Wages and worth of labour at Mycenæ--The double circle of slabs--Two more sculptured _stêlæ_--Unsculptured _stêlæ_--Ashes and bones, probably of sacrifices--Fragments of other sculptured tombstones--The style of these _stêlæ_ unique--Their probable age about 1500 B.C.--A Cyclopean house filled with ashes, bones, &c.--Objects found there and in the twelve reservoirs--Great significance of the tombstones found in the Acropolis--They mark the Royal Tombs, mentioned by Pausanias from tradition only--Excavation of the Treasury close to the Lions' Gate: about as large as that of Atreus--Antiquity of the covering-up proved by the ancient vases, idols, &c. in the _débris_ above--Hera-idols, and others, found in the _dromos_, and in the Acropolis--Their vast abundance--Cow-heads on handles of vases, as at Troy--Moulds for earrings and other ornaments of gold and silver, and curious clay cones--Other ornaments of glazed clay, potstone, &c.--Numerous objects of bronze--Curious wheels--Necklace beads of various stones, with intaglios of animals, and similar objects of other shapes--Two-handled goblets; the δέπας ἀμφικύπελλον of Homer--Depth of the _débris_--Breach in the great Cyclopean wall, repaired by an ancient wall of small stones--The quarry of Mycenæ. Mycenæ, Sept. 9, 1876. * * * * * [Sidenote: WORK AND WAGES AT MYCENÆ.] Since the 19th of August I have continued the excavations with an average number of 125 workmen and 4 horse-carts, and have made good progress. As it may interest the reader to know what wages are paid here, I mention that the daily wages of a common labourer are 2½ drachmas,[199] the wages of my overseers 5 to 6 drachmas, and the cost of each cart 8 drachmas, but the labourers here work much better and are much more honest than those in the Troad. In the trench close to the Lions' Gate I have been obliged to stop the work for a time, the Archæological Society of Athens having promised to send an engineer to repair the Cyclopean wall above and beside the gate, and to fasten the sculpture of the two lions with cramp-irons, so as to secure it against the shock of an earthquake.