Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Side 87

SWEDISH EXCAVATIONS
77
north, and Holmberg has been able to demonstrate a particular
development with new interesting forms of pottery. Originally
all this Neolithic culture in Greece is connected with the Neolithic
areas in the Eastern Mediterranean, e. g. Cilicia and Cyprus. The
special types of pottery at Asea amongst other things show a
most interesting and technically perfect group of glazed patterned
ware. Also to the study of the development of pottery during
the Early and Middle Helladic Periods, the material of finds
from Asea are of very great importance. From these periods it
has also been possible to point out a number of interesting house
types, which together with the observations from Asine and
Malthi and other places in a valuable way supplement our
knowledge of prehistoric building customs in Greece.
Excavations in Cyprus.
When the Swedish Cyprus Expedition in 1927 started work
under the leadership of E. Gjerstad and with E. Sjöqvist and
A. Westholm as leaders each of his excavating department, and
with J. Lindros as general architect, it was evident to most scholars
that Cyprus, which had previously been badly neglected from
a scientific point of view, had played a very important role to
the cultural development in the Eastern Mediterranean.21 Ohne-
falsch-Richter’s, Myres’s, and not least Gjerstad’s own investiga-
tions have clearly demonstrated this. But our actual knowledge
of the huge material collected in most of the greater museums of
the world was insignificant, as in most cases this was collected
without scientifically made observations. This was the basis of
the investigations, and in order to reach an effective result quick-
ly, a large programme of excavation was drawn up, for the
purpose of elucidating all the periods down to Christian times.
Hence it was necessary to conduct excavations in a large number
of places and in as many ways as possible. In order to establish
the chronology, nearly 300 rock-tombs from different periods
with about 10,000 vases distributed among 900 different groups
21 A popular account on the activity of the Cyprus expedition is E. Gjer-
stad, Sekler och dagar, Stockholm 1943. Cf. —, Cypernexpeditionen
in Jorden ger, Stockholm 1931; —, Die schwedischen Ausgrabungen
auf Cypern, in Die Antike 1933, p. 261; —, Fynden fran Cypern,
Stockholm 1933; —, Brief Report on the Swedish Excavations in
Cyprus, in the Ass. Int. Studi Mediterranei, Bolletino 1933.