Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/478

ivoRV, Bone, Wood, and Stone. 421 377. 38i)- The wood-carver, by dint of exercising himself in his occupation, had gained remarkable proficiency, and was able to draw from it pieces of great dimension, a plate thirty-eight centi- metres long for example {Fig. 205), and the handle of a dagger some thirty centimetres in length (Fig. 368). When he had to piece several plates together, he used fine ivory nails or mortises, Fig, 501. — KnEfe-li indie of ivory. Actual siic. and he managed his work so deftly as to render the joints invisible.* By this time stone and bone, which had so long furnished these tribes with all their implements, play but a very subordinate part at Mycenae and the neighbouring centres. Arrow-heads are still made of it (Fig. 2), as well as mortars for crushing grain,^ and grindstones for sharpening metal instruments, the latter having Fig. 503. — Ivoty from Spata. Acliial siie. replaced the hatchets, knives, and rude hammers of a by-gone age. Then, too, boxes and vases, more or less ornamented, either marble or schist, which we have met more particularly among the Cyclades, have become extremely rare (Figs. 451, 454). We ' Bulletin de correspondance heUini<jue. ^ 'E^j?^£p/s, 1889. s In these ellipsoid stones, shaped like the half of an e^, Tsoundas recognizes grindstones for tools of lai^e dimensions ; whereas Schliemann identified them with broken hand-mills. The stone is generally trachyte, and sometimes argillaceous schist.