DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0139
THE DWELLINGS OF THE DEAD 95
thing in Grave I. The orientation of the dead was not
uniform, and the body was not (as nowadays) disposed at
full length, but in a half-sitting posture, with the head rest-
ing on high pillows. More important is the evidence that
the Mycenaeans knew and employed the art of embalming.
Of the third body found in Grave V., Dr. Schlie-
/i tp • 1 11 • n 1 Embalming
mann states that the round race, with all its nesn?
had been wonderfully preserved under its ponderous golden
mask ; there was no vestige of hair, but both eyes were
perfectly visible, also the mouth, which, owing to the enor-
mous weight that had pressed upon it, was wide open, and
showed thirty-two beautiful teeth. The color of the body
resembled very much that of an Egyptian mummy."1 As
the preservation of a body for 3000 years is otherwise inex-
plicable, Helbig2 maintains that the dead were embalmed.
This is not improbable, although we have no evidence of
the fact from any other grave of this period. From the
Homeric poems we know that the bodies of the chiefs lay in
state for days, and even weeks, before being consigned to
the tomb, and without embalming this would have been
impossible.3 Indeed, Homer has in mind some process of
embalming when he tells us how " on Patroklos Thetis
shed ambrosia and red nectar through his nostrils that his
flesh might abide the same continually,"4 until Achilles
should slay Hector, and bury his comrade. And Aphrodite
anoints Hector's body " with rose-sweet oil ambrosial," and
Apollo covers it with a cloud to keep the sun from shrivel-
ing his flesh.5 A yet more direct proof is found in the fact
1 Mycenae, p. 296 f., with figure from an oil painting made directly after the
discovery.
2 Das Homerische Epos, 53 ff.
3 For example, Hector's body is not burned until the twenty-second day
after death, and Achilles lies in state seventeen days. — Odyssey, xxiv. 63.
* Iliad, xlx. 38 f. fi Iliad, xxiii. 186.
thing in Grave I. The orientation of the dead was not
uniform, and the body was not (as nowadays) disposed at
full length, but in a half-sitting posture, with the head rest-
ing on high pillows. More important is the evidence that
the Mycenaeans knew and employed the art of embalming.
Of the third body found in Grave V., Dr. Schlie-
/i tp • 1 11 • n 1 Embalming
mann states that the round race, with all its nesn?
had been wonderfully preserved under its ponderous golden
mask ; there was no vestige of hair, but both eyes were
perfectly visible, also the mouth, which, owing to the enor-
mous weight that had pressed upon it, was wide open, and
showed thirty-two beautiful teeth. The color of the body
resembled very much that of an Egyptian mummy."1 As
the preservation of a body for 3000 years is otherwise inex-
plicable, Helbig2 maintains that the dead were embalmed.
This is not improbable, although we have no evidence of
the fact from any other grave of this period. From the
Homeric poems we know that the bodies of the chiefs lay in
state for days, and even weeks, before being consigned to
the tomb, and without embalming this would have been
impossible.3 Indeed, Homer has in mind some process of
embalming when he tells us how " on Patroklos Thetis
shed ambrosia and red nectar through his nostrils that his
flesh might abide the same continually,"4 until Achilles
should slay Hector, and bury his comrade. And Aphrodite
anoints Hector's body " with rose-sweet oil ambrosial," and
Apollo covers it with a cloud to keep the sun from shrivel-
ing his flesh.5 A yet more direct proof is found in the fact
1 Mycenae, p. 296 f., with figure from an oil painting made directly after the
discovery.
2 Das Homerische Epos, 53 ff.
3 For example, Hector's body is not burned until the twenty-second day
after death, and Achilles lies in state seventeen days. — Odyssey, xxiv. 63.
* Iliad, xlx. 38 f. fi Iliad, xxiii. 186.