ASIATIC TERRACOTTAS IN THE LOUVRE MUSEUM

Abodt half a century ago the learned German arehæologist, Eduard Gerhard, directed the attention of his pupils to the interest which Greek terracottas hâve for the history of ancient art. If Gerhard had lived as long as his well-known Belgian friend, Baron de Witte, he might hâve seen a single figure from Tanagra reach, in a Paris auction, the price of 8-1,200, and would gladly hâve acknowledged that his advice had not remained unnoticed. Indeed, the rage for Greek terracottas lias been the prevailing passion of amateurs and muséum officiais in Europe for the last ten years, and many a fortune has already been built on these fragile and costly relies of Greek industry. It is not my purpose to relate how the Bœotian necropolis of Tanagra was discovered by some Greek peasants of Staniatais about the beginning of 1870, and with wliat marvellous rapidity the famé of the Tanagræan terracottas spread from Athens to Paris and from Paris to the rest of Europe. The taie of the discoveries in Tanagra would be, on the whole, a very sad one. If they hâve enriched most of the collections in Europe with a large number of masterpieces, justly styled by a French poet Praxitëles de vitrine, they hâve in return led to the irretrievable destruction of a far greater quantity of figures, broken to pièces by the hasty and ignorant peasants who used to dig by night secretly, for fear of attracting the notice of the Greek Government. When the Government did interfère it was too late : 3,000 tombs had been blindly plundered, nobody had taken note of the exact contents of each grave, and the few places in the necropolis which had y et remained untouched afforded but little opportunity for systematic archæological research. Ever since 1874 the necropolis has been guarded by a body of Greek soldiers, and secret digging has been absolutely

1. Articles publiés dans une Revue de New-York, The Nation, 24 septembre et lec octobre 1885.

APPENDICE

suppressed ; but official digging lias yielded meagre results, and the necropolis of Tanagra, the fmest and ricliest in the Greek world, may now be considered as exhausted. The scanty information which could be gathered from the peasants as to the course of their lucrative labors has been embodied by Messrs. Rayet, Martha, Lüders, and Haussoullier in four interesting papers; but their statements are more caleulated to excite curiosity and regret than to satisfy the requirements of those who, while admiring the terracottas of Tanagra, are eager to know when and how the choicesl pièces hâve corne to light.

It is only by an unexpected chance that the splendid necropolises of Asia Minor hâve not, or hâve not ail, shared the fate of the Tanagræan tombs, by falling a prey to reckless tymborychia, as the Greeks of ancient days used to style the practice so familiar to their degenerate descendants. As early as 1842 an English gentleman in Smyrna, Mr. Borrell, possessed a few beautiful specimens of terracotta figures discovered in Ionia. In 1845 Messrs. Ainsworth and Barker enriched the British Muséum with a large collection of fragments from Tarsus, where they had been found, heaped up and broken to pièces, in a kind of Monte Testaccio outside the tovvn. A French traveller, M. Langlois, proceeded to the same place in 1852 and brought a number of valuable specimens to the Louvre. But ail these, as well as a few gilded heads purchased in Smyrna by M. Piot, and described under the name of “ terracottas from Sardes ” by M. F. Lenormant, were only fragments and did not attract much notice. It was not until 1876, when figures from Tanagra began to get rare in the markets of Athens and of Paris, that the Asiastic terracottas made their appearance in the world of amateurs and archæologists. About flfty figures, quite different in style from the Bœotian ones, were brought to Europe, and, professedly discovered at Ephesus, found their way to the Berlin Antiquarium and the private collections in Paris. Encouraged by their success, th Greek dealers subsequently sent a large number of so-called Ephesian figures, to the great surprise of Mr. Wood, who, having digged for six years in Ephesus, had never met there with a single fragment resembling the figures which were now assigned to the metropolis of Ionia.

