Science: Muse of the Chorus

Athens, like Jerusalem, is a city so rich in antiquity that an archaeologist—or anyone else—has only to dig to uncover treasures of a golden age gone by a few weeks ago, a crew of Athenian sewer diggers ripping up the pavement of Aeolou Street, in Athens’ financial district, broke into a group of 30 ancient graves only six feet below street level. The find dated from about 500 B.C. Lifted reverently from the graves were many pyxides, the small, handsomely ornamented pottery jars in which women of the day kept cosmetics and other personal treasures. One pyxis dug out of modern Greece’s Wall Street contained a bronze mirror and the remains of some cosmetic cream. Most interesting find: a perfectly preserved pyxis showing six of the nine official muses of Greek mythology, and also an almost unknown muse. Choro, patron of the chorus of the Greek theater.