Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/264

 Rl-PKIiSENTATIONS Or HUMAN LiKi:. 2 17 oxide ; this, having been carefully and patiently removed, revealed a decoration which perhaps is one of the most interesting ever offered to the curiosity of archteologists. The sole existing scrap of this huge goblet is figured below. What we divine of the subject, which represents a battle fought before the walls of a city, makes us regret the loss of the rest. A very small number of the besiegers is all that remains of the folk engaged In the conflict. A city wall, exhibiting regular courses, like the most carefully-built jjortions of the Mycenian rampart, appears on the right ; above are structures with apparently no joints, hence the presumption that the masonry consisted of small quarry-stone or crude brick, overlaid with clay or plaster. At first sight one might be tempted to identify the substructures with strengthening towers, did we not know that the military architecture of that period was unacquainted with that mode of fortification, e.g. structures with a wide, vertical salience beyond the curtain. With M. Tsoundas, I should be inclined to recog-