DI CESNOLAS DISCOVERIES AT CURIUM. 71 



whereupon there are columns, half buried, either of marble or granite, 

 and which are lying there, very probably, in the same position in which 

 the}^ had fallen many centuries ago. Nothing is now seen standing ; every 

 thing lies prostrate by time. This city seems to have been destroyed by 

 some convulsion of the earth. Many small mounds of rubbish mark the 

 site of large private dwellings, while larger ones indicate that of public 

 edifices and palaces. For nearly two months I have visited these ruins al- 

 most daily. I explored in preference some of those mounds which have 

 columns lying around them, and from fragments of votive offering and stat- 

 ues, I am led to believe that they were small temples or shrines. 



" One of these spots attracted more especially my attention. It had eight 

 granite columns half buried near it. In having one removed, while exca- 

 vating around it, I perceived that the column was lying upon a fine mosaic 

 pavement inlaid with Assyrian and Egyptian patterns, such as thg guilloche, 

 the lotus flower, etc., a portion of which I have been able to save for our 

 Museum. 



"After all the columns had been removed, I perceived that the mosaic 

 had been badly destroyed by some treasure hunter, who, after having dug 

 about six feet beneath it, evidently gave ujd the work as unprofitable. I 

 examined that place with great care, and I became convinced that it sounded 

 hollow at several places, especially on the east side of the mosaic. In fact, 

 after reaching the rock some twent}^ feet deeper, I found a subterranean 

 j)assage cut in the rock eleven feet long, four and a half feet wide, and four 

 feet high. At one end it must have had communication with the edifice 

 above, though no traces are visible now. At the other end I found a door 

 cut in the solid rock, closed by a stone slab, similar to those usually found 

 in front of the Phoenician tombs in Cyprus. After the stone had been re- 

 moved, I found an oven -shaped room filled with fine earth, which had per- 

 colated through the roof. In the process of removing this earth another 

 doorway was discovered leading into another room, likewise filled to the 

 top with earth. Informed by my chief digger of this occurrence, I de- 

 scended into the first room to examine the place, and while poking with my 

 foot-rule in a corner, in order to see at what profundity was the pavement, 

 I found a gold bracelet, with several rings and ear-rings of the same metal, 

 all in a pile, as if hidden there purposedly by somebody. This was extra- 

 ordinary, for when gold ornaments are found in a tomb they are always 

 mixed up with human bones. After this unexpected discovery I ordered 

 the entire earth to be removed from both rooms. Such a thing is very 

 seldom done here when the tomb is composed of one or two rooms only, be- 

 cause when they are found full of earth inside (and this, fortunately, is 

 rather the rule than the exception), it adheres to the roof and walls so 

 tenaciously that it requires a pickaxe to detach it; the diggers therefore pre- 

 fer to tunnel each room on the right and left of the doorway, and search on 

 the pavement for the contents of the tomb. 



"However, in this case I insisted in having both rooms emptied; and 



