I have not been more lucky with the twelve small reservoirs formed of four large slabs, for they contain nothing else than the remnants of household utensils, and particularly fragments of archaic vases.

The four sculptured and five unsculptured sepulchral slabs undoubtedly mark the sites of tombs cut deep in the rock, the exploration of which, however, I must needs delay until I have terminated all my excavations in the northern part of the Acropolis.

The presence of these numerous sepulchres near the Lions' Gate, and thus in the most prominent part of the citadel, in a place where one would have expected to find the king's palace, is very significant; the more so, as the slabs of the two parallel rows perfectly resemble the five unsculptured tombstones and the slabs of the twelve small reservoirs, and all these monuments appear to have been erected simultaneously.

I know of no example in history of an acropolis having ever served as a burial place, except the small building of the Caryatides in the Acropolis of Athens, which was called the Sepulchre of Cecrops, the first king of Athens. But we now know with certainty that Cecrops is nothing else than Kacyapa or Cacyapa, who was a sun-god, and thus the story of Cecrops having been buried in the Acropolis is a pure myth. But here in the Acropolis of Mycenæ the tombs are no myth, they are a tangible reality. But who have the great personages been, and what immense services did they render to Mycenæ, to have received the signal honour of such a burial place?

I do not for a moment hesitate to proclaim that I have found here the sepulchres which Pausanias, following the tradition, attributes to Atreus, to the "king of men" Agamemnon, to his charioteer Eurymedon, to Cassandra, and to their companions. But it is utterly impossible that Pausanias should have seen these tombstones, because, when he visited Mycenæ, about 170 A.D., all the sepulchral monuments had for ages been covered by a layer of prehistoric débris, from 8 to 10 ft. thick, on which an Hellenic city had been built and had again been abandoned about four centuries before his time, after having added a layer of Hellenic ruins, 3 ft. thick, to the deep stratum of prehistoric remains. Thus he could only have known of the existence of these sepulchres by tradition.

In the Treasury close to the Lions' Gate the work advances but very slowly, the soil being as hard as stone, and only to-day has my trench reached a sufficient depth to enable me to begin the excavation of the triangular space above the door. My supposition that this Treasury would turn out to be nearly of the same size as the Treasury of Atreus seems to be confirmed by the width of the approach ("dromos"), which is in the latter 20 ft. 7 in., in the former 19 ft. 8 in., broad.

These conical buildings, 50 ft. high, were constructed under the slope of a hill, and were destined to remain subterranean: for, as before stated, the outside surface of the stones is quite irregular, and the whole building is covered all round with a thick layer of stones, the weight of which holds the masonry fast together. I feel certain that the tradition is correct which says that these mysterious buildings served as the store-houses of the wealth of the early kings; but there can be no doubt that as long as they served as treasuries the "dromos" and the entrance gate were unobstructed, and the great question, therefore, arises, why and when were the "dromos" and the gate hidden under the tremendous masses of débris?

It has been asserted that they were buried at the time of the Dorian invasion; but did the excavation of the Treasury of Atreus in 1810 by Veli Pasha, the son of Ali Pasha, produce anything else than a stone table, a few sculptured slabs, and fragments of brazen plates? and was it worth while to bury empty treasuries? But it is a fact that they were buried, and, as to the chronology of the event, the pottery in the layer of débris, which covers the "dromos" of each, gives us fortunately some clue, for I find there continually very ancient painted pottery with geometrical patterns, resembling the Attic vases which until now have been considered as the most ancient terra-cottas in Greece; as well as very rude terra-cotta idols of Hera in the female and cow forms. The style of the pottery is seen in the annexed piece (No. 157), which shows to the right of the handle a 卍 of which only part is visible, and then follows a row of the frequently recurring animal in form of a crane, but which may have been intended to represent a horse, and after that follows a beautiful band of key-patterns. On another fragment (No. 158) is only a row of the same birds or horses between two bands, each of three parallel circular lines; also a small can, ornamented with vertical lines, was found there. Of course it is perfectly certain that the débris which covers the entrance has been brought there from other places, but as it contains solely fragments of very ancient painted terra-cottas nearly all of them with geometrical patterns, the filling-up of the entrance must have been already effected in a remote antiquity, and the Treasury itself is doubtless more ancient than the Treasury of Atreus.

