An Archaeological Visit to Samos

Extract

English enterprise in excavation has been considerably checked of late years by the impossibility of obtaining anything like fair terms from the Greek or Turkish governments. Greece will grant concessions on an agreement being duly signed that everything found shall belong to the Greek government and that the works shall be superintended by a Greek ἔφορος who has been educated in Germany. Turkey whose relations with the English Government have of late been rather strained will come to no arrangement whatsoever. So we chose Samos last winter as a likely field owing to its having an independent government, but this government in every way follows the lines of Greece, and though I tried hard to obtain a concession for taking away one half or one third of the things found I was eventually obliged to sign the same agreement which the French excavator M. Clerk had signed two years before, and which stipulated that everything found should belong to Samos. Consequently if English archaeologists wish to prosecute researches on the actual soil of Hellas, it remains for them to decide whether they are sufficiently remunerated for their trouble and outlay by the bare honour of discovering statues, inscriptions, and other treasures to be placed in the museum of Athens, or, as is the case in Turkey, for the inhabitants to make chalk of, or build into their houses.