ON THE PREHISTORIC RACE IN THE GREEK ISLANDS. 205 



and, from the thirteen inscriptions which we found amongst its ruins, it 

 would appear that in the first instance it was dedicated to Apollo, doubt- 

 less from the fact that the early colonists, in search of marble, considered 

 that they had been guided thither by the Delphic response ; and the rude 

 headless trunk which we found was presumably the first representation 

 of their god, which they erected for worship ; but in later ages this temple 

 would appear to have been converted into a perfect pantheon, where the 

 sailors and merchants who carried the Thasiote marble into distant lands 

 set up their votive tablets and brought their offerings. 



Beside the temple we made some slight excavations amongst the 

 tombs of this marble town, which were of exceedingly elaborate work- 

 manship, but of the same style that we had seen in other parts of this 

 island. Massive marble sarcophagi, averaging about 8 ft. long by 3 ft. 

 wide, and 4 ft. deep, made out of single blocks of marble, and covered 

 with a marble lid, pointed in the centre like a roof, and with four large 

 bosses at each of the corners. We found many of these buried in the 

 sand by the shore at the neck of the isthmus, where it joins the land. All 

 of them had been opened in ancient times, no doubt to extract the objects 

 of gold which the Thasiotes invariably put in their tombs. Objects in 

 terra cotta are curiously rare in Thasos, most likely owing to the fact 

 that the Thasiotes owned the extensive gold mines on Mount Pangajus, 

 on the mainland opposite, and considered it rigbt to put objects of this 

 precious metal in their tombs. Occasionally unopened tombs are found, 

 and confirm this statement ; notably, the so-called tomb of Antiphon, in 

 which a marble figure was found wearing a tunic of gold, but unfortu- 

 nately a Bulgarian workman who had been employed in opening the 

 tomb managed to steal it, and nothing more has been heard of it. 



On one of the lids of a sarcophagus at Alki we found that the bosses 

 had each been decorated with a female head ; another had its bosses 

 decorated with wreaths of flowers, and the sloping roofs were occasion- 

 ally decorated with diaper patterns. Long metrical inscriptions seem to 

 have been much in vogue for these tombs. One stands in the centre of 

 the town, with an inscription twelve lines in length. We found many 

 fragments of metrical inscriptions, and the tomb which the family of 

 Asclepiades had put up to one of their members ; also an inscription 

 telling us that in the tomb was buried 'the slave of the four,' ©pewios rdv 

 rea-a-dpoyv, concerning which I am not prepared to offer an explanation. 



There are many interesting spots in the immediate neighbourhood of 

 Alki which we were able to visit on Sundays and feast days, when our 

 workmen did not come. All these spots are connected with the marble 

 enterprise. About two miles to the west of Alki is the bay of Temonia, 

 on the west side of which are high cliffs of marble, rising straight out of 

 the sea like a wall some 200 to 300 feet in height. All this has been cut 

 away by the marble quarrying, and there are evident signs of the blocks 

 having been let down by pulleys into the ships, which could anchor close 

 to, in the deep water beneath. There are ruined houses about here in 

 many points, and at the top of a rounded hill in the centre of the bay is 

 a round Hellenic tower of excellent workmanship ; this tower is 49 ft. 9 in. 

 in diameter in the interior, the wall being 3 ft. 4 in. thick ; it is built in 

 courses of marble, exceedingly regular, the joints being all vertical, and 

 the length of the blocks composing it varies from 3 ft. 6 in. to 2 ft. The 

 entrance to this tower is on the eastern side ; it is low, and with a pointed 

 arch formed by the stones of the courses overhanging each other, and re- 



