Another negative effect of our absence has affected the storage facilities allocated by the Department for our excavated finds. In either late 1999 or early 2000, a gang of thieves, still not caught, broke into the University of Pennsylvania’s storerooms through a broken window and removed 14 marble heads,12 a limestone statuette of a seated figure,13 and a small relief. While the heads’ present locations are largely a matter of speculation, it seems likely that they were transported into Egypt and from thence to western Europe and beyond. Apart from the relief, returned to Libya through the welcome interventions of Jerome Eisenberg and Andrè Laronde,14 the other pieces seem to be permanently lost to us. How many other types of objects were stolen at the same time will only be determined when we are able to carry out a thorough inventory of our storage areas.
The last serious consequence of our prolonged absence has been that the effects of wind and water erosion, probably worsened by the activities of looters, have exposed previously undocumented walls south of the S20 Propylaeum’s two recessed courts (S21 and S30) in the vicinity of Walls W20 and W23. It is CAP’s intention to record these walls on the site’s evidential plan if and when work resumes in the future, but this remains undone at the time of publication.
In a more positive vein, during the last 25 years the University of Urbino Expedition led by Mario Luni partially excavated and restored a major walled temenos at the head of Wadi Bel Gadir ca. 400 m. southeast of the Demeter and Persephone Sanctuary. Accessed by its own tetrastyle propylaeum, it centers on what Luni has identified as an imposing early 5th century B.C. Doric temple serviced by a coaxially positioned altar for burnt offerings. Luni believes that the resident deity of the Urbino sanctuary is Demeter, based on what seems, at least for the moment, somewhat tenuous circumstantial evidence.15 When combined with the existence of other extramural sacred as well as secular structures known for some time to exist in the lands south of Wadi Bel Gadir, the implications of Luni’s discoveries raise many interesting possibilities for the future understanding of the entire southern chora region.
Setting aside the far-reaching regional changes that have taken place over the past quarter century, in some quarters learned opinion would argue that “current approaches to archaeology have moved beyond a narrow concern with big monuments.”16 In other words, the detailed investigation of an archaeological site with an extended history as exemplified by the sanctuary under discussion should be viewed as obsolete. Without passing judgment on this one way or another, it is surely an attitude which reflects an increasingly common point of view, just as one increasingly hears how the printed page is destined to be replaced by electronic publication. It may very well be true that the majority of long-term excavation projects generating large numbers of finds and requiring years to complete and publish will only take place in the future when they can be supported by direct government subsidy. If this proves to be the case, all of us who have participated in the field work and publication of this project can only feel doubly privileged.
Practical Desiderata: Chronology of the Site’s Objects
The publication of the site’s related artifacts has continued apace since White 1993. What remains to be published are the sculptures, terracotta figurines, and lamps. When the reader encounters an object in the following chapters not accompanied by a footnote, they should refer to Appendix I in White 1993:187–95 where the sanctuary’s earliest and latest finds are listed according to area, trench, and stratum. The Appendix identifies by an abbreviation followed by an asterisk those types of objects which had not yet received their final publication but whose authors had conveyed to me by personal communication the chronological spread of their materials within each stratigraphical context.
Illustrations
In order to limit production costs this volume has not undertaken to reproduce the photo plates and graphic figures which have already appeared in White 1984 and White 1993 except where their inclusion has been judged absolutely necessary. Their previous appearances will, however, be referenced in the footnotes.
Location of the Site’s Areas and Trenches
Plans locating the site’s trenches by their official nomenclature have appeared in Lowenstam et al. 1987:xii, Warden et al. 1990, xxxi, and Buttrey and McPhee 1998, 70. The site’s evidential or stone-by-stone plan was reproduced as an oversize 16” by 24” foldout at the back of White 1984, while its survey and grid system has been described in detail in White 1984:56. Once again for purposes of this volume, the main point to remember is that the Demeter and Persephone Sanctuary grid is located by referring to the upper lefthand corner of each square. Each grid square is bounded by four grid points, e.g., E-10, F-10, E-11, and F-11. The proper reference here would be F11. Trenches that extend into more than one square are referred to as, for example, E11/F11.
2. What he stipulated was that the University of Michigan had to agree to publish what its previous excavators had brought to light at Apollonia prior to 1965, as well as our own activities which, as chance would have it, were abruptly terminated by the “1967 Seven Day War.” For more on this, see Goodchild et al. 1977. In return for our accepting these terms, he promised to license Michigan to excavate its choice of sites outside of the line of the city walls at Cyrene. This eventually enabled me to acquire the Department of Antiquities’ permission to take on the Wadi Bel Gadir sanctuary in 1969, a year after Goodchild’s premature death prevented his joining forces with our expedition. Why I had to wait to meet him on Apollonia’s beach in order to learn of his conditions is another story.
3. Kane and White 2007, 45–46.
4. White 1984 which has been followed by three additional studies: Schaus 1985, Lowenstam et al. 1987, and Warden et al. 1990.
5. White et al. 2002, vols. I and II.
6. White 1993.
7. Buttrey and McPhee 1998; Kocybala 1999.
8. White 1993, 187–95, Appendix One.
9. White 1984, 11–12, fig. 15.
10. In which I was accompanied by Donato Attanasio, Susan Kane, Abdulgadr al-Muzeini, the Controller of Antiquities, Mohamad Aghilla Bukassim, and Mohamad Bu Sherit.
11. White 1984, 44–46, figs. 40–42.
12. Kane nos. 102, 103, 106, 108, 110, 121, 130–132, 137, 139, 140, 142, 143.
13. Kane no. 1.
14. The expedition also has received offers of help in recovering the heads from Jean-Davis Kahn.
15. Luni 2001, 1541n9, 1549. Kane and White 2007.
16. J. McInerney, rev. of J.L. Davis (ed.), “Sandy Pylos. An Archaeological History from Nestor to Navorino,” in IJCT 7 (2000/2001), 583.
I: PART 1
Background to the Early