Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/346

Mycen.^. 321 (Fig. 106); or elsewhere," a body partly embalmed {Fig. 107)/ the face still keeping its golden mask, and the skin tightly drawn over the bones, whilst the eyes have preserved their eyelids, and the jaws their full number of teeth. In this powerfully -built man, Schliemann did not fail to recognize Agamemnon, the king of kings, the once-powerful lord of Mycense. Even in the graves where the bodies are Fin. 106. — Humnn bone wrapped in gold slrip. Three- eightlis of actual siie. most injured, the position and nature of the ornamental pieces found on them show that they were applied to the corpses immediately after death, before any change had supervened ; the golden masks, for example, seen on many of them, are apparently faithful copies of the features underneath, whose semblance they would preserve whilst the flesh fell slowly away behind the thin metal covering. This applies in full to golden pieces (Fig. 108) fitting like a glove neck and body, and above all to apparel, which, being of perishable material, has disappeared, but its exist- ' Schliemann.