Page:Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in the British Museum (1908).djvu/194

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THESEUM, ERECHTHEUM, AND OTHER WORKS.

subject for an exercise in restoration by comparison with the Laborde head and others. Small as the fragment is, it suggests "a something" of that mysterious work the Venus of Melos.

The Nereid Monument from Xanthus.

This tomb building was discovered and excavated by Sir C. Fellows. A note-book by Scharf in the MSS. Room includes a diary of the finds, thus: "Dec. 12, 1843.—At the excavations several sculptures were found: a slab from the city series showing the walls in three horizontal tiers, with soldiers between the battlements; a portion of the small frieze, with broad mouldings, and a figure on horseback; a fine statue of a draped female. Dec. 14.—Some architectural sofifites [lacunars], with remains of colour in the centre of each, the ornaments being traced in fine lines of vermilion," &c. Scharf drew this ornament from the lacunars, and his drawing, together with many others, of Lycian monuments, are preserved in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities. His view of the basement and the site of the monument is published in the Museum Catalogue.

Fellows discovered a great number of sculptures and architectural members, most of which are now at the Museum. He found seven capitals, and a fragment of an angle volute, one whole shaft, large portions of others, and several bases, some cornice stones, showing traces of dentils on the lower side, pieces of gutter with lion's head spout, pieces of the raking cornice with evidence of marble tiling, the sculptured tympana of the pediments, the sculptured epistyle, with marks where it bore on the capitals, the egg and tongue moulding which surmounted the basement, with traces of the bases of the columns which rested on it and also of the sculptured Nereids which stood in the intercolumniations, some fine lions, fragments of a doorway with consoles, lacunar stones, antæ capitals, sculptured acroteria, and a large number of sculptured slabs, which were easily sorted into three series, which must have formed as many bands or friezes.

The style of the monument was in many respects different from other Lycian works; the marble was from Paros, the