Of the idols found in the "dromos" before the Treasury now in question the most ancient Hera-idols, in the shape of a woman, are very rudely made, sometimes without painted ornaments, and they have a head either oblong or round, with or without a diadem, and large eyes. Some are with breasts, others without; the hands are either protruding or folded on the breast. To the same epoch no doubt belong the female idols with a very compressed bare head, large eyes, outstretched hands, and no breasts; or with two breasts, below which a horn protrudes on each side, so that both horns together form a semicircle;[206] also the male idol, with its head ornamented in front with a diadem, bearing a star, a long aquiline nose, large eyes, and a long protruding beard;[207] and some very archaic cow idols, with painted red or black ornamentation (see No. 118, p. 74); also the fragment of a vase of granite, and a small female figure in silver with long hair.

In the Acropolis the most common idols are those of Hera as a woman with horns or in the shape of a cow. In fact, they are so abundant that up to this time I have been able to gather more than (say) 700 of them, but all are more or less mutilated. Among the forms of the idols found abundantly in the Acropolis I must further mention that with a round uncovered bird's head,[208] and that with a very compressed head, with large eyes, and a polos in the form of a bowl, on which is often painted a cross; both these idols hold their hands on the breasts, and have no characteristic of the cow.[209] I may further mention the very frequently occurring idol, the whole middle part of which is in the form, or nearly so, of a disk,[210] and which may have been intended primitively to represent the full moon, because Hera was originally the moon-goddess, and her cow-horns, and subsequently her whole cow-character, cannot but be derived from the symbolic horns of the crescent moon. Lastly, I have to mention the less frequent female idol with a perfectly modelled cow-head; but this type is only found on the handles of vases, and the body of the woman is always incomplete, never reaching further down than the breast, and frequently finishing with the neck, on which the necklace is never forgotten.[211] By a strange coincidence the three or four terra-cotta cow-heads found in Troy were likewise on the handles of vases.[212] One headless Hera-idol was found, with two well preserved horns and two breasts. The head is not broken off, for it was never intended to have a head. I may also mention that many perfectly flat idols were found, showing on each side a head with a long muzzle and large eyes in profile, but no indication of horns. (See No. 161.[213])

Except the button with a gold plate, already mentioned, no objects of gold or silver have been found yet; but that these metals were in extensive use cannot be doubted. I found a mould consisting, according to Professor Xavier Landerer, of very fine dark red granite; it shows on both sides together fourteen different fanciful types of earrings and other ornaments, all of which were probably cast in gold or silver (see No. 162). I found also a smaller mould, which consists, according to the same Professor, of basalt, and is in form of a cube (see No. 163): it has on all the six sides moulds for casting ornaments, of which the types may be seen in the engravings; amongst others, it has a type for casting small cones with parallel horizontal circles, of which I find here a large number. (See No. 164.) They consist of a lustrous blackish mass, which Professor Landerer has analysed and found to consist of a hard-baked clay which has been varnished with a lead glaze. Mr. Newton also kindly showed me, among the objects found in the tomb at Ialysus, very small cones with parallel horizontal circles of the very same composition as these Mycenean cones. I also very frequently find here small disks of the same composition, with impressed flowers or other ornamentation, which must have served as ornaments on the doors or elsewhere (No. 165), and these also figure in the British Museum among the objects from the tomb of Ialysus. The quadrangular piece (No. 166), on which may be seen a very well-represented cuttle-fish between two vertical borders with teeth-like cuts, has four perforations for attaching it with pins. As I have already mentioned, the object No. 167, which has the form of a mushroom, but a perforation in its whole length, is of the same material; this also must have served as an ornament, while the whole tube-like lower part was sunk into the object which was to be ornamented, so that the head alone protruded, and may have served to put in a flower or something else. Of the same baked clay with a varnished lead glaze there was further found a large perforated bead (No. 168).

