Following on this noble foundation, other collectors worked in Greece and Asia Minor, and the British Museum profited by the labors of Burgon, Fellows, and Woodhouse between 1840 and 1860. The diplomatically supported work of Newton on the Mausoleum (1857–58), and Wood at Ephesus (1863–75), filled out our knowledge of the middle period of Greek art (350 B. C.). Comparatively little has been done since then by England, but the activity of the Germans at Olympia has given us the only original masterpiece that is known—the Hermes of Praxiteles (350 B. C.), and their work at Pergamon revealed the great altar belonging to the later age (180 B. C.). The excavations at Athens (in 1886) have produced the impressive statues dedicated to Athene about 520 B. C., which reveal the noble rise of Attic sculpture. But attention during the last quarter-century has been largely fixed upon the earlier ages. The discoveries of Schliemann at Hissarlik (Troy, 1870–82), Mycenæ (1876), Orchomenos (1880–81), and Tiryns (1884), opened a new world of thought and research. Though at first bitterly attacked, it is now agreed that these discoveries show us the civilization of Greece between 2000 and 1000 B. C. Lastly, during ten years past Egypt has provided the solid chronology for prehistoric Greece by discoveries of trade between the two countries. We can now very briefly estimate the present position of our knowledge as gained during the century. Setting aside the early foreign pottery found in Egypt, which belongs probably to Greece or Italy at 5000 and 3000 B. C., we first touch a civilized city in the lowest town of Troy, where metal was scarcely yet in use, which is certainly before 2000 and probably about 3000 B. C. in date. Succeeding that is the finely built second Troy, rich in gold vases and ornaments, which—though mistaken by Schliemann for the Homeric Troy—must yet be long before that, probably before 2000 B. C. After the burning of that come three other rebuildings before we reach the town of the age of Mycenæ, about 1500 B. C. Of this, which was in Greece the climax of the prehistoric civilization, there are the splendid treasures found at Mycenæ, the magnificent domed tombs, the abundance of fine jewelry and metal-work, of beautiful pottery and glazed ornament. To this age belong the great palaces of Mycenæ, Tiryns, Athens, and other hill fortresses, of which hardly more than the plans can now be traced. And it is this civilization which traded eagerly with Egypt, exchanging the valued manufactures of each country. This period was at its full bloom from 1500–1200 B. C., and began to decay by 1100 B. C., this dating being given by the contact with Egypt.