Excerpt from A Guide to the Early Christian and Byzantine Antiquities: In the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities Christian and Byzantine antiquities, and of the historical conditions which produced them, was indispensable if the collection was to arouse the interest it deserved; and for this reason a few remarks upon architecture and upon the ritual of existing Eastern Churches could not be omitted. The introduction is intended to bring a few fundamental facts of Early Christian and Byzantine archaeology to the notice of those approaching the subject for the first time, and thus enable them to proceed to the study of more comprehensive handbooks. This Guide has been written by Mr. O. M. Dalton, the senior assm Catalogue of the collection. Much useful help in the prepara tion of the introduction has been rendered by Mr. E. A. Wallis Budge in relation to the Copts and Abyssinians, and by Mr. Henry Jenner upon points of ecclesiastical history and ceremony. The Trustees of the British Museum have to thank Mrs. Theodore Bent for permission to reproduce figs. 65 and 68, and the Society of Antiquaries of London for the loan of the blocks of figs. 22 and 47. The numbers in brackets throughout refer to the Catalogue of Early Ch rietian Antiquities and Objects from the Christian East, published by order of the Trustees in 1901. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.