"You ask me also my opinion with regard to the objects found by you at Mycenæ. There are several categories of these, which it would be unwise to confuse and consider as one--for they bear marks of different origins. It is impossible to mistake the Assyrian or Assyrio-Babylonian character of the gold objects which your fine excavations have brought to light in such great numbers. These ornaments are identical with those which we see on the Assyrian carvings in the museums of London and Paris; they have no resemblances to Egyptian jewelry. Two among them are characteristic, and may give rise to important discussions,--these are the two golden signet rings which you have published as figures 530 and 531. The seal of the first represents a religious ceremony, that of the plucking of the sacred plant: everything is Assyrian; the sun, with the crescent moon and the waters of heaven, the six days, the tree, the costume of the persons represented. The second is a kind of Asiatic hieroglyph, such as is often met with on the cylinders and carved stones of the countries along the Euphrates and the Tigris; it relates, beyond doubt, to some event which happened during the first of the great months of the year--that is to say, after the vernal equinox; the object at the left seems to indicate that it refers to some agricultural operation--reaping or sowing. However this may be, these two signets seem to me to have come to Mycenæ from an Asiatic country--perhaps from the banks of the Euphrates or Tigris. "I can tell you nothing in regard to the mass of fragments of pottery which you have taken from the excavations. They have a great resemblance to those found on all the shores of the Mediterranean. Their origin is now attributed to the commerce of the Phœnicians, or, more exactly, of the Sidonians; but perhaps there is some exaggeration in this. It is not probable that Sidon furnished all the pottery of the Mediterranean; and the character of the clay used by its manufacturers varied in different places; but the process of manufacture is nearly the same, and the character of the ornamentation changes but little. One is thus led to believe that the potter's art first came to the Mediterranean from the East, but that it was almost everywhere established in local factories at a very early period. [Sidenote: DATE OF THE CAPTURE OF MYCENÆ.]