Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/31

 lo Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. shown by the quantity of oyster-shells, some of which had not been opened, discovered by Schliemann in one of the tombs, whilst olive berries were found in another. These offerings were not the outcome of obsequies alone. The deep layer of rubbish which surrounded the slab-circle, composed as it was of earth blackened by burnt matter, ashes, bones of animals, and wood in a carbon- ized condition, was not heaped there in a day or week.^ It proves the existence of rites which continued to be celebrated here in honour of the dead laid out in the depths of the rock. We have a further proof, if proof were needed, in the hollow altar found one metre above the fourth tomb (Figs. 102-104), and very similar to that seen in the court of the Tirynthian palace (Figs. 81, 82). Then, too, we learn that the custom already existed in that remote age of breaking vases which had served in the sacrificial rites ; whilst the hollow altar recalls the hole sunk by Odysseus with the point of his sword on the Cimmerian shore, into which he pours wine, honey mixed with water, porridge, and the black blood of victims, to the end that the world of shades (larvae) may come and drink out of this spring of life.^ In such vaults as were found undisturbed, fragments of a single vase had often been scattered, seemingly with design, to the four corners of the room ; at other times, analogous but diminutive fragments had been sprinkled all over the skeleton.^ In either case we seem to follow the movement of the hand, which after breaking the fictile piece, sowed the bits on the ground, or, it would appear, over the burning embers of the brazier; for some of these scraps bear marks of fire. The blood and fat of immolated victims, milch, wine, and honey were supposed to nourish and quench the thirst of the dead ; to renew his ever-ebbing life each time such gifts were brought to them. Sacrifices of another kind are conjectured to have been offered to the dead, in that human bones have gone cremation in the pits, paid no great heed to the remains in question, and failed to apprehend their real character. But Milchofer, in some notes published in the Athenisc/ie Mittheilungm^ after his visit to the field of excavations, drew attention to the enormous place sacrificial remains occupy in the detritus. 2 Odyssey, ^ Das Kuppelgrab von Menidi, The same remark is made by Tsoundas upon bone and ivory objects.
 * Schliemann, completely engrossed with the idea that the corpses had under-