I also very often find small objects in the form of a cone or with points more obtuse, and in this case perforated; they are turned from a mineral, which, according to Professor Landerer, is the Siphnian stone (lapis ollaris), commonly called potstone. The same scholar calls my attention to a passage of Pliny, who says: "On the island of Siphnos there is a stone which is hollowed out and turned for vases; these latter are very useful for cooking victuals or for the preservation of eatables, which, as we know, is the case with the Comnes stone in Italy. The Siphnian stone has the peculiarity that, being heated, it becomes black by the contact of oil and much harder, it being naturally soft. It can be turned and used for ornaments." The small cones of this stone have in the lower border two small holes on either side, which must have been made for the pins by which the object was fastened. A likeness of such a cone is No. 172; of another object of the same material, No. 169. The curious object, No. 171, which has almost the form of a Trojan idol, is of decomposed glass, but its use is inexplicable to me; it has on its lower side a tubular hole for fastening it to something else, and may have served as an ornament. The little ball, No. 170, on which we see curious incised drawings, is of very hard baked clay. I also find very frequently button-like objects, like those already shown under No. 126,[214] which, according to Professor Landerer, have been turned out of a stone called "lapis serpentinus." I cannot explain the use of them otherwise than that they have served as ornaments in the doors and on the walls, like No. 167. There was also found a large perforated bead of white glass, and further a large block of diorite, with circular moulds for casting various objects.

A treasure of bronze objects was found at a depth of 13 feet. It consists of five knives (like Nos. 121-125),[215] two small wheels and an inexplicable object with a ring,[216] two lances, two double-edged hatchets (No. 173), hair-pins, two vases, and remnants of four others, and a tripod. It is incomprehensible to me for what purpose the wheels may have served; they can never have been intended for rotation, for, as may be seen by the engraving,[217] there is attached to them a quadrangular handle, which proves that they can never have been turned round. From one of the wheels[218] this handle is broken off; as for the rest, the wheels perfectly resemble those represented on the chariots in the sculptures, for there are four spokes, which form a cross round the axle. Also two very small and exceedingly curious wheels of lead were found, the one at the depth of 11 ft. 8 in., the other at 16½ ft.[219]

There were also found a certain number of lentoid gems of steatite, onyx, or agate, polished, nearly round, and somewhat convex, with intaglios of animals, which are very archaic, but show in several instances an advanced art; all of these have evidently belonged to necklaces. No. 176 is of steatite (lapis ollaris); it gives us a very rude and primitive representation of an animal with a very long tail, long legs, and a pointed head, which is turned backward, and on which we see a horn standing vertically: probably we must understand that this horn covers the second horn: the body of the animal resembles the body of a horse, the head that of an antelope. No. 178 is of red agate, and this also gives a rude representation of an animal with its head turned backward; above its hinder part is a trident, and it is difficult to distinguish whether the primitive artist intended to represent by this the animal's uplifted tail or something else. The most beautiful of all the intaglios is of red onyx (No. 174), showing an antelope perfectly true to nature. Both horns are well represented, and the head and body are beautiful; the animal seems to kneel on its two fore-legs; the tail is lifted sideways above the back. I call particular attention to the object above the back of this animal; it looks like an overturned flower-pot, with a long plant lying horizontally. The object on the lentoid gem (No. 183) cannot be recognised; this gem consists of serpentine. On No. 184, which is of black agate, we again see a very rudely-engraved animal with the head turned back, but without horns. No. 185 is a bead.

Another beautiful intaglio (No. 186), on black serpentine, represents an animal with the head turned back and very large eyes; it seems to run with great speed. The object No. 189 is also of black serpentine, and has no intaglio. Similar lentoid gems, with rudely-incised animals, found in the Greek islands, are in the gold room of the British Museum, and I call particular attention to them, as well as to the lentoid gem of rock crystal, representing in intaglio a goat, which turns her head. This gem, again, was found in the repeatedly-mentioned sepulchre of Ialysus, and is also in the British Museum. Very pretty is the small parallelopiped (No. 182), likewise of serpentine, ornamented on two sides with fourteen lines which cross each other, and on the other two sides with two incised squares, in each of which we see a small circle with a point in the centre. No. 187 represents a light green cylinder of opal, on which a human head is rudely carved, with closed eyes, a very broad nose, a large mouth, and a necklace, and very much in the ancient Egyptian style of art. It is cylindrical, and has no hole, and it seems therefore not to have served as a stick-handle. No. 188 is a bead of white glass; No. 180 is an object of blue glass cast in the form of a long but narrow mussel-shell, surrounded by horizontal parallel cuts; it is coloured with cobalt; No. 179 is a small bead of blue glass twice perforated. There is also a well-polished brown onyx, without any intaglio, and it deserves attention that a similar one was found in the tomb of Ialysus. No. 181 is of an artificial glass paste. I repeat that, with the exception of Nos. 175, 180, 187, all these objects are perforated and are beads or lentoid gems of necklaces.

