Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/391

 364 Primitive Greece: Mvcenian Art. fact led Plato to infer that the old Athenians were in the habit of burying the dead in their houses.' It may be safely inferred, therefore, that each group of graves opened by Tsoundas was the burial-ground of a separate family or clan. Under what names were the several divisions of the people known at Mycena' ? Did the terms yivos, ^p^r^r,, or ^poLTpia already obtain, or did they not come into being until we find them in use throughout Grecian land ? And were ^parpia grouped into ^uXai, tribes ? We know not ; but it is Figs. 135, 126.— Plnn and iransverse section of rock-hewn tomb. self-evident that each of these small clans had its separate spot in the common territory, a demarcation line dividing them off according to their importance and wealth.* Thus, at one place the graves are few in number and abound in another ; poor and nearly empty at this point, and there brimful of valuables.' The fact is, that each clan then as now was made up of well-to- do and poor people. The mode of closing these graves, thanks ' Plato, Minos. = Practically no isolated graves have been found ; hence the inference that each yiroQ had its separate place of interment.
 * A single grave had been disturbed out of the fifty-two excavated by Tsoundas.