Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/379

 352 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. demur. The first serious objectors were Welcker and E. Curtius ; the latter, with the true intuition of genius, vehemently asserted the funereal purpose of these buildings.^ Despite the strong reasons put forward by these scholars, the two hypotheses were left to face each other until the science of the spade clinched the question. Viewed artificially, it seemed as if the decisive piece of inform- ation ought to have come from Argolis, where buildings of a primitive age are found in greater abundance than in any other district ; there, however, their prominent position invited profana- tion in very early days. At Menidi, on the contrary, near ancient Acharnse, an underground edifice which is neither so vast nor so well built as either of the treasuries at Orchomenos and Mycenae, but almost a counterpart of these, and erected therefore for a very similar purpose, had been hidden from human gaze in the remote past by accumulations of rubbish.- This monument, when un- earthed in 1879, was apparently untouched ; for the six skeletons lying on the floor of the chamber were undisturbed, with all their ornaments about them, terra-cottas, glass, and ivory, the funereal character of which was unmistakable. It was self-evident that they had lighted upon a family vault. Subsequent discoveries have confirmed the conclusions deduced at the outset from the finds at Menidi. Hesitation is no longer possible, and we may safely call domed or cupola-tombs the subterranean chambers described above, which Pausanias compared with the pyramids of Egypt,^ and although their number has daily increased, no marked difference is discernible between them (Fig. 88, No. i). The so-called Treasury of Atreus is not only the biggest, the best-preserved, and most elaborately-decorated specimen of the class, but it also has a double instead of a single chamber : i. e. a large circular vault, and a smaller and lower one opening on the right of the principal building. Six other tombs have been recovered in the district of Mycenae. Of these the most important occurs due north of the lower town, exactly opposite the Lions Gate. It was partially cleared in 1876 under the superintendence of Mdme. Schliemann, and is ^ E. Curtius, Feloponnesos, t. ii. pp. 400-412; Welcker, Schatzhduser oder GrabmaeUr in Mykenai und Orchofuenos {K/eine Schriften, t. iii. 1850). 2 Das Kuppelgrah von Menidi^ 4to, 1880, 56 pp. and 9 lithographed plates. •'* Pausanias.