Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/512

Weapons and Tools. 455 figure, it served its purpose admirably. The Mycenian shield is figured on scores of monuments, now in the shape of a semi- cylinder, covering the entire body (PI. XVIII., Figs. 414, 416), now of a sphere curved in at the sides (PI. XVIII., Figs. 418, 426). Its dimension is somewhat less on a Mycenae vase (Fig. 488), where it is carried by warriors, apparently protected by breast- plates, which no doubt consisted of several folds of cloth. A bit of coarse stuff found in Tomb V. presumably belonged to a breast-plate of this nature.^ It had stuck to a hilt in very poor condition, but which still preserved three enormously large-headed nails. The helmets seen on bronzes and ivories are always very simply shaped (Figs. 349-351, 358, 359, 373), but more elaborate on an intaglio (Fig. 421, 6), and on a vase from Mycenee (Fig. 488) ; there it is furnished with horn-like appendages. On the stelae are represented war-chariots in very rudimentary fashion (Fig. 360). They are better drawn on the intaglios (PI. XVI. 9, and Fig. 413), but so small that all we can make out are the two wheels, the very diminutive box, and the long shaft which parts the horses.*- To attempt enumerating one by one, or figuring the thousand and one instruments and tools that have been collected in the course of the excavations, is altogether out of the question. The destination of some of them is not clear. Such would be those huge bronze spoons furnished with a socket,"* and used perhaps to remove ashes and live coals from the sacrificial altar, or as a kind of frying- pan for toasting the sacred barley, etc. A second find gives us another big spoon of bronze,* and a number of small silver ones ; of these, one is shaped like a cyathus. Keys were certainly known at Mycenae, since one has been found at Troy. The specimens, however, which Schliemann collected at Hissarlik were not from the graves, and as several of them are iron, they cannot be placed in the epoch under consideration.^ Finally, it is hard to assign a probable destination to tiny bronze wheels which were found with the keys just referred to. Schliemann had quite a collection of stave-pommels, made of ^ Upon the use of linen breast-plates, see Prof. Studniczka's observations in Athenische Mitt/ieilungen, ^ Schliemann, Myceno'., y 'E0ij/xip/c, 1889. * Ibid, ^ Ibid.