Diggers

Searching for treasures and art objects, early archaeologists burrowed recklessly into ancient ruins. Often they missed or destroyed the subtle hints and clues that tell modern diggers how ancient people lived. Professor Carl W. Blegen of the University of Cincinnati now tells how careful, new-style digging uncovered the apartment of a Greek queen of the Homeric Age, more than 3,000 years ago.

Queen's Boudoir. For five seasons Dr. Blegen's group has been working at a site near Pylos in southern Greece, where the ruins of a Mycenaean palace cover the top of a hill. Most famous inhabitant of Pylos was King Nestor of the Iliad, and it is probable that the palace once belonged to him and his Queen. Eurydice. The building, which had two floors, was burned to the ground after Nestor's death, but the blacked ruins can still tell much about the people who lived there.

Earlier digs uncovered the great hall where Nestor held court; this season the workers moved to the eastern wing of the palace. As their shovels cleared the floors of a suite of rooms, they sensed the feminine touch. "Nestorina [Mrs. Nestor]," they called to Dr. Blegen.

Queen Eurydice had a spacious reception hall with a circular fireplace in the center. Her boudoir had frescoed walls, and its stucco floor was gaily decorated with dolphins and octopuses. Like other parts of Nestor's palace, the Queen's apartments had terra-cotta pipes to carry off the smoke of the heating system. A small room, presumably a bathroom, had an underground drain. There was no bathtub, but since a terra-cotta tub was found in another part of the palace, Queen Eurydice may have had one too. Or perhaps her slave girls bathed her by pouring water over her. Vessels designed for this bathing system (still common in eastern countries) were found in her rooms.

Child's Toys. For six years, archaeologists of the University of Pennsylvania have been digging at the site of ancient Gordium, capital of the Phrygians, who ruled much of Asia Minor up to the yth century B.C. Dr. Rodney S. Young, leader of the dig, tells how an earthen mound near Gordium was probed with an oil-well pilot drill. Off to one side, presumably to foil grave robbers not equipped with modern scientific gadgets, was the tomb of a high-born Phrygian child who died about 2,600 years ago. The remains of five baby teeth were sifted out of the dust, and a bronze belt proved just long enough to fit a child about four years old.

Carefully packed in a big bronze kettle were toys that modern children would appreciate: wooden horses, one of them winged, a lion fighting a bull, a yoked ox. Perhaps the Phrygian child had been a "feeding problem" and had to be cajoled into eating his meals. At any rate, his tomb was furnished with special dishes for mealtime entertainment. One pitcher was like a goat's head with the horns for handles. Other vessels were modeled after geese, stags or rams.

While drinking from animal dishes, the Phrygian child may have worn diapers of a sort. Bronze safety pins found in the tomb suggest that children's underpinnings have not changed in 2,600 years.

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