Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/170

Thera and its Prehistoric Ruins. 149 near Acrotiri, to the south of the island of Thera, where in 1867 M. Fouqu6 lighted upon walls just visible above the crest of rubbish resulting from the disintegration of the rock, and a land- slip which has been precipitated at the bottom of the ravine, along with a great quantity of fragmentary earthenware, akin to the Therasia pottery, implements of obsidian, knives and arrow- heads, including two small gold rings which must have formed part of a necklet.^ On these same sites also, notably towards the brink of the ridge, to the north-westward of Acrotiri, MM. Road Fig. 30. — House at Thera. Mamet and Gorceix, of the French School at Athens, subsequently brought to light remains of several houses. Of these it will suffice to reproduce the plan of what appears to have been the most important in the place (Fig. 30). Its walls, inside, had been over- laid with a clayey mortar, whitewashed and painted with many colours. Neither vases nor stone instruments offer any variety from those already described ; except that alongside of two knife- flakes of obsidian was found a saw made of pure copper, with no trace of tin. This tool, whose point is broken, is the only ^ Broken vases here formed a bed of potsherds thirty centimetres deep.