Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/356

 Mycen.k. 331 men's graves (II. and IV.) have no masks, and no gold glittered on their breast-plates or shoulder-belts ; the second sepulchre, unlike its fellows, contained but few weapons, whilst elsewhere a rich harvest has come to hand. It is self-evident that this cemetery does not belong to a single period, but gradually came into being, and expanded to the size we have it to-day ; and that a certain number of years parts the earliest graves from the later ones ; whether this should be set down at fifty or a hundred years it is impossible to say — at any rate it was long enough to have brought a notable modification in the taste of the people, and a much larger use of the precious metals. The answer to the query as to which of the twin groups preceded the other will come best at the end, after the study on Mycenian culture and ceramics ; these will enable us, if not to decide a most obscure question, at least to put forward a conjecture which we hope will not be deemed void of probability. This, however, is a detail of minor importance. The main point was to establish (i) that this burial-ground was used for a considerable number of years ; (2) that although the general resemblance from one grave to another is striking enough, close inspection yet reveals slight differences between them ; (3) that the tombs are all on the same plan and have the same outward aspect ; (4) that if the single objects differ in some measure from one grave to another, they belong, nevertheless, to the same system, in that the distinctive characteristics of the style are common to both, and so peculiar that nothing resembling it has appeared anywhere else except in Greece ; and even there never before or after this particular epoch. It follows, therefore, that tombs and offer- ings are not only the handiwork of one people, but of one distinct period in the existence of that people. Below these stelai and the sacrificial altar, under the shadow of formidable ramparts, stretched the royal necropolis, in which reposed the men and women of an influential family, a dynasty wealthy enough to have diverted and buried along with it part of its treasures. Bones and human skulls found in the rubbish above the tombs ^ are supposed to be either those of servitors or dependants who were allowed a place near the tribal chiefs, or more likely still, slaves or prisoners of war slain at their masters* or conquerors' funerals, as the case might be, in order that 1 MiLCHOFER.