The study of Greek inscriptions (see INSCRIP TIONS) under Boeckh and Franz, and of compara tive linguistics tinder Bopp and his successors, contributed their share to the modern arclurolo gist's equipment. We have now brought the ac count down to the last thirty years of the Nine teenth Century. during which a series of discov eries were made, whose full importance cannot yet be estimated.
The first place in this series must be given to the excavations of Heinrich Sehliemann (q.v.) at Troy, Mycenre. and Tiryus. which brought to light the remains of pre-I fomeric Greece, and revolutionized our conceptions of the develop ment of the early zEgean civilization. These dis coveries have been supplemented and explained by the work of Flinders Petrie and others in Egypt, of the English on Melos, and especially by the most recent explorations in Crete. The peculiar C3Triote civilization, which first at tracted attention in the collections of Cesnola, has since been studied scientifically by Ohne falsch-Eichter and other German and English scholars. the greatest importance in the de velopment of archa-ological study in Greece has been the establishment of other foreign schools besides the French Institute in Athens. The first of these was the Athenian branch of the German Archreolorieal Institute (1874), which was fol lowed by the American School of Classical Stud ies (1582). the British School (1886), and a branch of the Austrian Arelnrological Institute (1897). Italy, Itussia, and Denmark have also made provision for their archaeologists who de sire to study in lands. Through the aid of foreign archeologists many of the most im portant excavations in Greece and Asia Minor have been made possible. Thus, the German:
have excavated Olympia (1875-81), Pergamu:, Priene. and Miletus; the French, Delos and Delphi; the Americans, Eretria, the temple of Vera, near Argos (1892-95), and Corinth; the British, _Megalopolis and Melos, and the Austri ans, Ephesus. Side by side with the foreign ers, has worked the Greek Archeological Society ('E1,Xcvcgii • 'Eray(a, liellenide A rehnio Iletairia), founded in 1836, and always one of the most active agencies in the explora tion of Greek soil. To it is due the excavation of the southern slope and the summit of the Acropolis, the great sanctuaries of Eleusis, Epi daurus and Oropos, and the palace and many graves at Aryceme. In Italy the progress of discovery has been somewhat limited by a re fusal to permit foreigners to engage in the work; but archicological study flourishes not only among the Italia us, but under the direction of the German and French Institutes and the Amer ican School (1893).
As may be inferred from this brief outline, arehmology is an eminently progressive science, and in all its departments subject to constant re vision. The steady increase of material, and the tilling of gaps in the general structure. as well as continual correction or rejection of hastily formed theories and insufficiently supported con clusions, will occupy savants for generations to come. We can deal only provisionally with the most certain and generally accepted data, supple melding flue statements of ancient writers by the monuments, and interpreting the monuments in turn by our literary sources.