Of combinations of signs resembling inscriptions, I have hitherto only found three or four; one of them is on both sides of a mutilated Hera-idol in the form of a woman (see No. 102); another inscription is on a mutilated cow-idol[220]; and a third is on a disk (No. 190). Of all of them I have sent copies to Professor Max Müller, who considers them too indistinct and fragmentary to warrant any expression of opinion for the present.

I found at a depth of 6 feet a short Greek inscription:

for which, however, I cannot claim a higher antiquity than the 6th century B.C.; in fact, the fragment of a vase on which it is scratched is of the usual black Hellenic pottery, which is so widely different from the archaic pottery of Mycenæ that I could not venture to attribute it to a remoter epoch than the 5th century, were it not for the archaic characters which are decidedly of the 6th century. But this fragment of black pottery again gives us an idea of the age of the ancient Mycenean pottery. I suppose that the first Ο stands for ΟΥ, the second Ο for Ω and that the sign ] is merely a comma. I read it thus: τού ἥρωός εἰμ(ι), "I belong to the heros."

Besides the goblets already mentioned in the form of large Bordeaux wine-glasses with one handle,[221] which continue to be found in enormous quantities, there are also frequently found goblets of the same form with two handles. Although these goblets have not the slightest resemblance to the splendid Trojan goblets,[222] yet, like the latter, those with two handles can fully claim to represent the Homeric δέπας ἀμφικύπελλον. I think Aristotle[223] is wrong in his theory that the ἀμφικύπελλον had the shape of a bee's cell. The best judge, nay, the highest authority, for the form of the Homeric δέπας ἀμφικύπελλον must necessarily be Homer himself; and according to him the δέπας ἀμφικύπελλον is always synonymous with ἄλεισον ἄμφωτον,[224] which latter cannot possibly mean anything else than a simple goblet with a large handle on each side. In speaking of the shape of the Homeric δέπας ἀμφικύπελλον, Athenæus[225] does not even mention the opinion of Aristotle, but he cites the opinion of Asclepiades of Myrlea, who says that ἀμφικύπελλον does not mean anything else than that the goblet is ἀμφίκυρτον. But the following phrase leaves no doubt that the latter word signifies "with two handles," and this is confirmed by Passow's Greek Lexicon (ed. Rost and Palm).

As far as my excavations have proceeded, I nowhere find an accumulation of débris exceeding 26 ft.; and even this depth is only found near the great circuit wall. Thence the rock rises rapidly, and further on the depth of the débris is not more than from 13 to 20 ft. On the west side the Cyclopean wall has been nearly demolished for a distance of 46 ft., and on its interior side a wall of small stones joined with earth has been built to sustain its ruins. It must remain mere guesswork when the Cyclopean wall was destroyed and the small wall built, but at all events this must have occurred long before the capture of Mycenæ by the Argives in 468 B.C., because the small wall was buried deep in the prehistoric débris.

The great quarry, whence all the stones for the Cyclopean walls, the Treasuries, and other buildings, were cut, is on the site of and around the village of Charvati, a little over a mile from this place; but the rock has in no instance been cut away deeper than the surface. I give a view of this village, in which the greater part of the ancient quarry is visible.[226] The name Charvati is no doubt derived from the Arabic word خراب (ruins), which has passed over into the Turkish language.

Mrs. Schliemann and I superintend the excavations from morning till dusk, and we suffer severely from the scorching sun and incessant tempest, which blows the dust into the eyes and inflames them; but in spite of these annoyances, nothing more interesting can be imagined than the excavation of a prehistoric city of immortal glory, where nearly every object, even to the fragments of pottery, reveals a new page of history.

CHAPTER V.

Since the 9th inst. I have continued the excavations with the greatest energy, employing constantly 125 workmen and five horse-carts, and the weather being beautiful I have made excellent progress. In the Treasury, in which Mrs. Schliemann is excavating, we work with thirty labourers and two horse-carts, and find the very greatest difficulty in removing the hundreds of huge wrought stones which have fallen from the vault.

