Charles Robert Cockerell: Travels in Southern Europe and the Levant 1810-1817.London 1903 First edition,tall 8vo, publishers light brown hard covers,slightly dusted,text clean and bright,complete 285p.,overall in very good plus condition. The British architect and archaeologist Charles Cockerell (1788-1863),a devoted Philhellene, travelled in Greece in the early 19th century.His personal journals finally published by his son, almost a century after the events they describe.Cockerell's journey took place in 1810-1812, toward the Ottoman Empire and the Levant. His travel account is a masterpiece of early 19th-century exploration, but it remained in manuscript form for decades.Cockerell is best remembered for two massive archaeological finds,In Aegina,during 1811 at the Temple of Aphaia,which Cockerell called the Temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, he and a group of Ξένοι (Xeni),international scholars, discovered the pedimental sculptures. These ancient Greek masterpieces were eventually sold to the Prince of Bavaria and are now a highlight of the Glyptothek in Munich.In 1812 they travelled in Morea, and at Phigaleia,at the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae, Cockerell helped unearth the spectacular frieze depicting the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapiths. This frieze was purchased by the British government and is now in the British Museum.The edition includes important annotations and a detailed preface by his son that provide context for the elder Cockerell's sketches and notes. Cockerell was a contemporary of Lord Byron and provides one of the most vivid firsthand accounts of the poet visit in Athens. As an architect, Cockerell’s descriptions of ruins are uniquely precise. He wasn't just looking at the romance of the stone; he was measuring the columns and analyzing the construction methods.A fundamental travel account on the discovery of main Greek archaeological sites and their looting by the Europeans.