Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/479

 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. mately allied to the first settlement, whether of Hissarlik, Tiryns, or the villages burled under volcanic ejections at Thera; whilst pieces of later date show their dependence on Mycenian culture in no unmistakable language. What was the nation which practised this industry, what people was it which, during its long supremacy over these islands, sowed everywhere its bones and the marks of its busy life ? To the question only a conjectural answer can be given, for the artisans who fashioned these vases and weapons, being ignorant of letters, could not sign their works ; but if a hypothesis may be hazarded on this head, it will come best at the end, when the whole array of monuments shall have been compared the one with the other.