DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0048
2S
New Chapters in Greek History.
[Chap. ii.
CHAPTER II.
phrygia and troas.
It is probable that no region in the world holds such
treasures for archaeology as does Asia Minor. In respect
alike to abundance of art remains and gain in historic
knowledge we may expect in future to reap a harvest of
unimagined richness in that most interesting country.
There lie buried the remains of a score of civilisations
which flourished successively or contemporaneously in the
dawn of consecutive history, and furnish a ladder of tran-
sition between the old-world empires on the banks of the
Tigris and the Nile, and the new civilisation which takes
its rise in Greece. And Asia Minor is in most parts still
virgin soil to the excavator. Italy and South Russia are
in great part worked out. Greece proper has of late years
been so eagerly searched that her marvellous archaeological
treasures are rapidly becoming known to us. But Asia
Minor is to the historian what Africa is to the geographer,
a vast new region of unknown possibilities, a continent the
exhaustion of which lies beyond the limits of our foresight.
During the last decade most of the nations of Europe
have at least gleaned in this rich field. The Germans have
carried to Berlin the spoils of Pergamum, works of an art
somewhat florid and sentimental but of marvellous power
and variety. The Austrians have despatched a well-
appointed mission to Lycia, and brought back the inter-
esting sculptures of Gyol Bashi, which decorated a great
New Chapters in Greek History.
[Chap. ii.
CHAPTER II.
phrygia and troas.
It is probable that no region in the world holds such
treasures for archaeology as does Asia Minor. In respect
alike to abundance of art remains and gain in historic
knowledge we may expect in future to reap a harvest of
unimagined richness in that most interesting country.
There lie buried the remains of a score of civilisations
which flourished successively or contemporaneously in the
dawn of consecutive history, and furnish a ladder of tran-
sition between the old-world empires on the banks of the
Tigris and the Nile, and the new civilisation which takes
its rise in Greece. And Asia Minor is in most parts still
virgin soil to the excavator. Italy and South Russia are
in great part worked out. Greece proper has of late years
been so eagerly searched that her marvellous archaeological
treasures are rapidly becoming known to us. But Asia
Minor is to the historian what Africa is to the geographer,
a vast new region of unknown possibilities, a continent the
exhaustion of which lies beyond the limits of our foresight.
During the last decade most of the nations of Europe
have at least gleaned in this rich field. The Germans have
carried to Berlin the spoils of Pergamum, works of an art
somewhat florid and sentimental but of marvellous power
and variety. The Austrians have despatched a well-
appointed mission to Lycia, and brought back the inter-
esting sculptures of Gyol Bashi, which decorated a great