Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/408

Mycen.4!:. 381 the architectural master-piece of the wealthy and industrious Minyans. It is not well then to say, as has been said, that Schliemann's most brilliant discovery was due to a misconception. The tombs he unearthed at the entrance of the acropolis are those which the fallen city, but justly proud of her past, reverently honoured down to the day of its destruction. To judge from analogy, the graves which went by the names of Clytemnestra and ^gisthus, lyirtg some way beyond the wall, would seem to have been vaults hewn in the solid rock, just like the other sepultures attributed to the Pelopida^. They were not found in front of the Lions Gate, where the soil of Mycenae has doubtless other surprises in store for us. We should not wonder to hear, some day or another, that M. Tsoundas had lighted upon the twin burials of the lovers and murderers ; or maybe the single vat wherein they were said to lie side by side. Pausanias does not tell us whether one or two graves were labelled with their names. The last question to be discussed is the following: How far was tradition right in assigning to the last of the great Mycenian dynasties the burial-place on the acropolis ? Granting the testi- mony of legend, to whom are we to attribute the equally royal domed-tombs of the lower city ? Or should we rather infer that the popular imagination was seduced by the halo of names which poesy had immortalized, and in its self-delusion assigned to the Pelopidae graves which in reality belonged to the Perseidae ? It seems best to reserve our answer to the end, when the instances of the arts and handicrafts of Mycense shall have passed before the reader, and been subjected meanwhile to a close comparison, with a view to determine the relative age of the single objects. Then only will the archaeologist deem himself in a position to offer, not too confidently, a probable solution to this obscure problem. Tombs of the Herceum and Nauplia. Tiryns and Mycenae have furnished the finest and best- preserved specimens of the different types of architecture belong- ing to the primitive period: the palace, the fortress, and the