GREEK ARCHAEOLOGY. The liberation of Greece (1821-29) made the scientific and thorough exploration of her ancient remains possible to many such scholars as Bockh and Foucart, the epigraphists; Newton, the discoverer of the Mauso leum ; Penrose and Dorpf eld who revealed the wonders of Athe nian architecture; Brunn and Furtwangler, Ross and Beule. To-day a well organized Greek archaeological service is actively engaged in preserving and conserving antiquities, and there are American, Austrian, British, French, German and Italian archae ological schools in Athens devoted to the same object in collabora tion with the Greek authorities.
The genius of the Greek people laid down for the whole western world the foundations of the study of literature, art, philosophy and science, including geometry, astronomy and mathematics, and such subjects as zoology and botany. The Greek histories we possess, both these of Greek writers themselves and those produced by modern scholars based on wider sources of in formation, deal in the main with political affairs, and hardly touch on the culture of this gifted people from whom our civilization is derived. Political history is apt to describe exclusively political manoeuvres, diplomatic and internal, the personalities of states men and generals, and the progress of campaigns and battles. The material circumstances of life, public and private, are rarely dis cussed and the general tendency of culture at any given period and the various influences which affected it are seldom taken into consideration. Yet the trend of thought in all forms of art, the fashion for a particular type of beauty, the popular style of the age, are essential factors in building up the moral character of a people. The basic information for most of the elements necessary for this study is to be obtained from a proper use of archaeologi cal evidence. The sources for Greek archaeology lie in two spheres, the literary and the material. From the literature of an cient Greece we derive information about the social, political and economic life of the Greeks and some also about the material surroundings of their life. But literature, except a few authors such as Pausanias who travelled in Greece about the time of Hadrian, did not consciously aim at describing this life for us. The descriptions and allusions given were meant for a public already well familiar with such life from personal experience, and therefore are of comparatively little value unless they can be checked by comparison with the actual objects. It is the function of archaeology to supply the material objects so far as they can be found and identified, and to interpret them.
Except in certain cases where temples such as the Parthenon or the Temple of Apollo at Bassae have, though sadly damaged, stood erect from those days to the present, or fortifications such as those of Messene or Aegosthena have sim ilarly survived the assaults of man and time, the materials for Greek archaeology have to be recovered by excavation from the earth which has covered and so preserved them. Objects may be found by casual excavation by farmers tilling their lands, or by deliberate excavation intent on recovering the treasures of the past. Many important objects have been revealed accidentally by the builder or even by the fisherman's net as in the case of the bronze youth from Marathon. Most has been revealed by de liberate excavation, the only correct method, but it must be scientific, because all excavation is in a sense destruction. The very act of digging and of removing objects from the ground de stroys their context. For instance a group of vases and jewellery found together in a tomb tell its story ; they date each other, and give a picture of the culture of their age. If, however, the jew ellery be removed without keeping the pottery with it or at least taking proper note of it, that jewellery like the Aegina treasure in the British Museum can tell us hardly half its story. Similarly a nest of vases found under the foundations of a temple gives a terminus post quern for its building, but if the vases are removed and no observations made as to their position and relationship their value as historical evidence is lost. Thus many of the ob jects exhibited in museums are archaeologically dumb because they have been found either in the operations, usually illicit, of a professional excavator who digs for plunder to supply the cabinets of collectors or museums, or in the excavations of irre sponsible archaeologists. Never was the urgent need of patience, accuracy, and detailed observation more conspicuously demon strated than in the case of the excavation of the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta where thousands of small objects of all periods were found around the ruins of a temple and its altar. It was only the skilled restraint of the archaeologists, who slowly removed the earth almost inch by inch, that unravelled the com plicated stratification, and gave us not only the history of one of the most important Spartan temples, but also an invaluable record of the culture of Sparta through 600 of the most mo mentous years of its existence. The change of soil, the various materials used in building, and all apparently minute points must be constantly watched and this record of the stratification if not made by the excavator can never be made by another and so irre trievable damage may be done. A carelessly conducted excavation is even more disastrous than the burning of a library, for the archaeological evidence it has destroyed can never be replaced.