Meanwhile forgery had been at work, and suspicion soon began to arise both in Berlin and in Paris as to the genuineness of the new-comers. It is very interesting to follow, in the archæological periodicals of that time, the various opinions expressed by learned scholars on this most délicate matter. M. F. Lenormant remarked that sonie of the Ephesian terracottas were copies from Fogelberg and Thorwaldsen ; M. Rayet maintained that the greater number of them were genuine, but that none had been discovered at Ephesus. Messrs. Rayet and Lenormant likewise acknowledged that the genuine figures must proceed from several necropolises in the neighborhood of Smyrna; but, as little or nothing was known about their site, many people came to think that the

APPENDICE

several necropolises were only the several workshops of able forgers m Athens, Constantinople, and Smvrna. At the Paris Exhibition in 18 b a nuniber of Asiatic terracottas appeared in the glass cases of the Trocadéro Palace beside the most admirable specimens from Tanagra; public attention was especially drawn to the latter, and the Asiatic ones were almost left aside, or considered as suspicions intruders.

The most unt'riendly judge of Ephesian terracottas was, at that moment, M. Adrien de Longpérier. This illustrious scholar, who had been director of the Louvre under Napoléon III., indulged during the last years of his life in a most alarming hypercriticism. It was Longpener who used to say that, out of a dozen engraved gems purportmg to be Greek, eleven were modem and the twelfth a forgery. He never liked to State his scepticism too openly, but made no secret about it to lus friends, who soon divulged his opinion and often exaggerated it with the rashness of confident admirers. A Paris dealer, M. Hoffmann, had just then received an important collection of Asiatic figures ; the rumor spread that M. de Longpérier pronounced them to be forgeries. M. Hottmann immediately appealed to M. Waddington, the then Minuter of Foreign Aftairs, who retained, amid the absorbmg duties of politics, that enlightened taste for archæology which lias given him so high a rank among European scholars. M. Hoffmann knew that M. Waddington had many friends in the Levant, and might easily secure reliable information about the discovery of terracottas in Asia Minor. Accordingly, M. Waddington wrote to M. Aristides Baltazzi, a rich merchant m Constantinople, who possessed extensive property in the neighborhood of Smyrna ; in return, he received a few terracotta figures, identical in style with some of those wich had previouslv reached Paris, and which, M. Baltazzi asserted, had been discovered on an estate of his betwen Pergamon and Phocæa. The Greek genleman added that if such figures. interested French archæologists, he willingly consented to put at their disposai

the Greek necropolis included within his estate.

Such were the circumstances which forfunately led to the excavations at Myrina by the French School at Athens. But before proceeding to give an idea of tliese excavations, we must return te the suspected terracottas to which we are indebted for M. Waddington’s intervention.

In my opinion , the great mass of Asiatic figures which existed m Paris previous to 1880 may be classifled as follows : 1, Wholesale forgeries, manufactured in Athens; 2, partials forgeries, consisting ofgenuine heads, arms, legs, or bodies, arbitrarily united, by skilful hands, to fragments of other figures or to made-up material ; 3, many genume heads and some very few entire statues from Mount Pagus, in Smyrna, 4, figures from Pergamon, Cyme, and Myrina. The Greek dealers in Smyrna and in Athens invented the legend about the necropolis ofEphesus in order to diverl the attention of Turkish officiais from the real headquarters of their researches. Hence it happened that a volume was pu-

appendice

blished in Berlin under the title of“ Griechische Terracotten vonTanagra und Ephesos,” in which the so-called Ephesian terracottas are nolhmg but much-restored figures from Smyrna and the neighborhood o Phocæa.

