DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61301#0322
284
STUDIES IN GREEK ART.
for his health, stayed for a while at Pergamos, now the
modern Turkish Bergama (the citadel). He noticed
that native workmen, in their customary ruthless manner,
were breaking up large fragments of sculptured marble,
building them into walls and burning them in lime-kilns.
He was at the time engineer, not archaeologist; but
educated as he had been in a country which though
poor in antique originals is rich in cast-museums, he
saw at once the value of the marbles. For a time his
exertions stopped the havoc, but he left Pergamos and
again the barbarians began their work. Fortunately he
returned in 1869 to undertake engineering work and
took up his headquarters at Pergamos. He sent frag-
ments of the sculptures home to Germany. Even the
German Government cannot excavate everywhere at the
same moment. The excavations at Olympia had to be
subsidized, and Pergamos must wait. That waiting,
ended only too late, even now seems intolerable. We do
not know what secret mischief went on in the interval;
how much was lost never to be recovered. At last, in
1878, the excavations began, and as the pioneers
mounted the hill, seven eagles hovered above their
heads, a goodly omen shortly to be fulfilled. The
reward was almost instant and beyond all hope, and
the treasure, unlooked-for, unprecedented, soon lay, safe
from barbarian hands, in the Berlin Museum.
An obscure Latin author (30), in words that have become
STUDIES IN GREEK ART.
for his health, stayed for a while at Pergamos, now the
modern Turkish Bergama (the citadel). He noticed
that native workmen, in their customary ruthless manner,
were breaking up large fragments of sculptured marble,
building them into walls and burning them in lime-kilns.
He was at the time engineer, not archaeologist; but
educated as he had been in a country which though
poor in antique originals is rich in cast-museums, he
saw at once the value of the marbles. For a time his
exertions stopped the havoc, but he left Pergamos and
again the barbarians began their work. Fortunately he
returned in 1869 to undertake engineering work and
took up his headquarters at Pergamos. He sent frag-
ments of the sculptures home to Germany. Even the
German Government cannot excavate everywhere at the
same moment. The excavations at Olympia had to be
subsidized, and Pergamos must wait. That waiting,
ended only too late, even now seems intolerable. We do
not know what secret mischief went on in the interval;
how much was lost never to be recovered. At last, in
1878, the excavations began, and as the pioneers
mounted the hill, seven eagles hovered above their
heads, a goodly omen shortly to be fulfilled. The
reward was almost instant and beyond all hope, and
the treasure, unlooked-for, unprecedented, soon lay, safe
from barbarian hands, in the Berlin Museum.
An obscure Latin author (30), in words that have become