Archaic Reliefs at Dhimitzana

Abstract

At Easter-tide last year, while returning through the Peloponnesus from Olympia to Megalopolis, I passed through the picturesque mountain town of Dhimitzana and had the opportunity of paying a short visit to its Museum. This collection is attached to the Hellenic or second-grade school, the successor of a famous institution, which did much to keep alive the Greek language and literature in the darkest days of Turkish rule, and has been almost entirely formed through the archaeological learning and intelligent energy of the Archimandrite Hieronymos Bogiatsés, who has himself conducted excavations in the neighbourhood and whose interest in the antiquities of his country is as keen as it is exceptional. The Arcadian objects preserved in the Museum are of less importance; but a connection with Sparta, where many natives of Dhimitzana are resident, has attracted to it presents of Laconian antiquities from patriotic townsmen. Among these are the two supplementary Spartan stelai, those of Timokles and Aristokles, published by Milchhoefer in his ‘Antikenbericht aus Peloponnesus’ in the Athenian Mittheilungen; and the three archaic bone plaques, which are now published at Father Hieronymos' request (see Pl. XI.) are part of a similar gift. Unfortunately the details of their provenance cannot be satisfactorily ascertained, as they are not the fruit of any regular excavation but only of an accidental tomb-find. They were presented to the Museum about four years ago by Mr. John Kazákos, director of the telegraph-office at Sparta, and had been shortly before found by a Mr. Chronópoulos in a tomb in the neighbourhood, on the left bank of the Eurotas, at a spot called the ‘Bath of Helen’ (τῆς Ἑλένης τὸ λοῦτρον). This tomb, according to the report, contained also pieces of mirrors, coins, broken ornaments, and some curious cone-shaped objects of gilded metal, two of which if placed together resemble an egg and were to all appearances thus originally attached. All these objects are now at Dhimitzana, but during my short stay I had no time to examine them; the coins however need no attention, whatever their date may be, as the archaic character of the reliefs makes it almost impossible that they can be contemporary. We have before us probably older objects, which found their way into a later grave.