DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0397
344 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
North. The shaft-graves are proper to the Danaan marsh-
Thetwo men. At Tiryns we find a shaft-grave, but no
3Ld byn" beehive or chamber tomb. At Orchomenos the
their tombs treasury of Minyas stands alone in its kind
against at least eight tholoi and sixty chamber-tombs at
Mycenae. Hence, wherever this type o£ tomb abounds we
may infer that an Achaean stock had its seat, as at Pronoia,
in Attica, Thessaly, and Crete. Against this it may be
urged that precisely at the Achaean capital, and within its
acropolis at that, we find the famous group of shaft-graves
with their precious offerings, as well as humbler graves of
the same type outside the circle. But this, in fact, con-
firms our view when we remember it was the Danaid
Perseus who founded Mycenae and that his posterity bore
rule there until the sceptre passed to Achaean hands in the
persons of the Pelopidae.1 We have noted the close cor-
respondence of the original fortress at Mycenae with that
of Tiryns, and its subsequent enlargement. Coincident
with this extension of the citadel, the new type
Shaft-graves p -,
belong to of tomb makes its appearance in the great domes
founders, — some of them certainly royal sepulchres —
Achaean although the grave-circle of the acropolis is but
conquerors o o r
half occupied. That circle, however, ceases thence-
forth to be used as a place of burial, while the humbler
graves adjacent to it are abandoned and built over with
dwellings. With the new type of tomb we note changes of
burial customs, not to be accounted for on chronological
grounds: in the beehive tombs the dead are never embalmed
nor do they wear masks nor are they laid on pebble beds —
1 This is not gainsaying the Phrygian extraction of the Pelopid line. "The
true Phrygians were closely akin to the Greeks, quite as closely akin as the
later Macedonians. We may fairly class the Pelopidae as Achaean." (Percy
Gardner, New Chapters of Greek History, p. 84.)
North. The shaft-graves are proper to the Danaan marsh-
Thetwo men. At Tiryns we find a shaft-grave, but no
3Ld byn" beehive or chamber tomb. At Orchomenos the
their tombs treasury of Minyas stands alone in its kind
against at least eight tholoi and sixty chamber-tombs at
Mycenae. Hence, wherever this type o£ tomb abounds we
may infer that an Achaean stock had its seat, as at Pronoia,
in Attica, Thessaly, and Crete. Against this it may be
urged that precisely at the Achaean capital, and within its
acropolis at that, we find the famous group of shaft-graves
with their precious offerings, as well as humbler graves of
the same type outside the circle. But this, in fact, con-
firms our view when we remember it was the Danaid
Perseus who founded Mycenae and that his posterity bore
rule there until the sceptre passed to Achaean hands in the
persons of the Pelopidae.1 We have noted the close cor-
respondence of the original fortress at Mycenae with that
of Tiryns, and its subsequent enlargement. Coincident
with this extension of the citadel, the new type
Shaft-graves p -,
belong to of tomb makes its appearance in the great domes
founders, — some of them certainly royal sepulchres —
Achaean although the grave-circle of the acropolis is but
conquerors o o r
half occupied. That circle, however, ceases thence-
forth to be used as a place of burial, while the humbler
graves adjacent to it are abandoned and built over with
dwellings. With the new type of tomb we note changes of
burial customs, not to be accounted for on chronological
grounds: in the beehive tombs the dead are never embalmed
nor do they wear masks nor are they laid on pebble beds —
1 This is not gainsaying the Phrygian extraction of the Pelopid line. "The
true Phrygians were closely akin to the Greeks, quite as closely akin as the
later Macedonians. We may fairly class the Pelopidae as Achaean." (Percy
Gardner, New Chapters of Greek History, p. 84.)