Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/270

 Troy. 247 in those lately explored by M. Koldevey at Surghul and at El- Hibba, near Tello, the bodies appeared to have been more or less completely burnt, and many were found in chambers built of crude bricks.^ But neither here nor at Mugheir or Warka do we perceive aught that resembles the massive and lofty walls of Hissarlik, or its flanking towers and city gates, provided with a double set of doors, and pointing with unmistakable directness to the necessities of defence ; or yet to spacious buildings the mutilated plan of which is explained by that of the Tirynthian and Mycenian palaces. The depth of the stoutest retaining walls at Hibba is somewhat below one metre. As we read M. Koldevey s account, invoked by Boetticher in support of his hypothesis, we at once feel how wide is the difference between the hill riddled by Schliemann, and the funereal tells that have been explored in Lower Chaldaea ; in these almost every blow dealt with the spade lays open a bier, out of which escape ashes and bones, and everywhere around them is found charcoal from the pyres whereon thousands of bodies were consumed. Close to these mounds were traces of erections which at first were taken for houses, but, the explorers having thoroughly cleared them, they turned out to be tombs. It was plain that they had come upon the city and empire of the dead. Lower Chaldsea has no rocks of any kind or even hardened clay in which vaults could be cut. To have placed mortal remains on the bare ground would have been devoting them to every species of profanation, and crude brick, in default of stone, would not have lent itself kindly to subterraneous structures. Necessity therefore suggested the notion of those ash-tells, those jars piled up a hundred feet high. No such reasons existed for resorting to this expedient in the Troad, where hill-sides are but masses of soft limestone which can be cut with ease. True, the Trojan necropolis has not yet been found ; but likely enough it lies at the foot of the hill, buried under the fallen earth which covers its base. I have not seen the tombs of the burnt city, for the simple reason that Schliemann excavated them after my return to Europe. On leaving Hissarlik with him, however, for the Dardanelles, we took the road skirting the sea-shore, that we might inspect tombs excavated in the rock which had just been opened. Here then, schrift fiir Assyriologie^ herausgegeben von C. Bezold).
 * R. Koldevey, Die Altbabylonischen Graeber in Surghul und El-Hibba {Zeit-