Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/116

 Rock-Cut Tombs. 87 which recalls a laurel or olive. The hollow of the leaves is filled with bronze laminae. The other fragment is a rectangular slab, on which are outlined, in slight relief, the fore-quarters and the lower part of the body of a bull, facing west. The upper part of the body and the head are continued on the adjoining stone. A pendant to this figure probably existed on the other side ; and the two formed the central group in the frontispiece of some tomb or other, like that seen in PI. VI., for which we have indirect if not direct authority. If the fragment in question was not utilized in Tomb I., it is because its size and material forbade our so doing. Rock'Ciit Tombs, A sufficient number of ground-plans and sections of rock- cut graves at Mycense and Nauplia has been given, in our general description of the Mycenian world and the study of funereal rites, to make it unnecessary to do more than refer to them here (Figs. 122, 128, 132, 137, 143, 144, 164, 165. 246, 249). Judging from the existing sepulchres which belong to the golden days of Argolis, we may expect to come across others of the same nature in that district. M. Stais, during his researches in Epidaurus, lighted upon chambers situate on the road which leads to a spot called Palaea- Epidaurus.^ The arrangement of these hypogcca, and the style of the pottery collected in them, convinced him that he had laid hands on graves which chrono- logically may safely be placed in the same class as those we have reviewed. M. Stais takes as type a circular grotto, cir. four metres broad and two metres high, with a dromos six metres long, blocked up by huge stones. Close to one of the skeletons there was a well-preserved spear-head of bronze. Else- where, the body, instead of being interred in the depths of the virgin rock, was found lying in a species of recess built with undressed stones piled up one upon another. It was a quicker way of going to work, and seems to have been generally em- ployed by the oldest inhabitants of Attica. A number of very ^ AeXn'oi' dpaiooyiK6yy 1888.