THE SUBMERGED CITY.

Shannon News, 10 August 1923, Page 3

THE SUBMERGED CITY.

RUINS OF ANCIENT CARTHAGE. SACRIFICAL RELICS IN URNS. ELOQUENT SYMBOLS OF PAST GLORY. The airplane, pressed into the service of archaeology, has yielded remarkable results in connection with our researches on the site of ancient Carthage, writes. Count Byron de Prorok in a message to the London "Daily News” from Carthage. Price Waldeck, piloted by Pelletier d’Oisy, the French ace, has taken a unique, film of the ruins of Carthage that lie beneath the sea. He has been able to follow the sea wall of the city and trace it under-water for seven miles. Tn this way, columns have been seen at a distance of a hundred yards from the shore. Search is now being over the Gulf of Tunis in the hope of locating sunken galleys. 1 propose leaving for the Sahara shortly to make an airplane search for lost ’ RUINS OF SIX CITIES. Some further details of the excavations carried out and' the important discoveries made since we began the second year’s operations may be interesting. After obtaining official permission, and equipped with pickaxes, ropes, shovels, etc., we started for the hill of : Juno to continue the exploration of the subterranean temple, the early Christian chapel, the Roma» palace, and Punic tombs located the previous year. It is amazing the quantity of archaeological treasure the soil of ancient. Cartilage contains. The first results were sufficient to fill a small museum—bronzes, gold rings, a necklack, 26 lamps of all epochs and, civilisations, ivory hairpins, hundreds of coins, and bits of glass and pottery. Carthage? once the proudest capital ol the -Mediterranean, has the ruins or six cities', one on top of the other, to dig through. Nearly all of it Is underground, covered up by the debris, of many destructions and the alluvial deposits of 15 centuries. Every day a relic of its past grandeur has been found by one ol the excavators, to be catalogued and placed in one of the cases installed in the new museum of the expedition. The most startling discovery was a quantity of huge teeth found at the bottom of a pit in the hillside where the Carthaginian elephants were supposed to have been kept. Nothing of Hannibal has ever been found in Carthage up to date, but a few ex-votos, with the name "Hanne Bal” on them, but we found a number of: objects reminiscent of the great days of the Punic wars, such as huge slug-stones and bits of rusted swords and armour. THE PUNIC REMAINS.

Everywhere we dug through beds of ashes to get to the Punic remains, in one corner we discovered a hoard of Vandal coins—of the period of Genseric—buried perhaps hastily at the time of the capture of the city by Belisarius and his Byzantine army.

In the early Christian chapel ove unearthed a bronze cross —a rare find —and near-by the tombs of thP Chfistiau martyrs of Carthage, with relics of Egyptians, Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines and Crusaders. There .were broken debris found of all these people, fragments of their lurid dtslinies in the form of a broken column, or the pathetic significance or a melted tear bottle, or a bronze mirror. Sometimes we are forced to put hundreds of bits together like a Chinese puzzle to. remake an inscription on au ancient vase. In the subterranean v temple there remains what once seemed to be the dressing-room of a Carthaginian actress. In this apartment was found perfume bottles, with the scent of the centuries: ivory hairpins, with the name Aris-at engraved on them; vaporisers in the form of sacred monkeys; grotesque masks used on the stage; bracelets and rings jewels, broken beads, several emeralds, and rock crystals. The soil we dig up in Carthage is passed through sieves of several dimensions- a long and tedious job, but very prolific in a city that lasted tor twenty centuries and had a million souls at a time living within the space of three square miles. We laid bare three mosaics in a month—one depicting a hunting scene of the fourth century, with the dogs in armour to protect them from the tusks of the boar —all in vivid colours and a delight to the eye. SACRIFICIAL RELICS.

One of the interesting chambers where we hope to continue our work Is the Temple of Tainit, where hundreds of urns were found containing the bones of li (tic children from the ages ol four months to 12 years, sacrificed alive to the cruel god of the Carthaginians, Baal Moloch. Very little is known about the Carthaginians,, and we hope to lay bare a great many long-buried secrets from this lost sanctuary. The world little knows how romantic and full of excitement ahd adventure archaeology is. It is one of the least-known of sciences, and full of human interest. We hope to interest the world in archaeology, with Carthage as the centre; to bring all lovers of art, history, legend and religion to see the actual unveiling of objects that awaken one to the Eeternal Past, so deeply connected with the Present.

Hannibal, Dido, St. Cyprian, St. Louis, Hamilcar, St. Augustine—' great names connected with great deeds, but nearly all forgotten—are brought back to us daily by the uncovering of numerous eloquent symbols of lost empires.