Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/409

 t82 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. 3 grave. In them were found clay and metal vases, weapons and instruments, personal ornaments and engraved stones, and what is more, fragments of mural paintings. The history of the art about which we are busy, besides Mycense and Tiryns, covers unimportant centres and isolated buildings which have helped to fill in more than one gap and supplement our imperfect data. Without these our picture of Mycenian culture would have lacked completeness and many curious features. Our aim, therefore, will be to make our list of monuments, which folks contemporary with the hegemony of Tiryns and Mycenae have left on various points of continental Greece and the islands, as perfect as possible. One might almost be tempted to connect with the Mycenian buildings, a tomb which lies hard by one of the most celebrated temples of Argian Hera ; this formed the principal place of worship of the surrounding country, and was its real religious centre. The tomb is ten minutes northward of the Hera^um, and nearly three English miles south-east of the Treasury of Atreus, on the road leading from Mycenae to Argos ; the trace of which, here and there, can still be followed on the rock. The grave was discovered by chance in 1872 by a farmer, and the Archaeological Society entrusted the ephor Stamakis with the task of excavating it. His report^ is so good as to make one almost regret that he did not write the account of the clear- ance of the two principal domed-buildings at Mycenae.** The tomb is shockingly mutilated. The plan is the same as that of all Mycenian graves with a single chamber (Pig. 130). The roof has fallen in ; hence we know not if above the stone beam there occurred the triangular hollow common to this class of buildings. There are three successive huge blocks over the doorway. The inner construction of the chamber is rude enough, but with marked tendency to horizontal beds. The walls at their best barely reach six metres fifty centimetres in height ; the whole of the upper part has given way and fallen on the floor, along with its covering of earth. The pavement, on being cleared, showed that it had been laid in mud. Measured at the foot of the wall, the diameter of the circular chamber ^ Stamakis, o jrapa ro 'lipaiov rd^oQ (Athenischt Mittheilungeti), 2 It is to be regretted that Stamakis has not given an inner section of the chamber, which would enable us to restore the dome.