Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/228

 Troy. 205 another kind. Cones and cylinders, incised with bars and lines so as to form the herring-bone pattern, crosses, stars, and dots, have been recognized as seals (Fig. 55). Some of these cones and fusaioles (Fig- 56) exhibit on the handle and base signs supposed to have come from the syllabary which the Achaean colonists of Cyprus employed for noting down the sounds of the Greek language;^ but we cannot say that the assertion has as yet been proved. On one or two pieces submitted to Prof. Sayce, he would recognize characters of this same syllabary ; what they really contain are geometrical forms of the most elementary kind.^ Elsewhere the conjecture would almost seem to be correct, and one is tempted to admit the presence of a Fig. 54. — Fusaioles. Drawn from the original pieces. short inscription. But much remains to be proved, and all has not yet been made as clear as one could wish. Nevertheless, we are quite ready to have it proved by fresh excavations that the alphabet under discussion was then current in the Troad ; did not we adduce Instances, which led to the conclusion that its employment was universal in the peninsula before the diffusion of the Phcenician script?' But it seems probable that monu- ments likely to solve the question in this sense, if ever they are discovered, will be found in the strata above the burnt city, rather than amidst Its ruins. To the second settlement are ascribed several pieces bearing on the question which perplexes us ; nevertheless, even admitting ' IHoi: The Iiiscriptiom found at Hissarlik, by A. H. .Saycr. - SCHUCHARDT, Schlitmann' s Ausgral'inigeii. ' History of Art.