Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/371

 344 pRiMiTivK Greece : Mycenian Art. shows no trace of concrete ; but the quaint, painted fragments to which reference was made a little while ago came from its walls. The position of the outhouses and courtyards of the royal mansion has already been indicated as having extended, in all likelihood, in this direction. We said that if the discoverer of these ruins connected them with the earliest civilization which has left its impress on Grecian soil, it is not only because they are found resting directly on the rock, but that the foundations of a later though archaic edifice which cover the older walls are parted from them by a whole layer of ruin and silt. This is a first and strong presumption of antiquity. Our observations relating to the ground-plan hold good with the elevation and mode of building generally — their resemblance to the edifices of Troy and Tiryns is truly remarkable, and extends from roof to base- ment ; materia], processes, decorative scheme, and separate finds being amazingly alike. Here were not found, as in the graves, weapons, personal ornaments, whole vases, either of metal or clay; yet a site which was so long inhabited must have left an abundance of potsherds, and so well-advised an archaeologist as M. Tsoundas could not fail to take them into consideration. connection could be made out between the different walls, the upper part of which we first laid bare, I noted down that between the walls, which soon after proved to be of later date, only chips of vases of the geometrical style (dipylon), with quadrupeds and birds, were found ; whilst wherever these walls were non-existent, or below their level, or on the concrete or the solid rock, all the fragments decidedly belonged to the Mycenian style. ^ The many trenches sunk in 1876 on the acropolis failed to bring to light the whole wealth hidden in the lower stratum. On the north-east of the Lions Gate, between the circular wall and the ruins marked on Steffen's map ** Remains of Later Buildings," M. Tsoundas' researches in 1890 yielded the most interesting results.'^ He found here buildings of the Mycenian period, but of more primitive appearance than either the palace or the domestic abodes grouped on the southern side. The material is the same in both ; but here are no traces of cross-beams in the i
 * In my journal of excavations,'' he writes, **even before any