I may further remind the reader of the large treasure of elaborately ornamented gold and silver vases and other jewels, as well as of bronze vessels and vases, arms, etc., recently discovered in a tomb at Palestrina in Italy (the ancient Præneste), and attributed to the seventh century B.C.,--"that period at which the influence of the civilization and industry of the East dominated in Etruria and Latium, before those countries became subject to the force of Hellenic genius--the period when the two currents of Assyrian and Egyptian luxury and thought had become intermingled in their effect upon art, and spread by the Phœnician artisans and traders through the Western countries whither they carried their productions, ornamented according to the ideas they had imbibed, from the banks of the Euphrates on the one side, and the Nile on the other."[397] I also call attention to the sepulchre of Corneto, the contents of which, as I have before stated, are in the Museum of Berlin. This tomb, which belongs to an epoch anterior to the influence of Greek culture in Italy, and therefore anterior to the seventh century B.C., contains not only the armour and weapons, but also the whole household furniture, copper kettles, drinking vessels, and so forth, of a rich warrior. I hardly think it necessary to remind the reader of the custom in ancient Egypt of burying the dead with treasures, for all the collections of Egyptian antiquities in the world are procured from Egyptian tombs. My learned friend Dr. Karl Blind, in his excellent pamphlet, entitled 'Fire Burial,' cites the Odin Law in Scandinavia, which reads as follows:--"Odin ordained that the dead should be burnt, and that everything that had been theirs should be carried to the pyre. He said that every one should go up to Walhalla with as many riches as would be heaped upon his pyre, and that he should enjoy in Walhalla all those things also which he had hidden away in the earth. The ashes should be thrown into the sea, or be buried deep in the soil; but for illustrious men a mound should be raised as a token of remembrance." Dr. Blind also gives in the same pamphlet the description of Beowulf's funeral, to prove that it was also the habit with the Anglo-Saxons to burn their dead with treasures:-- "Geatland's men for him then made A pyre broad, most firmly built, With helms bedeckt, with war-shields hung, And armour bright, as he them bade. In the midst they laid, the sorrowing heroes, Their mighty ruler, their beloved lord." Thus we have the proof that in a remote antiquity it was the custom in Babylon, Egypt, Italy, Macedonia, Scandinavia, and Germany, to bury the rich with their treasures, and my excavations have proved that this custom existed also at Mycenæ in the time of the Atridæ. FOOTNOTES: [367] Described on p. 311. I call particular attention to the fact that the engraving represents the mask in only one-fifth of its actual size. [368] Thucyd. I. 8-10.