Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/80

Rh three centimetres deep, by one metre in breadth. These dimensions do not correspond with those that go to the making of a sepulchral shaft, such as that at Vaphio. Should we perchance seek here one of those offering-pits of which we have already found two specimens on our path? We think it most unlikely. The libation poured into these species of cesspools, both in the court of the Tirynthian palace and the pit-graves at Mycenæ, was sucked up by the earth; here an impervious rock would scarcely have lent itself to the absorption of liquids. Besides, Dr. Dörpfeld, who examined the chamber after it was cleared, is of opinion that said depression did not belong to the original plan, as Schliemann conjectured, and may very likely have been due to treasure-seekers. The traveller has no great wish to remain long in the side-chamber, whose worn walls are blackened by the smoke of fires lit by former visitors. He hastens back to the vaulted hall, which he is loth to leave; he lingers before a facade which, even in its decayed condition, retains a look of massive grandeur. In presence of this ruin, the archæologist, if he is not one easily discouraged by the prospect of protracted work, but for whom the difficulties of the problem are an additional stimulus, will not resist the temptation of re-establishing the missing parts of the edifice, and presenting it nearly as it must have been when the inhabitants of opulent Mycenæ contemplated it—for awhile at least, until the closing of the dromos—as a glorious symbol of the majesty of the Pelopid princes who reposed therein.

Up to the present time, Donaldson is the only archæologist who has attempted the restoration, in elevation, of this façade. His sketch, however—which has often been reproduced,—though brimful of happy suggestions, dates from a time when notions relating to Mycenian art were shadowy in the extreme. The