The interior walls of this Treasury have never been covered with brazen plates like the Treasury of Atreus here and the Treasury of Minyas in Orchomenus; at least, I see nowhere in the stones the holes of the bronze nails by which the metal plates were fastened; but I cannot avoid mentioning that on the inner east side of the Treasury, there protrudes from between the stones the fragment of a bronze plate, which sticks so fast that it cannot be drawn out; I therefore suppose that it was fastened there when the Treasury was built. It appears hardly possible that this could have happened merely by accident, but on the other hand I find it difficult to believe that this bronze plate could be a remnant of an ancient wall-coating of bronze plates, which were not fastened to the stones with nails but were attached in the joints between them, because in this case, I presume, we ought to find remnants of those plates in many places.

This Treasury is less sumptuous, and appears to be more ancient, than the Treasury of Atreus here, or the Treasury of Minyas at Orchomenus.

The entrance, which is 13 ft. long and 8 ft. broad, is roofed with four slabs 18½ ft. in length; the holes for the upper door-hinges are 5 in. deep. From certain traces in the walls it appears that the entrance has been ornamented on the right and left with two semi-columns, which we hope to find by digging deeper. A remnant of an ornamentation with semicircles is visible on the slab above the entrance, and the same can easily be distinguished in the engraving of the Treasury.[227] After having been buried for ages in the damp débris, the large wrought stones of the walls of the approach (dromos) and of the façade of this Treasury have contracted by exposure to the sun, and, as may be seen from the engraving, a great number of them have crevices.

As in the Treasury of Atreus and in the Lions' Gate, the triangular space above the entrance is formed by an oblique approximation of the ends of the courses of stone. On all three sides of this triangle can be seen cuttings, which make it highly probable that it has once been filled up by a triangular piece of sculpture similar to that above the Lions' Gate.[228]

Among the archaic pottery found in the "dromos" before the Treasury, the very rudely modelled men on horseback holding the horse's neck with both hands, of which also several were found in the tomb at Ialysus, deserve particular attention; further, the fragments of large painted vases profusely covered with an ornamentation of key patterns, zigzag lines, stripes of ornaments like fish-spines, bands with very primitive representations of cranes or swans, or circles with flowers, and occasionally with the sign 卍.[229] Vases with such geometrical patterns are sometimes found in Athens, and have hitherto been universally considered to be the most ancient pottery of Attica, but I perfectly share my learned friend Mr. Chas. T. Newton's opinion, that the vases with geometrical patterns are later than all the different sorts of terra-cottas found in the five Royal tombs, and hereafter to be described. Of vases with other patterns I have found but very few fragments. Together with these fragments of pottery there was found part of a necklace with a large bead of white glass (No. 205), two beads of fluor-spar of a transparent bluish, and three of a red-bluish colour, all perforated and strung on a thin copper wire (Nos. 206, 207, 208, 209); also the fragment of a white marble frieze with an ornamentation.[230] Just above the lower part of the "dromos" are the foundations of an Hellenic house, apparently of the Macedonian period.

The Archaeological Society in Athens has not yet sent an engineer to consolidate the sculpture above the Lions' Gate, and to repair the Cyclopean wall close to it; but they intend still to do so. Meanwhile they have allowed me to continue the excavations at the Lions' Gate on the condition that I leave to the right and left of it a considerable portion of the débris in situ in order to facilitate the raising of the blocks which are necessary for the repairs. Therefore I have been able to resume the excavations at the Lions' Gate, and I have brought to light its enormous threshold. Two exact drawings of this are appended. It consists of a very hard block of breccia 15 ft. long and 8ft. broad. The ruts caused by the chariot-wheels, of which all guide books speak, exist only in the imagination of enthusiastic travellers, but not in reality. The immense double parallel row of closely joined slabs, which I have brought to light in close proximity to the Lions' Gate, would now altogether bar the access of chariots to the Acropolis. But as I cannot ascribe a very remote antiquity to the wall which sustains the double row of slabs in the lower part of the Acropolis, so neither can I claim a high antiquity for the circle of slabs itself, and before its erection chariots could certainly have had access to the Acropolis. But on account of the precipitous slopes of the cliff, it is impossible that chariots should ever have penetrated further than the first or lowest of the six natural or artificial terraces. Thus it is obvious that chariots were but little in use here, and that beasts of burden, horses, mules, or asses, were employed in their stead. No doubt the fifteen small straight parallel furrows, which are cut all along the surface of the threshold to prevent the beasts of burden from slipping, might have been mistaken for ruts of chariot-wheels. But again, the threshold having been deeply buried in the débris for ages, and at all events since the capture of the Acropolis by the Argives (468 B.C.), no mortal eye can have seen it for more than 2300 years.

