A prodigious quantity of pottery and other productions of art in gold, bronze, stone, and other materials, has been discovered in the graves and elsewhere at Mycenæ. Such variety do the treasures now stored in the Museum at Athens display that they are supposed to represent a period of artistic development extending from about 1600 to 1100 B.C. Among other things found were an ostrich egg, articles made of ivory, and a great number of amber beads, proving a connection both with Africa and the Baltic. Some of the artistic designs, too, such as those in which the papyrus and the lotus appear, show traces of intercourse with Egypt, which might also be inferred from the discovery of Mycenæan pottery at Thebes in that country. It is at Hissarlik (Troy), however, and in certain islands in the Ægean Sea, especially Crete, that the chief evidence of a civilisation like that of Mycenæ has been discovered. It is the opinion of experts that its origin may go as far back as 2500 B.C., and that its development in Crete may have been contemporaneous with the maritime empire which was associated with the name of Minos, whose influence extended as far as Sicily on the west, and which could hardly fail to be in touch with Asia Minor, Phœnicia, and Egypt. Whether the Mycenæan civilisation was due to the Achæan race of warriors described in Homer, or to Pelasgians, or to the Phœnicians, has not yet been fully determined. In some respects it does not tally with the conditions of the heroic age, of which Homer sings. For example, very few traces of iron have been found compared with what we might have expected from the number of allusions to it in Homer. The same is the case as regards the safety-pins for fastening the seamless garments which the Achæans wore. Moreover, Homer represents burning, not burial, as the usual mode of disposing of the dead. But it is possible that these differences may have belonged to different stages in the history of the Achæan civilisation, which was probably in a state of decadence when Homer wrote. In any case the places to which he gives prominence are generally found to have been centres of the civilisation in question. With regard to Mycenæ in particular, the epithets applied to it by the poet--“abounding in gold” and a “well-built city”--are singularly appropriate. Apart from its legendary dignity as the capital city of the “king of men,” there can be no doubt that Mycenæ was a place of great wealth and importance, partly owing to its trade in pottery and other works of art, but chiefly, perhaps, to its commanding position on the highway of commerce between Nauplia and Corinth--in other words, between the Argolic Gulf on the south and the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs on the north. The latter point is emphasised by a recent writer in the _Edinburgh Review_, who says: “Mycenæ is on the flank of the hills, and possesses good springs, that great treasure in the thirsty plains of Argolis.