Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/473

 446 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. certainly derived from the Mycenian school of ceramics. They are preserved for the most part in the Berlin Museum. All we know about them is that they came from vaults of consider- able size, excavated in the rock. Trenches opened here would perhaps disclose a necropolis coeval with that of lalysos. Cyprus lies much farther away than Rhodes from European Hellas. Homer does not enroll Cypriote chiefs among the vanquishers of Troy ; but he describes them as having friendly relations with the Pelopids, and he knows that Aphrodite, whom he calls Cypris, is the great goddess of the island.^ The tales of the cyclic poets are* to the effect that the island was colonized by the Greeks immediately after the sack of Troy. The funda- mental truth of these recitals has been corroborated by linguistic and archaeological researches. The peculiarities found in the Greek dialect of Cyprus are irrefragable witnesses to its great antiquity. The excavations which have been made in the island during the last twenty years have revealed to us the existence of a population domiciled here long before the Phoenicians had set their foot in Cyprus ; a population which would seem to have had large dealings with the inhabitants of Hissarlik.^ Were these primitive settlers one of the many tribes that swarmed all over the western coasts of the ^Egean, and which in time became the Hellenes ? We know not ; but what induces the belief of a common parentage is the fact that the Greeks who came to get a place in the island, almost on the threshold of history, do not appear to have met with opposition on the part of the natives, or to have had enemies to fight, save the Phoeni- cians. Then, too, throughout the historical period, the island had but two languages : Phoenician and a Greek dialect belonging to the iEolian group. It would, then, be surprising indeed had no instances come to light of an industry which for many centuries scattered its productions broadcast along the shores of the iEgean, and even carried them to distant Egypt. At first, the pieces of genuine Mycenian style found in the island * passed unperceived among the countless vases that were brought out of Cypriote cemeteries ; but whilst scholars were trying hard to sort them, additional knowledge came to their aid, brought about by Schlie- mann's discoveries at Mycenae and Tiryns. These enabled them to 1 Iliad, 2 DuMMLER, /Elteste NekropoUn auf Cypem, ^ Mykenische Vasen.