Institute

of America

SIXTH PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE AMERICAN EXCAVATIONS AT SARDES IN ASIA MINOR

[PLATE VI]

OWING to the untimely death of Professor Howard Crosby Butler, who initiated the project of American archaeological work at Sardes, and conducted successful excavations there for five years, it has fallen to the lot of the present writer to make a report of the results accomplished during the sixth season of excavations in 1922. Professor Butler was detained by his duties at Princeton and reached Sardes only about the middle of May. There, while pursuing investigations in the neighborhood of the site, he contracted malarial fever which ravaged his system and led indirectly to his death a few weeks later, while he was on his way home. Thus the name of another martyr to archaeological science is inscribed on the rolls of the great men who have gone before. An abiding memorial to his fame will be the magnificent results of his work at Sardes. Fortunately the account of his campaigns there for five seasons, in the years 1910 to 1914, was completed by his own hand, and has just been published as Vol. I, Sardis, The Excavations. Publications of the American Society for the Excavation of Sardis (E. J. Brill, Ltd. Leyden). He had also practically completed his architectural study of the temple of Artemis and the book on this subject will be published in the near future as Vol. II of the Publications. Too warm a tribute cannot be paid to Professor Butler's talent for organization, and to his perfect understanding of native psychology, by which he not only surrounded himself by a loyal and enthusiastic group of associates and employees, but became as much an object of devotion to the Turkish workmen as he was to his students at home.

In the years succeeding 1914 when work at Sardes itself was necessarily suspended because of the Great War, intensive study of the material previously discovered has resulted in the publication, or preparation for publication, of several volumes in the American Journal of Archaeology, Second Series. Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America, Vol. XXVI (1922), No. 4.

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Sardes series, in addition to those by Professor Butler that have been already mentioned. In 1916 there were published Vol. VI, Lydian Inscriptions, by Enno Littmann, and Vol. XI, Coins, by H. W. Bell. Other volumes on inscriptions, pottery, terracottas, sculpture and jewelry are in preparation and will soon be issued. The uncertain political situation in Asia Minor postponed from year to year the resumption of actual excavations at Sardes, and when in 1921 it became possible for a member of the Expedition to visit the site the house belonging to the Expedition was found in ruins, and but few shattered remnants of the antiquities that had been left there were still seen in the debris.

In the spring of 1922 the district in which Sardes is located was in control of Greek military forces and conditions seemed sufficiently stable to warrant the undertaking of a limited archaeological campaign. The Expedition was conducted in the name of the American Society for the Excavation of Sardis, and the staff, in addition to Professor Butler and the writer, included two veterans of Sardes campaigns, William R. Berry and Edward R. Stoever, and two architects who came to Sardes for the first time, Gordon McCormick and Lansing C. Holden, Jr. It is a pleasure to record that in the face of many difficulties and much hardship the members of the staff worked together with the utmost enthusiasm and with the greatest degree of coöperation. Many facilities were afforded the Expedition by the Greek civil and military authorities, and nothing could exceed the loyalty and devotion to the Expedition on the part of the Turkish foreman and laborers.

The immediate aims of the campaign, which began about March first and continued a little over three months, were the clearance of the ruins of the house, the removal of any remaining antiquities to a place of safety, and especially the determination by trial trenches and sub-surface prospecting of promising sections of the site for future exploitation. In the process of clearing up the house it became apparent that many objects had been stolen, in addition to the antiquities that had been injured and broken, of which pieces were still scattered about. The entire collection of complete Lydian vases was missing, as well as the large series of Greek and Roman lamps. These had evidently been carefully packed and removed by the plunderers, as no sherds or broken pieces were scattered on the ground. Many other objects also were missing, including several marble pieces of

Lydian architecture of unusual archaeological interest, a marble head of the Scopas type, and, special cause for regret! the beautifully-executed marble horse's head, found at the very end of the season of 1914, and here shown in Fig. 1. It seems probable that these objects were carried far afield for, although over two thou

sand pieces were missing, persistent inquiry failed to reveal any evidence that a single one had reached the hands of collectors or dealers in Smyrna. Fortunately the scientific record of these objects is in most cases complete, and all, with the exception of the lamps, are now in process of publication. The attention of archaeologists is directed to this theft and an earnest request is made on the part of the Sardes Expedition that any knowledge of