A pilgrim’s bottle from Ialysos decorated with circular bands, and an amphora with three handles, from the same place, decorated with bands and lily forms with curled-back petals, are very beautiful, and a small vessel with geometric ornament are all of the same character (Figs. 287, 288, and 289). The most beautiful form of Mycenian pottery is the Marseilles vase or ewer, in the Borély collection (Fig. 290).
Fig. 295.—Gold Disc. (P. & C.)
The decoration is a brown-black on a light ground, and consists of the argonaut shellfish and seaweed. It is likely to have been a copy from a metal object owing to its shape, which is characteristic of metal.
Fig. 296.—Gold Cup, Troy. (P. & C.)
In metal-work generally, and in the inlaying of gold and electrum in a bronze ground, the Mycenian artists have produced some splendid work. There are six chromolithographs in Messrs. Perrot and Chipiez’s “Art in Primitive Greece” of bronze Mycenian daggers inlaid with gold and electrum of various shades: one has the representation of panthers hunting birds on a river-bank—the river is stocked with fish; another has a lion hunt by armed men; a third, lions hunting gazelles; a fourth has running lions; a fifth, spiral ornamentation; and the sixth a free rendering of lilies both on handle and blade. The art and workmanship of them all are of a high order.
Some gold ornaments from Troy (Figs. 291 and 292) show their skill in hand-wrought jewellery.
Fig. 297.—Gold Ewer, Troy. (P. & C.)