Mycenæ: a narrative of researches and discoveries at Mycenæ and TirynsSchliemann, Heinrich
History
Mycenæ: a narrative of researches and discoveries at Mycenæ and Tiryns
Schliemann, Heinrich
Mycenae (Extinct city); Tiryns (Extinct city)
The greater number of the vases with a large opening are painted both
outside and inside; and in many instances the internal paintings by far
exceed those on the outside in originality and profusion of colours.
Thus, for example, I found the fragment of a vase decorated outside with
representations of deer, and inside with those of men and women.
I often find fragments of tripods of terra-cotta with two large handles,
of which the three feet as well as the handles have two, three, four, or
even five perforations, which can only have served for suspension with a
string. On many vases without feet, the rim of the base is perforated on
either side as many times as the handles.
No perforated lids were found, but I have no doubt that they existed, and
that, as with nearly all those found in Troy, the perforations in the
vases served not only for hanging them up, but also for fastening the
lids, so as to secure the contents.
All the painted vases hitherto found have been made on the potter's
wheel, except the very small ones, which are evidently hand-made. It is
true that I found two fragments of coarse hand-made pottery, which can
only be compared to the rudest pottery of the Danish "kitchen-middens"
(_Kjökkenmöddinge_); but they had evidently been transported hither from
another place.
As at Tiryns, the goblets are for the most part of white clay, and in the
shape of large Bordeaux wine-glasses; nearly all have one handle (see
No. 83). But there are a great many other goblets of the same form which
have a uniform bright red colour, and others which, on a light red dead
ground, have an ornamentation of numerous parallel dark red circular
bands (see Nos. 84, 88).
[Illustration: No. 83. A Goblet of Terra-cotta. (3 M.) Size 5:8, about.]
It deserves very particular attention that goblets of perfectly the
same form were found by me in Troy at a depth of 50 feet (see my 'Atlas
des Antiquités Troyennes,' Plate 105, No. 2311); further, that fourteen
goblets of exactly the same form were found in the tomb at Ialysus in
Rhodes, already mentioned, and are now in the British Museum. Only the
painted ornamentation of these latter goblets is different, for it
represents mostly the cuttle-fish (sepia), but also spirals, or that
curious sea-animal which so frequently occurs on the pottery of Mycenæ
(see No. 213, _a_, _b_, p. 138), but never on the Mycenean goblets.
[Illustration: Nos. 84-89. Fragments of Painted Pottery. Half-size.]
[Sidenote: HERA-IDOLS IN TERRA-COTTA.]
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