No. 12. Bronze figure,
from Tiryns. (3 M.)
Actual size.
Except lead, the only piece of metal found was a beautiful archaic male figure of bronze, wearing a Phrygian cap, and seemingly in the attitude of throwing a lance (see No. 12). But copper or bronze at least, if not iron, must have been extensively used at Tiryns, for I did not find there a single implement of stone.
The surface of the citadel is scantily strewn with potsherds of the Middle Ages, and probably of the time of the Frank dominion, for that period seems to be indicated by the chalk floors of a villa and its dependencies. These potsherds, as well as entire vases of the same fabric, are sometimes found as far down as 3 feet, but immediately below them follow archaic potsherds, which are usually met with at as little as a few inches under the surface; and thus it is evident that the site of the citadel of Tiryns was never inhabited from the time of the capture of the city by the Argives (468 B.C.) to about 1200 A.D.
POTTERY AND COINS FOUND AT TIRYNS.
But in the four shafts which I sank outside the citadel I found nothing but remains of Hellenic household vessels, which, judging by the potsherds, I am inclined to attribute to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries B.C. I am confirmed in this conjecture by quite a treasure of small Tirynthian copper coins, discovered some years ago at the foot of the citadel, and evidently of the Macedonian time. These medals, which are of splendid workmanship, show on one side the head of Apollo with a diadem, on the other a palm-tree with the legend ΤΙΡΥΝΣ. Thus there can be no doubt that the most ancient city of Tiryns was confined to the small space within the walls of the citadel, and that a new city, with the same name, was built outside of it some time after the capture by the Argives, and probably in the beginning of the 4th century B.C. This city seems to have extended especially to the east and still more to the north side of the citadel, where a number of its house-walls may be seen on the road to Mycenæ. From the absence of pottery of a later period I conclude that the new town was already abandoned before the Roman rule in Greece. It seems to have been quite insignificant, for it is not mentioned by any ancient author.
The Tirynthian archaic pottery is of precisely the same fabric, and has the same painted ornamentation, as the pottery of Mycenæ. There are the same tripods, with from one to five perforations in each foot; the same large vases, with perforated handles and holes in the rim of the bottom for suspension by a string; the same fantastically-shaped small vases, jugs, pots, dishes, and cups—all made on the potter's wheel, and usually presenting, on a light red dead ground, the most varied painted ornamentation of a lively red colour, which seems to be quite indestructible; for the thousands of potsherds with which the site of Mycenæ is covered have lost nothing of their freshness of colour, though they have been exposed for more than 2300 years to the sun and rain.
I dug up at Tiryns a large quantity of fragments of terra-cotta goblets, which, like those found at Mycenæ, are of white clay, and without any painted ornaments;[60] but they are not found beyond a depth of 8 feet below the surface. At a depth of from 8 to 10 feet I found only goblets of a greenish or dark red colour. All of them have the form of the large modern Bordeaux wine-glasses.
PROBABLE DATE OF THE POTTERY.
All this splendid pottery denotes a high civilisation, such as the men who built the Cyclopean city walls can hardly have reached. Hence, all this beautiful pottery was either imported, or (and this appears more likely) it has been manufactured by the nation which succeeded the Cyclopean wall-builders, and to these latter must belong all the hand-made monochromatic pottery which I found in Tiryns on and near the virgin soil. The colour of this pottery is that of the clay itself, which on the vast majority of the smaller vases has been wrought by hand-polishing to a lustrous surface; nearly all the black vases have been hand-polished both on the inside and outside, and are very pretty. All the larger jars are bulky, as well as many of the other large vases; and many of them have on each side a very short handle placed horizontally, with a broad hole, which may have been used for suspension by a string. In this stratum I found neither cows nor female idols. Of this hand-made pottery I have been fortunate enough to take out, besides hundreds of fragments, two entire vases, of which I give the drawings annexed (Nos. 13 and 14).[61]