. The Burton Holmes lectures;. pottery,arrow-heads, bone buttons, and then, deeper still, twenty-one feet below, some scattered skeletons. Then at last, GRECIAN JOURNEYS 155 hollowed in the rock itself, were five shallow tombs, con-taining fifteen bodies, buried with all that unheard-of lavish-ness and splendor, covered with ornaments, diadems, masks,breastplates, all of solid gold ; and, surrounded with innu-n:ierable precious vases, objects in alabaster and in ivory,inlaid daggers and many golden cups of rare design. Homer spoke of Mycenae as a city rich in gold ; tradi-tion made it the home
. The Burton Holmes lectures;. pottery,arrow-heads, bone buttons, and then, deeper still, twenty-one feet below, some scattered skeletons. Then at last, GRECIAN JOURNEYS 155 hollowed in the rock itself, were five shallow tombs, con-taining fifteen bodies, buried with all that unheard-of lavish-ness and splendor, covered with ornaments, diadems, masks,breastplates, all of solid gold ; and, surrounded with innu-n:ierable precious vases, objects in alabaster and in ivory,inlaid daggers and many golden cups of rare design. Homer spoke of Mycenae as a city rich in gold ; tradi-tion made it the home of the conqueror of Troy. Can weblame Schliemann for believing that he had discovered thetombs of the Royal House of Agamemnon ? It has been,unfortunately, the graceless task of scholars to destroy thisromantic hypothesis. The royal dead have been proclaimednameless. In history the nation to which they belonged ismasked as were the faces of its princes in the tomb. Butthe names of Schliemann, Troy, and Mycenae will be insep-. m6 GRECIAN JOURNEYS arable while history endures. Nay, one more name mustbe added, that of Tiryns, a city which lay not far from hereand which has been brought back to us by the same archee-ologist. Here we at last understood the term Cyclopeanwalls, for these walls were built by the Cyclopes, andworthily do they sustain their reputation for massiveness andgrandeur. We are now in one of the covered passages ofthe fortress of Tiryns, where the prehistoric builders pro-duced the effect of the arch long before the principle ofthe arch had been discovered. The walls were nowhereless than twenty feet, in some places fifty-seven feet in thick-ness. The smallest blocks employed in the construction are
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectvoyages, bookyear1901
