Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/392

 Mv 365 to which they are still intact, is the following : When the last body was placed in the vault, the doorway was walled up with dry stones, and the passage in front of it filled with earth. This was rammed down in such a way that in time it almost acquired the consistency of tufa, hence to-day the pick-axe has to be em- ployed in breaking it. Grass soon grew over it, and helped to keep inviolate the secret of the grave. Having regard to the foregoing observations, the royal ceme- tery, as might have been expected, was discovered within the Kic. 127. — Plan of rock-ci Viu. 118. — I'lan of tock-cul lomb. citadel circuit, by the Lions Gate, where the Mycenian princes were domiciled ; to these may be added the bee-hive graves, the presumption being so strong for two at least out of the number as to amount almost to certainty. For whom except the rulers of a great hegemony would buildings, accounted master- pieces of Mycenian art, have been erected and sumptuously decorated ? Yet the domed-buildings not only lie scattered in the lower city, away from the castle, but it is agreed on all sides that they are later in time than the shaft-graves of the stone circle. But how and why this came about is not clear. We