Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/142

 The Stone Age in Greece. 121 whip and reins in hand. The sharp stones chop up the straw and beat out the grain from the husks. That obsidian was so used until recent times is highly probable, since pieces of this material are often found on the sites of ancient thrashing- floors.' These species of knives easily drop out or get broken ; whilst admitting that a!6nistras may have sown them in great abundance on the soil .surface, it would be impossible to view in this light every fragment of obsidian to be found in Greece ; the very characteristic specimens, for example, of our illustrations. It may well be that some of the stones of these thrashing-boards are really old, and used by the husbandman because he finds them Fig. 3.— Flbt knives. Fig, 4. — Flini saws. Two-thirds of actual ready to his hand ; but nobody has ever yet seen on conti- nental Greece an al6nistra whose gear was entirely composed of obsidian ; whilst, to our knowledge, the stone is not imported from Milo on anything like a large scale.* Hence we may assume that when obsidian is found side by side with flint and other native stones in the gear of these agricultural implements, it is because before the domestication of bronze and iron it was found a sufficiently valuable article of commerce to have been brought in such vast quantities to the early inhabitants, that their descendants still utilize remains of these old importations, which they pick up on many a spot lying near the water or some such natural advantage, which in by-gone days caused it to be selected for a permanent settlement. ' M. E. Burkouf's letter in the reports of L'Academie dfs inscriptions. ^ DuMONT, La iolkction prihtsloriijue de M. Finlay.