3. Hissarlik did nothing for us towards explaining the kredemnon; an article of head-dress worn by many or some women of the heroic age, who could not add to it the splendid decorations then reserved for princesses. But the definitions of this commodity are supplied for us by the Poems, piecemeal indeed, yet with adequate clearness. In the first place, it crowned the head like the battlements of a walled city; for the destruction of the walls of Troy is described as the ruin of its sacred kredemna (Il. XVI. 100).
It was not, however, a metallic or solid object; for the deified Ino, to save Odysseus from the fury of the storm, throws to him her own kredemnon and bids him bind it round his chest (Od. V. 346). It used to be made of delicate and glossy material (Od. I. 334), and was worthy even to be a marriage gift from Aphroditè to the bride of Hector (Il. XXII. 470). But finally, it had a long wing, tail, or lappet (I am not skilled or confident in this vocabulary), descending from behind, perhaps more than one. This is shown indirectly, but I think conclusively, by the information given us in Od. VI. 100, that the handmaidens of Nausicaä, when about to play at ball, first put away their kredemna, evidently lest the free movement of their arms should be embarrassed by the long lappets. Again, it is evident that Penelopè, when she used her kredemna to cover her face, brought the lappets round and employed them as a veil; on any other ground the use of the plural can hardly be explained (Od. I. 334). And now this part of the prehistoric lady's toilette is as complete as I can make it from the Poems.
I turn, then, to Dr. Schliemann's volume, and call attention to the signet ring at p. [354], which, though apparently not of a high order in art, combines so many objects of interest. On the extreme left of the picture stands a child, or small woman, who is picking fruit from a tree. Behind her head appear to descend long tresses of hair. What if these should prove on further examination to be lappets from a head-dress which the head seems to carry? Passing to the right of the tree, first comes a tall seated woman in a turban, which carries in front, says our author, a diadem and behind a "tress of hair" from the point into which the turban runs. I cannot but suppose this "tress" to be a lappet of the kredemnon. She offers poppies to another tall woman, again dressed in a turban running out into a point (p. [356]), "from which a long ornament hangs down on the back," a third time, in all likelihood, the lappet of the kredemnon. Below her outstretched right arm we have another small figure, probably of a child, again in a turban, and with "a long tress of hair, or some ornament, hanging down its back:" yet once more, I conjecture, the lappet indicated by Homer. There is also a fifth: we have still the figure to the right of the picture (p. [357]); and she, too, wears a turban terminating in a point "from which a long band-like ornament hangs down on her back." Now let us go aloft; and we find a small figure, towards the right of the picture. This figure (p. [357]) is described by Schliemann as female, from his observing breasts upon it: and again, "from the back project the long bands." Thus, in all the six cases, we appear to have the same remarkable form described for the main article of female head dress, which is also given us by Homer.
It may, however, be said that the female figures on this ring are foreign, rather than Hellenic, in their character and habiliments. But it happens that the evidence of the Poems more copiously establishes the use of the kredemnon among foreigners, than in Greece. We hear indeed of the kredemna of Penelopè; and Hera, when about to inveigle Zeus, assumes the kredemnon (Il. XIV. 184). But it is worn, as we have seen, by Andromachè in Troy; by Ino, a deity of Phœnician extraction; and by the maidens attendant on Nausicaä in Scheriè.
4. In the upper region, or what we might call the sky of the picture, are presented to us, apparently in very rough outline, the sun and a thinly horned moon.[10] Below them is an uneven band, forming rudely an arc of a circle. This, I am led to suppose, is an indication of mother-earth, with its uneven surface of land and its rippling sea, in the proper place, beneath the sun and moon. If this be so, it greatly confirms the conjecture of Mr. Newton respecting the six objects on the rim of the picture to the right. He asks whether these can be the teirea (Il. XVIII. 485), the stars of heaven, which are described by Homer as placed upon the Shield of Achilles, together with the sun, moon, sky, earth, and sea. Schliemann assigns to this sestetto heads and eyes: Mr. Newton says they are thought to be heads of lions. That they should be things animate is not, I imagine, in conflict with the conjecture that they may be stars. The spirit of Hellenism transmuted the older Nature-worship by impersonations, of which we have an Homeric example in the astral Orion (Il. XVIII. 486, Od. XI. 572). Should these conjectures be confirmed, the matter will be of peculiar interest: for we shall then have before us, in actual collocation, the very objects, which people the first compartment of the god-wrought Shield of Achilles: the earth (of land and sea), sun, moon, and all the stars of heaven. The ouranos or heaven itself, which the Poet also includes, is here in all likelihood represented by the curvature of the picture.
5. The goblet (No. 346 of the volume) has on each of its two handles, we are told, the carved figure of a dove in gold. Schliemann observes on the correspondence with the goblet of Nestor (Il. XI. 632-635). We are not indeed told that this was of gold; probably a different material is to be supposed from the mention of gold as the material of these parts or appendages. But it had four handles, and on each handle were two doves. We are also told that he did not get it in Troy, which may remind us of the argument already presented, but brought it from home. It was probably a foreign work; for the Phœnician associations of Nestor are attested by his descent from Poseidon (Od. XI. 254). This is fairly to be noted for an instance of equable development in art, as between the discoveries and the Poems.
6. We frequently hear in the Poems of the golden studs or buttons which were used as ornamental adjuncts. In many passages we have the silver-studded sword, xiphos or phasganon arguroëlon (Il. II. 45, III. 334 et al.). This, I say, is common. We have also studs, or bosses, of gold upon the staff or sceptre of Achilles (Il. I. 246), upon the cup of Nestor XI. 632-635: and upon a sword, only once it is true, but then that sword is the sword of Agamemnon, king of gold-abounding Mycenæ (Il. XI. 29). On this sword, says the Poet, there were gilt, or golden, bosses; and the expression he uses about them (pamphainon) is worthy of note. It is not easy to represent by any one English word. It means not merely shining brightly, but shining all over; that is to say, apparently, all over the sheath to which they were attached, so as to make it seem a shining mass. Is not this precisely what must have been the effect of the line of bosses found lying by the sword in p. 303, which lie closely together, are broader than the blade, and probably covered the whole available space along the sheath of wood, now mouldered away? And is it not now startling, to descend into the tombs with Dr. Schliemann, and to find there lying silently in rows these gold studs or bosses, when the wooden sheaths they were attached to have for the most part mouldered away, but by the very sides of the very swords which they adorned like binding on a book, and of the slight remains of warriors by whom, there need be little doubt, those swords were wielded?
"Expende Annibalem; quot libras in duce summo Invenies?"[11]
They also appear on the sword-handle knobs. The helos of Homer is commonly rendered a nail or stud, which has a head of small size; but the word probably includes the larger buttons or bosses, which lie in lines along some of the swords. (See on this point pp. [281], 2; [303], 5, 6.)