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The Dictaean Cave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

Extract

The large double cavern situated to south-west of, and about 500 feet higher than Psychro, avillage of the upland Lasithi plain in Crete, has long been known to contain early votive objects (Plate IX. 1). The discovery was made by peasants about 1883, who were in the habit of housing goats and pigeons there, and in 1886 the noise of it brought to the spot Professor F. Halbherr in company with Dr. J. Hazzidakis. Their mission was to recover as many objects as possible from the peasants' hands, but also in the event they dug over about two square metres of the embanked terrace before the cave in the hope of finding remains of an altar. After their departure the peasants continued to burrow from time to time among the boulders in the upper cave, and to find bronzes, many of which were bought by Mr. A. J. Evans in 1894. In 1895 the latter, with Mr. J. L. Myres, visited the spot, and the same explorer, returning in 1896 and finding in Psychro a piece of an inscribed libation table, made a sinking into the deposit under the north wall of the upper grot, where the table had been found, and unearthed some objects. In 1897 came Mons. J. Demargne, of the French School at Athens, and boring under the south-western wall, found a second piece of a libation table, uninscribed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1900

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References

page 94 note 1 See Halbherr and Orsi in Antichità dell' antro di Zeus Ideo, p. 906–910 (Museo di ant. class. II. 3.) hereinafter referred to as HO.

page 94 note 2 Journal of Hellenic Studies, xvii. p. 351 sqq.

page 95 note Following MSS. against Schömann's correction Δικτην for Λυκτον in 1. 482.

page 98 note 1 J. H. S. l.c

page 111 note 1 Drawn by E. Gilliéron.

page 115 note 1 This inference depends of course on the cave being lower than the lowest point of the mountain fence about the Lasithi plain, viz. the nick over which runs the road to Lyttos. The levels have not been taken, but, estimated by the eye, the level of the cave seems certainly lower.