Schliemann's

excavations

city of Argolis in Greece, he laid bare six rock-hewn graves, containing the skeletons of nineteen persons, men, women, and children. The faces of the dead had been covered with thin masks of gold, and their bodies had been decked with gold diadems, bracelets, and pendants. The other funeral offerings include gold

at Mycena

and Tiryns

The stone relief, of triangular shape, represents two lions (or lionesses) facing each other on opposite sides of a pillar.

The heads of the animals have been lost.

rings, silver vases, and a variety of bronze weapons. At Tiryns, once the capital of Argolis, he uncovered the ruins of an extensive structure with gateways, open courts, and closed apartments. Characteristic of this edifice were the separate quarters occupied by men and women, the series of storerooms for provisions, and such a modern

conven

ience as a bath

room with pipes and drains. In short, the palace at Tiryns gives us a clear and detailed picture of the home of a Homeric prince.

But the fame of even Schliemann's discoveries has been somewhat dimmed by the excavations made since 1900 A.D. on the site of Gnossus, the ancient capital of the island of Crete. At Gnossus an Englishman, Sir Arthur Gnossus Evans, has found the remains of an enormous palace, with numerous courts, passages, and rooms. Here is

Evans's excavations at

the royal council chamber with the throne on which the king once sat. Here are the royal magazines, still filled with huge earthenware jars for the storage of provisions. A great number of brilliant pictures - hunting scenes, landscapes, portraits of men and women cover the palace walls. Buried in some of the chambers were thousands of clay tablets with inscriptions which, if ever read, will add new chapters to ancient history.1

These discoveries in the Egean enable us to place

another venerable

Antiquity of center of civilized Egean civilization

life by the side of Babylonia and Egypt. As early as 3000 B.C. the primitive inhabitants of the Egean were giving up the use of stone tools and weapons for those of metal. Bronze soon came into general use, as is shown by the excavations. The five centuries between 1600 and 1100 B.C. appear to have been the time when the civilization of the Ægean Age reached its highest development.

A siege scene showing the bows, slings, and huge shields of Mycenæan warriors. In the background are seen the masonry of the city wall and the flat-roofed houses.

The fine arts

Remarkable progress took place during Ægean times in some of the fine arts. We find imposing palaces, often splendidly adorned and arranged for a life of comfort. Wall paintings, plaster reliefs, and fine carvings in stone excite our admiration. Ægean artists made beautiful pottery of many shapes and cleverly decorated it with plant and animal forms. They carved ivory, engraved gems, and excelled in the working of metals. Some of their productions in gold, silver, and bronze were scarcely surpassed by Greek artists a thousand years later.2

There was much intercourse throughout the Mediterranean 1 See the illustration, page 10. 2 See the plate facing page 70.

Commerce

during this period. Products of Egean art have been found as far west as Sicily, Italy, and Spain. Egean pottery has frequently been discovered in Egyptian tombs. Some objects unearthed in Babylonia are apparently of Ægean workmanship. In those ancient days Crete was mistress of the seas. Cretan 'merchants preceded the Phoenicians as carriers between Asia and Europe.1 Trade and commerce thus opened up the Mediterranean world to all the cultural influences of the Orient.

A CRETAN GIRL

Museum of Candia, Crete

A fresco painting from the palace of Gnossus. The girl's face is so astonishingly modern in treatment that one can scarcely believe that the picture belongs to the sixteenth century B.C.

The interior regions of the Greek peninsula remained the home of barbarous tribes, which had not yet learned to build cities, to create beautiful objects of art, or to traffic on the seas. By 1100 B.C. their destructive inroads brought the Ægean Age to an end.

23. The Homeric Age (about 1100-750 B.C.)

The barbarians who overthrew Egean civilization seem to have entered Greece from the north, perhaps from the region. of the Danube River. They pushed gradually Coming of the northern southward, sometimes exterminating or enslaving barbarians the earlier inhabitants of the country, but more often settling peaceably in their new homes. Conquerors and conquered slowly intermingled and so produced the one Greek people which is found at the dawn of history. These Greeks, as we shall call them henceforth, also occupied the islands of

1 See pages 29, 48.