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A MYKeNEAN TREASURE FROM ?EGINA. 195
GOLDCUP.
A.-Gold cup (Figs. Ica and lb), diam. 9.6 cm. It is ornamented with
a repoussd design consisting of a central 'rosette' surrounded by four
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returning spirals. At the side are three rivet-holes for the attachment of a
simple handle (now lost) of looped gold plate, like those on some of the
A MYKRNAEAN TREASURE FROM EGINA. 197
goblets from the Second, Third, and Fourth Akropolis Graves at Myk~nae.'
Though shallower in shape its contour somewhat resembles that of the two-
handled goblet--Schliemann's so-called 8-7traqa4b dt7reXXov-from Grave
IV. ;2 in the present case, however, there was only a single handle. The
returning spiral ornament round the sides recalls that on a prochous from
Grave IV.,3 but the style of the spirals is finer in the case of the IEgina
bowl and doubtless more advanced. The quadruple arrangement of this
motive, the single handle, and indeed the general contour of the cup
curiously recall a class of earthenware vessels characteristic of the
Hungarian Bronze Age.' The weight of the cup, which is of very pure gold,
is 83-6 grammes.
PENDANTORNAMENTS.
B.-Pendant ornament of gold (Figs. 2c6 and 2b), width 6.2 cm., height
(with pendant disks) 7.4 cm. It consists of two open-work plates, the upper
of these embossed with a design of a man holding two water-birds. The
:??
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FIG.2a.
lower plate is flat with its edges folded over so as to catch the borders of the
plate above, the hollow part of which is filled with clay. From these are
suspended by small chains five gold disks with central and peripheral
punctuations. The system here followed of backing a repoussd design with
a flat plate is the same as that adopted in the case of the Vaphio cups.
The design is of great interest and wholly different from any known
Mykenman type. The central figure holding the two water-birds is strongly
Egyptianizing alike in attitude, proportions, and costume. The arrange-
ment of the bracelets on the upper arms as well as round the wrists is quite
in conformity with Egyptian usage. The pendant end of the girdle divided
into ribbed sections shows the same agreement, but in this case it ends in a
point in place of the double Uraus. The two bossed circles seen on either
side of the neck are probably suggested by the ringlets of hair worn by some
Egyptian divinities, notably Hathor, though in the case of male figures, such
as Horus, they are generally worn on one side. The plumes again above
the head are obviously borrowed from the same source, though they do not
precisely reproduce the head ornament of any Egyptian deity. The whole
gives us somewhat the impression of an Osiris whose ten or head-dress of
solar disk, plumes and Uremihad been simplified into four plumes.
The base on which the figure is standing with its two lotos-flower
terminals is equally suggestive of certain forms of Egyptian boat, sacred and
otherwise, the prow and stern of which moreover not unfrequently end, as
here, in a lotos ornament.5 This similarity is enhanced by the frequency
with which in Egyptian art a central figure rises from the middle of the
bark. It is further to be observed that Egyptian boats of one form or
another not unfrequently serve as the bases of ornamental designs :-witness
the wooden perfume ladle in the Louvre,' the handle of which is carved with
a guitar-player standing on a small bark (in this case with duck-headed
terminals) against a back-ground of lotos-flowers and water-birds.
The lotos-tipped boat was also taken over into Phoenician art and
appears on the silver tazza from the Bernardini tomb at Palestrina,7 and on
an ivory plaque from the same deposit.8 On the first of these the
mummified Osiris is seen standing in the middle of the bark with a Horus
on either side.
The Egyptian figure of the present design standing on a base which
may be regarded as an ornamental derivative of the lotos-tipped Nile-boat
receives another aquatic touch from the two water-birds that he grasps in
either hand.
Here again, as it seems to me, we have a formalized reproduction of a
familiar Nile scene-the fowler, namely, on his boat, seizing the trophies of
his sport. A common subject of Egyptian paintings is the duck-catcher
5 Compare Rosellini, AlonumentiCivili, tav. Esmuni 'ear ben 'Asta, the style of which is
cxxvii. 1 (funereal boat with covered bier), and compared by Fabiani (Ann. dell' Inst. &c. 1876,
Mon. del Culto, tav. lxxviii. 258 seqq.) to that of Assyrian contracts of the
6 Perrot et Chipiez, L'Vgypte, p. 845, Fig. 7th century B.c.
586. 8 Ib. tay. xxxi. ; Perr. et Chip.
