Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/360

Glyptic Art. 307 origin is well established.* Glass-pastes must have been common enough,* but they were easily destroyed ; hence it is that so few intaglios in that material have survived to our day. What were the types which made up the repertory of engravers who were contemporary with the shaft-graves at Mycenae, and the domed- tombs of Greece generally ? We can point to a large number of gems with representations of the human form, male and female. Adoration scenes appear more particularly on gold signet-rings (Figs. 418 ; 421, 23 ; 422). But figurations of dancing men and women are also meant for worship scenes or for deities (Fig. 424, 9) ; here we see a woman alone, her hand carried to the thick masses of her long hair (Fig. 424, i) ; there a second is holding by the neck a quadruped, horse or ram, erect on his hind-legs (Fig. 419, 14); whilst two women appear in PL XVI. 5. Now we have a personage whose sex is not defined ; his costume is a long flowing robe which falls to his feet ; he stands near to a griffin who has a halter round his neck (PL XVI. 16) ; the same garment, perhaps a sacerdotal costume, is worn by a second man, who carries an axe on his shoulder (Fig. 424, 4) ; ahd a third is slaughtering a pig or bull stretched upon a table (Fig. 421, 15). These are obviously preparations for a sacrifice. Personages playing with monsters or other animals : the man with outstretched arms, who holds up two lions in the air (Fig. 419, 21), the woman who squeezes the neck of a couple of swans (Fig. 424, 7), may be placed in the same class of themes. A loin-band, and hair falling low behind, do not help us much in determining the character to be attributed to their owner (Fig. 421, i). The talent of the artist appears to have exercised itself quite as often on scenes of battle and of the chase. The theme sculptured on the stelse of the Mycenae shaft-graves occurs twice over, once on a gold signet-ring (Fig. 413), and the second time on a gem from Vaphio (PL XVI. 9). In the first of these images the king chases a stag ; in the second appear horses at full speed, but the object of the pursuit, man or beast, is not indicated. Single combats are portrayed on gold and stone signets from ^ I see but one example, at Mycenge, of the use of the steatite, and one only of the employment of the hematite. Neither of these stones appear either at Vaphio or Menidi. 2 *Eff>fifitpitt 1888.