sword-hilts, highly ornamented--Arrow-heads of obsidian--Boars' teeth--Large copper vessels--Custom of placing such vessels in tombs--A copper tripod--Uses of tripods in Homer--Bronze swords, lances, and knives--Some swords with parts of their wooden sheaths, alabaster handle-knobs, golden studs, &c.--Remnants of linen sheaths--Oyster-shells and unopened oysters--Broken pottery, indicative of a still existing funeral custom--The bones of the deceased--Alabaster vases--Hand-made and very ancient wheel-made pottery--Fragments of a characteristic form of goblet, both of terra-cotta and of gold--Another type of goblets--Two whetstones--A handle of unique work, gold encrusted with rock crystal, 'θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι.' Mycenæ, December 6, 1876. * * * * * Encouraged by my success, I resolved upon excavating the whole remaining space within the great parallel circle of slabs by which the Agora is enclosed, and my attention was particularly directed to the spot immediately west of the sepulchre last excavated, although the site was marked by no tombstone. But, at marked variance with the colour of the soil elsewhere, I found here only black earth, which, at a depth of 15 ft., was already intermixed with nothing else than hand-made and most ancient wheel-made pottery, showing that the site had not been disturbed since a remote antiquity; and this increased my hopes of making an interesting discovery. At a depth of 20 ft. below the former surface of the mount I struck an almost circular mass of Cyclopean masonry, with a large round opening in the form of a well; it was 4 ft. high and measured 7 ft. from north to south, and 5¼ ft. from east to west.[301] I at once recognised in this curious monument a primitive altar for funeral rites, and was strengthened in this belief by two slabs, in the form of tombstones, 2 ft. 9 in. long, and 1 ft. 6 in. broad, and a short column, which lay in a horizontal position below the altar, and which, in my opinion, must have once been erected on the spot to mark the site of a sepulchre. Fragments of beautiful hand-made or very archaic wheel-made pottery and knives of obsidian continued to be the only objects of human industry I met with. [Sidenote: AN ALTAR UPON A TOMB.] At last, at a depth of 26½ ft., and at a distance of only 4 ft. 7 in. from the tomb last described, I found a sepulchre, 24 ft. long, and 18½ ft. broad, which had been cut into the rock to the depth of 6 ft. on its west side, 10 ft. on the north side, 8 ft. on the south side, and on the east side 6½ ft. deep, its bottom being 33 ft. below the former surface of the mount.[302]