DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14696#0605
to columns or pillars
53i
I immediately set others, especially women and boys, to examine the pillars
systematically, and found the vertical crevices so productive that, leaving only a
small gang to finish the upper earth, I concentrated all hands in the lowest depths.
Some of the chinks contained as many as ten bronze objects apiece—blades,
fibulae and an occasional votive double axe. These stood up edgeways in the
slits and in many cases could not be extracted without smashing the stalactite,
which had almost closed over them. How many more there may not be com-
pletely hidden in the pillars I cannot say, but I do not think we left an accessible
I . 1 1 1 1 / I_U_I
10 5 o |p
Fig. 401.
niche unexamined. Nor did we leave any part of the pebbly mud at the water's
edge unwashed. Thence we obtained over a dozen bronze statuettes, and half a
dozen engraved gems, beside handfuls of common rings, pins, and blades, perhaps
sucked by floods out of the stalactite niches. In hope of the reward, which I gave
for the better objects, and in the excitement of so curious a search, which, in their
earlier illicit digging, it had not occurred to them to attempt, the villagers, both
men and women, worked with frantic energy, clinging singly to the pillars high
above the subterranean lake, or grouping half a dozen flaring lights over a pro-
ductive patch of mud at the water's edge. It was a grotesque sight, without
34—2
53i
I immediately set others, especially women and boys, to examine the pillars
systematically, and found the vertical crevices so productive that, leaving only a
small gang to finish the upper earth, I concentrated all hands in the lowest depths.
Some of the chinks contained as many as ten bronze objects apiece—blades,
fibulae and an occasional votive double axe. These stood up edgeways in the
slits and in many cases could not be extracted without smashing the stalactite,
which had almost closed over them. How many more there may not be com-
pletely hidden in the pillars I cannot say, but I do not think we left an accessible
I . 1 1 1 1 / I_U_I
10 5 o |p
Fig. 401.
niche unexamined. Nor did we leave any part of the pebbly mud at the water's
edge unwashed. Thence we obtained over a dozen bronze statuettes, and half a
dozen engraved gems, beside handfuls of common rings, pins, and blades, perhaps
sucked by floods out of the stalactite niches. In hope of the reward, which I gave
for the better objects, and in the excitement of so curious a search, which, in their
earlier illicit digging, it had not occurred to them to attempt, the villagers, both
men and women, worked with frantic energy, clinging singly to the pillars high
above the subterranean lake, or grouping half a dozen flaring lights over a pro-
ductive patch of mud at the water's edge. It was a grotesque sight, without
34—2