60 ACCOUNTS, ETC., OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



6. Terra-cotta bowl, with reliefs, representing Hades 

 carrying off Persephone, the lower world being indicated by 

 the reeds of Acheron and the Danaids with their pitchers. 

 The entrance to the lower world is indicated by a stele on 

 which is inscribed the word ewcrtjSwC} and this, perhaps, maybe 

 taken as conclusive evidence that the usual form of Greek 

 tombstones or stelse, representing a portal, was intended to 

 indicate the portal of Hades. That is a subject which has 

 been much discussed, with conflicting opinions. 



VII. — Engraved Gems, &g. 



1. Onyx, cameo, with portrait of Galba. Thessaly. 



2. Paste intaglio ; head of Hermes. 



3. Paste cameo ; Alexander the Great striking down an 

 enemy, probably at the battle of the Granicus. 



4. Seven fragments of very archaic porcelain (see Mon. 

 deir Inst, xi., pi. 37, and Annali, 1882, p. 1, pis. A-G), 

 supposed to be of Phoenician fabric. Found on the Esquiline 

 Hill, Rome. 



III. Excavations. 



The excavations in Cyprus, which had ceased in September 

 1896 when the site of Enkomi near Salamis, was ex- 

 hausted, were resumed in November of last year on a new 

 site, that of Maroni, between Larnaca and Limassol, where were 

 found tombs of the Mycensean age. The results were at first 

 promising, but after a short time it was deemed advisable to 

 transfer operations to another site, close to a Tekke or sacred 

 tomb, near the Salt Lakes of Larnaca. Here also the tombs 

 proved to be of the Mycenaean age, and productive of good 

 results, so far as it was possible to carry them with the funds 

 then available. The excavation of this site is being continued 

 in the present year. Meantime the following are among the 

 most important of the objects discovered at Maroni and the 

 Tekke :— 



Maroni. 



Tomh 1 : 



Two gold pendants in imitation of bulls' head. 



Series of silver beads. 



Two bronze fish-hooks. 



Four bronze knives. 



Terra-cotta boat found full of knuckle-bones. 



Alabaster bowl. 



Terra-cotta figure of bull, 



Mycenaean vases with plain patterns. 



Large Mycenaean vase in fragments, with birds painted 



in white on black ground. 

 Black basalt cylinder with bird. 



