Archaeologists Here Have Made Very Important Find Photos

Athens —

A team of American and Greek archaeologists working outside the city said they hit paydirt last month when they pulled a set of bronze statues and inscribed tablets from the ruins of a small sanctuary. The objects date back more than 2,500 years and appear to have been left as offerings during a time when Athens was still finding its footing as a power.

The dig had been going slowly through rocky soil when one of the field assistants noticed a glint of metal. What followed were several days of careful brushing and lifting that produced three intact figurines of athletes and a stack of thin tablets covered in early Greek script. Photos released by the team show the pieces still caked in dirt but clearly preserved.

Local officials were quick to call the haul unusual. Most finds from the same period come from bigger, better-known sanctuaries, so this smaller site is giving researchers a closer look at how ordinary people took part in religious life. One tablet mentions a local merchant making a gift after a safe sea crossing, a detail that lines up with what historians already suspect about trade routes but had never seen written down this way.

The artifacts are now at the National Archaeological Museum for cleaning and study. The excavation team plans to return to the same trench in the spring once the ground thaws. For now, the early photos and notes are already circulating among specialists who study the period, and a few of them have said the tablets could help settle arguments about how writing spread outside the big city centers.