DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0138
94 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
doubtless intended to carry the wooden beams whereon
rested the covering slabs of stone. We owe this important
conclusion to the insight of Dr. Dorpfeld. Some of these
covering slabs had fallen when the wooden beams rotted
away and were mistaken by Dr. Schliemann for casings.
But on careful inquiry Dr. Dorpfeld learned that one of
these slabs had actually been found on a body, and at once
" it became plain to him that the disorder in the graves was
not the result of a hasty burial, but of the falling of a roof
or lid formed by those slabs. The presence of the many
well-preserved pieces of wood was now explained; across
the grave lay one or two strong beams which carried the
slabs; when the beams rotted, the lid fell in, and the
greater part of the slabs just slipped down against the wall,
and remained there in an erect position ; but some of them
also fell on the bodies. Next, the bronze casings with
which the ends of the beams had been shod, were discov-
ered in the Museum among the finds from the third grave.
Each is 10 inches long, 5 inches high, and 4i inches broad,
and is filled with wood in fair preservation, which was
fastened all around with a number of strong copper nails." *
It was only in Grave III. that such casings were used.
In the six graves were found nineteen skeletons : namely,
three in the first, one in the second, five in the third (three
Nineteen women and two children, apparently), five in the
skeletons fourfch? three in the fifth, and two in the sixth.
Each lay at the bottom of the grave on a bed of small
pebbles; although Stamatakes reports that in Grave VI.,
under this bed of pebbles, was another layer of small stones,
about twenty inches deep, and Schliemann notes the same
1 Schuchhardt's Sckliemann's Excavations, ed. Sellers, 160 f. It was Dr.
Schuehhardt himself who discovered the true office of the copper casings which
Schliemann had taken to be " head pillows for the dead."
doubtless intended to carry the wooden beams whereon
rested the covering slabs of stone. We owe this important
conclusion to the insight of Dr. Dorpfeld. Some of these
covering slabs had fallen when the wooden beams rotted
away and were mistaken by Dr. Schliemann for casings.
But on careful inquiry Dr. Dorpfeld learned that one of
these slabs had actually been found on a body, and at once
" it became plain to him that the disorder in the graves was
not the result of a hasty burial, but of the falling of a roof
or lid formed by those slabs. The presence of the many
well-preserved pieces of wood was now explained; across
the grave lay one or two strong beams which carried the
slabs; when the beams rotted, the lid fell in, and the
greater part of the slabs just slipped down against the wall,
and remained there in an erect position ; but some of them
also fell on the bodies. Next, the bronze casings with
which the ends of the beams had been shod, were discov-
ered in the Museum among the finds from the third grave.
Each is 10 inches long, 5 inches high, and 4i inches broad,
and is filled with wood in fair preservation, which was
fastened all around with a number of strong copper nails." *
It was only in Grave III. that such casings were used.
In the six graves were found nineteen skeletons : namely,
three in the first, one in the second, five in the third (three
Nineteen women and two children, apparently), five in the
skeletons fourfch? three in the fifth, and two in the sixth.
Each lay at the bottom of the grave on a bed of small
pebbles; although Stamatakes reports that in Grave VI.,
under this bed of pebbles, was another layer of small stones,
about twenty inches deep, and Schliemann notes the same
1 Schuchhardt's Sckliemann's Excavations, ed. Sellers, 160 f. It was Dr.
Schuehhardt himself who discovered the true office of the copper casings which
Schliemann had taken to be " head pillows for the dead."