Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/313

 26o Primitive CuEirE: Mvcenia^ Art. find again and again in the bronze figures and ivory plaques, represent ? Is he the armed-god, or perhaps the war-god who has been identified as such because he is portrayed standing before an altar between two worshippers on a Mycenae painting? The fact is of no great importance. If the Ach^ans of Attica and Argolis had an Ares, a god of battle of their own, they must have conceived him in the semblance, arrayed and armed like those princes, divinely born, who led them against the foe. A silver vase which M. Tsoundas excavated in a rock-cut tomb of the lower city affords us much valuable information relating to the physical appearance of the Mycenian population and the prevailing fashions of those days (Fig. 374).^ The l-'io. 376. — Gold ornaiiicnl. I'lii. 377- — Ivory [ilai|ui:. Atluil sue. technique is practically the same as that of the daggers. The ornament, except a supporting band fastened to the handle whereon leaves have been traced with the jroint, is entirely composed of incrustations (Fig. 374, on the left). The design, previously incised, is filled with minute gold laminie and a dark alloy whose composition has not been determined. The yellow and black elements detach themselves admirably from the silver plate, and form a kind of tripartite mosaic. The surface of the handle is adorned by a double row of leaves ; leaves re-appear in single and double file around the upper rim and the body of the vase respectively ; here they frame a zone occupied by a series of helmeted busts, of which seven are In position. Some had got loose, but were found close to the goblet (Fig. 374, on the right). The leaves seen on the handle are partly gold, partly alloy ; on the vase itself, however, they are of pure gold. ' 'Ef^fifpif, 1888.