EXCAVATIONS PROVE GREEK CULTURE EXISTED AGES BEFORE ROMAN

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6815, 19 January 1929, Page 3

EXCAVATIONS PROVE GREEK CULTURE EXISTED AGES BEFORE ROMAN

BATHTUBS MERELY BORROWED PROM GREECE. MANY DISCOVERIES MADE AT RUINS OF OLYNTHUS, MACEDONIA Discoveries at t!ic recently excavated city of Olynthus on the Macedonian ■plains in Northern Greece proved that the Greeks lived in as high a degree ot comfort and splendour in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C. as did the Romans under their emperors in the Christian era, according to Dr. David Moore Robinson. Dr Robinson, speaking at the newly formed Brooklyn Chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America in Brooklyn Museum, described these discoveries for the first time and declared that they showed that many forms of art, formerly classed as Roman, had existed in Greece hundreds of years earlier.

“The bathtub,” he continued, “always regarded as a Roman innovation of com fort and civilisation, is now shown to have been merely borrowed from the Greeks, whom they subjugated.”

The excavation of Olynthus revealed ruins of once palatial homes showing a high degree of material culture, witii art objects of exquisite and delicate workmanship, vanity boxes and even compacts not unlike those used by the modern woman, Dr Robinson said. The expedition found a large civic centre flanked by pits in which grain was stored, a barracks for troops, shops, a mint and a terracotta factory, the moulds of which arc still usable. Many lino busts of marble and terracotta of the period of Phidias were uncovered, he said; magnificent plates, bowls, and other objects ornamented with highly wrought art work; coins of many periods, cities and countries, accumulated by the merchants of Olynthus; weapons and objects of personal and family usage. A pair of bronze epaulets worn by

some Greek general wero found to be of such lino workmanship that their value is estimated at £40,000, he said. Olynthus, which one had a population of 50,000, was the leader of the Chaleidic League of surrounding towns which precipitated the Peloponnesian War. It was conquered by Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, in 348 B.C. .The finding of the city itself was really the most important discovery of all, Dr Robinson said. The excavations were begun on the ridge of a hill and remnants of a Stone Age settlement were first encountered. These included a large colectiou, of neolithic relics, estimated to have been used by primitive races 10,000 years ago. Transferring operations to a long, fiat mound near-by the party was soon uncovering mosaics and paved courtyards of a onco prosperous city, all within two yards of the surface. Most of the latter finds also wero unearthed by “merely scratching," ho said.