Review: [untitled] Author(s): James A. Kelso Source: The Classical Weekly, Vol. 33, No. 17 (Mar. 4, 1940), pp.

196-197 Published by: Classical Association of the Atlantic States Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4340855 Accessed: 19/08/2010 04:45
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=classaas. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Classical Association of the Atlantic States is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Classical Weekly.

http://www.jstor.org

196

CLASSICAL

WEEKLY

I shall limit myself to two mattersin connectionwith theory was clearly too fantastic for seriousconsideraof himself directly to tion. Now in the normalcourseof the development Dorpfeld addresses which Professor me, claiming that two of his theories can easily be the scheduleof work the investigationof the Odeion by a little digging on the part of was completedduring the past season,and the results provedor disproved illus- will be publishedin a forthcomingnumber of HesOne of. these test cases admirably the excavator. method of research.Since peria. In the meantime Thompson notes in his pretrates D6rpfeld'ssurprising the liminary report on this excavationthat "where Dr. he has allowedthe templeof Apollo to impersonate he has no namefor the largestoa adjoin- D6rpfeldhas placedthe grave of Theseus,there is no Stoa Basileios the surfaceof bedrock foundations; makes traceof pre-Odeion ing the temple on the north, and he, therefore, a normalpart end of a buildingof extraordinary lies smoothand unbroken. . . apparently this stoa the southern shape which passesnorth of the modernrailwayand of the floor of the market-square." Thus Dorpfeld'shouses of cards collapseone after there makes a right-angledturn so as to extend west along the road to the Dipylon. In order to do this the other, and the final refutationof his unsupported and Eleusinobstruction by push- theoriesof the sites of the Enneakrounos Dorpfelddisposesof a prohibitive ing out of the way the Bryaxisbase which was located ion, and of the route of the Street of the Panathenaia, by Travloson the northside of the Stoa of Zeuson the is providedby the discovery,since the writing of this and by the uncoverbasis of the recordsmade at the time the trench was book, of the site of the Eleusinion of ing of a long stretch of the Street of the Panathenaia A renewedcarefulexamination dug for the railroad. confirmsthe positionassignedto the base with its name inscribedon a stone beside the route. these records his only aim to be Although Dr. D6rpfeld proclaims by Travlos. conProfessorD6rpfeld admits that a test of his imag- the discoveryof the ,truth (i 46), the impression can be made by a small excava- veyed by the book is that its sole aim is to defend inary reconstruction forty years ago, and if evidence tion north of the railwayon the line of the Stoa of theoriespropounded Zeus and correctlystates that the result would be de- securedduringthe past nine yearsrunscounterto such All who are incisive as to the truth or falsity of his theory (I87). If theoriesthe evidencemust be rejected. of the Agora in the truth aboutthe topography he had readcarefullythe annualreportsof the excava- terested recordsof tion he wouldhave been saved the troubleof evolving will do well to consult the full and accurate his untenable theory. Before the dimensionsof the the excavationsin the files of the Agora, and to be of the results. a trench was dug guidedby the officialdetailedpublication Stoa of Zeus had been ascertained T. LESLIE SHEAR beduring the campaignof I934 north of the railroad of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY neath a houseon PoseidonStreetbut no foundations any sort were revealed.This investigationwas mentioned by me in Hesperia4 (1935) 354 and the exact Petra. The Rock City of Edom. By M. A. MURXiv, 210 pages, 32 plates,2 maps. Blackie& RAY. areawill be markedon the revisedplan of the Agora 1939 IOS.6d. Glasgow Son, in the third of the current year's part to be published The remainsof Petra, the capital of ancient Edom Hesperia. asserts and laterof the NabataeanKingdom,are situatedsome In the secondcase,whereD6rpfeldconfidently 1 southeastof the southernend of the Dead Sea. miles of an that a little digging would provethe correctness the resulthas been equally devas- They are among the most picturesqueruins of the amazingconjecture, and fascinating tating to his theory. Without detailed knowledgeof Near East, situatedin an incomparable the terrainand without a particleof evidencehe places basinof the mountainrangewhich flanks,on the east, runningfrom the Dead Sea to the the graveof Theseusin the Odeion (which he callsthe the greatdepression and marks armof the Red Sea. These ruinsof a city, characterized Theseion) in the centreof the market-place the exact spot with a star on his plan (plate io). He by the poet on account of the coloring of the bare as 'the rosered city half as old as time,'were repeatsthis amusing fiction from the first fascicle in mountains spiteof my pointingout the obviousfact that according an object of curiosityin the Middle Ages and visited who built one of their castles the Theseion was not located actuallyin even by the Crusaders to Pausanias the Agora. D6rpfeldis especiallycriticalof me in this nearby at Shobak. In modern times (I812) Burckthem aftera visit, described connection(139) becauseof the delay in removingthe hardt,the famoustraveller, Europeanand Amersmall area of Roman deposit in which he places the and later modern archaeologists, grave of Theseus.This depositwas left as a "martyr" ican, turnedtheir attentionto them, since the site beafter the regionwas incorporatedl so that Thompson,when he cameto study the building came fairly accessible Miss Murray could test and verify the recordsmade in the BritishMandate of Trans-Jordan. for publication, who have studied at the time of its main excavation.I confessthat I re- is one of a numberof these excavators frained from asking Thompson to interruptthe im- the remainsof Petra on the spot. It must be emphaportantworkon which he was engagedin orderto turn sized that except for a few soundingsno excavations to the completionof the Odeion, because D6rpfeld's have been conductedon this interestingsite.

CLASSICAL A considerable body of literature, both technical and popular, has been produced since the turn of the century, and the volume before us is the latest addition to the growing library dealing with these ruins. The author's own claim that she wrote the book for the man in the street or for the visitor to Petra is too modest, because the serious reader, as well as the technical archaeologist or Old Testament specialist, will find it comprehensive, reliable, and scholarly. The material is organized logically from the point of view of history and comparative religion. First we have a description of the monuments which have been neither built nor erected, but excavated out of the mountain with faSades carved on the face of the cliff. The east and west walls of the city were two mountains about I250 yards apart and on their faces the hand of man carved facades of beauty, in one or two cases of rare beauty, such as El-Khazne, or the Treasury of Pharaoh, often regarded as a temple of Isis, which 'glows almost like a jewel in the sunlight.' In the reviewer's opinion there is only one other structure in the Near East which rivals it in beauty, and that is the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem. In Petra, nature and art co-operated in producing a unique and fascinating type of architecture. In the volume before us these remains are described in detail, accompanied with profuse illustrations. After her description of the monuments the author devotes five chapters to accounting for the existence of a city in this sterile region and to giving its history, discussing its manners and customs, and setting forth its religion. The site was occupied successively by the Edomites and the Nabataeans; when the latter were conquered by the Romans, the city was incorporated within the Province of Arabia Deserta. The chapter on the Edomite period is based largely on the Old Testament record and allusions found in Egyptian records. During the Old Testament period Petra was frequently conquered and occupied by the Israelites. The value of the city was due to its being a station on one of the great caravan routes where the roads diverged, one going to Gaza and the other to Damascus. Whoever held the city controlled the traffic and levied toll. About the beginning of the sixth century B.C., the Nabataeans, an Arab tribe, drove out the Edomites and in the course of a few centuries established a kingdom which at one time reached as far as Damascus. All this is recounted by the author in an interesting and reliable narrative. The chapter on the religion of the city will be of special interest to students of comparative religion. There is abundant archaeological material in Petra bearing on religion. The most striking religious monument is the High Place on the summit of a peak at the southeast corner of the city. With its altar and obelisks, it is the best preserved open air sanctuary of the Semites. The origins of Islam are discussed in relation

WEEKLY

197

to the worshipof Dusares,the God of Petra, whose worship is attested by pillars and stones of various shapes,analogousto the black stone in the sanctuary at Mecca. In presentingthe mannersand customsof the people, the authorpassesinto the sphereof anthropology, setting forth facts that are quite familiarto students of that science. The work is well suppliedwith maps,a bibliography, and an excellentindex. Studentsof both the Hebrew and Hellenisticperiods,whetherinterestedin archaeology or historyor religion,will find the volume a valuable accession to the literature of the subject.
JAMES A. KELSO
WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

Prehistoric Macedonia. An archaeological reconnaissance of GreekMacedonia(west of the Struma) in the Neolithic,Bronze,and EarlyIronAges. By W.
A. HEURTLEY. XXVi, 275 pages, frontispiece, 112 figures, 23 plates.UniversityPress,Cambridge1939

($i8) It is only lately that Macedonia has attracted the interest which it merits and it is only in the past few yearsthat her moundshave begun to yield their secrets to scientificinvestigators. An eminent place among these archaeologists is occupiedby Mr. Heurtley,who has spent many a year in the strenuoustask of uncoveringher prehistoric remains.It is one thing to be excavatingnear or within the circle of a moderncity and anotherto be workingin the primitivedistrictsof northernGreece where ingenuity and personallabor often have to take the place of expert assistanceand advice and where comfortsare unknown.Those of us who have seen Heurtley in Macedonia,living in tents and workingin the open fields from sunriseto sunset, will alwaysremember his whole-hearted devotionto his task and his pioneerspirit.The resultsof his work and those of othersarepresented in this volumein an effort to surveythe prehistoric remainsof that part of Greek M\4acedonia that lies to the west of the Strumariver. The materialand the book are divided into three parts.In the first part (I-59) are described the various sites in Centraland WesternMacedonia and in Chalci(lice; their stratigraphyis discussedand their architecturalremainsexplained.In the secondpart,Chapter I (63-108) is devotedto the study of the potteryand of the smialler finds. ChapterII (I09-I32) containsa discussionof the interrelationships of the sites, of their externalrelations, of the problemof chronologyand that of ethnology and finally a summaryof conclusions. In Part III are included an illustratedcatalogue of the finds (I35-240) and 23 excellentplates (241-252). At the end are added a study by 0. Davies on Mining in Macedonia (253-255), notes by ProfessorL. Koumareson the "Neolithic Skeleton from Servia"(256-