7 Monumenti dell' Inst. &c. x. t. xxxii. It Phdnicie,
p. 853, Fig. 623.
is engraved with the Phoenician inscription
A MYKeNAEAN TREASURE FROM 1EGINA. 199
taking the captured water-fowl out of the trap set among the lotoses on the
surface of the water, and so constructed that several birds could be taken
at once. This was a sport in which Pharaohs themselves delighted, and
it forms the subject of numerous Egyptian paintings. In one case a man is
seen with one duck already held by the neck, and with outstretched hand
grasping another within the net.9 In another representation the duck-
catcher has already extracted two birds which he holds by the neck in either
hand,10 or again we see two fowlers standing on a Nile-boat each holding
a bird by the wings, while further trophies of their sport have been placed
in a cage at the stern." In other cases the sport is of a different character-
the fowler standing in the middle of the boat-on the prow of which sits a
decoy-duck-and with a throwing-stick11a killing the water-birds as they
rise from the aquatic plants along the river-side. Possibly the upright
position of the figure in the design before us is due to this version of the
pastime. The birds themselves on these Egyptian monuments are seen
feeding on lotos plants; on the 1Egina jewel they are apparently standing
on the stalk and picking at the bud. On the tomb of a king of the
Eighteenth Dynasty the fowler is seen on a boat the ends of which terminate,
like the base of the present design, in two lotos flowers; and a similar
motive belonging to the Twelfth Dynasty occurs at Benihassan.11b The
boats themselves, indeed, seem to have been made of reeds or papyrus, like
the legendary craft of Isis.
This simple every-day incident of Nile life has in the case of the
Mykenaean jewel been adapted for decorative purposes and thrown into an
evenly-balanced geometrical form, in consonance with art traditions which
we are led more often to associate with Oriental than with Egyptian art.
It would not, indeed, be correct to say that this kind of scheme is wholly
unknown in Egypt. A certain parallelism may be found, for instance, in the
somewhat late hieroglyphic symbol for Kes or Kras, the original signification
of which seems to be to 'subdue' or' conquer,' in which a human figure is
seen astride between two serpents, the necks of which he grasps in either
hand, or at times appears in a similar attitude between two giraffes standing
back to back. As a rule, however, this class of scheme with its opposed or
confronted animal forms, is more Oriental in its range. It is a heraldic style,
born of the infancy of perspective which needed to see two sides of the same
Rosellini, Mon. del Culto, No. vii. batants-together with oval objects representing
1o Ib. No. v. sling-stones-certain incised figures the signifi-
31 Ib. No. vi. cance of which has hitherto remained un-
Ia
Cf. Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of noticed. They are, in fact, throwing-sticks, of
the Ancient Egyptians (1878 ed.) vol.ii. 104 seqq. a form that strikingly recalls the Australian
It is worth remarking in this connexion that the tombat. The throwers of these are not seen, and,
throwing-stick supplies another link between as the missiles did not return to them but lay
Egypt and the Myknmean world. Upon the where they were thrown, it becomes evident
siege-scene brought to light by careful cleaning that the name boomerangwould be a misnomer.
on one of the silver fragments of vases from the The throwing-stick is also Syrian.
Akropolis Tomb No. 4 at Mykane, there are 11b Lepsius, Denkmaler, &c., Abth. iii.
BI.
seen strewing the ground beneath the com- 113. Ib. Abth. ii. Bl. 130.
200 A MYKeNA~AN TREASURE FROM JEGINA.
object, and which is still traceable in its most rudimentary form in the
double-bodied lion or winged ram, each with a single head, of MIykeinean
gems. Only in the present case we see rather the echo of the old Baby-
lonian form of the king or hero between two opposed animals,-a scheme
which has also left its impress on the glyptic art of Mykenae; as, for
instance, in its design of a human figure in a purely Babylonian attitude
between two composite monsters on a rock-crystal lentoid gem from
Phigalia.12 Winged genii holding in either hand a bird by the legs appear
in Assyrian tablets.13
As applied to birds the scheme is further familiar to Mykinmeanart in
the case of a series of representations on engraved stones of a female figure
in characteristic Myknmoeandress holding in either hand a water-fowl.1"
In these again we have good reasons for seeing the prototype of that version
of the 'Asiatic Artemis' in which she is seen grasping two swans.15 Nor is
the male figure between two birds itself unknown to the later art of Greece.
