DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0151
THE DWELLINGS OF THE DEAD 105
found in this tomb is one more immediate voucher for the
early commerce between Greece and the East.
From Grave III. again, in which only women and chil-
dren were buried, we have two pairs of golden scales (in
miniature). The trays are simply disks of gold- qq\A%xi
leaf — one pair of them stamped with a butterfly, Balailcea
the other with a leaf and circle pattern—like tlie seven
hundred odd gold-plate dress-trimmings found in the same
tomb. The cords are thin strips of gold, and the beams
tubes of thin gold plate which must have covered a bar of
wood or bronze. Of course these balances are too frail
ever to have served any practical purpose. Dr. Schliemann
thought them symbolical, like " the scales in the wall paint-
ings of Egyptian tombs, in which are weighed the good
and bad deeds of the deceased; " and he recalls the golden
scales wherein Zeus weighs the "lots of doom : " :
" Then the father hung his golden balances, and set
therein two lots of dreary death, one of Achilles, one of
horse-taming Hector, and held them by the midst and
poised. Then Hector's fate sank down, and fell to the
house of Hades, and Phoebus Apollo left him."
But these miniature balances rather represent simply a
part of the housewife's outfit, as do the small knives found
exclusively in women's graves in the lower town. In an
age without money, women as well as men would have fre-
quent occasion for weighing. Thus, when the Phoenician
kidnapper comes peddling his wares to the palace of Eu-
maeus' father,2 and displays "a golden chain, strung here
and there with amber beads," we see the maidens in the
hall and their mistress " handling the chain and gazing
on it and offering him their price," which could hardly be
determined without weighing the gold.
' Iliad, xxii. 210-213. 2 Odyssey, xv. 459 ff.
found in this tomb is one more immediate voucher for the
early commerce between Greece and the East.
From Grave III. again, in which only women and chil-
dren were buried, we have two pairs of golden scales (in
miniature). The trays are simply disks of gold- qq\A%xi
leaf — one pair of them stamped with a butterfly, Balailcea
the other with a leaf and circle pattern—like tlie seven
hundred odd gold-plate dress-trimmings found in the same
tomb. The cords are thin strips of gold, and the beams
tubes of thin gold plate which must have covered a bar of
wood or bronze. Of course these balances are too frail
ever to have served any practical purpose. Dr. Schliemann
thought them symbolical, like " the scales in the wall paint-
ings of Egyptian tombs, in which are weighed the good
and bad deeds of the deceased; " and he recalls the golden
scales wherein Zeus weighs the "lots of doom : " :
" Then the father hung his golden balances, and set
therein two lots of dreary death, one of Achilles, one of
horse-taming Hector, and held them by the midst and
poised. Then Hector's fate sank down, and fell to the
house of Hades, and Phoebus Apollo left him."
But these miniature balances rather represent simply a
part of the housewife's outfit, as do the small knives found
exclusively in women's graves in the lower town. In an
age without money, women as well as men would have fre-
quent occasion for weighing. Thus, when the Phoenician
kidnapper comes peddling his wares to the palace of Eu-
maeus' father,2 and displays "a golden chain, strung here
and there with amber beads," we see the maidens in the
hall and their mistress " handling the chain and gazing
on it and offering him their price," which could hardly be
determined without weighing the gold.
' Iliad, xxii. 210-213. 2 Odyssey, xv. 459 ff.