Se is known as yet about the discovery of terracottas at Pergamon and Smyrna. I mvself picked up, on the slope of the acropohs of Pergamon a few fragments of terracotta figures, and notice! many place, theré where graves had previously been opened; but the Germon archæologists who spent four years on the site, hâve "° . succeeded so a as I know, in discovering the Pergameman necropolis. lt is reported however that a good number of figures were collected durmg the last campaign and claimed by the Turkish Government; whether they were fourni on the acropolis or cl se where, I am unable to tell. Strange to say the saine uncertainty prevails about the exact ongin of the terracottas ’found in Smyrna. The dealers in antiquités, who are very numerous in that city, are certainly very well informed about it, but if you question them, they will invariably give some vague answer or try to mislead you I beheve that only a very small number of Smyrna terracotta hâve been discovered in graves, most of these havmg been dug up by treasure-seekers in the Byzantine period; this accounts for entire figure Leing so exceedinglv scarce. The heads and other fragments which are ,o be seen in muséums hâve been picked up somewhere on MountPagus among the rubbish heaped up by previous explorers, who attached no importance to terracottas. The Louvre possesses a very nch collection of heads, which was purchased in 1882 from an English gentleman in Smyrna- but no regular search whatever has ever taken place on Mcmnt Sus S the recent planting of vineyards on the slope of the h. rendes ail hope of a methodical investigation. This îs very mucli to b reoretted, as the terracottas from Smyrna are generally copies fro statues of the Alexandrine period, and surpass in beau y o s j fmures from other parts of Asia Minor. , , , f

Plt is useless to enumerate the different sites m the neighborhood Su vrna wh h hâve yielded, or are said to hâve yielded, sim.lar ter acoTtas as noue 0f them, excepting Tarsus, has ever been serions y exp ored For the last ten years archæological magazines and books on a

hâve repeatedly published interesting terracotas as discovered m Grymum haverepeaj y P necr0 oUs of Grynium is utterly unlmown, and

îto Ibe '.S- • «.W »»• f»“ ?“*

lr C '. “modem ..rk.h.p,, 0P to the .«T 1880, »» »'» »» ’ to be found of the burial-ground of Myrina, where drggmgs had however taken place for ten years or more. This proves how admirabiy the deale in Smyrna understand keeping secrets, and accounts for mos figur having been sent to Europe with quite arbitrary indications of ong n. In 1880 I du- in Cyme for two months, and only found there terracottas a very commun style; the fmer fragments I could collect d.d not bear tle SL resemblance to most of the so-called Cymæan terracottas

APPENDICE

in continental collections. The latter are generally large groups, winch appear to hâve been stuck together from very numerous fragments. Strangely enough, no fragment is missing, and the heads, especially, are always in a perfect state of préservation. Now, any one who has witnessed diggings in a Greek necropolis, knows that entire terracotta figures are very seldom to be met with, and that the greater part of them seem to hâve been purposely mutilated when buried in compagny with the dead. Moreover, the Cymæan groups are covered with a kind of yellowish varnish, alternating with large white spots and exceedingly vivid colors on the heads and attributes of the figures. Again, the draperies are quite different from what might reasonably be expected : instead of the bold and simple movements familiar to Greek sculpture, we find a mass of minute folds whicli recall the wrinkled surface of a troubled sea.

Now, these Cymæan groups are of uncommon beauty and size, some of them numbering five or six figures worked out with the utmost accuracy. For a year or two past they hâve been simply styled “Asiatic terracottas, ” and the dealers hâve dropped the name of Cyme, just as they had previously suppressed the suspicious name of Ephesus. One thing is, however, quite certain : the groups in question corne neither from Cyme nor from Ephesus. It is whispered among dealers and amateurs tliat the real origin of these figures is kept a secret by some privileged diggers, who naturally wish the Turkish Government not to interfère with their business. The precious statuettes fmd their way to Europe in passing through Athens, but no one can tell what route they hâve followed on their way to Athens from Asia Minor, A German archæologist, von Duhn, recently published in the Archiiologische Zeitung two very beautiful groups of the Cymæo-Ephesian class, representing a young maiden led by Hernies to Charon’s boat — a représentation not uncommon on white lecythi discovered in Attica. Herr von Duhn, justly struck by so close an analogy, ventures to suppose that the so-called Asiatic groups, and particulary the two specimens he describes, originale in Attica and not in Asia Minor; they are styled Asiatic by the dealers, on account of the severe laws existing in Greece against secret digging and the export of antiquities. The German scholar may be right, and even more so than he himself seems to believe. I agréé with him in thinking that these celebrated groups corne from Athens, but I am by no means certain tliat they were discovered in tombs.