On a Dipylon vase from Athens 16a typical male figure with a sword slung at
his side is seen reaching out his arms on either side towards a large water-
bird. On a beautiful archaic bronze relief discovered by Mr. Bather among
the Akropolis finds at Athens17 a winged figure of a naked youth holds a
goose by the neck in either hand.
It must be allowed that in the design before us, although the original
elements are all Egyptian and the subject itself in all probability borrowed
from a very simple scene of Nile life, the whole has as it were been recast
in a more Oriental mould. The relation which the present scheme bears
to its naturalistic Egyptian prototype recalls the creations of somewhat late
Phoenician and Assyrian art. The base on which the figure stands is no
longer a simple boat. It is ornamentalized by the addition of a central
lotos-flower to those at the two extremities. And in this respect it is closely
assimilated to the lowest member of the Sacred Tree as seen on Cypro-
Phoenician silver bowls or on such ornamental compositions as that shown on
an ivory tablet from Nineveh in the British Museum-itself of, perhaps, Phoe-
nician or strongly Egyptianizing is work-where two griffins are seen on either
side perched on the projecting sprays of a lotos-capital, much as the water-
12
Milchhifer, Anfdinge der Kunst, p. 55, kienean art supplies the forerunners of the
Fig. a. Greek Artemis: and fresh evidence on this
13 E.g. Layard, Discoveries, p. 609, from point has now accumulated. (See Tsountas,
Kouyoundjik; Perr. et Chip. Chaldle, &c., p. 'E0. dpX. 1891, p. 43, &c.)
666, Fig. 323. 16 In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.
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FTiC,2b.
It further appears that a scheme akin to that of the IEgina pendant was
reproduced in a more primitive style on certain ornaments of bronze-work
which characterize the late Bronze and early Iron Age of Italy and Central
Europe. On an open-work bronze disk of that period in the Museum of
W1
j~k~Q
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Fio. 3.
19 Cf. Layard, Mon. 1st series, P1. 86, 87; the ornament from a photograph supplied by
Perr. et Chip. Chaldde,&c., p. 291, Fig. 118. Count Gozzadini. It was found in the dolium
20 Cf. Perr. et Chip. op. cit. p. 730, Fig. 391. containing the great bronze-founder'shoard, but
21 See De
Linas, Les Origines de l'Orfivrerie had escaped notice in the first enumeration of
cloisonnde, t. iii. p. 240, who first published its contents.
H.S.-VOL. XIII: P
202 A MYKENAEAN TREASURE FROM AEGINA.
The circumstances under which this North-Etruscan object was dis-
covered lend additional value to the parallel that it supplies. found
It.was
in the great jar containing fourteen thousand bronze objects,-representing an
ancient bronze-founder's hoard,-near the Church of S. Francesco in Bologna.
This hoard, as Montelius has shown,2"dates from the end of the Bronze Age
in that Italian region and in all probability goes back to the ninth century
before our era. A similar specimen exists in the British Museum.
A closely allied open-work ornament of bronze with two ducks on either
side of a central object, which has been unfortunately broken away, came to
light in the ancient cemetery of Tarquinii 23 (Fig. 4). Another, the central
design of which howeverwas simply a rude duck with two heads and necks (one
broken) and a single body, was found at Vetulonia 24(Fig. 5). In this case the
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rARQ U IN I Vt.TUONIA
FIG. 4. FIG. 5.
double curves on which the bird stands and the rings for pendant ornaments be-
low supply an additional link with the AIgina jewel. This object belongs to the
same period as that from Bologna, and it would not be difficult to cite other
parallel ornaments in the same open-work style from the early well-tombs of
Italy. At a somewhat later date the same designs were taken over by Celtic
artificers.24b
The thin disks of gold suspended by the small chains from the base of
the iEgina ornament also find their affinities in the same direction. Similar
small disks with the same punctuations round their rim and at their centre are
in fact found suspended in the same way from the base of certain Hallstatt
fibuke,25and a parallel type occurs in the Italian well-tombs, such as those of
-my
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FIG. 6.
plates, hollow within, and joined together, as in the case of the preceding object,
by folding over their edges. The central decoration is formed in the same
way and looped on to the outer border.
