Archæological Investigations in Syria

Abstract

SIR LEONARD WOOLLEY'S report on the work of the British Museum's archaeological expedition to Sueidia, near Antioch, immediately before closing down work for the season (The Times, July 31) records the completion of excavation in the reserved area of the harbour site and the cutting of trial trenches on and around the hill station at Sabounia, two and a half miles inland. At the latter point, while the existence of a walled town at least as early as the Mycenaean age is established, the fall of the walls through the disintegration of the sandstone cliffs, on the edge of which they were erected, has effectually disposed of the possibility of profitable excavation. Here, however, a find of vessels of copper and implements of bronze and iron has afforded instructive evidence of agricultural practice in Syria in the Byzantine age. At Sheikh Yusuf al Gharib further evidence was afforded of the activity of the port in the second half of the fourth century B.C., in the form of merchants' magazines, which had been burned, but had preserved a detailed picture of trade. A lamp store was stocked with lamps of both the imported and the locally made varieties, lamp fillers and Syrian oil bottles copying Greek models, while the stock of painted Attic aryballi bore witness to a common origin in common characteristics which made it possible to trace a definite shipment by a single firm and to date it within a few years. Gold and silver beads and silver coins of Athens, copper ingots and loose quicksilver marked a jeweller's shop. Back to the ninth century this is the most important Greek colony so far excavated. The absence of evidence from the earlier Mycenaean age is to be attributed to the forces of Nature, which have washed away the earlier portions of the site. Yet there is a link in a local copy of a Mycenaean vase and a single sherd of fine hand-made burnished black ware, which alone would suggest an earlier date. Though no inscription has been found, it is suggested that this is the ancient Posidium, mentioned by Herodotus as founded before the Mycenaean age.