[2] Since this Preface was put in type, the fragments of an ostrich egg, originally mistaken for an alabaster vase, have been tested and verified. This object seems to afford a new indication of prehistoric relations between Mycenæ and Egypt. [3] In the remarkable Museum of the Royal Academy of Ireland are two swords referred to the Danish period, which were taken out of a bed of mud. After a repose of perhaps a thousand years, they do not exhibit corrosion to the common eye. But the case is considered exceptional, and probably due to some peculiar ingredient in the moisture. [4] I do not think it proved that, as Schliemann seems to convey (p. 84), the chariot-box was removed and fastened on each occasion of using it. The passages in _Il._ XXIV. 190 and 267 refer to the _peirins_ of the waggon. In _Od._ XV. 131, it is simply mentioned as a portion of the carriage, with no reference to detaching it. [5] Ikmalios is mentioned in _Od._ XIX. 57 as the maker of a chair inlaid with ivory and silver. I cannot doubt that this was foreign, since it is marked as the work of a former age: ἥν ποτε τέκτων ποίης᾽ ᾽Ικμάλιος, "which erewhile Ikmalion with cunning hand had made" (Norgate). 'Erewhile' will not be found in Todd or Latham: but it is in Shakespeare, and the Dictionary of Worcester and Webster contains it. [6] 'Homeric Synchronism,' pp. 171 _seq._ I do not here enter on the curious question what is the precise meaning of γυναῖα δῶρα. [7] 'Troy and its Remains,' pp. 369, 371. [8] 'Troy and its Remains,' p. 361. One of these had only about four per cent. of tin. Could this have been a native admixture? [9] 'Troy and its Remains,' p. 335. [10] I wish here to call attention to the fact that, as always (I believe) in the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, the moon is on this ring also distinguished from the sun, not by its size, but by its being a crescent moon. In truth, the distinction of size, to the common eye, is variable; and is sometimes against the sun. Two full-formed globes of equal diameter would have presented a picture alike defective in composition and in meaning: and ancient art, not content with this, seized, more poetically as I think, upon the distinction of character in the two bodies respectively. Homer, as I contend, has exactly followed this form of representation in his σελήνην τε πλήθουσάν: and I venture to hope that the sense of growing, filling, waxing, or crescent moon will now be allowed to prevail over the more customary rendering of 'full' moon (_Il._ XVIII. 434). [11] Juvenal, _Sat._ X. 147. [12] See, _e.g._, the print in Manning's 'Land of the Pharaohs,' p. 129. [13] Mr. Percy Gardner, in the _Academy_, April 21, 1877. [14] 'Homeric Synchronism,' p. 240. [15] These marks, I now learn from Dr. S., are universal. [16] Hor. _Od._ II. 1. 8. DR. SCHLIEMANN'S ACCOUNT OF A TOMB AT SPATA, IN ATTICA. _Athens, 1st Oct., 1877._