DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0038
LANDMARKS OF THE MYCENAEAN WORLD 5
excavated the tomb of Clytemnestra, and crowned his cam-
paign by unearthing the royal sepulchre inside the fortress.
There, in five graves sunk in the rock, he found the remains
of fifteen persons, fairly loaded with gold and surrounded
with a wealth of other offerings well-nigh exhausting the
range of primitive art. These brilliant discoveries took
the archaeological world by surprise and brought on a
debate which is not yet closed.
But in the light of the Mycenaean finds, it presently
appeared that Schliemann had not been the first, abso-
lutely, to break into this Heroic world. Already (1866), at
Thera, the French geologist Fouque had excavated houses
with their furnishings in earthenware and bronze, which had
been buried by a volcanic eruption as early, he thought, as
about 2000 b. c. ; and again, a little later (1868-71), the
English Consul Biliotti had opened forty-two rock-hewn
tombs of the same age at lalysos in Rhodes. The fur-
nishings of these tombs, consisting largely of rich vases,
had been presented by John Ruskin to the British Museum,
where they were relegated with other nondescripts to the
basement. But in the new light from Mycenae [Sir]
Charles Newton at once saw the relation of these several
finds and thus laid the real foundation of Mycenaean
archaeology.1
• Shortly after Schliemann's great discovery, a land-slip
near Spata in the Attic Mesogeia revealed a great rock-
hewn tomb, with three chambers and a dromos,
belonging to the same epoch and yielding pot-
tery and other objects of the same class with those of
Mycenae and lalysos. This, with a second smaller tomb,
was excavated by the Ephor Stamatakes, who had repre-
1 In his article in the Edinburgh Review (1878), reproduced in his Essays
on Art and Archaeology, 246-302.
excavated the tomb of Clytemnestra, and crowned his cam-
paign by unearthing the royal sepulchre inside the fortress.
There, in five graves sunk in the rock, he found the remains
of fifteen persons, fairly loaded with gold and surrounded
with a wealth of other offerings well-nigh exhausting the
range of primitive art. These brilliant discoveries took
the archaeological world by surprise and brought on a
debate which is not yet closed.
But in the light of the Mycenaean finds, it presently
appeared that Schliemann had not been the first, abso-
lutely, to break into this Heroic world. Already (1866), at
Thera, the French geologist Fouque had excavated houses
with their furnishings in earthenware and bronze, which had
been buried by a volcanic eruption as early, he thought, as
about 2000 b. c. ; and again, a little later (1868-71), the
English Consul Biliotti had opened forty-two rock-hewn
tombs of the same age at lalysos in Rhodes. The fur-
nishings of these tombs, consisting largely of rich vases,
had been presented by John Ruskin to the British Museum,
where they were relegated with other nondescripts to the
basement. But in the new light from Mycenae [Sir]
Charles Newton at once saw the relation of these several
finds and thus laid the real foundation of Mycenaean
archaeology.1
• Shortly after Schliemann's great discovery, a land-slip
near Spata in the Attic Mesogeia revealed a great rock-
hewn tomb, with three chambers and a dromos,
belonging to the same epoch and yielding pot-
tery and other objects of the same class with those of
Mycenae and lalysos. This, with a second smaller tomb,
was excavated by the Ephor Stamatakes, who had repre-
1 In his article in the Edinburgh Review (1878), reproduced in his Essays
on Art and Archaeology, 246-302.