Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/449

 422 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. higher up Mycenian ceramics are very poorly represented, the building itself, the gem of Orchomenos, belongs to the same school of architecture as the domed-graves of Mycenae.^ As at Mycenae, here also the bee-hive tomb does not stand within the citadel enclosure, but on the slope turned to the Cephi- sus, northward of the village of Skripu. It is thus described by Pausanias : *'The Treasury of Minyas more than holds its own among the beautiful buildings found in Greece or elsewhere ; it is circular in shape, with a truncated summit. They say that the topmost stone keeps the whole building together." - Pausanias therefore saw the edifice when it was still in good preservation, and its cupola intact. Its furniture, however, had so long disap- peared, that the new generations had forgotten the real purpose of the structure ; but they knew it to be very old — connected, too, with one of those glorious ancestors, whom they almost regarded as gods. The place was apparently turned into a kind of chapel, where, it may be, Minyas was offered incense as the founder and tutelary hero of the city. Schliemann cleared the floor of the chamber and found, amidst layers of ashes and other burnt material — perhaps the result of sacrificial fires made there to the local deity during a long series of years — a great quantity of square marble blocks dressed fair, as well as cornices, which probably belonged to a stylobate for the reception of statues. Close by there was also a tabic or sarcophagus (Fig. 158).^ These fragments, sculptured and ^ Schliemann's narratives of the first two campaigns will be found in Orclwmenos, The result of the excavations of 1 886 has been published in a communication to the Anthroi)ological Socict)', Berlin, June 26, 1886, under the heading, Ausgraimngcn in Orchomenos, dr^c, in the Verhandlungen of the Society, Zeifschrift fiir Etfmo/ogif. Our Figs. 160, 162-164 are taken from original drawings by Dorpfeld which appear in it. '^ Pausanias. ^ We shall not stop to discuss the hypothesis put forward by Schliemann, which Schuchardt has made his own. The description of the Treasury of Minyas by Pausanias, immediately after the word "keystone," is followed by ra^oi li ySavimv ti K-at 'lltnolov ; then Pausanias goes on to say how the bones of Hesiod had been dis- covered at Naupactus and transported to Orchomenos. According to Schliemann and Schuchardt, we should understand by the above passage that the remains of Hesiod were deposited in the chamber containing those of Minyas. Belger, however, has demonstrated the unsoundness of this asumption : (i) We have no authority for such reading except by forcing the meaning of the text, and adding to the TQifxH hi [iv avrio], (2) But the probabilities are all against the interix)lation. The monument in question belongs to the Roman epoch ; and the Pythia was par-