Figure 89.
Vase ending in the snout of an animal. Found on the hill of Hissarlik at a depth of 45½ feet.
But to return to Dr. Schliemann’s fine collection. The pottery from the first town, found at a depth of from thirty-two to fifty-two feet ([Fig. 89]), is superior alike in color, form, and construction, to the keramic ware of the following periods. The potter’s wheel was unknown, or at least very rarely used,[47] and pottery was hand made and polished with bone or wood polishers, the marks of which can still be made out. The forms are varied and often graceful, many of them, as do those found in the mounds of North America imitating those of the animals among which the potters lived. The usual color of the keramic ware is black, some times decorated with white lozenge-shaped ornaments. Some vases have also been found colored red, yellow, and brown, and even decked with garlands of flower and fruit, as are some of those of Santorin. We must also mention some apodal vases, and others with three feet, used for funeral purposes, containing human ashes ([Fig. 90]). The terra-cotta fusaïoles, found in such numbers among the ruins of the towns that rose successively from the hill of Hissarlik, are, on the other hand, rare at Dardania, if we may retain that name.[48]
Figure 90.
Funeral vase containing human ashes. Found at a depth of 50 feet.
Excavations have brought to light more than six hundred celts or knives, generally of smaller size than those found in Denmark or France. Rock of many kinds, including serpentine, schist, felsite, jadeite, diorite, and nephrite, were used; and saws of flint or chalcedony, some toothed on one side only, others on both, are of frequent occurrence. They were fixed into handles of wood or horn, and kept in place with some agglutinative substance, such as pitch, several of them still retaining traces of this primitive glue. We must also mention awls, pins of bone and ivory, and ossicles or knuckle bones, in every stage of manufacture, confirming the accounts of Greek historians, who tell us of the great antiquity of the game played with them. The Dardanians used wooden and bone implements and weapons almost exclusively. It is impossible to say whether they were acquainted with the use of metals, but we might assert that they were if we could quite certainly attribute to them a certain mould of mica schist, found at a depth of 45½ feet, which bad been used in the process of casting spits and pins, which are supposed to be of more ancient date than the fibulæ.
Figure 91.
