Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/175

 154 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. already entered into relation with the stranger. There is no trace of metallic ore nor of rocks of obsidian in the island of Thera. The stone then must have come from Milo, whilst gold was doubtless obtained from Asia Minor, and copper from Cyprus. That coasting trade throughout the Archipelago had assumed some importance, would appear from the following fact: M. Gorceix picked up in many of these houses smooth pebbles of varying size ; and from the situation which they occupied in respect to the furniture of the house, he was led to infer that they were weights, multiples of a single unit whose fractions are represented by smaller balls found alongside of the larger ones.^ The relation they bear the one to the other is very simple and easily made out ; and though discrepancies occur between the figures required by the formula and those we obtain by testing the weights great and small, they are no more than we should expect to find in a primitive state of society, and hardly more than what actually exists in practice at the present day where weights and measures are not controlled and tested by the authorities. Consequently these irregularities ought not to prevent our acceptance of a rude attempt made by these popu- lations to feel their way to a system of weights and measures which were calculated to greatly facilitate commercial trans- actions. Better than aught else, these pebbles show that sixteen or seventeen centuries B.C. rude barbarism had long disappeared from the iEgean. That the nation whose work has been brought to the world's notice in this species of prehistoric Pompeii had artistic aptitudes, is made manifest by the decoration of its dwellings and pottery. It is then no exaggeration to say that inquisitive, on the track to new inventions, and most assuredly happily endowed." ^ Troy. If in this study of Mycenian civilization our first station was at Thera, in order that we might survey its houses buried under volcanic ashes, it was with no intention of claiming ^ FouQUE, Santorin, 2 A. DuMONT, Les ceramiques de la Grhe propre.
 * this ceramic industry reveals a mind already on the alert,