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)
There were further found with the five bodies of the fourth sepulchre
twelve buttons of wood, in the form of crosses, plated with gold, which
present a most magnificent ornamentation of intaglio and _repoussé_
work (see Nos. 377-386).[329] The largest of them (No. 377) is a little
more than 3½ in. in length and is 2⅛ in. broad. The most curious thing
is, that all the wooden buttons present exactly the same beautiful
ornamentation as the gold plate which covers them, as can be seen on
the aforesaid large button in the place where part of the gold plate is
missing. The question, therefore, naturally arises, in what manner this
effect can have been produced. On mature reflection, we arrive at the
conviction that it cannot possibly have been done in any other way than
the following. The pieces of wood were first shaped, and on them was
carefully and artistically carved in low-relief all the ornamentation
which we now see on the gold plate in _repoussé_ work. After that, the
wooden buttons were covered with the gold plate, which, having been well
attached on the reverse side, was hammered on the buttons, and in this
manner the low-relief ornamentation of the wood was reproduced in the
gold plate. When this had been done, the intaglio work was made in the
gold plate, which being very thin, all the cuts were at once impressed as
deeply into the wood as into the gold. I think this is the only way to
explain this wonderful work.
The form of all these cross buttons is that of a _lozenge_; nine of them
being ornamented at each acute, as well as at each obtuse angle, with two
protruding globular pieces, each of which has four concentric circles
in intaglio. Only two of the cross buttons (Nos. 382 and 384) have on
each acute angle three such protruding globular pieces, and one (No.
380) has three of them at all four corners. The button (No. 378) has, in
its interior lozenge, a broad border, adorned with thirty-two beautiful
little crosses, each of which has a point in the centre, and within this
border, two spirals in the form of an Omega, which stand opposite each
other, and are crowned with branches, apparently, of a date tree; to the
right and left are small rosettes. On the large button (No. 377), the
border of the interior lozenge is filled all round with small circles
in intaglio, and within we see in the middle a double circle, filled
with a spiral ornamentation, likewise in intaglio, and on each side of
the circle a spiral, in the form of an Omega, and some smaller spirals
and signs, all in _repoussé_ work. No. 379 has simply a border of two
lines, within which is a circle with a spiral ornamentation, and in each
acute angle a spiral in the form of an Omega. On this button only the
last-named spiral is _repoussé_, the rest is intaglio. Still more simple
is the ornamentation of No. 381, in which the border consists also of two
lines, and the internal space is filled by two signs in form of Omegas,
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