ARCII/EOLOGY. 



31 



discovery was a jasper mould or form- 

 with six sides covered with curious pat- 

 terns for gold and silver ornaments, and among 

 tin-in tho mould for the small glassy cone with 

 spiral lines which was frequently found. Axes 

 of jasper or green-stone and many whorls ot 

 blue-Mom- were found here, and a large num- 

 ber ot line vases in terra-cotta, covered with 

 paintings of warriors in dark-red on a yellow 

 Around. The>e warriors wear coats of mail, 

 girdle-belts, sandals, greaves, and either shaggy 

 helmets, which look like the skin of a porcu- 

 pine, or helmets with long crests; a protuber- 

 ance like a horn stands out from the front of 

 the helmets ; the warriors also carry large, 

 round shields, with a crescent-shaped hole at 

 the bottom, and lances with the object looking 

 something like an idol, seen on the represen- 

 tation of a warrior upon one of the tombstones. 

 The men have an Asiatic cast of features. In- 

 teresting also are the vases with three handles 

 in the form of crocodiles. There are other 

 vases with rows of circles and rows of signs 

 which may be writing. In this house were 

 also found a large brazen tripod and another 

 vessel of brass. 



General Count Luigi Palma di 'Cesnola, 

 who has been engaged for the past ten years 

 in extensive antiquarian explorations upon 

 the island of Cyprus, is an Italian nobleman of 

 Turin, of military education, who entered the 

 service of the United States at the breaking 

 out of the civil war, and, after serving with 

 distinction, was, at its close, appointed Ameri- 

 can consul to Cyprus. His explorations have 

 been prosecuted amid the greatest difficulties, 

 and have been rewarded with discoveries of 

 the highest historical and artistic value. 



He commenced his investigations in 1865, in 

 an amateur sort of a way, having obtained a 

 firman from the Porte for the purpose ; but he 

 soon became so engrossed in the archaeology 

 of the island, and so convinced that valuable 

 relics could be unearthed, which would shed a 

 new light upon the early history, art, and cult- 

 ure of the classic races, upon this spot, which 

 was the portal between the ancient world of 

 the East and the ancient world of Europe, that, 

 notwithstanding the slender success of his first 

 excavations, he declares that his enthusiasm 

 was aroused to such a point that he could not 

 have brought him^eif to give up the pursuit. 



He commenced his diggings at Kitium, the 

 Chittim of the Bible, upon the burial-place of 

 which stands the modern town Larnaca. At 

 the end of a year he had identified the sites 

 of four ancient cities, IdpVum, Salamis, Gol- 

 gos. and Kitium. At Kitium he opened, first 

 and last, over 2,000 graves, but found most of 

 them empty, they having been probably de- 

 spoiled in some former age, perhaps by the 

 Crusaders, as a rude painted figure, somewhat 

 resembling a knight of the middle ages, which 

 was found in one of the graves, would indicate. 

 The tombs of Kitium belong for the most part 

 to th period between 400 B. o. and the time 



of ( 'hrist. Here he came upon the remains of 

 a Greek temple, with inscriptions indicating 

 that it was dedicated to the goddess Demi-tcr 

 Paralia, in which many small figures in terra- 

 cotta, some of them belonging to a ripe period 

 of Grecian art, were found, and, in a tomb out- 

 side, a bronze jar containing some six hundred 

 gold staters of Philip and Alexander; and also 

 discovered the ruins of a Phoenician temple 

 containing broken marble bowls and patera 

 with dedications to Melkart and another Phoe- 

 nician divinity inscribed in Phoenician .char- 

 acters, besides a marble sarcophagus with a 

 Phoenician head in high-relief, and two alabas- 

 ter vases with an inscription on one in Phoe- 

 nician. The Greek tombs were more richly 

 furnished with funeral relics than the Phoeni- 

 cian, and yielded numerous lamps, bronze mir- 

 rors, and glass vessels, which were not irides- 

 cent like those found in other places. Going 

 next to the site of Idalium, on which stands the 

 modern Dali, Signer di Cesnola opened 15,000 

 graves, most of them Phoenician, containing 

 thousands of terra-cotta vases of the most va- 

 rious sizes and shapes, but decorated in the 

 earliest style of art with simple zigzag lines 

 arid concentric circles, but some of them Greek 

 containing glass objects of a beautiful irides- 

 cence. Going next to Golgos, he met with a 

 richer success than had yet attended his labors; 

 the burial-place and two temples of the ancient 

 city were explored, in the larger and more re- 

 cent of which were nearly one thousand statues, 

 some of them from the earliest and best period 

 of Egyptian art, and some statues and bass- 

 reliefs in Assyrian style, and a few examples of 

 Greek and Roman art, but most of them belong- 

 ing to a period of which few other examples are 

 known, and illustrate the birth of classic art 

 and the development of the Greek ideal from 

 the rigid conventionalism of the Egyptian and 

 As-syrian models. These statues are most of 

 them in a remarkable state of preservation. 

 They were evidently produced by native artists, 

 being cut from the calcareous stone of Cyprus, 

 which was quarried but a short distance from 

 Golgos. These most interesting sculptures are 

 contained in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 

 in New York, where, when they shall be ex- 

 posed to the public, they will afford a com- 

 parative view of the origin and early develop- 

 ment of classic art such as cannot be found 

 elsewhere. 



It was at Golgos that Cesnola found the 

 bulk of the collection which he carried to 

 London for view in 1872. The reception to 

 the treasures, of whose great historical value 

 he was convinced, was at first cool and dis- 

 couraging ; but other archaeologists soon rec- 

 ognized their importance. Efforts were made 

 to secure the collection to the British Museum 

 by purchase, but they were obtained by the 

 more forehanded managers of the New York 

 Museum at the price of $61,888.22. Eighty- 

 eight cases of the treasure had, however, been 

 presented by General di Cesnola to the Ot- 



