Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/458

Thessaly. 43 1 chamber to a depth of five centimetres, and do not appear to be due to cremation rites, for human remains — a well-preserved skull and other bones — which have been found amongst the ashes, bear no trace of the action of fire.^ Here, too, have been picked up scraps of ornaments, described — for no drawings have been made of them — as bearing a close analogy to the similar objects from Mycenae, Nauplia, Menidi, and Spata, as well as from Pelop- onnesus and Central Greece. Gold is very scarce, and the ornaments made of it extremely small ; but glass squares, pendants, and buttons abound ; stone implements and marble beads, half-a-dozen bone buttons or so, were also discovered. The grave was doubtless rifled in antiquity ; what we find are but scraps which, being small, eluded the vigilance of the thieves. The fragmental pottery is certainly of Mycenian style, but utterly devoid of interest. On the other side of the gulf, hard by the site of Pagasae, another hypogaium has been cleared by M. Wolters ; this has yielded a whole series of vases, many of which have been sufficiently restored to enable us to recognize in them shapes and forms dear to the Mycenian potter at his best.*'^ The hill on whose slope the vaults are dotted about, rises sheer from the eastern side of the bay. The chambers are small, almost square, and twelve metres at the side, by one metre fifty centi- metres in height ; they are built of irregular schistose blocks, and larger slabs of this same stone make up the roof, the door-posts, and the lintel. The door, so far as may be judged, is narrower above than below, and was walled with dry stones. That they were covered over with earth is certain, else they would have been destroyed much sooner, and eased of their furniture, which they retained until lately. From one of these graves — excavated by an inhabitant of Volo — have come nearly all the vases filling the two plates which accompany M. Wolters paper. It looks as if other discoveries ought to be made in this necropolis. Strewing the ground are schistose blocks and slabs without number, the sole relics of many of these graves ; some, however, may still be hidden under the sod. The whole country around shows traces of an industry that goes back to a remote period. Hard by Dimini, at a place called Palaeo-Kastro of Seskla, Dr. ^ Athenische Mittheiiungen. 2 Wolters, Mykenische Vasen aus dem nordlichen Griechenland {Athenische Mittheiiungen).