Apollo Under the Asphalt

At the corner of King George I and Filonos Streets, in the heart of Athens' seaport, Piraeus, last week, one of the most important Greek sculptures yet found came to light. Workmen ripping up the pavement found a pair of bronze hands protruding from the dirt four feet below street level. Archaeologists came on the run, uncovered a bronze Apollo, almost perfectly preserved, and worthy of the legendary sculptor Antenor, who lived in the 6th century B.C. The sculpture has much the same severity and grace that mark the bronze Charioteer at Delphi. It is a relic of the greatest moment in Greek art, when the archaic mold, adapted mainly from Egypt, began turning into the tender naturalism of the classical.

With the Apollo lay two lesser but still important finds: a bronze Muse from the era of Praxiteles and a fifth century marble column with the head of Hermes. Archaeologists speculate that an exporter may have warehoused the statues for shipment to Imperial Rome some time during the Augustan Age. and then lost track of them. At week's end four new finds were reported, including a bronze shield covered with bas-reliefs. Feverish digging continued. The street may yield more still.

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