Add MS 46890 A(53)

Genre: Archaeological Photography

Close view of section of frieze. Prints 53-57 form part of the enclosure with Newton's despatch no. 19 of 12 June 1857: 'I have been enabled to complete the digging of the northeastern angle and I had the satisfaction of finding here two more slabs of frieze, one six feet long, the other rather shorter. The longest of these two pieces represented a combat between a mounted Amazon and two Greeks. The Amazon is seated with her face to the horse's tail and is drawing her bow in the Parthian manner. In the other slab [print 54] the Amazon is on foot. These two compositions are remarkable for the boldness and originality of the action. Most of the heads of the figures are preserved. There are traces of red colour on the inside of one of the shields. These two slabs of frieze and the two previously discovered were all lying in the same line along the eastern front of the mausoleum. It is I think almost certain that they belong to that side of the building as slabs of such great weight could not have been moved far from the place where they originally fell without much greater injury to the surface than these have sustained ... The addition of these four slabs from the site of the Mausoleum to those previously acquired by the British Museum will make up an entire length of at least eighty feet of frieze. No museum in Europe can shew so magnificent a series of High Reliefs as this will form.' (Mss. Add. 46889A ff. 90-91). Reproduced as a tinted lithograph in Charles Thomas Newton, 'A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus and Branchidae' (2 vols., London, 1861), vol. 1, plate 10 (top). For another copy, see Mss. Add. 31980 (11).