Archaeology Magazine - March 1948 - 46

ARCHAEOLOGY

48
coveredby us, had disappeared,no harm
seemsto have been done to the heavilyovergrown ruin which awaits future
excavation.
We feel confidentthat our personalappearance on the site, the measurestaken
by us, and the expectationof the local
people that we will soon return and
resume work, will protect the antiquities
for the time being from further destruction.
Status of the Museum in
Palaeopolis
The storage room in the house of
Babalos as well as the unfinishednew
Museum building have suffered badly.
As far as we were able to ascertainfacts,
this is what happened.
During their short stay in Samothrace
the German occupyingforcesseem not to
have interestedthemselvesin the antiquities. A young German officerin Chora,
seeingthe copy of the great Austrian excavationpublicationwhich Conze had donated to the community,"borrowed"one
of its folio volumesand did not return it.
But fortunatelythis gentlemanseemsnot
to have found his way to our Museum.
During the change of occupation from
German to Bulgarian,Petzonis and Babalos tried to hide what they thought to
be the most valuable objects: inscriptions
and coins. The inscriptions,part of which
were stored in the old part in the new,
unfinished building, were buried in a
nearby field. At the end of the war, they
were dug up again and carried back to
their storage places. Our impressionis
that no important documentwas lost in
the process,but only a systematiccheck
will show whether this is correct. The
coins found in 1939 had been kept in
small paper envelopesand stored on the
shelveswith other findsof the sameprovenance. Petzonis picked these envelopes
from their various places,stuffedthem in
a small tin can and buried it somewhere
(without a lid). As a result earth got
in, the paper envelopesin many instances
broke or disintegratedduring four years
of burial, and when Petzonis returned
the can to me (after having previously
refused to give it up to anybody else),
much of the documentaryvalue of the
coins had been destroyed. How many of
them have been lost cannotbe said before
detailed examination. We depositedthe
can and its contentsin the Museum. The
loss to scholarshipis not great, inasmuch
as we had made casts of all wellpreservedpiecesas well as of all thoseof
stratigraphie value and brought them to
New York.
Apart from these items, the Museum
contained architectural and sculptural

Figure 5. Arsinoeion, Samothrace,
July 14, 1947. Inscriptions carved by
Bulgarian soldiers on one of the
MARBLE
BLOCKS
OFTHEARSINOEION.
fragmentswhich all seemto be well preserved. The numeroussmall finds and
the stratified ceramic material present a
.different picture. After the Bulgarians
had taken over, a small detachmentof
their soldierswas stationedin Palaeopolis.
Whenever they wanted a container for
somepurpose,they had their "guard" open
the Museumand emptieda shellcontainer,
throwingits contentson the floor. In due
time they seem to have thus destroyed
the scientificevidenceof about half the
material thus stored. In 1945,Nikolaidis
found a huge pile of potsherdsfillingmost
of the floor space of the Museum room.
They have now been swept under the
shelves. Probably all this material has
become worthless and will have to be
thrown away.
Shortlybefore the end of the war, two
Bulgarian womenappearedin Palaeopolis
and visited first the excavation,then the
Museum. The natives were under the
impressionthat they were archaeologists.
They did not allow Babalos who had accompaniedthem to the excavationto enter
the Museum with them. They carried
briefcases and locked themselvesup in
the Museum for an hour or two before
leaving. Whether they took any of the
small finds, as might be suspected,we
cannot say. An ominouscircumstanceis
the fact that, during the short time available this summerwe were unable to discover on the shelvestwo small and easily
removablevaluable objectsreproducedin

our report on the campaign of 1939: a
uniquebronzechestand a silver ring with
a representationof the cabiric snakesand
the stars of the Dioscures. It is not excluded, however,that they may be rediscovered,given the presentchaoticstate of
the storeroom.Fortunately,we had transferred most of the valuable single finds.
made in 1938to Athens,includingcoins,
and depositedthem in the National and
NumismaticMuseums. These finds, we
hope, are safe. But a glass vesselof rare
preservation and form has been broken
in Samothrace. What else has been stolen
or suffereddamage will be ascertainedas
soon as possible. The few fine and important Attic red-figuredvase fragments,
found in 1939 and not yet published,we
are happy to report escapedtheft and destruction,as did most of the more modest
single ceramic finds. Our labels have
withstood the ravages of time and dirt
where the objects remained undisturbed
(over about half of the shelf space), and
we hope that our careful work of accessioningin the past and our extensive
photographicrecords and drawings will
enableus to restoreorder out of the present
chaos. This systematicwork should be
undertaken if possible next year, after
completionof the new Museumstructure
and with the transfer to it of the contents of the present storeroom.
The entire building material which we
had assembledfor the completionof the
new Museum, timber, tiles, iron, glass,
has been stolenby the Bulgarians. Nikolaidis was able to recoverin 19458 of the
10 woodenwindow frames and they are
now depositedin the old Museum.During
our stay in SamothraceMr. Plato Terzis,
whose masonsbuilt the Museumin 1939,
was again helpful in sendinga technician
to Palaeopolis who submitted to us a
specifiedestimateof the costof completing
the structure. This is one of the most
urgent tasks in the interestof securityfor
the antiquitiesin Samothraceand of any
future work there. Further delay may
causemore damage.
Equipment and Tools of the
Excavation
Before the war, we had built up almost completeequipmentfor carrying on
excavationsfor a number of years. Five
tents, a number of cots, sleeping bags,
etc. had been imported from America.
The sleepingbags were broughtto Athens
for cleaning in 1939 and deposited in
the AmericanSchoolof ClassicalStudies.
When the Italians invadedGreecein 1940,
we cabled to Director Stevens and asked
him to donate them to the Greek Army.
The tents entrusted to the epimeletes
Makros were, with or without his knowl-

Archaeology Magazine - March 1948

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