Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/421

 394 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. has entered the grave, which otherwise was found intact, and with all the objects deposited there in by-gone days. But, as in many of the rock -excavated graves at Mycenae, there was no trace, great or small, of the body ; it had been destroyed by the dampness arising from the ground. But the position of the corpse, which seems to have lain on its back, perhaps in a semi-recumbent posture, has been inferred from the place occupied by the funereal objects. The head was higher than the feet; a novel kind of pillow was made for it by a whole group of bronze weapons and instruments, alabaster vases, silver and clay pieces, lamps, etc. Close upon eighty amethyst beads made up an ample necklace which fell low on the breast, and showed where the neck had been. The place of the wrists is indicated by two small heaps of engraved stones ; near these, i. e. within reach of the hands, were golden and silver goblets. The latter are quite plain ; save for fillets in relief running round the body and the upper rim. The former are not only valuable on account of the precious metal of which they are made, but also from their ornament- ation — consisting of human and animal figures — the intrinsic merit of which secures to these pieces a place of honour among the productions of the primitive civilization of Greece. The old town of Amyclse is mentioned by Pausanias as a place which had preserved its sanctuaries, where people went to admire the throne of Apollo by Bathycles of Magnesia,^ but that the Dorian invasion had brought it down to a village level. The site of ancient Pharis, however, had long been abandoned. Both cities figure in the catalogue of ships, and would seem to have gathered around them the population settled on the middle course of the Eurotas, until the newly-founded Sparta took their place.'- The site of Amyclse has been recognized close by Godena, where remains of wells, of buildings, and part of an inscription which bears the initial letters of the name of the town, have been discovered.*^ An isolated hillock, rising on the river's bank to the height of twenty or thirty metres, commanding the whole plain eastward of Amycla.^ is supposed to cover the ruins of Pharis. Its two summits are ruled to have carried, one the ^ Pausanias; Strabo. ^ Homer, Iliad, '^ Rapporto d^un viaggio fatio nella Grecia ncl i860, by A. Conze and A. MiCHAELis {Annali delP Instituto di correspondcnza archeologica^ 1861).