The question remains whether Asiatic groups are patchwork or original achievements — whether some parts of them or the whole must be assigned to a recent period of Greek history. This difflcult problem cannot be met with a general answer. I hâve seen groups belonging to eitlier class. But this is only a personal and subjective view ofthe matter. T sincerely hope that the mysterious necropolis may yet be discovered — somewhere perhaps between Ephesus and Cyme — and that its discovery

APPENDICE

will oblige me to confess tbat lama very poorjudge of Greekterracottas. I will now confine myself to the description of the burial-ground in Myrina and of the diseoveries made there, quarum pars parva fui, and which hâve no mystery whatever connected with them.

Mr. Baltazzi's estateis situated ontheborders oftheÆgean, about halfway between Smyrna and Pergamon. The chief village within its boundaries is Ali-aga, lying flve miles south of the ruins of Myrina, which are now a desert place called Kalabassary. The town of Myrina is familiar to numismatists for its fine silver coins, but scarcely anything worth notice is known about its historv. It seems to hâve been a quiet provincial city, politically thrown into the shade by its two powerful neighbors, Cymé and Pergamon. The necropolis of Kalabassary extends over two adjacent hills, one of which is crowned with the ruins of an ancient acropolis. The site was first visited in 1861 by M. Pullan, who spent some hours there on his way from Ali-aga to Elæa. M. Pullan reports that he collected on the spot a few coins of Myrina, but says nothing about the necropolis, which had not yet been discovered. This only happened about ten years later, when the hills surrounding Kalabassary began to be ploughed. At flrst the peasants took no heed of the terracottas, and broke them to pièces. One man, however, carried off a little figure to Ali-aga, and gave it to his child for a doll. This attracted the notice of M. E. de Baltazzi, the proprietor’s brother, who was living at the time in Ali-aga; he immediately went to Kalabassary, and proceeded to make regular excavations in the necropolis. After having collected a number of figures, he commenced digging at Cyme, the site of which was not yet, as is now the case, planted with vines, and discovered some statuettes which he told me were of archaic style. Unfortunately, he wras not awrare of the artistic and commercial value of Greek terracottas, which only just then began to excite interest in Europe. Some specimens from Myrina were sent to M. Aristides Baltazzi, the proprietor, at Constantinople; the rest were left unguarded in the house at .Ali-aga, and, after M. E. de Baltazzi’s departure, were stolen and soldat Smyrna, whence the figures made their way to Athens and Paris. When M. Waddington, as we hâve related before, wrote to M. Baltazzi to inquire about Asiatic terracottas, this gentleman could only send him the few figures which he had previoulsy secured in his town seat on the Bosphorus. Meanwhile, the peasants of Kalabassary, wdio had become acquainted with the dealers in Smyrna, began to collect terracottas on their own account; thus it happened that a great many figures were sent to Europe previous to 1880, and enriched private collections under the name of Cymæan, Grynæan, Phocæan, or Ephesian. Ever since 1883, when the French excavations were interrupted, the peasants hâve continued to dig secrelely upon the spot, and terracottas from Myrina are by no means rare in the cur rent traffic in antiquities.

APPENDICE

Earlv in the summer of 1880 M. Pottier and myself were sent to Mynna bv the direction of the French School in Athens, with the object of explorin» methodically the necropolis, which had lntherto been abandoned to un^cientific pillage. Our excavations lasted, with some interruptions, ti 1 the month of October, 1882, wlien a great. misfortune put an end to them . the voung archæologist, M. Veyries, to whom the continuation of the work had been intrusted, fell ill in Myrina and died at Smyrna. Our firman too, had now expired, and a final division of our booty was effected : one third of the discoveries was given over to the Turkish Government, one third to M. Baltazzi, and the rest to the French School.