The penannular ring, which forms the outer border, ends in what are
apparently two snakes' heads. The upper part of the decorative arrange-
ment within consists of two confronted mastiffs with curled tails and a ring
round each of their necks by which they are chained to the outer border.
Beneath their raised paws is a long red carnelian bead, and the other fore-paws
rest on the heads of two cynocephali, squatting back to back with their hands
clasped against their noses. Round the lower part of the body of each runs
a ring or girdle. In front of the apes on either side is a curved object which
supports the hind-legs of the dogs. Three more red carnelian beads, some
of them ribbed, are strung to the small chains from which three of the small
owls below are suspended.
It will be seen at once that the general character of the present design
-the outer circle with pendants, the open-work figures within, grouped in an
evenly balanced heraldic manner-agrees with that of Fig. 2. We are led
once more into the same cycle of comparisons. The hounds with their
massive build, their up-turned tails, and the collar round their necks,
somewhat recall Assyrian types. The hunting of apes is a known Phoenician
subject, appearing on a silver tazza from Palestrina.27 Terra-cotta figures
of cynocephali in a like attitude, with their hands to their noses, are found at
Thebes and elsewhere in Boeotian deposits of the 'Dipylon' period. But
in this, as in the preceding instance, the closest parallels are perhaps to be
found in certain bronze open-work figures from early Italian cemeteries,
which must in all probability be regarded as native imitations of Phoenician
products. On an ornament of this nature from Vetulonia28 rude simian
figures are seen squatted back to back as in the case of the ZEginajewel. Some
amber ornaments from the same cemetery,29 in the shape of a squatting
cynocephalus ape holding his nose in his hands, present the closest parallel
with the figures before us. In the Bernardini tomb at Palestrina30 rude
bronze figures of apes occurred, one of them forming the ornament to a fibula,
and among the attachments of a tripod-lebes from the same deposit appear
curly-tailed dogs with collars round their neck. On the contemporary bronze
ornaments of Sardinia apes as well as dogs are also abundant, and porcelain
figures of apes of Egyptianizing Phcenician fabric are known from Marathus
(Umrit). The cynocephalus itself was procured in Ethiopia, and, as
the sacred animal of Thoth, had held an important place in Egyptian
religious art.
The pendant owls are seemingly quite unique. They will be found to
recur in the case of a necklace to be described below, and find their analogy
in the pendant ducks of other jewels from the same deposit.
27 Mon. dell' Inst. x. tav. xxxi. ; Perr. et 29 lb. tav. vii. 4, see p. 101.
Chip., Phdnicie, &c., p. 759, Fig. 543. 30 Mon. dell' Inst. x. tav. xxxi. a; Annali,
8s I. Falchi, Vetulonia, tav. xvii. 11. 1876, 250; Bull. 1876, 130.
A MYK .NZEAN TREASURE FROM EGINA. 205
OWN? ;'
MAI~
Now.
FIG. 7.
31 See for instance the specimen in the dans le Caucase, Atlas t. ii. xxiv. 5-10; xxvi.
Louvre. Perr. et Chip. p. 834, Fig. 8. Numerous other specimens are to be seen
369: xxii. Dyn. ,gypte, in the Museum at Tiflis.
32 E.g. at Vetulonia; Notizie degli 34a See for instance Aspelin, Antiquitds du
Scavi,
1882, tav. xiii. 7, p. 146. It was found in a Nord Finno-Ougrien, p. 512, No. 989 (Anti-
pozzetto,inside an ossuary, and apparently was a quitds Mdriennes: Vladimir).
pendant of a necklace found in the same 34b Specimens of these are known from Cor-
urn. neto-Tarquinia (N. d. Scavi, 1881, tav. v. 24,
33 Ausgr. von Olympia, Atlas, taf. xxiv. 421. p. 361), Salerno (Mus. Bavenstein, No. 1169),
For duck ornaments see also t. xiii. 210, 210b, Viterbo (ib.), Glasinac in Bosnia (Mitth. d.
211. Anthr. Ges. in Wien, 1881, p. 289 seqq.), and
34 Cf. R. Virchow, Gr~iberfeldvon Koban, Transylvania. Similar in clay from Este (N. d.
Atlas, taf. viii. 1, 3; taf. x. 5, 6 ; taf. xi. 6a, Scavi, 1882, tav. iii. 1, p. 18).
