Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/49

28 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. upon a long past when it buried the riches we have found in these pits ; yet the discoveries made here will not enable us to penetrate beyond the period to which these graves correspond. Their very situation in the acropolis is a strong point in favour of their high antiquity. For a long time, people at Mycenae, as everywhere else, only felt secure behind massive walls running atop the abrupt sides of a lofty hill. At no period of its existence could the enclosure of the lower city challenge com- parison with the citadel rampart. If both the living and the dead descended from their rugged height, it is because a long series of victories, by placing the power of the Mycenian rulers above fear from hostile attacks, had ensured the tranquillity of their subjects. The same conclusion is reached when we inspect the tombs at close quarters. A pit or hole excavated in the rock is the simplest and consequently the oldest mode of interment. In despite of the additional side-walls and closing slabs which we find here, the shaft-graves are older than the domed-sepulchres, whose construction involved far greater technical skill. As regards the rock-cut tombs of the lower city, with their dromos and more or less spacious chamber, they can only be considered as imitations of the cupola-buildings. All this is of course mere presumption ; more decisive and important evidence is supplied by the furniture. The objects composing it have a very archaic physiognomy, as against those that have been found either in the rock-cut graves of the lower city, or at Nauplia, or wherever they have not been disturbed and relieved of their contents, as at Mycenae. The pottery is not rude and monochrome, like that of the early settlements at Troy and Tiryns ; but reveals the incipient efforts made by the potter to decorate his clay (PI. XX.). Earthenware of this kind has only been brought out from the Mycenian tombs on the acropolis and the deepest strata of the hill ; nothing ap- proaching it has come from Nauplia, Spata, Menidi, or lalysos.^ The style of the sculptures seen on the stelae is quite barbarous, and betrays an art which is far less advanced than that which modelled the lions over the gate. But what is still more significant, is the fact that no trace has been discovered in these tombs of the peculiar characteristics 1 Mykenische Vasen.