M. Baltazzi most generously abandoned his share to the School, which now possessed a collection of more than 900 figures, vases, bronzes, and otlier objects. The unfortunate terracottas which fell into the hands of the Turks were carried off to the Tchinly-Kiosk Muséum in Constantinople where they hâve been treated with utter neglect and most arbitrarily restored. The rest of the collection was transferred to Athens, whence the choicest part of it, numbering about 500 pièces, was sent to the Louvre. A spécial room lias been devoted to the spoils of Mynna and will be opened to the public about the 15th of October. Reports on the excavations, accompanied by photographs, hâve been pubhshed in the Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique , the journal of the French School in Athens; and a volume embodying the results of the whole campaign is now in préparation, together with a general catalogue.

Our chief object during the diggings was not to discover a great many terracottas, but principally to ascertain the manner in which they were disposed in the graves. The dead were generally buried, rarely incinerated ; when this was the case the terracottas seem to hâve been burnt on the s’ame pyre with the body. Many tombs contained small tablets of bronze on which the name of ihe deceased is inscribed en pointillé. About nine graves out of ten yielded no objects, or notbing but paltry earthenware ; others, especially children’s graves, were brimful of terracottas, as many as fifty having been discovered in a single tomb. The offerings are not arranged in any order, but lie pell-mell in the pit, especially about the head and the feet of the deceased. The survivons certainly had no desire, as was the case in Etruria, to adornthe sepulchral restingplace on the model of the terrestrial dwellings. It even seems certains lhat they often smashedthe statues before throwing them into the grave, for the liead of a figure lias many times been discovered at a great distance l'rom the body. In numberless cases the head or some limb was broken off and not to be found in the grave, which proves that the mutilations had taken place before the burial.

The sepulchral furniture of the tombs comprises two classes of objects: the domestic implements which may hâve belonged to the deceased, and the votive offerings brought by his relations and friends. In the first class we notice strigils, bronze min-ors, vases of every shape, glass impie-

APPENDICE

au

ments; in the second, which is the more important, we find terracottas, coins, very thin golden and silver jewels, amulets, beads, etc. Many of the former give us acurious insight into the perfection of Greek potlery at that period, viz. : in the three centuries which elapsed between the death of Alexander the Great and the Christian era. With the exception of a few archaic and a few Iate sepulchres, the 5,000 graves which we opened in Myrina ail belong to the Alexandrine and Gréco-Roman epoch, when the city seems to hâve reached the highest degree of wealth and prosperity.

The Myrinæan coroplasts, or manufacturées of terracottas, were certainly influenced by the models of their brethren in Tanagra. The saine fact lias already been noticed in Cyrenaica and in Southern Italy, and goes to prove that the moulds used in Tanagra freely travelled through the whole Hellenic world. Almost identical figures liave been discovered in Myrina and in Tanagra : the différence of style is only due to the retouching and painting, which seems to hâve been more carefuily done in Bœotia than elsewbere. Among the^fîgures of Tanagræan style that hâve been discovered in Myrina, we may mention here an admirable set of fourteen draped maidens, ail found in a single grave, which, when placed in a certain order, take the general aspect of a triangle, and remind one of the sculptured figures on the pediments of Greek temples.

