No. 211. A fish of Wood. (3½ M.)
Actual size.
No. 212.
A curious Idol.
(4 M.) Actual size.
CURIOUS IDOLS.
It deserves particular notice that between and on both sides of the double circular row of slabs, there were found many objects of interest, such as a fish of wood (No. 211), and a large number of Hera-idols of the various forms already described; also some in the shape of a standing or a sitting cow without horns, but with a female head-dress,[249] or with the neck perforated for suspension with a string,[250] which seems to indicate that they were worn as amulets. Also a female idol having two feet instead of a tube as usual; it has an uncovered bird's head, no mouth, very large eyes, protruding hands, and a necklace; the hair is well represented on the back; the dress is marked with a red colour.[251] There was also found an unpainted male figure of clay, with large eyes, an aquiline nose, and no mouth; the head is covered with a cap in form of a turban. I doubt if this is an idol. There was also found a very primitive idol, with an uncovered bird's head and two ears; the hands are on the breast, but not joined; the head is turned towards heaven (No. 212). I here call attention to the large number of idols of Aphrodite in the British Museum, which are represented touching both breasts with the hands, probably as symbols of fecundity.
There were also found two knives of lever-opal and three arrows of obsidian,[252] which are of rare occurrence here; further, a number of small perforated glass necklace beads, and three whorls of terra-cotta.
I frequently find here, in the prehistoric débris, fragments of a wall-coating of chalk with painted archaic ornamentations of red, blue, green, or yellow spiral lines. As no trace of chalk is found in any of the Cyclopean houses, I cannot claim for these wall-coatings a remote antiquity; and I fancy they are derived from frame houses of the last century before the capture of the city by the Argives.
To the south of the circular double row of slabs my excavations have brought to light a vast Cyclopean house, which, so far as it has been uncovered, contains seven chambers intersected by four corridors of four feet in breadth (see Plans B and C). Here and there the walls still retain their clay coating, which, however, nowhere shows a trace of painting. The walls are from 2 to 4½ ft. thick, and the same wall is in some places 6 to 8 in. thicker than in others. The largest room is 18½ ft. long by 13½ ft. broad, and its east side is cut out in the rock to a depth of 16 in.
Below this and the adjoining room is a deep cistern cut out in the rock. Into it runs a Cyclopean water-conduit, which comes down the hill, and probably brought water from the spring Perseia, half a mile east of the Acropolis, which has a well-deserved celebrity in the plain of Argos for its purity and its salubrious properties. Pausanias (II. 16) saw this spring in the ruins of Mycenæ; but the city never extended so far east. I suppose, therefore, that what he saw of the water of the Perseia was nothing but the discharge of an artificial conduit from the natural source above the citadel. This would also perfectly agree with the word κρήνη, which he constantly employs with that meaning, in opposition to πηγή, a natural spring.
PROBABLE ROYAL PALACE.