Archaeology Magazine - March 1965 - 67

tained. The new museum is sixty
"Anáhuac-calli" (Aztec House),
per cent richer in objects than the the new museum housing the arold one, the contents of which had chaeological collection of the late
of course also been moved. The great Mexican artist Diego Rivera,
immense 168-ton monolithic statue was dedicated on the 18th in the
of Coatlicue or Tlaloc that had southern suburb of Coyoacán, near
been brought from CoatlinchánRivera's old home. It is a large,
against the violent protests of its tall, massive, rectangular building
inhabitants- on a specially built made of the lava rock of the im72-wheeltruck gazes down stolidly mediate region. It was not quite
finished at the time of Rivera's
upon visitorsnear the entrance.
The museum building- or build- death in 1957. Like a mediaeval
ings- that have been under con- castle, the walls are bare and unstruction for nineteen months are finished inside, without plaster or
low (two floors), rectangular, win- paint. Many "cases" are in niches
dowless and plain, with practically in the walls, other single objects
no architectural decoration except supported on projecting slabs. It
at the entrance. Passing through the contains the best two thousand
main building, devoted principally specimens from Rivera's collection
to offices, laboratories, storerooms, of sixty thousand pieces; the balauditorium (with possiblysome ex- ance is in a nearby storehouse.Exhibits not yet installed), one enters cellent objects from all the archaea great rectangularpatio, the central ological cultures of Mexico except
feature of which is a thick column the Maya are shown, the collecsupporting an immense metal roof, tion being especially strong in the
82 by 54 meters, like an umbrella. western region,Colima and Nay arit.
From the top of the column falls a
J. Alden Mason
circular cascade of water. Beyond
the umbrella is a large rectangular
Aphrodisias Excavations, 1964
lily pond with an area at the farther end that can be ignited (probaThe following account is exbly with oil) to make a great bon- tracted from an informal report on
fire. Surrounding the patio on the the excavationsby Professor Kenan
other three sides is the long T. Erim, Field Director:
U-shaped rectangular stone buildThis fourth campaign has proing with the many halls and 30,000 duced results far
beyond expectameters
of
exhibition
area.
square
including crucial data about
The admiration of the visiting tion,
the history of Aphrodisias and the
anthropologists for the new muactivitiesof its citizens.Some
seum was unstinted. "Fantastic!" in artistic
of the most important finds have
the best sense of the word, was the been
made in and
expression most frequently heard. outside of the temple ofimmediately
Aphrodite.
The exhibitionsembody all the best Its
precise plan (obscured as it is
and most modernideas of exhibition,
Byzantine transformascienceand instruction, the aim be- by various
and the date of its constructions)
ing more toward education than art
tion have always been a matter of
or the satisfaction of interested cuThis year we have
conjecture.
riosity. Charts and evolutionary ex- found evidencetoward the solution
hibits, models and dioramas are of these problems.
frequent. The halls are supposed to
Continuing to clear the nave of
be visited in a definite order. First the church (built over the temple),
is "Introduction to Anthropology," we revealed the presumed foundafollowed by "Origins." Then fol- tions of the temple of Aphrodite.
low halls of the various archaeolog- While there seem to have been
ical areas of Mexico, such as "Tol- eight columns on front and back
tec" and Oaxaca. The largest and and thirteen on each side, the incentral hall is of course the "Mex- terior arrangement of the sanctuary
ica" (Aztec), with the many fa- proper appears to follow a late
mous sculptures, large and small, Hellenistic tradition encountered,
for instance, in the temple of Heincluding in central position the
cate at nearby Lagina; it consisted
great "calendar stone." Halls of
"Gulf Coast," "Maya," and "West- of a pronaos and a rather deep
ern" end the list. There are printed cella, but no opisthodomos. The
guidebooksin Spanish and English, date of constructionis suggestedby
as well as English-speakingguides.
the pottery found in the foundation

trenches. Most of the sherds were
of late Hellenisticwares, but earlier
Attic, Lydian and other East Greek
wares of the seventh and sixth
centuriesb.c. are represented.Thus,
we can say not only that the temple
of Aphrodite was begun in the late
second or first century B.c. (not at
the time of Hadrian as is generally accepted) but also that the
occupation of the site goes back at
least to the seventh century B.c.
A well over six meters deep
placed at the center of the building
was brought to light. It contained
mostly Byzantine material preceding the eleventh century, and it had
been carefully sealed in the thirteenth century. Our hopes of undisturbed fill and ex-votoswere disappointed, yet a strange thought
came to mind. Pausanias, that perennial help to archaeologists,when
speaking of the salt-water spring
in the Erechtheum on the Acropolis
of Athens (i.26.5) states that there
is also a salt-water well at Aphrodisias in Caria. As he is speaking
of a sacred spring, it is natural to
assume that he is referring to an-

Diogenesof Aphrodisias:one of two
marble statues found in the odeum.
67

Archaeology Magazine - March 1965

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - March 1965