Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/34

 Funereal Rites. 13 all have been designed for children, and must have served for what we would call secondary inhumations ; that is to say, no sooner was the body reduced to the condition of dry bones, when it was removed from the place it had occupied in the chamber and placed in these recipients. A very similar custom prevails to this day in some districts in Brittany, the churches Fio. 246.— Mycenro. Teira-cotti figurine. Height, o m., 19. of which contain chests filled with human remains. At other times, old bones were cleared out of the way by digging pits in the floor of the chamber, as at the Heraium, Palamidi (Figs. 130, 134-137), and in some of the Mycenian bee-hive graves (Figs. 122-124), or by sinking niches into the wall (Fig. 247); again, when the family was unusually numerous, pits and vats were simultaneously employed to get rid of ail the bones (Figs. 125, 1 26) ; and again, here a second and carefully-planned chamber