Part 12 (1/2)

THE INTERIOR OF THE PALACE.

From these ruins and relics, we know much about the art of the Mycenaeans, something about their government, their trade, their religion, their home life, their amus.e.m.e.nts, and their ways of fighting, though they lived three thousand years ago. If a great modern city should be buried, and men should dig it up three thousand years later, what do you think they will say about us?

GOLD MASK.

This mask was still on the face of the dead king. The artist tried to make the mask look just as the great king himself had looked, but this was very hard to do.

A COW'S HEAD OF SILVER.

The king's people put into his grave this silver mask of an ox head with golden horns. It was a symbol of the cattle sacrificed for the dead.

There is a gold rosette between the eyes. The mouth, muzzle, eyes and ears are gilded. In Homer's Iliad, which is the story of the Trojan war, Diomede says, ”To thee will I sacrifice a yearling heifer, broad at brow, unbroken, that never yet hath man led beneath the yoke. Her will I sacrifice to thee, and gild her horns with gold.”

THE WARRIOR VASE.

This vase was made of clay and baked. Then the artist painted figures on it with colored earth. This was so long ago that men had not learned to draw very well, but we like the vase because the potter made it such a beautiful shape, and because we learn from it how the warriors of early Mycenae dressed. Under their armor they wore short chitons with fringe at the bottom, and long sleeves, and they carried strangely shaped s.h.i.+elds and short spears or long lances. Do you think those are knapsacks tied to the lances?

BRONZE HELMETS.

These may have been worn by King Agamemnon, or by the Trojan warriors.

They are now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

GEM FROM MYCENAE.