Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/269

 246 Primitive* Greece: Mvcenian Art. gradually raised the hillock to its present height are not remains of domestic abodes and deposits left by successive generations, but the result of sepultures heaped up on this narrow space, along with the debris of materials used in the accomplishment of funereal rites. The palaces and buildings which figure in Schliemann's plan are but a species of mortuary chapels, in which the bodies were burnt and their remains kept. Those vases whereon the human figure is roughly suggested, served to preserve the bones of the dead ; declaring, moreover, that they are only rude imitations of Egyptian canopi. As to the ashes and charcoal found in the potsherds, they had all come out of thousands upon thousands of funereal pyres ; whilst the so-called ramparts of the fortress were retaining walls pure and simple, intended to carry the esplanades upon which the fires destined to consume the bodies were lit. Similarly, the city gates were but passages and corridors distributed on the several faces so as to facilitate access to the esplanades, and afford easy circulation in the various parts of the building. The town belonging to this necropolis lay in the plain, on either side of the Scamander, and may have extended to the sea ; its acropolis rose on one of the many heights which overhang Hellespont, somewhere between the Dumbrek valley and Cape Rhseteum.^ We shall not discuss the position which Boetticher assigns to the town that used this cemetery. A centre that could execute works of such magnitude for the repose of its dead, whose dust has formed a mound of considerable height, must have possessed no mean importance. Unfortunately for Boetticher's theory, we are led to place its site on a spot which shows very feeble traces of ancient buildings ; and what is still worse, it cannot be reconciled with the information derived from the Epic, nor can we descry any vestige of a citadel on the point where we are bidden to look for it. Weighty as are these objections against the hypothesis under discussion, there are others of far more serious import. Boetticher turned to Chaldsea for the type of his incineration necropoles, which he pretends to have also discovered in the Troad. Tells entirely made up of biers set out in rows and heaped up on one another, have undoubtedly been discovered in that region.^ In some of these cemeteries inhumation prevails; ^ Boetticher, Hissarlik wie es ist
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