Unnumbered pageScan 56 of 94
THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA G. H. McFadden CURIUM EXCAVATIONS EPISKOPI, LIMASSOL CYPRUS
24th June, 1952The Director, The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 33rd & Spruce Streets, Philadelphia 4.
Dear Fro:-
Some time has elapsed since I saw you here and you may be wondering how things are going on since your departure so this will serve to keep you up to date on Curium.
When I was at Nicosia with your party I had another look at the gold sceptre and wondered just where at Curium it might have come from. We knew it was from a tomb which had been rifled by three villagers nearly half a century ago. Markos, Savvas and Socrates were their names, and of these only Socrates still lives, but he is now very old and never moves from his house. It occured to me that these tomb robbers might not have done a thorough job and if we could locate and dig the tomb again it might prove rewarding.
These three, Markos, Savvas and Socrates, after rifling this tomb, proceeded with their loot to Famagusta where they made an attempt to dispose of it. While thus engaged, however, the Police grabbed them and confiscated what they found. The gold sceptre later turned up in the Cyprus Museum where it has become a highly prized possession. As records in these early days were not kept so scrupulously as today we donnot know what else belonged to this hord of confiscated antiquities but it was reported that a number of bronzes came from the same tomb.
On questioning Socrates, he told us that the tomb was on the edge of an outcrop in the locality Kalorizicki between a fig-tree and a carob tree with three trunks, that it was a shallow tomb, and that it was without a dromos, unlike other tombs in the neighbourhood. We dug and found a tomb that met this description, quite completely. While digging, an old Turk looked on. He said as a boy he had watched Socrates, Marcos, and Savvas digging the tomb. There was no question in his own mind but that we had found the right place. At the south end … continues
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain