Читать книгу Looking for Aphrodite - David Price Williams - Страница 34

Since Newton’s day, there had been no further explorations at ancient Knidos until our present expedition in the late 1960’s. These new investigations had perhaps from their inception been conceived with a somewhat more ethereal goal in mind, a slant towards art history rather than dirt archaeology. Those who conceived, financed and managed the whole affair were basically art historians from the USA, and maybe that characterized their aim at Knidos. I learned that previously there had been some involvement with art objects from other excavations in Greece. Perhaps for obvious reasons a focal interest in archaeology and in the people of ancient Knidos seems to have been secondary to the search for its art treasures, especially its sculpture. The choice of Knidos was of course made because of the city’s association with the Knidia, one of the greatest sculptures ever created, by one of the greatest Classical artists who ever lived, namely Praxiteles. That in the end was undoubtedly one of the ambitions, to rediscover the lost statue of Aphrodite, and if not that, then the temple in which the statue had been displayed. Could the new excavations succeed where Beaufort, Graves, Newton and others had failed – “Knidos reveals the art discovery of the century”; that kind of thing? And remarkably as far as I am able to judge the expedition came very close to achieving this ambition.

It was suggested, no doubt conceitedly among us ignorant foot soldiers, that the excavation permit had been obtained from the Ankara Department of Antiquities only by bringing in ‘trained field archaeologists’ from Great Britain like the Assistant Director, Mark, who then recruited other established field workers to act as site supervisors, small finds and pottery experts, cataloguers and conservators and architects. That would include a field surveyor like me, though I openly have to admit that my own field experience at that time was extremely limited. To this so-called professional team were added all manner of flotsam and jetsam – friends, acquaintances, students and hangers-on who were brought along for politically expediency or simply personal attachment. As for the sponsors, I heard of various East Coast institutions being mentioned, but I was not involved very far up the

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