There is a quadrangular hole, 1 ft. 3 in. long and 1 ft. broad, in the middle of the threshold, where the two doors of the gate met. The threshold further shows on its east side a straight furrow, artistically cut, 1 ft. broad, and on its west side another which forms a curve. Both these seem to have served as channels for rain water, the rush of which must have been great, the threshold being lower than the natural rock forming the floor of the passage, which rises gradually. In the side of the threshold which faces the north is a long artificial hole of a peculiar form, which must have been connected with the gate in some way or other, for a cutting of exactly the same form exists in the large flat stone in the middle of the gate at Troy. At a distance of 11½ ft. from the threshold on either side of the passage there is, as at Troy,[231] a quadrangular mass of Cyclopean masonry, 2 ft. broad and high, and 3 ft. long, which marks the site of a second gate of wood.

Further on to the right I have brought to light, below the foundations of an Hellenic house, quite a labyrinth of Cyclopean house-walls, forming a number of parallel corridors from 4 ft. to 6½ ft. broad, filled with stones and débris, which I am now clearing out. One of the corridors leads straight into the Cyclopean house already described.[232] In several places the walls retain traces of their clay-coating. I found here many Hera-idols, also three arrow-heads, all of bronze; two have barbs (γλωχῖνες); the third has the form of a pyramid, like the Carthaginian arrows which I found last year in my excavations in Motyë in Sicily.

To the left of the entrance is, first, the small chamber of the door-keeper, and then follows a wall of huge stones, intended merely to sustain the masses of débris (24 ft. to 26 ft. high) which have been washed down from the mount in the course of ages. Further on, in the same line, is a Cyclopean wall (166 ft. long and 30 ft. high) of enormous stones joined together with small ones, which, as already mentioned, is crowned by the ruins of a tower, and gives the Acropolis a peculiarly grand aspect.[233] This wall was imbedded from 10 ft. to 12 ft. deep in the débris, and has now been brought to light down to the rock on which it is founded.

My supposition that the double parallel row of large slabs would be found to form a complete circle has been proved correct. One-half of it rests on the wall which was intended to support it in the lower part of the Acropolis, the other half is founded on the higher flat rock, and touches the foot of the Cyclopean wall before mentioned; the entrance to it is from the north side.[234]

At first I thought that the space between the two rows might have served for libations or for offerings of flowers in honour of the illustrious dead. But I now find this to be impossible, because the double row of slabs was originally covered with cross-slabs, of which six are still in situ; they are firmly fitted in and consolidated by means of notches, 1¼ to 3⅓ in. deep, and 4 in. broad, in the upper edges of the aslant standing slabs of the two parallel rows, which received similar projections on the cross stones, forming a mortice and tenon joint.[235] As these latter exist on all the slabs, there can be no doubt that the whole circle was originally covered in the same way. The vertical slabs are from 4 ft. 2 in. to 8 ft. 2 in. long and 1 ft. 8 in. to 4 ft. broad, and the largest are in the two places where the double row descends from the rock to the supporting wall. Inside, there is first a layer of stones 1 ft. 4 in. thick, for the purpose of holding the slabs in their place; the remaining space is filled up with pure earth mixed with long thin cockle shells in the places where the original covering remains in its position, or with household remains, mixed with innumerable fragments of archaic pottery wherever the covering is missing. This circumstance can leave no doubt that the cross slabs were only removed after the city had been captured and deserted, because all the fragments of archaic pottery must necessarily have been washed down by the rain from the five natural or artificial upper terraces of the Acropolis, and this can of course only have taken place after Mycenæ had been abandoned by its inhabitants.

It must be particularly observed that the whole arrangement of slabs slopes inwards at an angle of 75°; so that, the ground within the circle being raised, as just described, the horizontal slabs formed a continuous bench, on which people could sit, looking towards the enclosure, the inclination leaving convenient room for the feet, as is the case also with the stone seats for the priests in the theatre of Dionysus at Athens.