ANTIQUARIAN DISCOVERIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1342, 18 August 1877, Page 21

ANTIQUARIAN DISCOVERIES.

The Pioneer (of India) exclaims^— The antiquarian's' are in wonderful luck in these days. • First, Dr.Schlieman capped his most interesting discoveries on the site, of* oldTroy, by discoveries far moVe ? curious tin \Ue site of -the long-lost Mycenae, Agamemmon, king of men, has been found reposing in his stately tomb with a world of old time trophies, , gold arms and armours, and Btrange idols of the "ox eyed goddess" around him. Hardly less curious is the dis[covery which .has been made in Italy at Palestrina, on- the site of the ancient Etruscan city of. Preneste. A precious treasure of- mighty 'cups of silver, vases of bronze, rods of ivory, jewels and ornaments, has ,been dug up, and ; the, learned Bay that the evidence is clearly in. favour of a Phcenici?Ji origin for :all theW cosily things, showi ing plainly how the bold Semitic merchants of Western Asia h&d'a great 'and floarishing trade and local factories for their traffic in the midst of Italy, long before the mythic founding .of Royal Rome.. , Perhaps the most i important discovery, however, has been reserved for the leafned'patience ~sf~a~y6uqg French savant, M. Revillout, in Egyptian history department. He has come upon anfi succeeded in translating a long history in tSe Demotic alphabet, written under the earlY Ptolemies, by an Egyytian author, in th> Egyytian language of that day. It is an account of 'the 'war *of 'independence wagea f bythe 286h, 29th, and*3oth dynasties against j the Persian-; monarchy. We are likely at this rate soon to know more of the old world, its history and its commerce, than of our own times. ~ > ' '* J