The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 03 : $b Greece to the Peloponnesian War
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 03 : $b Greece to the Peloponnesian War
World history
intaglio ring from this site, admirably engraved with a cult scene,
in which women clad in flounced skirts are chiefly concerned, and the
worship seems to be of a sacred tree.
This treasure as a whole was admitted at once to be far too highly
developed in technique and ornament, and too individual in character,
to belong, as the lionesses over the gate used to be said to belong,
merely to a first stage in Hellenic art. It preceded in time the
classical culture of the same area; but, whether foreign or native,
it was allowed to represent a civilisation that was at its acme and
practically incapable of further development. So the bare fact of a
great prehistoric art-production, not strictly Greek, in Greece came to
be accepted without much difficulty. But before describing how its true
relations were unfolded thereafter, it may be mentioned that the site
of Mycenæ had yet much to reveal after Schliemann left it. Ten years
later the Greek Archæological Society resumed exploration there, and M.
Tsountas, probing the summit of the citadel, hit upon and opened out
a fragment of a palace with hearth of stucco, painted with geometric
design, and walls adorned with frescoes of figure subjects, armed men,
and horses. An early Doric temple was found to have been built over this
palace, a circumstance which disposed forever of the later dates proposed
for Mycenæan objects. Subsequently many lesser structures were cleared
in the east and southwest of the citadel area, which yielded commoner
vessels of domestic use, in pottery, stone, and bronze, and some more
painted objects, including a remarkable fragment of stucco, which shows
human ass-headed figures in procession, a tattooed head, and a plaque
apparently showing the worship of an aniconic deity. From the immense
variety of these domestic objects more perhaps has been learned as to the
affinities of Mycenæan civilisation than from the citadel graves. Lastly,
a most important discovery was made of a cemetery west of the citadel.
Its tombs are mostly rock-cut chambers, approached by sloping _dromoi_;
but there are also pits, from one of which came a remarkable ivory mirror
handle of oriental design. The chamber graves were found to be rich in
trinkets of gold, engraved stones, usually opaque, vases in pottery
and stone, bronze mirrors and weapons, terra-cottas and carved ivory;
but neither they nor the houses have yielded iron except in very small
quantity, and that not fashioned into articles of utility. The presence
of fibulæ and razors supplied fresh evidence as to Mycenæan fashions of
dress and wearing of the hair, and a silver bowl, with male profiles
inlaid in gold, proved that the upper lip was sometimes shaved. All the
great dome-tombs known have been cleared, but the process has added only
to our architectural knowledge. The tomb furniture had been rifled long
ago. Part of the circuit of a lower town has been traced, and narrow
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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