Diggers

Archeologists, proud plunderers of time, last week retrieved from the debris of centuries a pair of treasures from ancient Greece:

P: Digging near the cucumber-and tomato-growing village of Vraona on the east coast of Attica, Dr. John Papadimitriou, director of antiquities in Greece's Ministry of Education, uncovered 15 wooden vases carved in geometrical designs--the first such find in history. Knowing that fresh air would decompose the wood, which had been preserved in fertile mud since the 8th or 6th century B.C., the archeologist rushed them 23 miles to Athens for a thorough preservative bath.

P: Starting from Troy in 1932, Professor . John L. Caskey of the University of Cincinnati has dug his way along the fabled trade routes of the Aegean Sea. Last summer he stopped at the island of Kea, reckoning that its wind-sheltered harbor offered a natural anchorage for ancient mariners. Caskey was right. This summer, on Kea's St. Irene peninsula, he found a Mycenean settlement dating back 3,500 years, complete with temple, palace, private homes with inside plumbing, and a municipal sewer system. Scattered through the town were fragments of delicate Cretan pottery. The settlement was probably destroyed by an earthquake in 1400 B.C., but not before the imported arts and crafts of Cretan voyagers had influenced the more primitive local population. "What we call the miracle of Greek civilization," said Caskey, "did not come out of nothing."

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