to Scriptural literature, and as a find which "has doubled our sources of knowledge of the darkest corner of New Testament criticism." To distinguish it from the Codex Sinaiticus, the precious manuscript brought to light by Mrs. Lewis has been very appropriately named after the fortunate discoverer, and will hereafter be known as the Codex Ludovicus.[223]

Another find of rare importance made by the gifted twin sisters was a Palestinian Syriac lectionary similar to the hitherto unique copy in the Library of the Vatican. A special interest attaches to this lectionary from the fact that it is written in the language that was most probably spoken by our Lord.

Among other notable discoveries of Mrs. Lewis and her sister during the four visits[224] which they made to Mt. Sinai and Palestine between the years 1892 and 1897 were a number of manuscripts in Arabic and a portion of the original Hebrew manuscript of Ecclesiastes which was written about 200 B.C. Previously the oldest copies of this book of the Old Testament were the Greek and Syriac versions.

What is specially remarkable about the discoveries made by Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson is that they were able to make so many valuable finds after the convent library at Mt. Sinai had been so frequently examined by previous scholars. The indefatigable Tischendorf made three visits to this library and had but one phenomenal success. But neither "he nor any of the other wandering scholars who have visited the convent attained," as has been well said, "to a tithe of the acquaintance with its treasures which these energetic ladies possess."

But more remarkable than the mere discovery of so many invaluable manuscripts, which was, of course, an extraordinary achievement, is the fact that these manuscripts, whether in Syriac, Arabic or Hebrew, have been translated, annotated and edited by these same scholarly women. Already more than a score of volumes have come from their prolific pens, all evincing the keenest critical acumen and the highest order of Biblical and archÆological scholarship. The reader who desires a popular account of their famous discoveries should by all means read Mrs. Gibson's entertaining volume, How the Codex Was Found, and Mrs. Lewis' charming little work entitled, In the Shadow of Sinai. As to those men—and the species is yet far from extinct—who still doubt the capacity of women for the higher kinds of intellectual effort, let them glance at the pages of the numerous volumes given to the press by these richly dowered women under the captions of Studia Sinaitica and HorÆ SemiticÆ; and, if they are able to comprehend the evidence before them, they will be forced to admit that the long-imagined difference between the intellectual powers of men and women is one of fancy and not one of reality.[225]

And yet, strange to relate, while Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson were electrifying the learned world by their achievements in the highest form of scholarship, the slow-moving University of Cambridge was gravely debating "whether it was a proper thing to confer degrees upon women," and preparing to answer the question in the negative. The fact that there were "representatives of the unenfranchised sex at their gates who had gathered more laurels in the field of scholarship than most of those who belong to the privileged sex" did not appeal to the university dons or prevent them from putting themselves on record as favoring a condition of things which, at this late age of the world, should be expected only among the women-enslaving followers of Mohammed.

The saying that "a prophet hath no honor in his own country" was fulfilled to the letter in the case of the two women who had shed such luster on the land of their birth. While foreign institutions were vying with one another in showering honors on the two brilliant Englishwomen, with whose praises the whole world was resounding, the University of Cambridge was silent. The University of St. Andrews conferred on them the degree of LL.D., while conservative old Heidelberg, casting aside its age-old traditions, made haste to honor them with the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In addition to this, Halle made Mrs. Lewis a Doctor of Philosophy. One would have thought that sheer shame, if not patriotic spirit, would have compelled the university in whose shadows the two women had their home, and in which Mrs. Lewis' husband had held for years an official appointment, to show itself equally appreciative of superlative merit and equally ready to reward rare scholarship, regardless of the sex of the beneficiaries. But no. The illustrious archÆologists and Biblical scholars were women, and this fact alone was in the estimation of the Cambridge authorities enough to withhold from them that recognition which was so spontaneously accorded them by the great universities of the Continent.

Nor was this the only instance of the kind. While the celebrated twin sisters just referred to were so materially contributing to our knowledge of Biblical lore, another Englishwoman, Jane E. Harrison, who lived within hearing of the church bells of Cambridge, was lecturing to delighted audiences in Newnham College on the history, mythology and monuments of ancient Athens, and writing those learned works on the religion and antiquities of Greece which have given her so conspicuous a place among modern archÆologists.[226] But, as in the case of her distinguished neighbors, the discoverers of the Codex Ludovicus, the degrees she was honored with came not from Cambridge, with which, through her fellowship in Newnham, she was so closely connected.

And while this gifted lady was deserving so well of science and literature, the undergraduate students of Cambridge, following the cue given by the twenty-four hundred graduates who had just rejected the proposal to give honorary degrees to women who could pass the required examinations, were giving an exhibition of rowdyism which far surpassed that which, a few years before, had so disgraced the University of Edinburgh, when the same question of degrees for women was under consideration.

According to the report of an eye witness of the turbulent scene at Cambridge, "The undergraduate students appeared to be, as a body, viciously opposed to the proposal to give degrees to women, and became fairly riotous. They hooted those who supported the reform and fired crackers even in the Senate House and made the night lurid with bonfires and powder. They put up insulting effigies of girl students, and such mottoes as 'Get you to Girton, Beatrice. Get you to Newnham. Here is no place for maids!'"

Verily, when such scenes are possible in one of the world's great intellectual centers—a place where, above all others, women should receive due recognition for their contributions toward the progress of knowledge—one is constrained to declare that what we call civilization is still far from the ideal. And, when one witnesses the total indifference of institutions like Cambridge and the French Academy to the splendid achievements of women like Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. Gibson and Mme. Curie, one cannot but exclaim in words Apocalyptic: "How long, O Lord, holy and true," is this iniquitous discrimination against one-half of our race to endure? O Lord, how long?