Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/361

 334 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. had a salience beyond the area of the grave (Fig. 90, d);^ but no bones were found in it. It is but two feet long and eight inches broad ; it must therefore have been the cellar of the house where the owner secreted his valuables in a casket which, being doubtless of wood, has crumbled into dust. One is rather surprised to find that Schliemann's campaign, bruited abroad as it was to all the points of the compass, should not have led to fresh researches on the acropolis, where excava- tions carried on in a small corner of it had resulted, in a few months* time, in discoveries at once unexpected and far-reaching in their importance. The sixth shaft-grave was discovered by Stamakis in the following year (1877). From that day until 1 886 not another blow of the spade was given here. Schliemann seemed to have lost all interest in Mycenae ; and he never saw it again, except when he was excavating close by at Ti^ns. From first to last, his work of predilection, that upon which he had set his whole heart, and which death alone caused him to relinquish, was his beloved Hissarlik. The Archaeological Society seemed at first willing to continue Schliemanns labours on this spot ; one would have thought that a first success, so promptly obtained, would have encouraged them to renew their efforts on a spot where as great if not greater discoveries than those already made might reward the explorer. Matters, how- ever, took another turn ; the monies that might have been spent in this direction were diverted into channels which some would deem of less importance. The Veal cause for these delays and abstentions, however, must be sought in the disturbed and be- wildered state of mind into which archaeologists were thrown by the discoveries at Mycenee ; the strangeness of the objects found in the graves gave rise to the most absurd hypotheses, even in well-informed quarters. The discoveries made soon after at Spata, Menidi, and Tiryns, comparison of the Mycenian finds with the monuments of lalsos, which, having been brought to light some time before, had had time to be studied and classified, at last brought something like order in this branch of study. Calm was gradually restored to minds which had been thrown ^ This building, which figures as the " sixth tomb *' in Schliemann's Mycena^ Chap, ii., should not be confounded with the sixth grave of the slab-circle, which was exhumed by Stamakis a year after Schliemann's researches on the Mycenian acropolis.