522 BRONZE LOCKS OF GIGANTESQUE FIGURE

carving
visible in
stucco
head.

Discovery
of large
bronze
locks of
hair by
N. wall
of E.
Hall.

influence we may at least presume that it there followed the lines of plastic Art. The
executor of the plaster head from Mycenae certainly owed most of his experi-
ence to wood-carving, and the work itself may be taken to show the reaction
of contemporary wooden im-
ages of comparatively large
size.

Bronze Locks of Great
Wooden Statue.

An interesting discov-
ery made, amidst a mass
of carbonized wood, in a
superficial stratum just be-
yond the Northern bound-
ary line of the restored
' East Hall', leads to the
conclusion that such an
image—of composite con-
struction like the steatite
Sphinx—had once found a
place within it. The find
consisted of a group of four
massive bronze objects that
clearly represent curling
locks of hair, very elegantly
modelled. Three of these
are shown in Fig. 365, and
in Fig. 366 all of them are
adapted to the outline of a

human head.1 They had evidently been designed for arrangement, as here
shown, over the forehead and temples, the small interspaces being filled up
by little ornaments such as the rosettes here conjecturally inserted. It looks
as if the bronze locks had overlain a bandeau thus adorned.

As in the case of the locks of the steatite Sphinx, with which, in this
respect,the bronze specimens present a certain analogy.no trace was preserved
of the face that they overlay. We must suppose that here, too, the face
itself had been carved or moulded in some material that has entirely perished.
That these bronze locks were set above a carved wooden core is extremely

1 The drawing shown in Fig. 365 was executed for me by the Danish artist, Mr. Halvor Bagge.

Fig. 366.

Head of Figure showing Curls as con-
jecturally RESTORED. (c. -|)