January–April 1954

Curium 15 Mar 54

Dear Virginia:

Thank you for yours of the 9th. How pleasant that such a nice thing should happen to you out of the blue!

I am glad to have the information about the material Philadelphia is supposed to be accountable for in connection with Ayios Ermogenes. I must confess 1946, of course, was a long time before Rodney or I have never seen this most estimable hoard, consciously I appeared on the scene. I wonder if it is not possible that George at any rate, was a long time before either took it away from the Museum even before our arrival? It seems not unreasonable that he might have taken it out to Villanova to work on at such times as he was in America. Now that we know exactly what we are supposed to look for, I will ask Rodney or Ellen to search carefully and see what they can find. I think also that there may be at Villanova been no attempt to see what Curium material Caroline sister Caroline and perhaps Rodney can woo sister Caroline sufficiently so as to be able to look things over there.

In the meantime I have gone through some of the morass of papers that still remain here. These were considerably shuffled in the process of separating the personal from the excavation papers. Really tied up in the midst of a batch of what appeared to be script for and comments copy of your manuscript on George's own publication of Ayios Ermogenes I did find a copy of your manuscript on Trench 43. came Roofing around in other likely and unlikely places I also came up with the originals and prints of the plates which you made up. filed numerically in the catalogue file are VG catalogue cards of Trench 43, also. If I scrabble around some more, I expect I will find the rest, probably assimilated with other material of appropriate categories. George apparently didn't let the material stay in deep freeze for eight years, anyway.

I have read the Ms. and agree that you would probably want to rewrite it somewhat, at least as far as emphasis goes. I should be glad to be of assistance, as you suggest, with regard to the pottery, time being provided.

I am, of course, while I am here, attempting to deal with Apollo, which could easily occupy my whole year and more, even if I had nothing else to think of. I have Ayios Ermogenes on my list, naturally, but I don't foresee that I can do more, while here, myself, I really can't the necessary information and photographs, myself. I really can't think of anyone to whom I could farm it out, do you?

If you really could come and visit us at some point, it would be a tremendous help to me if we could spend part of the time (the rest being spent in enjoying your presence!) going over Ayios Ermogenes matters, needs, etc. I have been dealing with Apollo from scratch and with a cold start hitherto, so you can imagine that I would much appreciate being able to plan Ayios Ermogenes with someone who knows something about it.

We plan to be here until 1 Sept. Our latter days will probably be hectic with the division of finds, packing, etc.; so if you could come earlier it would be more satisfactory to all concerned. Why not June or July, after Chios? Would that suit? Or earlier still?