Nos. 414-422a. Gold Buttons. Sepulchre IV. Actual size.
MAGNIFICENT GOLD BUTTONS.
Finally I found eight gold buttons of very large size, with beautiful intaglio work, of two of which I give the engravings (Nos. 422 and 422a). The former represents a sun, in the centre of which is a beautiful
transformed into spirals, without, however, losing the marks of nails with which it was fastened. The other represents also a sun with his rays, in the interior of which is the spiral ornamentation which we have so often passed in review.
All these eight very large buttons have merely flat pieces of wood; and, as I sometimes find rows of buttons so shaped, and which gradually diminish in size, lying along the swords, I feel certain that they were glued in uninterrupted rows to the wooden sheaths of these weapons, the largest button being fixed where the sword was broadest and the rest gradually diminishing in size according to the breadth of the sword-sheath.[330] It also deserves particular attention that, wherever the gold buttons have retained their pieces of wood, whether flat or shirt-stud-like, these wooden moulds have, without any exception, exactly the same intaglio ornamentation which we see on the gold plating; and there can, therefore, be no doubt whatever that all the intaglio work was made on the gold plate after it had been fastened on the wooden buttons, on which the intaglio made on the gold plate was reproduced by the pressure of the artist's hand.
The whole immense sepulchre was strewn with small gold leaves, of which I collected about 200 grammes, or more than half a pound troy. I found them in masses even below the bodies, and I have, therefore, no doubt that they were spread in the tomb before the funeral piles were dressed there. I also collected from this sepulchre two silver goblets, two silver bowls, ten silver vases, which latter are all broken, and finally three large silver vessels and a small one, which are plated with copper, and are very flat. I presume, therefore, that they have been used as basins or as a kind of saucers for large silver vases. I further found a wooden comb, with a large curved golden handle, which has evidently served for the forehead, to hold back the hair.
No. 423. Model of a Temple, in Gold. Sepulchre IV. Actual size.