Two Tomb-groups from Selinus

Extract

K. M. T. Atkinson's study of two tomb-groups from Selinus in a recent volume of the Papers of the British School at Rome deserves attention for several reasons. It is the first time that the contents of any of these graves, excavated over fifty years ago, have been published as a whole. It is not easy in Palermo Museum to isolate and study individual grave-groups from Selinus, owing to the vicissitudes they have been through since they came out of the ground. Any publication of grave-groups has a value above that of the original vases; and many of these vases, particularly the bucchero, belong to classes which are interesting and too little studied. Mrs. Atkinson therefore deserves our gratitude for her careful and well-illustrated publication.

She goes on to draw conclusions which, if well established, would be of great historical value. No one has satisfactorily explained the existence of two well-supported dates for the foundation of Selinus, which is an important point of history and vital for absolute archaeological chronology. So her arguments and the dating of vases and graves on which she bases them deserve a rigorous examination. From such an examination it will appear that the date of the two graves and of most of their contents is substantially lower than she allows.