Nos. 217-220. Bronze Rings (two with intaglio engravings), and a twisted Gold Wire. Actual size.
There were also found many Hera-idols in the form of a cow or a horned female, and among the former a fragment showing on a light yellow dead ground a number of dark red signs, which may be letters, like those shown on the coloured plate B, fig. h; also large quantities of melted lead; further a very primitive golden earring (see No. 220), consisting of a quadrangular golden wire turned twice round. Mr. Chas. T. Newton concludes from the sharp angles of this and all the other quadrangular gold wires which I shall hereafter describe, that they have been a strip or riband cut out of a plate. But it is altogether inexplicable to me how the primitive goldsmith can have performed this operation, particularly as his knives must necessarily have been of bronze. The same form of earrings occurs also in the second of the four prehistoric cities at Troy,[267] with the sole difference that the wire there is round.
There were also found here, in a hollow of the rock, a great many fragments of hand-made vases, coloured either of a plain black or red, both inside and outside, or, on the outside only, of a light green, with black spiral ornamentation. At only 6 ft. behind the Cyclopean wall, on the east side of the passage, I have brought to light the remnants of an evidently much more ancient wall of huge blocks.
OBJECTS FOUND IN THE PALACE.
In the large Cyclopean house, which tradition seems to have indicated as the palace of the Atridæ, immediately to the south of the circular Agora, were found Hera-idols of new forms: for example, a perfectly flat cow with only one big hind-leg and two fore-legs;[268] a female idol, with a very compressed bird's face, and with a Phrygian cap, instead of the usual "polos;" and a headless idol, with two protruding breasts, but with two long cow-horns. There was likewise found a terra-cotta cow-horn, 3½ in. long, which shows that there must have been much larger idols than those hitherto found. I further collected there a number of small terra-cotta tripods in the form of arm-chairs and cradles, in one or two instances even cradles containing children: all are gay-coloured and may have served as offerings. Among the other objects found there I may mention two perforated parallelopipeds of variegated colours, 4 in. long, the use of which I cannot explain;—a comb, which, according to Professor Landerer, consists of a very hard white clay paste;—several pointed sticks (stilettos) for female needlework,[269] which the same scholar recognises to consist of opal;—six small perforated round flat transparent beads of white stone, belonging to a necklace; and a large button of alabaster, which seems to have been on the handle of a sword. There was also found the bronze sword (No. 221). A pair of tongs of iron was found near the Lions' Gate close to the surface, and may be of the Macedonian period.
No. 221.
Bronze Sword.
Size 1:6.
THE LIONS' GATE.
To my very greatest annoyance and displeasure, but by the most urgent demand of the Greek Archæological Society in Athens, I have been forced to leave in the Acropolis, on either side of the Lions' Gate, a large block of débris untouched in situ, because this Institution has not yet sent, as it intended to do, an engineer to consolidate the sculpture of the two lions with cramp-irons, and to repair the Cyclopean walls to the right and left of it. But they still intend to do this work sooner or later, and they believe that the two masses of débris will facilitate the raising of the blocks and their insertion in the walls. I hope that this work will be done promptly, so that the two blocks of débris may not have long to wait for their removal, for they give the excavations a miserable aspect, and particularly the mass of débris to the right on entering, because this latter consists of loose ashes, and, should it be left for a few years more as it is, it will be washed away by the rains and spread over my excavations. I call particular attention to this, because every visitor will naturally attribute the leaving behind of these two blocks of débris to my negligence.
VISIT OF THE EMPEROR OF BRAZIL.