6b. E. Chantre, Recherches Anthropologiques
A MYKaN2EAN TREASURE FROM IEGINA. 207
The embossed heads and the intervening curve are backed by a thicker
gold plate which, as in the case of the Vaphio cups, conceals the hollow side
of the repoussd work and gives the whole the appearance of a solid
relief with a flat back. As in that case too, the embossed work has been
supplemented by careful tooling of the surface, the hair and the borders of
the eyes being very finely engraved. The eyes and eyebrows are at present
hollow, but they were originally filled with thin accurately cut slices of blue
glass-paste, a particle of which is still to be seen adhering to a corner of the
right eyebrow.
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FiG. 8.
35 See especially that in the British Museum marked N. C. 221. Some of these ivories are
perhaps of Phcenician work.
208 A MYKENZEAN TREASURE FROM /EGINA.
NECKLACES.
F.-Necklace of gold and carnelian beads with pendant (Fig. 9). The
gold beads are of thin hollow plate honeycombed with shallow cup-shaped
impressions. The pendants are of two kinds : 1, hollow gold drops suspended
by small chains; 2, ornaments in the shape of a hand grasping a woman's
breast from beneath which, in each case, hangs a small acorn of an olive-
green stone in a gold cup.
The hand and breast ornaments are alternately of blue glass-paste and
gold plate. The backs are flat. Those made of gold are hollow within and
formed of two parts, an embossed upper plate overlapping the edge of a
thicker flat plate below.
T~
FIG. 9.
36
Perr. et Chip. Phd1nicie,p. 828, Fig. 589.
A MYKENAEAN TREASURE FROM AEGINA. 209
FI. 13.
The other carnelian beads of rounded elongated form found with the ZEgina
jewels are identical with a type well represented in the Maket tomb exca-
vated by Mr. Petrie at Kahun, the latest element in which seems to be
anterior to the Twenty-Second Dynasty.36b
s a Notes on the Antiquities of Mykince, Hell. 24. The Twenty-Second Dynasty begins about
Jour. XII. (1891) p. 201. 975 B.C.
36b Petrie, Illahun, Kahun and Gurob,pp. 23,
210 A TREASURE FROM A~GINA.
MYKIENNEAN
J.-Pendant; perhaps, of necklace. Gold owls (as above) suspended by
chains of the same metal from carnelian capped with gold at both ends (Fig.
13).
GOLD PLATES FROM-DRESS.
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FIG. 14.
These thin plates are of essentially the same character as those found
by Dr. Schliemann in the shaft graves of Myknoe, where they were
originally attached to both men's and women's apparel. The character of
the ornament moreover--the central rosette and surrounding spirals-
corresponds very closely to some from Mykinae,37though it here appears in
a somewhat degenerate form and of smaller module.
DIADEMS.
L.-Diadem of thin gold plate with looped wire ends (Fig. 15).
?..I /....
FIG. 15.
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FIG. 17.
FINGER RINGS.
FIG. 18.
Fiu. 19b.
B.--Double looped gold ring with grooves filled with pieces of blue
glass-paste cut to shape and fitted together (Fig. 20). The interlocked
loops of this ring recall the terminal loop ornaments frequent in Greek and,
later, in Roman necklaces.
38 See
p. 225.
A MYK1kNAiEANTREASURE FROM2EGINA. 213
S.-Gold ring with a hollow groove filled in the same way with pieces of
cut blue paste divided by a kind of key crnament formed of small pieces of
gold plate bent as below and applied to the groove of the ring. (Fig. 21a
and Fig. 21b).
The border thus formed with its simple maander finds a very close
parallel in the decorative bands of some Dipylon vases, as well as on some
early Rhodian and kindred wares which are regarded by Diimmler as a late
offshoot of the MykinaTan.39
FIG. 21b.
closely resembles the Boeotian shield as seen on coins of Thebes and other
Boeotian cities from the middle of the sixth century onwards. But the
FIG. 22b.
appearance of this form on the coins by no means indicates that such shields
were in ordinary use as late as the sixth century. On the contrary, there is
every reason to believe that the buckler as a monetary type of the Bceotian
League cities represents an archaic form associated with some national cult,
perhaps of a heroic character.41 A still nearer parallel as regards shape is
however supplied by the coins of Salamis (Fig. 23), which though later in
date go back like the other to an archaic model. In this instance indeed
the parallel is so close that the triple ridge round the rim, which forms such
a characteristic feature on the shield of the ZEgina ring, is faithfully repro-
duced. We have here in fact, not only the same type of shield, but the same
local variety of the type. And in this case not only is there no doubt as
ON COINS OF SALAMIS.
