662 BISCO VERIES AT OL TMPIA. 



posed of indiscriminate fragments of columns and figures, has yielded three 

 draped statues of the Eoman period,* all found within a distance of twenty 

 feet. These are complete but for the heads ; two of them are female figures, 

 and bear the names of Athenian workmen — Eros and Aulos Sertous Era- 

 ton — these were found on October 29. The third, a male figure, only came 

 to light on November 14th, and, at the time of our advices, was not suffi- 

 ciently extricated to make it certain whether it bore an inscription or not. 



But by far the most important of the discoveries has been made in the 

 diggings to the west of the temple. These, taking them in chronological 

 order, have been as follows : On October 19th the middle portion of one of 

 the groups of Centaurs and Lapith women from the pediment of Alka- 

 menes ; this fits with two other splendid fragments found last season, and 

 gives us the group almost complete. The Centaur has grasped the Lapith 

 maiden with his left arm, and thrown both his fore legs about her; she has 

 seized the ravisher by the beard, and strives hard to force his drunken head 

 away from her. It is remarkable that while the upper portion of the 

 group was found in the most northerly situation of all last season's discov- 

 eries, the new portion lay more than fifty yards off, at a distance of about 

 thirty yards west and southwest of the southwest angle of the temple. 



On October 23 there followed a still more fortunate find — that of the 

 whole body, wanting only the right arm and legs below the knee, of the 

 beautiful somewhat archaic Apollo, who occupied the middle place of the 

 pediment among the combatants, and whose head only had been found last 

 year. On October 26 there came to light the head of a Centaur, somewhat 

 injured, but full of character and of great interest, because it serves to com- 

 plete the group corresponding to that last described, which had its place 

 next to the Apollo on the other side, and which is supposed to represent 

 the bride Deldamia and her assailant. Several holes round the head of the 

 Centaur show that he is represented as wearing a reveller's garland, prob- 

 ably of bronze. A few more hands and feet are all the additional finds that 

 belong to the pediment sculptures. 



But on October 23 an important piece of another kind was discovered in 

 the shape of an archaic bronze head, about six inches high, intact, wear- 

 ing beard and mustache, and having the hair treated in long plaited locks 

 on the shoulders, and two rows of conventional ringlets over the forehead^ 

 Lastly, and to the student of archaeology perhaps most interesting of all, a 

 large bronze plate measuring eighty-five centimeters at the top and twenty- 

 six at the bottom. 



This unique specimen of art is wrought with four rows of figures in relief, 

 in an extremely archaic style corresponding to that of the earliest so-called 

 Corinthian vases, and, as we may infer from the description of Pausanias, 

 to that of the chest of Cypselos. In the lowest compartment appears a 

 four-winged female figure, who in either hand holds up a lion by the foot ; 

 in the second, Herakles, as a kneeling archer, shooting a flying Centaur, 

 and without his later attributes of the lion's hide any club ; in the third 



