DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0224
174 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
In the tombs we frequently find stone disks very like the
modern bone-button, except that they have but one hole.
These are commonly called " spindle whorls," but
Buttons 11 i • i • •
they are so small and occur in such quantities —
in 1893 we picked up 160 in a single grave at Mycenae
— that it seems more reasonable to take them for but-
tons. A button with but one hole would certainly not
meet our modern requirements ; still it could be attached to
the garment by means of a strong thread well knotted
at the end.
The girdle, which we often meet with on the monuments,
appears in some eases to have been of metal. At Mycenae,
at any rate, in the chamber-tomb mentioned above
(p. 171), we found fragments of a gold-plated
bronze band, some two inches broad, with spiral ornaments
in relief, and holes at the ends by means of which it had
once been stitched to cloth, apparently of a violet color.
It was probably a man's belt, as it lay near the sceptre; but
the women's girdles must have been very much the same.
The chiton already described, with its close-fitting bodice
buttoning in front and its wide flounced skirt, so singu-
Make of the krly like the dress worn by the women of our day,
chiton wag apparently cut out and made up — flounces,
folds, and all — after a definite pattern. It was, indeed,
so artistic and complicated that we can hardly take it for a
common every-day dress. It was a robe of quality and
occasion, rather, and there must have been in contemporary
use a simpler and freer garb, more like the primitive type.
This would be worn by women of the lower class, and for
this reason would figure but rarely on the monuments.
The artist, of course, prefers to represent ladies of noble
rank in their richer dress. However, the woman on the
" Warrior Vase " from Mycenae (Plate XVIII.) wears a looser
In the tombs we frequently find stone disks very like the
modern bone-button, except that they have but one hole.
These are commonly called " spindle whorls," but
Buttons 11 i • i • •
they are so small and occur in such quantities —
in 1893 we picked up 160 in a single grave at Mycenae
— that it seems more reasonable to take them for but-
tons. A button with but one hole would certainly not
meet our modern requirements ; still it could be attached to
the garment by means of a strong thread well knotted
at the end.
The girdle, which we often meet with on the monuments,
appears in some eases to have been of metal. At Mycenae,
at any rate, in the chamber-tomb mentioned above
(p. 171), we found fragments of a gold-plated
bronze band, some two inches broad, with spiral ornaments
in relief, and holes at the ends by means of which it had
once been stitched to cloth, apparently of a violet color.
It was probably a man's belt, as it lay near the sceptre; but
the women's girdles must have been very much the same.
The chiton already described, with its close-fitting bodice
buttoning in front and its wide flounced skirt, so singu-
Make of the krly like the dress worn by the women of our day,
chiton wag apparently cut out and made up — flounces,
folds, and all — after a definite pattern. It was, indeed,
so artistic and complicated that we can hardly take it for a
common every-day dress. It was a robe of quality and
occasion, rather, and there must have been in contemporary
use a simpler and freer garb, more like the primitive type.
This would be worn by women of the lower class, and for
this reason would figure but rarely on the monuments.
The artist, of course, prefers to represent ladies of noble
rank in their richer dress. However, the woman on the
" Warrior Vase " from Mycenae (Plate XVIII.) wears a looser