No. 13. Terra-Cotta Vessel, from Tiryns. (3 M.) About half-size.
No. 14. Terra-Cotta Vessel, from Tiryns. (3½ M.) Size 2:3 about.
With regard to the chronology of the Tirynthian pottery, if the date of about 1400-1200 B.C., generally attributed to the most ancient Attic vases, were correct, we might perhaps assign a like date to the establishment in Tiryns of the second nation; for to the same period must be ascribed the bird-headed idol described above,[62] and a quantity of fragments of very ancient painted vases with similar patterns. But for several reasons, which will hereafter be explained, I am unable to attribute these vases to a remoter age than from 1000 to 800 B.C., and I cannot therefore admit the settlement of the second nation at Tiryns to have taken place at an earlier epoch. It will probably for ever remain mere guesswork to what date belongs the stratum of hand-made pottery on and near the virgin soil; but if we suppose that the most ancient examples of this pottery are older, by 800 years, than the most ancient painted vases of the second nation, and that, consequently, the building of the Cyclopean walls of Tiryns was from 1800 to 1600 B.C., I think we shall be very near the right date. I have vainly endeavoured to recognise an affinity between the primitive Tirynthian pottery and that of any one of the four prehistoric cities of Troy. After mature consideration, I find that there is no resemblance whatever, except in the goblets whose form is also found in the oldest prehistoric city on Mount Hissarlik.
Not the least interesting object I discovered at Tiryns was the skeleton of a man at a depth of 16½ feet. The bones are partly petrified, but I attribute this merely to the nature of the soil in which the skeleton has been imbedded. Some of the bones had swollen considerably owing to the damp, and this may also be the case with the lower jawbone, which is enormously thick. Unfortunately I have been able to save only part of the skull.
I have still to mention that in all the prehistoric strata I found very small knives of obsidian; but, as before stated, no weapon or implement of stone. Many small conical whorls of blue or green stone[63] were found in the strata of the nation second in succession, but only two very rude ones of baked clay.
Taking the average depth of the virgin soil in the upper and lower citadels, as ascertained by my shafts, to be 11·66 feet, I find by accurate calculation, that the quantity of débris to be removed at Tiryns does not fall short of 36,000 cubic metres. From this, however, are to be deducted the cubic contents of the Cyclopean house-walls, of the curious water-conduits and of a couple of cisterns (only one of which, however, I have been able to find), on the south side. I hope to accomplish this work some day, but first of all I must finish the much more important excavation in the Acropolis of Mycenæ, and of the Treasury close to the Lions' Gate, which I intend to commence forthwith. I know that, after Troy, I could not possibly render a greater service to science than by excavating at Mycenæ; because if, as is probable, the Cyclopean walls of its Acropolis belong to the same remote antiquity as the walls of Tiryns, the architecture of its Treasuries is at all events more modern, and there can be no doubt whatever that such was in general use in the time of Homer, who describes it by the phrase θάλαμοι ξεστοῖο λίθοιο ("chambers of polished stone").