1951

G. H. McFadden,

8th January, 1951I arrived here the first week in November and since then and up until Christmas I have been excavating one of the main buildings on the Sanctuary of Apollo. I have delayed writing you about the subject of my thesis as I am not yet sure whether the subject chosen may not be too extensive a one. My subject as you know was to have been an archaeological history of the sanctuary and was to have covered the entire area which has been under excavation. To do this, however, that would prevent my getting down to work on the thesis until after considerable more extensive excavation. It will be impossible to have a clear understanding of the Bat Building complex, for example until a great deal more soil can be removed.

At present I am concentrating on one building at a time beginning with the most important ones. These are the South Building Temple A, and Temple B (University Museum Bulletin, volume XIV, no. 4, plan 1, p.15. I think I gave you a copy of this issue - last summer.) I don't know how long it will take to have these in shape for proper study with view to publication. Although I should like to confine myself now to the main buildings, mention of course, would be made of all other buildings that throw light on the general history of the sanctuary, but these would not be treated in any detail. A detailed publication of these buildings would have to await further excavation at some future date. I hope thus to cut down considerably the amount of excavation necessary before laying the ground work of my thesis.

A vast quantity of finds have come from the sanctuary. We have doubled, for example, the number of Hellenistic inscriptions that have appeared in the island. These and other finds such as coins in great quantity and thousand of terracotta figurines will be the subjects of separate publications. Any of these finds however, that throw light on the history of the sanctuary on a whole will be referred to in the discussion of the main buildings. I may have to add a catalogue of selected finds. In most cases I hope I may be able to refer to them under the catalogue numbers which when eventually published elsewhere.

The earliest finds from the sanctuary belong to the 8th century B.C. Its period of greatest prosperity was under the Flavious and Antonines when it was the centre of the cult of Apollo in the island. Ference to it is made by Strabo (Geography 14,6,3). It was destroyed by earthquake in the middle of the 4th century and deserted. An inscription dating to the time of Arcadius or a little later in the 5th century found on the floor of a palace in the city of Curium two miles east of the sanctuary tells us in elegeae couplets how somebody (presumably Christ) now watches over Curium almost certail … continues