Buried Cities, vol 3, Mycenae | Page 6

their golden masks and see their straight
noses and their short beards. We study the carving on their gravestones,
and we see their two-wheeled chariots and their prancing horses. We
look at the carved gems of their seal rings and see them fighting or
killing lions. We look at their embossed drinking cups, and we see
them catching the wild bulls in nets. We gaze at the great walls of
Mycenae, and wonder what machines they had for lifting such heavy
stones. We look at a certain silver vase, and see warriors fighting
before this very wall. We see all the beautiful work in gold and silver
and gems and ivory, and we think, "Those men of old Mycenae were
artists."

PICTURES OF MYCENAE
THE CIRCLE OF ROYAL TOMBS.
Digging within this circle, Dr. Schliemann found the famous treasure of
golden gifts to the dead, which he gave to Greece. In the Museum at
Athens you can see these wonderful things. (From a photograph in the
Metropolitan Museum.)
DR. AND MRS. SCHLIEMANN AT WORK.
This picture is taken from Dr. Schliemann's own book on his work.
THE GATE OF LIONS.
The stone over the gateway is immensely strong. But the wall builders
were afraid to pile too great a weight upon it. So they left a triangular
space above it. You can see how they cut the big stones with slanting

ends to do this. This triangle they filled with a thinner stone carved
with two lions. The lions' heads are gone. They were made separately,
perhaps of bronze, and stood away from the stone looking out at people
approaching the gate.
INSIDE THE TREASURY OF ATREUS.
No wonder the untaught modern Greeks thought that this was a giants'
oven, where the giants baked their bread. But learned men have shown
that it was connected with a tomb, and that in this room the men of
Mycenae worshipped their dead. It was very wonderfully made and
beautifully ornamented. The big stone over the doorway was nearly
thirty feet long, and weighs a hundred and twenty tons. Men came to
this beehive tomb in the old days of Mycenae, down a long passage
with a high stone wall on either side. The doorway was decorated with
many-colored marbles and beautiful bronze plates. The inside was
ornamented, too, and there was an altar in there.
THE INTERIOR OF THE PALACE.
From these ruins and relics, we know much about the art of the
Mycenaeans, something about their government, their trade, their
religion, their home life, their amusements, and their ways of fighting,
though they lived three thousand years ago. If a great modern city
should be buried, and men should dig it up three thousand years later,
what do you think they will say about us?
GOLD MASK.
This mask was still on the face of the dead king. The artist tried to
make the mask look just as the great king himself had looked, but this
was very hard to do.
A COW'S HEAD OF SILVER.
The king's people put into his grave this silver mask of an ox head with
golden horns. It was a symbol of the cattle sacrificed for the dead.
There is a gold rosette between the eyes. The mouth, muzzle, eyes and
ears are gilded. In Homer's Iliad, which is the story of the Trojan war,
Diomede says, "To thee will I sacrifice a yearling heifer, broad at brow,
unbroken, that never yet hath man led beneath the yoke. Her will I
sacrifice to thee, and gild her horns with gold."
THE WARRIOR VASE.
This vase was made of clay and baked. Then the artist painted figures
on it with colored earth. This was so long ago that men had not learned

to draw very well, but we like the vase because the potter made it such
a beautiful shape, and because we learn from it how the warriors of
early Mycenae dressed. Under their armor they wore short chitons with
fringe at the bottom, and long sleeves, and they carried strangely
shaped shields and short spears or long lances. Do you think those are
knapsacks tied to the lances?
BRONZE HELMETS.
These may have been worn by King Agamemnon, or by the Trojan
warriors. They are now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
GEM FROM MYCENAE.
Early men made many pictures much like this--a pillar guarded by an
animal on each side.
BRONZE DAGGERS.
It would take a very skilfull man to-day, a man who was both
goldsmith and artist, to make such daggers as men found at Mycenae.
First the blade was made. Then the artist took a separate sheet of
bronze for his design. This sheet he enamelled, and on it he inlaid his
design. On one of these daggers we see five