Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/347

 322 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. ence may be safely inferred from thousands of small ornaments scattered about, pierced with fine holes, doubtless meant to be sewn, in great numbers, on to the dress. A large proportion of the masks, plaques, and the like, have been flattened out of shape by the superincumbent layers of stones and silt with Flfi. 107. — Body found in Tomb II. iilialely after ils discovery. which the graves are filled ; but not the slightest mark of fire has been detected on any of them.' This did not escape 1 Schliemann says that a number of omamenls which he collected in the graves were blackened by smoke. Of these not a few are small discs intended to be stitched on to the dress, and admittedly discovered in marvellous preservation, though beaten out into extreme fineness. Had they gone through fire we should find them in shapeless and coagulated masses ; this, however, is so far from being the case, that their bosses are unimpaired and their edges as sharp as if made but yesterday. The so-called traces of smoke are the natural result of long contact with mother earth, charged with decomposing matter, human and otherwise. Under