Objects from excavations may be found in the ruins of ancient temples and sanctuaries, or in those of public buildings such as theatres or colonnaded market-places, or forti fications, or in those of private houses, or in tombs, perhaps the most fruitful source of all. Tombs are more apt to yield com plete objects, temples and public buildings yield inscriptions, and both they and houses produce quantities of fragmentary small objects of everyday use which give us the stratification of culture on any particular site. In this way the evidence obtained from tombs and that from temples or inhabited sites supplement each other.
Scientific archaeological exploration of ancient Greek remains was rather long delayed, though a French expedition had un dertaken some researches at Olympia in 1829. Some of the earliest archaeological expeditions worked on the coast of Asia Minor among the Greek colonies rather than on the sites of the motherland. Thus Newton's work at Halicarnassus and Cnidus which enriched the British Museum with the remains of the Mausoleum and the Demeter of Cnidus and Wood's patient search for the Artemisium at Ephesus, though among the earliest excavations carried out with definite scholarly aims, belong rather to Asia Minor than to Greece.
Not till 1875, however, were the great German excavations at Olympia begun, under a special treaty with the Greek Government. This expedition under the leadership of Cur tius, Adler and Treu, after six arduous campaigns, revealed what was left of the temples and other buildings of the Panhellenic sanctuary of Olympia. Ricb finds rewarded the efforts of the ex cavators, the pedimental sculptures of the great temple of Zeus, the Winged Victory by Paeonius, and greatest treasure of all, the Hermes of Praxiteles, the only undoubted original by one of the greatest masters of Greek sculpture. These sculptures, whose date is indisputable, are of unrivalled value for the history of Greek art. Since then German expeditions have done important work at several other sites. At Thera the ancient town has been cleared and gives an excellent picture of an island community in the latter part of the classical age, while rich tombs of the early iron age were also found. At Athens the theatre of Dionysus was excavated and also a large part of the Dipylon cemetery, provid ing much fresh information about Athenian funeral customs. After preliminary campaigns in the early cemeteries of Samos, most useful for the light thrown on early Ionian art, especially the vases, the famous temple of Hera there has been laid bare and the history of another of the sacred sites of Greece is being made known. This and similar work on the temples of Aphrodite and Aphaea at Aegina has yielded valuable facts towards the study of architecture, and the results of the complete excavation of the Aphaea temple now enable us to study in their right context the famous sculptures from it at Munich.
Greece has taken a foremost part in the rediscovery and preservation of her treasures, and apart from many minor researches has carried out several major excavations—the Acrop olis at Athens, at Eleusis, the Amphiaraeum by Oropus and at Epidaurus. The history of the Acropolis was entirely re written by the results of excavation. The successive stages of the Parthenon and the temples planned to precede it on the same site, the earlier Propylaea, and the old Athena temple all show how closely the architectural monuments of the prime of Athens are to be co-ordinated with the history of the city herself. Fresh fragments of the sculptures of the Parthenon were found, but the most surprising artistic find was the hoard of statues damaged and overthrown in the Persian invasion of 48o B.C., which had been subsequently used to fill up a hollow during rebuilding. These, though damaged are at least unrestored originals, and show by the plentiful traces of bright painting still extant on them how the Greeks intended their sculptures to appear. A fundamental date for the history of Greek vase painting was another of the more important facts determined. At Eleusis the Hall of Mys teries was discovered and the progressive enlargement of this and of the sacred enclosure indicate both the gradual increase of cul ture and prosperity in Greece during the 6th and 5th centuries B.C., and the growth of the importance of the shrine itself. Many important sculptures and inscriptions were found. The Amphi araeum and Epidaurus were the centres of cults connected with healing, but the latter is the more important as the central shrine of Asclepius himself. Here the whole sanctuary has been cleared with the theatre and all the subsidiary buildings. Valuable architectural results were obtained, and sculptures illustrating the style of Timotheus, a leading artist of the 4th century, with many historical inscriptions, and others giving interesting details about visitors to the shrine and their cures. This whole group of build ings with the theatre, accommodation for patients, gymnasium and music-hall gives a vivid picture of the life of a Greek spa during the first two centuries after Christ. The central sanctuary of the Aetolians at Thermon has been cleared and valuable material for the history of the development of architecture was unearthed and many important inscriptions. At Lycosura in the ruins of the temple were found the greater part of a colossal group by Damo phon, a leading sculptor of the end century B.C.
