1949

[printed: THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA]

[printed: CURIUM EXCAVATIONS EPISKOPI, LIMASSOL CYPRUS]

26th April, 1949

Handwritten: Kourion

Dear Fro:-

Many thanks for your letter of April 9th. I'm delighted Alix Daniel has decided to accept a trip to Cyprus and my only regret is that I may not be here when she arrives. Mr. Hill tells me she is in regular correspondence with friends at Athens and would doubtless be visiting there too. If she should change her mind, however, and want to go to Paris or somewhere else instead, my offer, of course, would hold for that too. The only condition I wanted to make was that the amount should be used for something for which funds could not be found elsewhere.

I am not writing you about Fales' excavations as you have already his own report, and he will be sending you another before very long. I can say, however, that his excavations are beginning to become very impressive. Although there is a good deal more for him to do on the site of the palace, or the "bath" as it is now called, he has already began work on the theater. This building occupies a slope of the same hill so that he can keep work going on both sites without any difficulty at the same time.

I began excavations, as I did last year, on the Hellenistic cemetery of Ayios Ermoyennis. As you will remember a partial report of excavations there was published in the AJA (Vol. L, 1946). I began by investigating the cause of a collapse during the winter rains of the dirt road on the southern limits of the site. At a depth of about seven meters from the modern ground level a tomb was found. The tomb, however, had already been cleared by previous excavators, unfortunately. Judging from the few potsherds from the tomb chamber, and the size of the tomb, we can assume that it belonged to the late fifth or to the fourth century B.C. No other tombs were excavated, but a good deal of silt was removed from over and on either side of the ancient road leading to the bluff of Curium. It is an important site and there is a good deal more to be done there before it can be adaquately published. Mr. Hill and I realize, however, that we are at present committed to finishing up on the sanctuary of Apollo first, so littlee else has been done on the cemetery apart from removing an old well in the immediate vicinity of the main monument there.

At Apollo we began the season by sinking a trench across a mound containing a good deal of heavy debris on the eastern limits of the site. It was not long before it became clear that this was a considerable building and that the greater part of it would be in a good state of preservation. From a single room alone we have recovered as many as twenty-two worked blocks with good mouldings. Curiously enough, this building has turned out … continues