Excavations in Cyprus, 1889. Second Season's Work.—Polis tes Chrysochou.—Limniti

Abstract

The following account of the excavations conducted by Mr. E. A. Gardner, Mr. Tubbs, and myself in the spring of this year on behalf of the Cyprus Exploration Fund does not pretend to exhaust all the results of the enterprise. Many questions are raised which are not answered, and more problems are suggested than are solved. The reason is partly to be sought in the necessity, in view of coming engagements, of rapidly completing the account for publication. Time is lacking for prolonged search for parallels and collation of authorities, and the tardy arrival of the antiquities in this country, together with their need of much cleaning and mending, has robbed us of many opportunities for leisurely study of them. So far we may hope that the deficiencies will be speedily made good by supplementary elucidations from more experienced archaeologists, or by our own exertions in the future. But far more is the incompleteness due to the nature of the subject. Sufficient evidence to support general conclusions is scarcely available, and the sceptical distrust engendered by experience on the site has only grown with further reflection and investigation. Here we can only look to the progress of general and especially Cypriote archaeology. We are each of us solely responsible for the sections we have respectively undertaken, but hope that no irreconcilable views are expressed.