By far the greater number of statuettes found at Myrina are quite unlike the figures of Tanagra, and belong to an entirely different sehool of art. In Tanagra, the prevailing type, if we consider the terracottas of the best period, is that of a draped maiden or woman, standing or sitting in the attitude of repose. The subjects’ generally belong to private life ; nude figures of gods andgoddesses are exceedingly rare. In Myrina, on the contrary, resting or sitting figures are an exception ; the statues of Venus, Eros, Bacchus, Victory and Hercules are very numerous ; and the influence of the Pcrgamenian sehool of sculpture may be traced with perfect certainty in nearly ail the more important figures. The terracottas from Myrina stand to thosc of Tanagra in the same relation as the Pergamenian frieze of the great altar to the exquisite statues of the Nike temple in Athens. Again, while replicas of celebrated statues are nol to be found in Tanagra, the necropolis of Myrina has yielded several copies of the Cnidian and Coan Venus by Praxiteles, of the Herakles type created by Lysippus, of athlètes, hermaphrodites, and other subjects, the models of which must hâve enjoyed great réputation, as we possess marble copies from them of the Greco-Roman period. Most of the larger statuettes are winged, and their movements are exceedingly bold. The draperies, too, are treated in a free style very much resombling that of the Pergamenian high-reliefs. The two most frequent types — some tombs conlained thirty or more specimens of each — are the Siren and Eros with folded wings: but none of these are of superior workmanship, and they seem to hâve belonged to the poorer sort of votive offerings. Tanagræan figu-

res rarely exceed ten inches in height; many statues from Myrina are three or four limes as large. Another charactenstic feature îs tbe frequent mention of theartist’s name on tbe basis ofthe

no signature having yet been discovered on the statuettes from Tanaera. Finallv, we must mention a considérable number of large gioups, an quels ‘scenes of love, and the like, which also betray the influence of the Rhodian and Pergamenian school of sculpture, where simi ar coin plicated arrangements had corne into fashion.

Some figures might, at the first glance, be tatou for Works of t archaic period; but it is easy to perceive that they are on y P chaic and repeat, with intentional awkwardness or stifîness, a model o Sitta-to h,id, religi.us id„, were .lL*d. Sud. .« » fui bust or Demeter, with her hands pressed on lier boso n, and many curious statues of naked goddesses, adorned with h.gh gilded diadems, with heavy bracelets on their arms and tliiglis who recal , y childish and silly smile, the Works of Greek sculpture befor Phidias. But these, like the imitations of Bœotian models, are only exceptions, and y far the greater part of the terracottas from Myrina bear the mark of a quite defmite and particular style, intermediate belwen tlie noble simp icitv of Athenian arl and the picturesque tendency to effect of the Greco- Roman school. Indeed, there exists a close analogy between niany graceful terracottas from Myrina (representing Erotes, dancers, flute-p ayers, lbllowers of Bacchus) and the paintings discovered on the walls ol the

Greco-Roman villas in Pompeii. ,

The charming qualifies of our Asiatic terracottas are counterbalanced by many serious defects, which may be traced botli in Greek literature and art afterthe âge of Alexander the Great. Their grâce is no free from mannerism, nor the boldness of their movements .from violence. The heads are generally too small, tbe legstoo long and too slender From a purely arlistic point of view, they are certainly infenor to the dehghtful figures found at Tanagra; but, on the other hand, they can claim a variety of motives, an appearance of vigor and physical health w i contrast with the dreamy and almost melancholy exquisiteness of thei brethren from Bœotian tombs. On the whole, we may fairly admire a peopie among whom humble workmen, not unlike our manulacturers of paltry religious emblems, succeeded inbringing forth such charnnng and graceful images, to shed a ray of joy and beauly on the silent resting places of the dead. Tlius every new conquest of archæology on Hellen ground, however modest and unpretending the recovered Works of art may be, adds a new lustre to the eternal radiancy of Hellemc art.

(REVUE ARCHÉOLOGIQUE, 1886, t. II, p. 77-100.)

Athènes.

Sans doute il est trop tard pour parler encor d’elles !

Les étonnantes découvertes du mois de février dernier sur l’Acropole ont déjà fait le tour de la presse, et nous nous dispenserions d’en entretenir nos lecteurs si tous les comptes rendus qu’on en a publiés, y compris les nôtres ne contenaient des erreurs de détail plus ou moins graves. La faute en est aux archéologues qui habitent Athènes, ils se sont tus, et ont laissé la parole aux journalistes. Au moment où nous écrivons (juin 1886) un seul article concernant ces découvertes a été écrit par un témoin oculaire qui fût en même temps un homme du métier : c’est la notice de M. Walter Miller dans V American Journal of Archaeotogy (1886, p. 61-65)a. Nous croyons devoir résumer très brièvement cet article et les publications antérieures, sans entrer dans des discussions qui nous obligeraient à nous copier nous-mème.

