1950

Handwritten: George H. McFadden

Handwritten: Comm

Handwritten: Ammann

Handwritten: Kommel

THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

CURIUM EXCAVATIONS EPISKOPI, LIMASSOL CYPRUS

24th May, 1950

Handwritten: Curium

The Director, The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Dear Fro:-

Many thanks for your letter of May 15th which made very good reading. I had not realized you would be off to Alaska so soon and I hope this may reach you well in time to bring you up to date, if somewhat tardily, on recent news from Curium. DeC has about completed the clearing of the theater on the Bluff. It is now a far more fomidable looking structure than it was when you were here last December. I can't get far enough away from it to get a good picture even with my wide angle lens. So you will have to be content with viewing it in sections when the prints arrive. The passage way running between the two high encircling walls round the back has been completely cleared along with the stair cases between them. DeC has worked very hard and appears to have done an extraordinarily good job. I'm glad it has been possible to excavate this building which combines so many interesting and unique features which partial excavation could not have made clear. As this building now stands it is a real contribution to Curium. Mr. Hill was here during part of March, April and early May. Having him here with us has made all the difference. He was with me a good part of the time up at Apollo and supervised the clearing of a new building adjoining the South Building on the east side. It will prove to be the best preserved building that we have. It runs around a large colonnaded porch, and we have recovered many of the columns. The main wall of the building fell flat on its face with its large stone door jambs and window frames. Among our finds we have two good female heads in white marble, approximately life size. One is diademed and is sometimes represented so on the coins of Paphos and Aphrodite, as she is sometimes represented so on the coins of Paphos and Salamis. I have no photos to send you as yet but they will follow in due course. Among other finds are figurines, reliefs in terracotta, minor sculpture in stone and marble, some ivory, and a great quantity of coins many of which are very early ones. DeC has found an elaborate bronze lamp which has been much admired. We have to make a long list you see to counterbalance Rodney's gold. I wish he would send us some of it. Joe Last has been digging too, not for gold, but for water pipes. He has found near the Stadium two pipe lines, an earlier one laid in a rock-cut conduit which runs under the south side of the Stadium. When the Stadium was constructed in the second century A.D.; the pipe line was diverted and ran south of the Stadium.