Now, with regard to the physiognomy of the six warriors, it is most decidedly not Assyrian or Egyptian. All have exactly the same type—very long noses, large eyes, small ears, and a long well-dressed beard, which ends in a point. Thus, except the beard, there is nothing Asiatic about them. Five of the warriors are followed by a woman, seemingly a priestess, who is dressed in a long gown fastened at the waist by a girdle; her forehead is ornamented with a diadem, and she seems to wear some kind of a head-dress. Only her right arm remains, which is uplifted, and by the curve it forms it appears that the woman has lifted her joined hands and is praying to the gods to be propitious to the departing warriors, and to grant them a safe return. This custom of lifting both hands when praying is continually found in Homer.[263]
On other fragments of the same vase (No. 214[264]) are represented two warriors, who cover their left side with their shields and hold in their uplifted right hand a lance, which they thrust at their enemies, of whom, however, the figure of only one is partly preserved. The armour of the two warriors and that of the opponent is perfectly identical with that of the six warriors described before, except the head-dress, which, instead of bronze helmets, consists here seemingly of a low helmet of boarskin, with the bristles outside. In fact, these helmets vividly remind us of the low helm of oxskin which Ulysses put on his head when he and Diomed went in the night as spies to the Trojan camp.[265] I may here remark that the word κυνέη means dogskin, and that consequently the low helmets must originally have been made of dogskin. But at the epoch of Homer the original conception of the word had long disappeared, and he not only uses κυνέη for a low helm, but also for a large bronze helmet. Behind the warrior to the left is seen part of the coat of mail and the shield of another man, and behind the other warrior is seen a shield; thus it seems that many warriors were here represented fighting together. Below the first handle is represented a flying bird. On the two cow-heads, in which the handles terminate, only the place of the horns is marked, because the artist knew that, if he made them, they would at once break when the vase was to be used. The clay of this vase, which has been made on the potter's wheel, is unusually bad and mixed with coarse sand; the fabric also is extremely rude; inside it is painted red.
There were further found in the Cyclopean house other vases of excellent fabric, and ornamented with rows of circles, containing numerous signs which at first sight appear to be written characters, but from the continual repetition of the same signs one soon sees the mistake. There were also found in the Cyclopean house two copper vessels, one of which is a tripod of very large size.
HAND-MADE POTTERY.
I now find here in the Acropolis numerous fragments of hand-made pottery, but not in distinct layers as at Tiryns. It is evident that the layer of prehistoric hand-made pottery (for there must have been such a layer) has been disturbed; and I think it probable that it was disturbed when the huge wall was built, which sustains the circular double parallel enclosure of the Agora in the lower part of the Acropolis, because this wall is at all events later than the hand-made pottery. What I find of this pottery has usually an ornamentation of black horizontal bands or spiral lines on a light green dead ground; but fragments of monochromatic lustrous black vases also occur.
MYCENEAN POTTERY.
I have explained on pp. 3 and 4 that the name "Cyclopean walls" is founded on an error, being derived from the mythic legend that the Cyclopes were distinguished architects, but that the name having come into use, we cannot help employing it for the different kinds of walls of huge blocks which I have specified. But in Tiryns as well as here in Mycenæ, where I am surrounded by the grandest Cyclopean walls in the world, I am, for brevity's sake and in order to avoid misunderstandings, bound to use the name "Cyclopean" even for the smallest walls of houses or water conduits which show the same kind of masonry. But it must be distinctly understood that I should of course not think of calling them so if I found them in places where there are no huge walls of that kind, for the name "Cyclopean" can only be applied to the gigantic.
No. 213 a, b. A very frequent type of Mycenean painted Pottery. Half-size.