Margarete Bieber

"We owe our knowledge of pre-Greek art in Crete in large measure to the excavations of . The six volumes of Evans' publication of The Palace of Minos at Knossos, which appeared between 1921 and 1936, aroused a storm of enthusiasm for this marvelous civilization until then unknown. Cretan art is not only fundamentally different from but aesthetically superior to Egyptian and Oriental art. was from the beginning a close observer of this newly-discovered civilization and an important contributor to the vast literature which sprang up as a consequence of the many problems surrounding . I remember his guided tours for Fellows of the , whose director he became. They introduced us to this new civilization in the same clear and competent manner that I now find in his last book, written when he was 88 years old. … It is the best first introduction to Cretan art I know."

"The history of the cult of in Rome has been well investigated and is well known ... In 204 B.C. a meteorite was brought from in to Rome. It came on a ship named Salvia up the Tiber. When the ship got stuck in the shallow waters, , an aristocratic maiden, freed it and drew it upstream with her belt. This miracle is reported by Ovid (Fasti, 4, 291-348) in the time of Augustus. It is still represented on an altar in the Capitoline Museum dedicated by Claudia Syntyche, probably in the Antonine period ... The same event is represented on a medallion for , that is after death and deification in 141 A.D. by her husband the emperor ... The statue, or rather the sacred stone, representing Cybele was then brought up to the , where under lively participation by the aristocracy was dedicated to the and a temple was erected and dedicated in 191 B.C. Augustus restored this temple as he did many other temples in Rome."

"I am to archaeologists what the is to tourists. They keep coming to see if the old lady is still around. And working."