LINKS WITH THE ODYSSEY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 25, 27 December 1932, Page 8

LINKS WITH THE ODYSSEY.

ITHACA REVISITED. PROGRESS OF BRITISH EXPLORATION. Sir Rennell Rodd, in the course of a letter to the editor of the Times, London, writes: In spite of tho financial stress in Greece, whose' carrying trade and staple industries have so severely felt the economic crisis, Vathy. the attractive harbour-town of Ithaca, has made considerable progress in the last two years. A gratifying result of the operations of the Exploration Fund has been that a patriotic citizen, who had acquired a modest competence in a British Dominion, has made provision for a museum at Pelicata, in the northern section of the island, to house the objects found there by Mr Heurtley and his staff, including the precious sherd inscribed with the prayer to Odysseus. That the southern area should not fall behind, M. Petalas, the zealous president of the municipal council, contemplates a second small museum in Vathy. THE CAVE-SANCTUARY.

The activities of the British archaeological mission this summer have been restricted to the cave-sanctuary in the Bay of Polis, to the hill city on Aetos, the Alalcoinene of the Isthmus, to the saddle which connects the latter with the southern half of the island, and to the port of Pisaeto below. My Visit was unfortunately timed* too early to enable me to witness results on the former site. I learn that since my departure a fine Corinthian bronze .tripod has come to light, with fragments of a second, as well as pottery, early Helladic, Mycenaean, and Corinthian. The stratification of the cave can now be ascertained, and we should be able to calculate at any rate the minimum degree of subsidence on the western shore by which no doubt a considerable portion of the low island of Dnscalio was at the same time submerged, so that there need no longer bo reason to look elsewhere for Asteris. On tho Aetos saddle the Proto-Corin-tliian dump which Mr Heurtley discovered last year Jins, he informs me, yielded 75 more or less complete vases and many other votive objects. Some progress had been made with the survey of the ancient city of Mt Aetos A BURIAL PLACE

Below at Pisaeto a magnificent example of polygonal wall has been cleared, a portion as it seemed to me of a long wall connecting the port with tho hill city. A cave by the sea, apparently used for burials, has yielded late Mycenaean sherds and a bronze pin. During my visit I made a second expedition to the cliff of Korax in the south of the island, approaching it this time from the summit instead of through the gorge which descends from its base to the sea. On a more gradual slope a little north of tho cliff there is a cavern in tho limestone rock, opening towards Korax which is still used by herdsmen to shelter the flocks which find rough pasture on the table-

land It would hardly have sufficed to pen tho 50 sows of Eumaeus. But it might well have suggested to the poet of the Odyssey the dwelling faced with stones and thorn by the faithful henchman who fed his swine near the raven’s cliff. Once more on this occasion I heard their hoarse erv and saw a pair of them flying over the gorge. The campaign of tins summer will exhaust the funds available. But, even if further researches have to be postponed, 1 feel assured that the report eventually to be issued by Mr Heurtley and his assistants, who have worked with devotion and self-sacri-fice under conditions of no little discomfort, will satisfy those who have supported the enterprise that there is no longer real ground to question the claim of Ithaki to be the island of the Odyssey. .