32 



AKCHJEOLOGY. 



toman Museum of Constantinople as an ac- 

 knowledgment of the rights of the sovereign 

 over the soil which had concealed this rich 

 treasure trove. 



After finishing the explorations at Golgos, 

 he went to Salamis, but his excavations here 

 were fruitless, and it is probable that the ex- 

 ploitation of the ruins of that famous city took 

 place at an early period. In the vicinity of 

 Cape Pedalium, the modern Cape Greco, he 

 explored the ruins of Leucolla, where were 

 found the debris of a temple with statues in 

 Greek style ; the tombs here contained each a 

 coffin of terra-cotta covered with three tiles, 

 and ornamented simply around the rim with a 

 wreath of colored flowers ; here he explored a 

 strange burial-place, a rock cavern, whose only 

 approach was from the sea, in which were 

 petrified human bones in great numbers. 



The succeeding explorations enabled him to 

 identify the sites of Throni, Carpassia, Aph- 

 rodisium, Acte-Achseon, Lapethus, Soli, and 

 Arsinoe, in which he found several temples 

 and burial-places. Then crossing the moun- 

 tains he made excavations on the sites of Neo- 

 Paphos and Palseo-Paphos, and at Visuri and 

 Amathus, and thence proceeded to Curium, 

 the exploration of which completed his labors. 

 At the latter place, in the treasure-chambers of 

 an unknown temple, he came upon his richest 

 discovery, this being votive offerings of the 

 most diverse materials and styles of workman- 

 ship, comprising some of the finest specimens 

 of antique gem-engraving and delicate metal- 

 work ever recovered. He was led to the site 

 of this city by a vague indication on the chart 

 of Strabo, which author, with Pausanias, he 

 used as uncertain guides in most of his explo- 

 rations. The spot indicated was the summit of 

 a rock 300 feet high and five hours' ride from 

 the west coast, west of the ruins of Amathus, 

 or Palaeo-Limisso, as it is called. It was a 

 strong position, inaccessible on three sides, 

 two of which were artificially scarped, the 

 marks of the chisel being still visible. About 

 40 feet above the base a terrace was found 

 hollowed out in the form of a ditch, 100 feet 

 wide and 25 feet deep, and this was the an- 

 cient burial-place of the city. Thousands of 

 tombs were found cut into the rock, some of 

 arched form and roughly hewn, and others 

 rectangular and very regular, some of them 

 containing sarcophagi chiseled out of the 

 solid rock. The graves were found to con- 

 tain skeletons, a number of earthen lamps, 

 four Phoenician amphorae, a copper mirror, 

 some rings of gold, and ear-rings and bracelets 

 of silver. General di Cesnola noticed in seven- 

 teen places the broken shafts of columns, and 

 detected the steps to an ancient fountain ; 

 broken pottery and fragments of pavement 

 with ruts worn by wheels lay scattered about 

 the whole ground, and in hundreds of small 

 mounds he detected the places of ancient 

 dwellings. He located the great temple of 

 Apollo, and struck the treasure-chambers of 



a second unknown temple. He was attracted 

 especially toward one spot where eight col- 

 umns were imbedded in the soil, and upon 

 excavating here he came to a mosaic pave- 

 ment of Assyrian device, a large piece of 

 which is preserved in his collection. There 

 were marks of some former search for treas- 

 ure, as the pavement was broken up and a 

 space dug to the depth of six or seven feet 

 below it. Cesnola dug deeper, encouraged 

 by a hollow sound produced by stamping. 



At the depth of twenty feet farther down 

 Cesnola came upon an arched passage in the 

 rock, four feet wide by five high, which he fol- 

 lowed out till he reached a slab which was the 

 door to a small chamber. He was gratified by 

 the discovery here of objects of gold jewelry ; 

 the loose earth which was in the compartment 

 was removed and carefully sifted. He then 

 came to a second chamber opening into this, 

 which led to a third and a fourth cell. In the 

 first were found articles of gold almost ex- 

 clusively ; in the second, of silver ; in the third, 

 of terra-cotta, caskets, vases, and groups of 

 statuary; and in the fourth, works in bronze. 

 This secret depository he concluded was the 

 hidden treasury of some unknown temple, 

 where, as he inferred from the somewhat dis- 

 orderly manner in which the objects were 

 stowed, the priests had hastily conveyed the 

 precious furniture of the temple upon the occa- 

 sion of some Persian invasion. Each of the 

 rooms measures about fourteen and a half feet 

 in height, by eleven in width, and twenty- 

 three in length : there were no inscriptions 

 nor carvings upon the walls; the pavement 

 was of blue pebbles, bedded in sand and plas- 

 ter. In the gold vault there were sifted out of 

 the mould 550 objects, embracing diadems, 

 bracelets, necklaces, finger-rings, signet-rings, 

 ear-rings, armlets, etc. The second room yield- 

 ed only objects of silver, very imperfectly pre- 

 served, as are all specimens of ancient silver- 

 work, some of them so eaten through by oxi- 

 dation as to be almost ready to crumble at a 

 touch ; but still constituting the largest and 

 finest collection of antique silver in the world. 

 Two hundred and seventy articles were taken 

 out, some of them remarkably well preserved, 

 but most of them in a corroded and frag- 

 mentary condition. The third room disclosed 

 a great variety of products of the fictile art, 

 and the bronze chamber afforded 500 speci' 

 mens of bronze-work. 



Among the objects of historical interest in 

 the collection is the official seal of Thothmo- 

 sis III., the Egyptian king who conquered 

 Cyprus about fourteen centuries before Christ, 

 a finely-incised intaglio still resting on the bar 

 which runs through its centre, with its gold 

 mounting intact, and the movable silver 

 handle seldom found preserved in ancient sig- 

 nets. Most interesting are the Babylonian 

 cylinders of meteoric, calcedony, hematite, and 

 carnelian, with incised inscriptions, said by 

 Sayce and Kawlinson to refer to the dates 1600, 



