One handle of a hand-made vase found in this tomb particularly attracted my attention by its six perforations, one of which was large enough for a thick string to pass through, and it may, therefore, have served for suspension; but the other five would be too small even for a fine thread, and they can, therefore, never have served for suspension, and I suppose they were merely used to put flowers in, as an ornament.
BONES FROM THE TOMBS.
Of the bones of the five bodies of this tomb, as well as of those of the bodies in the other sepulchres, I collected all which were not too much decayed, and they will be exhibited in the National Museum at Athens together with the treasures. Of course the contents of each sepulchre are to be kept separate. I give here an engraving of only the best-preserved jaw (No. 450), with thirteen well-preserved teeth; three only are missing.
There were further found two broken alabaster vases, and a pedestal of alabaster to stand vases on, besides a very large quantity of fragments of hand-made or very ancient wheel-made pottery. To the former category belongs a vase, which has been wrought to a lustrous surface by hand-polishing. It has had two handles, but only one is preserved. Another vase is a beautiful specimen of the most ancient Mycenean wheel-made pottery. It has four handles, and on a light yellow dead ground an ornamentation of dark-red colour representing spirals, circular bands, and circles, filled with a network of lines.
No. 450. Human Jawbone. Sepulchre IV. Size 3:4.
In this tomb, as well as in the four others, were found many fragments of that kind of terra-cotta goblet which maintained its form here for more than 1,000 years without any modification; only its colour and mode of fabrication varied, for, while in the sepulchres we find it of a light green colour with a beautiful black spiral ornamentation, we find it afterwards of a plain light green colour, but still hand-made. In later times we find it either of a uniform lustrous plain dark red colour or of a light yellow dead colour with numerous dark red and black bands, as shown in previous illustrations.[346] In still later times we find it with no other colour than the light yellow or white of the clay itself.[347] Goblets of this latter sort must have been in use here for a great number of centuries and until the capture of the city, because their fragments are found in enormous quantities, and of their feet I could have collected thousands of specimens. We have also a number of specimens of this goblet in gold, such as that shown under No. 343.[348] In Troy I found this very same form of goblet in the first and most ancient of the prehistoric cities, at a depth of about 50 ft.[349]
As a specimen of the only other type of terra-cotta goblet I refer the reader to one already mentioned as found in the first tomb.[350] It represents the lower part of a large hand-made lustrous black goblet, with a hollow foot and horizontal flutings in the middle. But fragments of this sort of goblets were found also in the four other sepulchres. This form of goblet is very rarely found outside of the tombs, and only here and there in the lowest strata. But I found it in the ruins of the most ancient prehistoric city at Troy.
In this fourth tomb were found two whetstones of fine hard sandstone. Both have at the top a perforation for suspension with a string.