The French school has excavated Delphi, the seat of the famous oracle of Apollo, which has produced sculptures of the first rank, such as the bronze charioteer, a masterpiece from the hand of an artist still unknown, and the marble frieze of the Cnidian treasury, a gem of archaic art. Besides these, the innu merable "treasuries" and shrines, the theatre and other buildings have added much fresh material for the study of architecture, and an immense harvest of inscriptions. At Delos the French have cleared the sanctuary of Apollo with its many temples and colonnades, but the complicated nature of the site makes the un ravelling of its history rather difficult. A large part of the Hel lenistic town has been cleared with its streets, houses, warehouses, port and theatre, and this combined with the sacred associations of the site, gives a panorama of the active life and trade of this town, a sanctuary of Panhellenic renown and a free port, the great entrepot of the Aegean, especially for slaves. As the island itself produces little or nothing to sustain the life of even a small popu lation and water is scarce, provisions of all kinds must have been extensively imported. Among other sites where French explorers have worked is Tegea, where the temple of Athena Alea has been excavated and some heads and other fragments of the pedimental sculptures have been recovered. These, though battered, are orig inals from the hand of Scopas, a master of the 4th century, a contemporary and rival of Praxiteles.
The Americans, now about to undertake the arduous project of excavating the agora of Athens and the other buildings sacred and profane around it, have previously concen trated their efforts on Corinth, the most flourishing commercial city on the Greek mainland next to Athens itself. In 146 B.C. Mummius overthrew all its buildings except the temple of Apollo, some columns of which still stand. The Americans have cleared a large part of the Agora and a short length of the road leading to the port of Lechaeum, and have identified the theatre and other public buildings. The excavations show how complete was the rebuilding that took place when Caesar sent a colony to the site and how thorough was the destruction by Mummius. The elaborate arrangements for the water supply of the city have been revealed in the fountains of Peirene and Glauke. The former which dates back to the 6th century emphasizes the importance attached by the tyrants to making proper provision for this es sential for the well-being of their subjects. The ruins of Corinth indicate that this too was a prosperous city, and that the site was eminently adapted by nature for a trading centre. An American expedition also excavated the Heraeum, the national sanctuary of Argos. This site was continuously occupied from the early bronze age till late classical times, and was especially rich in finds of the archaic period of art that illustrate the varied in fluence notably those from the east, affecting Greece at that date. The architecture of the temple rebuilt after a fire in 423 B.C. and of the other buildings in the precinct forms an interesting contrast to Attic work of the same date; in addition a few inter esting sculptures were discovered.
The first British excavation was that of Megalopolis, and apart from the problems involved in the architecture of the theatre and the Thersilion, the council chamber of the Arcadian confederacy, the results hardly came up to expectations. Other wise apart from valuable contributions to Aegean archaeology by excavations in Crete, at Mycenae, in Melos and in Thessaly, the great excavations of the British school have been at Sparta. Here the classic sanctuaries of Artemis Orthia and Athena Chalcioecus and of Helen and Menelaus have been discovered, and entirely new light has been thrown on Spartan art which now appears to have been extremely flourishing in the archaic period when oriental and Ionian influence were much in evidence. In later times only the growth of a narrow military policy stifled the natural Hellenic tendency towards artistic expression in all the accompaniments of life. The tracing of the walls has determined the size of the city and the excavation of the theatre and the innumerable in scriptions of the early imperial period show that Sparta flourished under the Pax Romana as a provincial capital.
Other nations have taken an active part in excavations in Greece. The Austrians have been at work in Elis, the Dutch at Argos, the Danes at Lindos, the Czechs at Samothrace and the Swedes at Calaureia, while the latter and the Italians have specially distinguished themselves in Aegean archaeology.
