Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1905 — A LONG LOST CITY. [ARTICLE]

A LONG LOST CITY.

Tanagra, the Site of the Modern Town of Gremrtda, In Greece. Gremada is the name of the modern city in Boeotia, Greece, which occupies the site of the ancient city of Tanagra. The old town was a rich and luxurious place, greatly renowned for the cockfights that were given there. It had the honor of being the birthplace of Corlnna, the great poetess of the fifth century before Christ, and perpetuated her memory by a majestic tomb, on which she was represented five times crowned in remembrance of the five victories which she had gained in the lyrical contests with Pindar. Despite this comparative celebrity It appeared destined to the eternal sleep of forgetfulness when after more than twentytwo centuries of silence chance drew to it the attention of archaeologists. In 1870 the inhabitants of the neighboring villages while digging in their fields exposed to view some tombs which the French have assigned to the nineteenth century before the Christian era. The discovery of these first sepulchers was the cause of excavations, during which a quantity of other tombs were discovered, all situated along the roads which led from the walls of Tanagra in the direction of Thebes, Clialeis, Harnia and Platae. Among this mass of tombs belonging to several centuries the most interest attaches to those of the fourth century before the Christian era on account of their contents. It was in these particularly that tlie statuettes known today under the name of “Tanagra figurines” were for the most part discovered.