Nos. 186-189. Lentoid Gem, cylinder and beads. (3-6 M.) Size 3:4.
Another beautiful intaglio (No. 186), on black serpentine, represents an animal with the head turned back and very large eyes; it seems to run with great speed. The object No. 189 is also of black serpentine, and has no intaglio. Similar lentoid gems, with rudely-incised animals, found in the Greek islands, are in the gold room of the British Museum, and I call particular attention to them, as well as to the lentoid gem of rock crystal, representing in intaglio a goat, which turns her head. This gem, again, was found in the repeatedly-mentioned sepulchre of Ialysus, and is also in the British Museum. Very pretty is the small parallelopiped (No. 182), likewise of serpentine, ornamented on two sides with fourteen lines which cross each other, and on the other two sides with two incised squares, in each of which we see a small circle with a point in the centre. No. 187 represents a light green cylinder of opal, on which a human head is rudely carved, with closed eyes, a very broad nose, a large mouth, and a necklace, and very much in the ancient Egyptian style of art. It is cylindrical, and has no hole, and it seems therefore not to have served as a stick-handle. No. 188 is a bead of white glass; No. 180 is an object of blue glass cast in the form of a long but narrow mussel-shell, surrounded by horizontal parallel cuts; it is coloured with cobalt; No. 179 is a small bead of blue glass twice perforated. There is also a well-polished brown onyx, without any intaglio, and it deserves attention that a similar one was found in the tomb of Ialysus. No. 181 is of an artificial glass paste. I repeat that, with the exception of Nos. 175, 180, 187, all these objects are perforated and are beads or lentoid gems of necklaces.
INSCRIPTIONS AT MYCENÆ.
Of combinations of signs resembling inscriptions, I have hitherto only found three or four; one of them is on both sides of a mutilated Hera-idol in the form of a woman (see No. 102); another inscription is on a mutilated cow-idol[220]; and a third is on a disk (No. 190). Of all of them I have sent copies to Professor Max Müller, who considers them too indistinct and fragmentary to warrant any expression of opinion for the present.
No. 190. A Disc of Terra-Cotta, with an uncertain appearance of an Inscription. (5 M.) Actual size.
I found at a depth of 6 feet a short Greek inscription:
