Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/479

422 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. can only call to mind one single example (Fig. 483). Coloured stones, however, which pleasure the eye, and the valuable alabaster with its creamy tones, are as popular as ever. The alabaster vases from Mycence and elsewhere are distinguished by careful execution and the fine proportions of their shapes.^ It would appear that, like the alabastra of a subsequent age, they were designed to hold perfumes. One such recipient was found at Vaphio, with a silver spoon in it. Metal. Considered as a whole, the industry of the oldest layers of Mount Hissarlik is still a stone industry ; but metal, although as yet rare, begins to make its appearance. The objects which Schliemann brought out from the first village were silver, lead, and brass ; he would appear to have found traces of gold, but no bronze.^ The inhabitants, therefore, still belonged to the copper age, which everywhere seems to have preceded that of bronze. Trojan copper was apparently harder than what is manufactured at the present day ; a property due to the presence of impurities which they knew not how to eliminate by refining. According to the layers, the native ore contains small quantities of silver, gold, and iron, in variable proportions, and sometimes arsenic or antimony. It has been shown that Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, and Cyprus passed through a copper stage.^ Affairs must have followed the same march in the ^gean. No tin was sighted in the first village of Hissarlik ; the saw found at Thera, under the ashes of the volcano, is copper, not bronze (Fig. 31).* The locality 1 Schliemann, Mycen^p. For Vaphio, see ^F/f^fifitpig, 1889. 2 Schliemann, Ilios, ^ Relating to the order in which metals made their appearance and were successfully employed, see M. de Montelius' essay, /'Age du bronze en Orient et en Grke and S. Reinach's critical article on the same. For Egypt and Chaldaea, consult Prof. Gladstone, On Copper and Bronze of Ancient Egypt and Assyria^ and Berthelot, Sur quelques mktaux et mineraux provenant de Pantique Chaldke. Diimmler's researches upon the copper age deal with the oldest Cypriote necropoles. ^ FouQufi, Santorin,