BRITISH FINDS IN GREECE

Taranaki Daily News, 13 January 1932, Page 9

BRITISH FINDS IN GREECE

VASES DISCOVERED IN CAVE. The excavations in Ithaca, begun last year on the initiative of Sir Rennell Rodd, and conducted by Mr. Heurtley, the assistant-director, and other members of the British Archaeological School, at Athens, have again proved fruitful. In a year’s campaign, further exploration of the prehistoric settlement on Pclikata, and of the cave at Polis (both m the northern half of the island) was made. At the former, several more Early Helladic vases were recovered; at the latter 35 complete vases, and fragments of several others, were extracted from the water and' mud which now cover the original floor of the cave. In order to get the vases out, the workmen had to stand up to their thighs in water and grope about with their hands. The vases are almost all of a specially interesting late Mycenaean class. The expedition then moved to the south part of the island —to the saddle between Mountains Actos and Mcrovigli. Here, remains of a fairly cjxtensive Greek town of the fourth century B.C. were discovered.

In the lower deposit were a few, in the upper many, small votive objects including a horse, a bird, a, pomegranate, pins and fibulae o.f bronze;, vari l ■ous amber and glass beads, and a perforated amber plaque. To the upper deposit also belongs part of a round stone three-legged basin with a rudely incised erotic scene, and a clay vase in the form of a lion.

A considerable quantity of late Mycenaean pottery of the same class as that found in the cave at Polis was also discovered.