Philoctetes Was Here

Some 3,100 years ago, the Aegean island of Chryse (pronounced Cry-see) soared rocketlike into brief prominence in the Mediterranean world. According to Homer's Iliad, what made the mighty Achilles sulk in his tent before Troy was the aftermath of a quarrel over the daughter of Chryses, high priest of the tiny island's temple of Apollo. Another famed Greek warrior, the archer Philoctetes, never got beyond Chryse; stopping off there on his way to Troy, Philoctetes was fatally bitten by a viper loosed on him, according to legend, by a local nymph whose advances he had spurned. But after that, mythology's Baedeker records little of Chryse, and some time about 240 B.C. the island mysteriously disappeared --sunk under the Aegean, so historians conjectured, by one of the earthquakes common in the area.

Last summer, intrigued by the legend of Chryse, a skindiving Italian nobleman, the Marquis Piero Nicola Gargallo, set out to find the vanished island. A serious amateur archaeologist, Gargallo, 32, centered his search in the area favored by traditional archaeological opinion--near the Dardanelles, on the ancient Greek invasion route to Troy. For tips on the island's precise location, he reread the pertinent passages in Homer and other ancients. Then, studying a detailed British navy map, he came upon a sunken land mass known as Kharos Bank, a 10-sq.-mi. area near the island of Lemnos, mentioned by Homer in connection with Chryse.

Guessing that Kharos Bank was a submerged piece of high ground, Gargallo sought confirmation from local sponge divers, fishermen and sailors--all of whom casually replied that, oh, yes, there were building blocks visible on the sea bottom at Kharos Bank. Diving alone with an Aqua-Lung in the face of strong currents, Gargallo maneuvered his way along the floor of the bank, which he found strewn with bits of pottery. After ten days' search, at a depth of 40 ft., he came upon scores of rectangular white stone blocks, which he believes to be the remains of Chryses' temple of Apollo.

Last week, from his Roman apartment, tall, balding Piero Gargallo was laying plans for another full-scale expedition to Chryse and its surroundings. Says he excitedly: "The entire Aegean and Mediterranean are one vast undersea museum.

Anything you want--columns, amphorae, ceramics--it's all there for the taking."

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