WOMAN FINDS LOST TEMPLE

Evening Star, Issue 21743, 11 June 1934, Page 9

WOMAN FINDS LOST TEMPLE

MALARIAL SWAMP FEAT NAPLES, May 23. Thanks to the enterprise of Dr Zan-cani-Montuoro, a woman archaeologist, the famous Greek temple of the Goddess Hera, said to have been founded by the Argonauts, has seen rediscovered. It lies in a malarial swamp about six miles from the dead city of Psestum, and two and a-half from the Mediterranean coast.

At one time it was the finest ot Greek temples, but it was sacked by pirates early in the present era. It was still revered, however,, until the silting up of the mouth of the River Silarus .turned a thickly-populated and gardenlike region into a waste. By the Middle Ages its very site had been forgotten. Dr Zancani-Montuoro, with the aid of the Magna Greca Archaeological Society, started a search for the site. Working for Several weeks, she went over every bit of the right and left banks of the river for a distance of nearly thirty miles. At last her patience was rewarded by the discovery of pieces of Greek tiles. A few days later she came across a fine Doric column of marble. It was half-buried in the marshland. After more than a week’s digging she now discovered 3,000 fragments of terra cotta statuettes, evidently' votive-offer-ings. Some of the heads undoubtedly belonged to the images of the goddess, Excavations are proceeding. It is hoped to find sufficient remains of the building to make it worth while either to drain the marshes nr to reconstruct it at Presto m.