I also found with the bodies many curious objects; for example, small cylinders with a small tube throughout their length, as well as square pieces composed of four such cylinders, of which however only those at the two extremities have perforations. All these things have a greyish-white colour, and consist of a very soft matter, which falls into dust when pressed but softly with the hand. In the interior of each cylinder there is a hard, blue transparent tube, which Professor Landerer has analysed and found to consist of cobalt glass. Within the blue tube again is a small thin white tube, which shines like silver, and Professor Landerer has found it to consist of a glassy substance containing lead (_bleihaltig_). According to Professor Landerer, this discovery proves that the ancient Myceneans knew the colouring of glass as well as the art of encompassing a tube of glass with a second and a third one.[273] He assures me that the analysis of Egyptian glass has given the same result, and he supposes that the cobalt-glasses were derived from Egypt. He further mentions that all present blue-coloured glasses are of such cobalt-glass. All these cylinders and square pieces of four cylinders must have served as ornaments of the corpses. The fabrication of glass was evidently in its very beginning at the time the tombs were constructed; but it seems to have made no progress here, for, except a few white glass pearls and some small ornaments of a glass paste, nothing was found of this article even in the upper strata, and it appears certain that at the capture of Mycenæ by the Argives (468 B.C.) even the small glass bottles, often found elsewhere, were still entirely unknown.