1. S. Reinach, République française du 19 mars, et Gazette des beaux-arts, 1886, t. I, p. 420 et suiv. (avec trois phototypies) ; l'Illustration du 13 mars, avec des vignettes; le Times de Londres, du 25 février et du 12 mars; le Courrier de T Art du 26 février: VAthenæum, 1886, 1, p. 303. La Pall Mail Gazette du même mois a publié des dessins des statues avec un article de M. Waldstein. 11 est inutile de citer un grand nombre d’autres notices plus ou moins inexactes reproduites dans les journaux quotidiens d’Europe et de Grèce.

2. Nous recevons à l’instant le premier fascicule d’une belle publication de M. Cavvadias, intitulée Les Musées d'Athènes , avec phototypies de M. Romaïdes et texte en grec, allemand, anglais et français (?). Ce fascicule contient une vue des fouilles de lÉrechthéion (pl. 1) et sept phototypies d’après les statues de femmes archaïques. Les notices sont malheureusement un peu trop succinctes. [Voir deux reproductions en couleurs des statues archaïques trouvées sur l’Acropole dans les Anti/ce Denkmaler, I, 2, 1888, pl. XIX.]

a« P<-» mllac fili1

En 1877 l'École française avait commencé, près de l’Érechtheion, p — îii J m,’il fallut bientôt interrompre, parce qu’on ne savait que

naître le niveau de la roche entre le mur u encorna . .

l'Acropole et l’Érechthéion s. La Société archéologique les a repris au

^ p l — — A oc Prnnvlp.PS

mois de novembre 1885; les fouilles ont commencé près desPropylees et se sont prolongées, le long des fondations d’un ancien édifice en pierre calcaire reconnu par M. Blondel, jusqu’à une quinzaine de pas de l’Érechthéion, où elles ont été arrêtées par un mur transversal perpendiculaire à celui de l’Acropole. Les découvertes les plus importantes ont eu lieu le 5 février en présence du roi de Grece. Voici l'inventaire sommaire des objets exhumés :

Bronzes. — Nombreux fragments d’animaux ; quelques figurines ailées de style très archaïque; des figures de femme d’un travail très grossier.

Marbres. — 1° Petit bas-relief mutilé représentant un cheval; bon travail archaïque, avec traces vives de couleurs sur la crinière;

Oo Avant-bras d’une statue archaïque de femme, portant un bracelet, au-dessus duquel pend l’himation, richement décoré en couleurs (ornements géométriques noirs, rouges, verts et blancs) ;

3» Torse de femme, du type des Artémis de Délos;

4« Autre torse semblable, mais plus grand; la tête, qui a été retrouvée, est ornée d’une steçovy). Le revers de la chevelure n’est pas modelé, mais indiqué en couleurs sur la surface aplanie. Dans la Stéphane étaient fixés des ornements en bronze ; sur le sommet de la tête est plantée une tige de bronze verticale. Le type de la tète est strictement éginétique. Nombreuses traces de couleur et méandre peint sur l’himation (gravée dans la Gazette des beaux arts, 1886, I, p. 417) ;

5o Statue équestre très mutilée, la plus ancienne de ce genre que l’on possède. Le cheval est d’un travail très supérieur au cavalier;

6» Statue de femme drapée du type des Artémis de Délos : il ne manque que les pieds et les avant-bras (gravée dans la Gazette des beaux-arts, 1886, I, p. 421.) Elle porte trois vêtements : un chiton en lin finement plissé, visible à la poitrine seulement; l’himation, fixé sur l’épaule droite et passé sous le bras gauche; au-dessus, une espèce de mantelet ou de châle. La tète est ornée d’une Stéphane. Le

1, Cf. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique , t. I, p. 51-53, 118, 359-360.