Golden Vase, with lid attached by a golden wire. Sepulchre III. Size 7:10.
Chests and boxes fashioned in the same way, namely, with perforations in the rim and in the lid through which they were fastened by means of a string, must have been in general use in Mycenæ, because all the gold vessels with lids found here show exactly the same contrivance. The box before us has no ornamentation.
GOLD VESSELS WITH LIDS.
The beautiful globular gold vase (No. 319) has a handle on each side and one on the lid, in which latter can be seen the golden wire by which it was attached to the vase through the perforation in the rim. The only ornaments of this vase are the two rope-like bands in relief, with which its upper part is encircled. I also found with the three bodies of the third sepulchre the three gold vessels here engraved, all of which have holes in the rim and in the lid, for tying them together with a gold wire. No. 320 has a small handle on either side, and a large one on the lid; it is decorated with curved lines in relief. The handsome box (No. 321) has only a small handle on the lid, and no ornamentation. The beautiful vase (No. 322) has a handle on each side, and a very large one on the lid. It has no ornamentation. There can be seen protruding from it the long golden wire, by which the lid was bound to the rim of the vessel. All these and the former golden vases and boxes are of repoussé work. I likewise found in this tomb a plain silver vase with one handle.
Nos. 320, 321, 322. Three Golden Vessels. Sepulchre III. Size 2:3, about.
There were found on the eastern side of this sepulchre four boxes of copper-plate (see No. 323) all filled with wood, which is pretty well preserved, only the upper part of it being partly charred by the funeral fire. Each of these boxes is 10 in. long, 5 in. high, and 4½ in. wide. The side plates of the boxes are soldered together, and nowhere are nails visible except in the rim of the upper side, which is open, where we see twenty long copper nails beaten in from the outside and projecting far on the inside; and the question naturally arises why they are there. I cannot explain their presence in any other way than by supposing that there has been on this side a thick wooden plate, which was fastened by the twenty nails, and which has been burned in the funeral fire. I conjecture that these copper cases, filled with wood, served probably as head-pillows for the dead, and perhaps also for the living, because they are, at all events, not harder, and even a little softer, than the pillows of alabaster or marble found in the Egyptian tombs, of which several are in the British Museum. I at first supposed that the wood in the boxes might be sandal-wood, which might have served to perfume the sepulchre whilst the funeral pile was burning, but I have given up this idea, considering that there would have been no use in preserving the odoriferous wood in the boxes and shutting it up in them with long nails; besides that, for such a purpose more of it would have burned. But again, it may be that the sandal-wood has been imported from India in these small boxes. In the present deteriorated state of the wood it is utterly impossible to recognise the species of tree that it belongs to. All these boxes were lying near the heads of the dead, but none under any of them.
No. 323. A Box of Copper Plate, filled with wood. Sepulchre III. Size 3:10, about.