ETHIOPIAN EXPLORATIONS

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despairi"

A shattered statue in the desert, bearing this inscription, inspired Shelley with poetic irony. How much greater must the irony have seemed to the excavators in Professor Reisner's expedition, when they brought to light on the Upper Nile a long dynasty of ancient monarchs, kings of Ethiopia for four centuries, now forgotten for more than two thousand years. Archaeology is generally considered as dry as the dust in which it works; but the account of Professor Reisner's discoveries just made public by the University, tells a romantic story. Here is a subject ready to the hand of a sentimental philosopher--the story of an ancient race, long ruling the Upper Nile, and once sovereign over all Egypt, now laid bare in its decay by the spade of scientific investigation.

Professor Reisner's work has been of the greatest value to history and science. Not only has he revealed and carefully recorded the history, character, and customs of the ancient and little-known Ethiopian race; he has also thrown light on a more famous people, the Egyptian, and made important contributions to the art of the world by his discoveries of ancient statues and tomb-relics. His methods and his results have brought him due renown; Harvard is proud to have him working under her name.