Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/248

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CJETEWAYO.

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menced the excavations which have made him famous. Among the ruins of a temple in the neighbotir- hood he dug up a bronze vase con- taining some 600 coins of the time of Philip and Alexander of Macedon, and the Ptolemies. Subsequently he took a summer residence at Bali, twenty miles from Lamaca, occupy- ing the site of the ancient Idalium^ once noted for the temple of the Cypriote Venus. Here he opened more than 15,000 tombs, and secured many objects of interest. He was still more successful at Golgoi, in the immediate neighbourhood, where he discovered the buried foundation of the ancient temple of Venus, and exhumed nearly 1000 statues and statuettes, mosUy in a fl^ood state of preservation. In 1870 nis collection was examined by an agent for the Imperial Museum at St. Petersburg, who estimated the whole number of objects at about 18,000. The Emperor Napoleon at this time made a liberal offer for the collection, which he proposed to pre- sent to the Imperial Museum of the Louvre ; but before Cesnola's letter of acceptance reached Paris, the Em- peror was a prisoner. Inl872hesent the whole collection to London for sale. The vessel by which the coins were sent was burnt at sea, and they were lost. The collection was exa- mined by experts from the British Museum, who fully recognised its value ; but there were no funds im- mediately available for its purchase. A few American gentlemen sub- scribed the sum required (more than jB15,000), and thus secured it for the projected Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Ceenola devoted the proceeds of this sale to further researches, in the course of which he traversed almost every square league of the island of Cyprus, ffis most important "find" was on the deserted site of the an- cient Curium. Here he found the most considerable ruins yet dis- covered on the island. In the course of his excavations he dis-

covered four subterranean cham- bers, in which were found a large number of ornaments of gold, armlets, necklaces, bracelets, pre- cious stones, rings, and eng^ved gems of the most exquisite work- manship, and which, taken together, form a complete history of the glyptic art from the earliest times to the period of its highest perfec- tion. The "Curium Treasures** have also been purchased for the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, of which in 1879 he was made Director. The entire Cesnola Collection, the exhumation of which occupied nearly ten years, comprises nearly 40,000 distinct objects, nearly aU of them unique, and many of them of the highest archsBological and ethnological value. General Cesnola has published a narrative of his operations, under the title " Cyprus : its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples," 1878.

CETEWAYO, King of Zululand, is a son of King Umpanda, who long reigned over that country. In 1856 six of King Umpanda's sons were slain in a battle with Cete- wayo, waged with them for the purpose of furthering his own ambitious purposes. Cetewayo overcame his brother Umbulazi, and virtually King Umpanda was superseded in favour of his vic- torious son. In 1859 a sort of coaUtion was patohed up. King Umpanda was declared to be too old to work or fight, but not too old to think ; so that Cetewayo was taken in to share the duties of royalty, the father being termed the head and the son the feet of the nation. Umpanda died in 1873 . He had been tlurty-five years on the Zulu throne, and during his rei^ peace had been oonstently maintained with the English. After the term of mourning prescribed by Zulu etiquette for the death of his father, tiie coronation and instal- lation of Cetewayo, who had prac- tically assumed the government of Zululand since 1857> took place in