treasures of Spata belong to the earlier part of the Phoenician period, if not to that which I have called Phrygian: there is as yet no sign of writing, no trace of the use of iron. But we seem to be approaching the close of the bronze age in Greece--to have reached the time when the lions were sculptured over the chief gateway of Mykenae, and the so-called treasuries were erected in honour of the dead. Can any date be assigned, even approximately, to those two periods of Phoenician influence in Greece? Can we localize the era, so to speak, of the antiquities discovered at Mykenae, or fix the epoch at which its kings ceased to build its long-enduring monuments, and its glory was taken from it? I think an answer to these questions may be found in a series of engraved gold rings and prisms found upon its site--the prisms having probably once served to ornament the neck. In these we can trace a gradual development of art; which in time becomes less Oriental and more Greek, and acquires a certain facility in the representation of the human form. Let us first fix our attention on an engraved gold chaton found, not in the tombs, but outside the _enceinte_ among the ruins, as it would seem, of a house.[32] On this we have a rude representation of a figure seated under a palm-tree, with another figure behind and three more in front, the foremost being of small size, the remaining two considerably taller and in flounced dresses. Above are the symbols of the sun and crescent-moon, and at the side a row of lions' heads. Now no one who has seen this chaton, and also had any acquaintance with the engraved gems of the archaic period of Babylonian art, can avoid being struck by the fact that the intaglio is a copy of one of the latter. The characteristic workmanship of the Babylonian gems is imitated by punches made in the gold which give the design a very curious effect. The attitude of the figures is that common on the Chaldean cylinders; the owner stands in front of the deity, of diminutive size, and in the act of adoration, while the priests are placed behind him. The latter wear the flounced dresses peculiar to the early Babylonian priests; and what has been supposed to represent female breasts, is really a copy of the way in which the breast of a man is frequently portrayed on the cylinders.[33] The palm-tree, with its single fruit hanging on the left side, is characteristically Babylonian; so also are the symbols that encircle the engraving, the sun and moon and lions' heads. The chaton of another gold ring, found on the same spot, is covered with similar animal heads. This, again, is a copy of early Babylonian art, in which such designs were not unfrequent, though, as they were afterwards imitated by both Assyrian and Cyprian engravers, too much stress must not be laid on the agreement.[34] The artistic position and age of the other ring, however, admits of little doubt. The archaic period of Babylonian