Archaeological Discoveries in Sicily and Magna Graecia

Extract

At Syracuse, in the area between Neapolis and south Achradina, where Landolina found the famous Venus in 1804 and where Prof. Orsi later investigated some Greek tombs (NSc 1925, pp. 176–208; 296–321), the digging of trenches, 4 m. deep, for the foundations of a new hospital brought to light an archaic Greek cemetery. The tombs are for the most part excavated in the rock, and are covered with thick slabs in several pieces. In one of the trenches five large sarcophagi were discovered; they were each cut from a single block of stone, and their covers are in one piece. Two have been brought to the Museum, while three remain buried under the foundations. Their contents were unimportant. The pottery found, mostly fragmentary, is Corinthian, Rhodian and archaic Attic of the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. The most interesting of the vases, now undergoing restoration, and not yet exposed in the Museum, is an amphora showing a warrior killing a monster with a human head.