THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

PREHISTORIC REMAINS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION. 37
38 PREHISTORIC REMAINS AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION.
Atreiis. It was approached by a dromos in the usual way, but
ground, and at a greater depth monochrome, black, red, or
this was unfortunately used as a quarry some thirty years ago
yellow, hand-made or wheel-made is pottery found almost exclusively,
analogous to that collected by me in the royal sepulchres
for the construction of a chapel, and accordingly its dimensions
are not accurately known. This tomb, which Pausanias compared
(as he did the walls of Tiryns) to the pyramids of black
at Mycenae. Very frequently here are the large hand-made
Egypt,
goblets or bowls, with a hollow foot and horizontal flutings
has, like the Treasury of in
Atreus, the unusual feature of a
the middle, which I also found at Mycenae also ; fragments
second small square inner
of
chamber opening off the great tholos.
vases having on each side a horizontal excrescence with a
vertical hole.
In 1880 Schliemann
But most
excavated the interior which had fragments belong to vases having on
long
been blocked by fallen stones. The is
gateway more than
each side excrescences with a horizontal tubular hole for suspension."
Schliemann also found fragments of glazed or
18 feet in height. It had probably double folding doors, as is
inferred from some curiously shaped grooves and
lustrous
socket. One
pottery, like the regular glazed Mycenean vases, in the
vast block of the lintel still remains in situ. It is more than
tomb itself as well as in the lowest strata of shafts and trenches
15 feet long.
The stone on its inner side is curved both
sunk by him higher up the hill. Some of these potsherds are
horizontally, so as to follow the curve of the
adorned with
circular chamber,
painted rude designs \
and vertically to follow the curve of the dome. The tomb is
Groulas. On a low rocky tableland rising abruptly' on all
built of dark grey marble, except the roof of the inner chamber.
sides from
The the Copaic
masonry consists of plain stand the ruins of a very ancient
quadrangular blocks laid in horizontal
courses. The stones are accurately fitted together, and fortress. This plateau, once an island in lake Copais, is called
many
Gha, or Goulas, or Gla. The plateau at one side rises to a
i)f them have holes with the remains of a bronze nail in each,
height
of 200 feet abruptly from the plain, and on the edge of
which probably had originally fastened on bronze plates,
the precipice thus formed stood the great prehistoric palace,
perhaps shaped like rosettes, as nnmd the holes may be traced
circular grooves in the stone, and the ruins of which were excavated in 1893 l)y
M. A. de Riddei'.
soujo fragments of bronze
Round the plateau runs
plates were found in the tomb. The side chamber an immensely
tliick wall which is still
is entered
thi'ongh a (h)orway and a corridor. The former narrows standing to a considerable height in many places.
Its average
slightly
thickness is 17 to 19 feet. It is built of solid, though
towards the top,
like tlu; main entrance, and it is hewn rude
out of
masonry. Tiic blocks vary much in size, and ai'e vci-y rt)ughly
the living rock. It seems to have been sunk as a shaft from
fitted togcthei', the
above, and not excavated from the t/iolos. It was interstices being tilled with small stones,
lined with
walls of small rough stones and not with nioilar. The stones are roughly dro.ssed, their outei'
clay, and roofed with four
surface is to some extent smoothed, and there is
slabs of jtale greenish schist. The lower sides of these were
a tendency to
lay
them in horizontal courses. The walls are built not in a.
carved ill low relief with a beantitul pattern composed of spirals,
curved line, but in a series of retreating anoles. This style
ot
ros('ttes and a kind of palnielte.
construction is a characteristic of
'^rhe archaic ])otteiy found at Orchoniemis resembles the Mycenean aye, for it
that
found at Mycenae and other occurs in the walls of the citadel of similar Hissailik, in sites.
'
pai'ts
of tht;
I'iiinti'd [)ottery,'
savs Schliemann, " walls
with sjtii'als
and other Myceneaii ornamentation,
also cows with two long hoi'iis, and the same fortress recently excavate(l in Melos'^
of Tiiyns and Mycenae, and in thi' walls of the Mycenean
vai'iegatcd
'
Sclilioniiinii, ./o)/r/(/ o/'
colours as at
Mycenae, as well as goblets of the \ iTV
Ht'lh'iiic StiuUi's, ISHl, 122 jij). sijii., ])ls. xii. xin. ;
same form and cohiur as at
Mycenae, are getiei'ally only found
Frazer, op. cit., v. i)p.
ISH '.)1 Tsouiitas niul
; Manatt, up. rit.. \) Sli.
-
Frazer, op. cit.. v. p. 121 ;
DrirptV'ld, Trojn, 41
j).
down to a depth ot about six feet, below .vr/. ; /,/., Mittli. Atfirii.
the surlaci' of the XIX. (1H