ARCHEOLOGY. (CRETE.) 



laeokastro. near Sitia, in eastern Crete; the es- 

 tablishment of a British school at Rome on the 

 game lines as the school at Athens; satisfactory 

 progress on the facsimile of the Codex Venetus 

 of Aristophanes, which was practically complete, 

 and on the publication of the report of the im- 

 portant, excavations undertaken by the British 

 M-hn.il at Athens on the site of Phylakopi in the 

 inland <>f Melos; and work done in the library. 



Tin- extensive excavations which the French 

 Government has been making in Delphi since 

 !vi-J are reported to be approaching completion. 

 The most important work done recently has been 

 the laying l>are of the Pythian stadium. It is 

 nearly' ITS meters in length and from 25 to 28 

 meton wide. The course had to be excavated on 

 the very sides of Mount Parnassus, at a cost of 

 \\hieli tin- ai-.-niuits are still extant. It has been 

 found that at the starting-place small depressions 

 \\t iv (lit out, where those who participated in the 

 races Mood till the signal was given. Starting- 

 plaec> lor 18 runners were provided. An inscrip- 

 tion, supposed to be of the fifth century B. c., 

 directs that "No wine shall be brought into the 

 temple of Eudromos (the god of the racers) ; but 

 it it nevertheless be, then he for whom it is 

 brought shall appease the god with a sacrifice, 

 and pay five drachmas, of which the informer 

 shall receive one-half." 



A special organization has been formed in Ber- 

 lin for the excavations at Miletus. Funds have 

 been secured for buying the whole peninsula on 

 which the city stood. The newly acquired 'terri- 

 tory includes all the western half of the old 

 ity. together with portions of the necropolis, 

 the " sacred way " that led up to the temple of 

 Apollo, the entire hill on which the theater was 

 situated, the harbor, at the entrance of which 

 two colossal lions of marble have been found, the 

 recently uncovered market-place, some large pub- 

 lic halls, and some fine Roman fountains. 



Several entirely unknown poems from the fifth 

 book of Sappho have been discovered by Dr. 

 Schubart, of the Egyptian section of the Royal 

 Museum of Berlin, in papyri recently added to 

 the collection there. The manuscript dates from 

 the sixth or seventh century. Of the poems 

 which have been deciphered, one describes the 

 author comforting a departing pupil, and an- 

 other is addressed to a former pupil who had re- 

 moved to Lydia. Some new metrical combina- 

 tions appear in the poems. 



The Grecian Government has been presented by 

 Konstantin Karapanos, the discoverer and ex- 

 plorer of Dodona. in Epirus, with the articles 

 found there, including bronze statues, bronze re- 

 lii-f-. inscriptions, temple utensils, and records of 

 <|tie-tioii> put to the oracle. The collection de- 

 rives heightened interest from the fact that the 

 temple and oracle of Dodona flourished from 

 early times down to Roman days. 



Crete. In a short account of his excava- 

 tions in Crete given at the annual meeting of the 

 .Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 

 (Hellenic Society), Mr. Arthur Evans said that 

 there were four distinct lines of walls of the pal- 

 ace of Minos. He described the various cham- 

 bers and frescoes and the complicated system 

 of underground communication. A considerable 

 Umber of very intimating frescoes of the same 

 school as those of Milos and Phylakopi were 

 lo discovered. Many bits of naturalistic foliage 

 and lilies were found, and scattered portions of 

 Rupture of the previous year's discovery had 

 been successfully pieced together. Specimens of 

 marvelous beauty had come to light of early 

 Minoan pottery seal impressions of a primitive 



style, some with cryptographic inscriptions; clay 

 tablets with the linear script, develped from a 

 pictorial prototype and not derived from the 

 earlier types hitherto known. The economic 

 history of those ancient days was to some ex- 

 tent disclosed by a series of accounts. The ex- 

 cavations allowed an approximate reconstruc- 

 tion of a Minoan street, some of the houses 

 being, it might be said, of a surprisingly modern 

 character, and displaying a highly advanced civic 

 development. The height of the houses enabled 

 one to realize the description of the island as 

 ' ; hundred-citied Crete," and pointed to a con- 

 gested population. The statuary was remark- 

 able, and bronze wire was used for hair. 



In the more detailed accounts of his work, 

 Mr. Evans refers to the results of the previous 

 season's excavations as having included the un- 

 covering of the eastern wing of the palace of 

 Knossos, which seems to have been mainly re- 

 served for state and religious functions, business, 

 and storage, a great central court, and beyond 

 it to the east a part of what seemed to be the 

 royal residential quarter. At the close of the 

 last season's work a staircase had come to light 

 here leading down by a triple flight to a hall 

 with double tiers of colonnades, and beyond it a 

 larger columnar hall or megaron. On the upper 

 level north of these ran a corridor beneath which 

 another corresponding passage of lofty dimen- 

 sions had now been cleared out, originally lit by 

 a large window opening on the light-well of the 

 larger hall. The clearance of this was marked 

 by the discovery of a very extensive deposit of 

 inscribed clay tablets, larger than any collection 

 previously discovered, which included about 100 

 perfect documents dealing with palace accounts. 

 A large portion of these tablets dealt with per- 

 centages, and made it evident that the decimal 

 system was in use. Thus 3 of these tablets, of 

 which facsimiles were exhibited to the Oxford 

 Philological Society,- each bore 3 or 4 num- 

 bers, the sum of which (though the numbers 

 themselves varied) was 100. With these were sev- 

 eral large clay impressions of what is supposed to 

 have been a royal signet ring, exhibiting a god- 

 dess and her attendants, of which a counterfeit 

 matrix had been found the year before in another 

 building. The spacious chamber bordering on 

 this corridor, which has been named, from the 

 frequent occurrence of these figures on its walls, 

 " The Hall of the Double Axes," had at its east- 

 ern end a double portico facing both south and 

 east. A doorway in its southern wall led to a 

 finely paved turning passage, beyond which has 

 been uncovered another chamber, flanked on 

 two sides by a high stylobate, which also served 

 as a base for seats between the original pillars, 

 for which light was obtained on one side from a 

 portico, and on the other from an area with a 

 rear wall stepping back above. From the west 

 side of this room access was had through an 

 opening in the balustrade to a small bath cham- 

 ber, lined with gypsum slabs, of the painted 

 frieze of which the spirals and rosettes still 

 partly adhered to the walls. Remains of a 

 painted terra-cotta bath were found near, and re- 

 ma ins of the wall-paintings of the room and the 

 portico beyond, but in a fallen condition. An 

 " aquarium " of fish was very naturalistically 

 rendered, with parts of two dolphins and many 

 -mailer fry, some of them complete. A counter- 

 part to this discovery is suggested in the fresco 

 showing flying-fish found by the British school 

 in the prehistoric settlement of Melos. In these 

 pictures, since the different hues of blue had 

 to be mainly reserved for the fish, the sea-water 



