But it is in precious metals, and in the kindred technique of gem-cutting, that Mycenæan art effects its most distinctive achievements. This is, as we have said, an age of metal. That stone implements had not entirely passed out of use is attested by the obsidian arrow-heads found in the circle graves, and the flint knives and basalt axes which lay beside vases of the full “Mycenæan” style at Cozzo del Pantano in Sicily. But they are survivals, unimportant beside the objects in copper, bronze, and precious metals. Iron has been found with remains of the period only as a great rarity. Some five rings, a shield boss, and formless lumps alone represent it at Mycenæ. In the fourth circle grave occurred thirty-four vessels of nearly pure copper. Silver makes its appearance before gold, and is found moulded into bracelets and bowls, and very rarely into figurines. Gold is more plentiful. Beaten, it makes face-masks, armlets, pendants, diadems, and all kinds of small votive objects; drawn, it makes rings whose bezels are engraved with the burin; riveted, it makes cups; and overlaid as leaf on bone, clay, wood, or bronze cores, it adorns hundreds of discs, buttons, and blades. Next to Mycenæ in wealth of this metal ranks Enkomi in Cyprus, and pretty nearly all the tombs of the later period have yielded gold, conspicuously that of Vaphio. From the town sites, _e.g._, Phylakopi in Melos, and Knossos, it has disappeared almost entirely. Detached from the mass of golden objects which show primitive or tentative technique, are a few of such elaborate finish and fineness of handiwork, that it is hard to credit them to the same period and the same craftsmen. The Mycenæ inlaid dagger-blades are famous examples, and the technical skill, which beat out each of the Vaphio goblets in a single unriveted plate, has never been excelled. We are fortunate in possessing very considerable remains of all kinds of construction and structural ornament of the Mycenæan period. The great walls of Mycenæ, of Tiryns (though perhaps due to an earlier epoch), and of the sixth layer at Hissarlik, show us the simple scheme of fortification--massive walls with short returns and corner towers, but no flank defences, approached by ramps or stairs from within and furnished with one great gate and a few small sally-ports. Chambers in the thickness of the wall seem to have served for the protection of stores rather than of men. The great palaces at Knossos and Phæstos, however, are of much more complicated plan. Remains of much architectural decoration have been found in these palaces--at Mycenæ, frescoes of men and animals; at Knossos, frescoes of men, fish, and sphinxes, vegetable designs, painted reliefs, and rich conventional ornament, such as an admirably carved frieze in hard limestone; at Tiryns, traces of a frieze inlaid with lapis-lazuli glass, and also frescoes. The rough inner walls, that appear now on these sites, must once have looked very different.