The excavator also claimed to have found the omphalos itself.
But two difficulties face the would-be excavator in Alexandria.
It remained for the more robust faith of a Schliemann to show that such scepticism was all too faint-hearted, by proving that at such sites as Tiryns, Mycenae and Hissarlik evidences of a very early period of Greek civilization awaited the spade of the excavator.
When, in 1880, General Pitt-Rivers obtained possession of his great-uncle's estates-practically untouched by the excavator since they had been the battleground of the West Saxons, the Romans and the Britons-he devoted himself to exploring them.
We are using a long reach excavator to nibble away at the stadium structure.
