DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17531#0012
112 D. G. HOGARTH, H. L. LORIMER, AND C. C. EDGAR
general level. As for the high mound on the south-west, still surviving, this
also appears to me, who have often examined it, not to be a solid mass of
brickwork at all, but a nucleus of chambers, such as that I found on the
north-west. Mr. Petrie may have been deceived by the outcrop on its inner
face of some continuous house-wall, now removed. In a word, I venture to
assert not only that there is nothing answering to the Hellenion in this part
of the mounds, but no Great Temenos at all. Probably there existed here
small precincts of Egyptian deities (to one of which the Ptolemaic pylon
explored by Mr. Petrie gave access), surrounded by a high ring of mud-brick
houses.
I trust it will not seem presumptuous if I say that at the time and
under the circumstances in which a greater digger than myself explored
this area, such a mistake as I have supposed was well nigh inevitable.
Indeed the mistake (if such it was) was acquiesced in by all Mr. Petrie's
coadjutors and by myself in 1899. Although I had then every reason to
transfer the Hellenion from this area, its superficial resemblance to a Temenos
made me accept it without question as one great enclosure. In 1884, the
deposit was much deeper over all the area. To follow the faces of the
supposed enclosure walls could only have been done at great expenditure of
time and money : to cut a test trench across or sink a pit upon the surface
was probably to be confirmed in error: for the former was as likely as not to
hit a broad wall which would continue along the axis of the trench; the
latter to descend on to solid brickwork. Starting with the presumption
that a great Temenos, other than those he had found in the north centre,
must exist on the site, and having no reason to distrust a southern situation
for this, Mr. Petrie could hardly help finding it in the vast southern quadri-
lateral hollow.
(b) The Northern Temenos.
The first part of the campaign of 1903 was devoted to the rival site on
the north, the Temenos which I discovered in 1899, and identified with the
Hellenion, because of its locality, the great size of its outer walls, and the
occurrence within it of dedications not only to various individual gods, but
to the ®eot t6)v 'EW-ijvwv, not commemorated elsewhere on the site. The
second exploration confirmed the conclusions of the first in three important
respects. (1) I laid bare remains of the east wall of this Temenos, finding
it to be of a breadth comparable to that already found on the west. (2) I
again found dedications to the ' Gods of the Greeks,' and others in in-
dividual honour of Aphrodite, and (for the first time) Artemis. (3) I showed
that the series of small chambers, opened in 1899, was continued eastward
right across the Temenos by others belonging to the same periods, and
similarly containing remains of dedicated pottery, the formulae on which
seemed to indicate that distinct groups of chambers were devoted to distinct
deities.
The excavations of 1899 had been suspended in their eastward course on
the parallel bounding the horizontal series of squares IV (II on the 1899
general level. As for the high mound on the south-west, still surviving, this
also appears to me, who have often examined it, not to be a solid mass of
brickwork at all, but a nucleus of chambers, such as that I found on the
north-west. Mr. Petrie may have been deceived by the outcrop on its inner
face of some continuous house-wall, now removed. In a word, I venture to
assert not only that there is nothing answering to the Hellenion in this part
of the mounds, but no Great Temenos at all. Probably there existed here
small precincts of Egyptian deities (to one of which the Ptolemaic pylon
explored by Mr. Petrie gave access), surrounded by a high ring of mud-brick
houses.
I trust it will not seem presumptuous if I say that at the time and
under the circumstances in which a greater digger than myself explored
this area, such a mistake as I have supposed was well nigh inevitable.
Indeed the mistake (if such it was) was acquiesced in by all Mr. Petrie's
coadjutors and by myself in 1899. Although I had then every reason to
transfer the Hellenion from this area, its superficial resemblance to a Temenos
made me accept it without question as one great enclosure. In 1884, the
deposit was much deeper over all the area. To follow the faces of the
supposed enclosure walls could only have been done at great expenditure of
time and money : to cut a test trench across or sink a pit upon the surface
was probably to be confirmed in error: for the former was as likely as not to
hit a broad wall which would continue along the axis of the trench; the
latter to descend on to solid brickwork. Starting with the presumption
that a great Temenos, other than those he had found in the north centre,
must exist on the site, and having no reason to distrust a southern situation
for this, Mr. Petrie could hardly help finding it in the vast southern quadri-
lateral hollow.
(b) The Northern Temenos.
The first part of the campaign of 1903 was devoted to the rival site on
the north, the Temenos which I discovered in 1899, and identified with the
Hellenion, because of its locality, the great size of its outer walls, and the
occurrence within it of dedications not only to various individual gods, but
to the ®eot t6)v 'EW-ijvwv, not commemorated elsewhere on the site. The
second exploration confirmed the conclusions of the first in three important
respects. (1) I laid bare remains of the east wall of this Temenos, finding
it to be of a breadth comparable to that already found on the west. (2) I
again found dedications to the ' Gods of the Greeks,' and others in in-
dividual honour of Aphrodite, and (for the first time) Artemis. (3) I showed
that the series of small chambers, opened in 1899, was continued eastward
right across the Temenos by others belonging to the same periods, and
similarly containing remains of dedicated pottery, the formulae on which
seemed to indicate that distinct groups of chambers were devoted to distinct
deities.
The excavations of 1899 had been suspended in their eastward course on
the parallel bounding the horizontal series of squares IV (II on the 1899