FIG. 23.
to whose shield the monetary artist has intended to represent but its ownership
has a direct connexion with IEgina. The shield on the Salaminian coin is
the shield of the Telamonian Ajax, whose temple was the chief centre of
the insular cult. But Ajax himself was the son of ZEakos and represents
the early AEginetan dynasty in the island. The shield of Ajax then and
41
Head, Hist. Num. p. 291 suggests that it was But it may rather have been intended to repre-
connected with the cult of Athena Itonia, in sent the shield of some legendary hero sus-
whose temple was held the Pamboeotianfestival. pended in the temple.
A MYKeN?EAN TREASURE FROM AEGINA. 215
the shield on our ring represent an AEakid badge and in this connexion
the correspondence in form has a great interest.
In would be unsafe to infer' too much from certain points of comparison
between the shield before us and the familiar Dipylon type. The Dipylon
shield is seen on Greek vases and other kindred wares at least as early as the
beginning of the eighth century B.C.42 and seems to have made its appearance
in the Danube valley about the end of the second or the beginning of the
first millennium before our era.48 This ' Dipylon' type is commonly supposed
to be a late development of a typical form of Mykgnman shield as seen on
"
ri
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i ,?.
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,
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FIT. 24.
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that the repulse of this invasion by Rameses IT. eventually threw back
the tide of migration,-in which the Dardanians, Mamonians, and other
members of the Thraco-Phrygian stock seem to have taken a prominent
part,-on the European side. It is certain, as I hope to show more in detail
on another occasion, that towards the close of the Mykenmoanperiod forms
and decorative elements of purely Asianic origin make their appearance on
the soil of Greece, and the occurrence of the 'Dipylon' type of shield is
only a single example of a whole class of kindred phenomena.
There can, however, be no reasonable doubt that the type represented
by the IEginetan shield on the ring and the sister forms of Salamis and
Among the Kaffirs the parrying-stick is pre- pare fig. 6, which is very suggestive ot a proto.
served at the back of an elliptical body-shield; type in leather. Similar forms are to be seen
and this method is often followed by savage on a gold signet and gem from the Vaphio tomb
races. ('Ei. 'ApX. 1890, P1. X. figs. 7, 39). Tsountas
44a Schuchhardt, p. 229, fig. 227 ; see too E. (op. cit. p. 171) calls the object on the signet a
' rock,' but it is
Gardner, Hell. Jour. xiii. p. 22, fig. 3, and com- clearly a shield of this form.
A MYKEN.A~EANTREASURE FROM EGINA. 217
?i
!Ir if
FIG. 27.
47 Cf. for example Dr. Busolt's conclusion in gems were also imported from Northern Syria.
his chapter on Mykenaean art prefixed to the 4s The Gythion gem is in my own collection
recently issued vol. i. of the 2nd edit. of as is also the original of Milchhoefer, Anfdinge
his GriechischeGeschichte,p. 98: 'Alle Wahr- der Kunst, p. 80, fig. 51 (Cades, No. 76)-one of
seheinlichkeit spricht dafiir dass die Goldbecher, the finest existing specimens of Mykeninanglfrp-
ebenso wie die reichverzierten Dolchklingen Er- tic art,-which is in the same material. It was
zeugnisse der syrischen, nach agyptischen Mus- therefore. doubtless of Peloponnesian manufac-
torn und unter digyptischen Einfliissen arbei- ture, though its provenience is not recorded.
tenden Industrie sind.' Pp. 104-106, &c. This gem was formerly in the Meyer collection
develop- the extraordinary thesis that (with at Liverpool,
the exception of a small group) the Mykenacan
A MYKPNAAN TREASURE FROM AGINA. 221
a9 See Petrie, Illahun, Kahun, and Gurob, evidence see Steindorff, Arch. Anz. 1892, p. 11
and 'Egyptian Bases of Greek History,' Hellenic seqq.and Cecil Smith, Classical Review, vi. 462 sqq.
Journal xi. (1890), p. 271 seqq. 61 See Hellenic Journal, 1890 p. 273, 1891 p.
5OFor a summary statement of the Egyptian 199 seqq.
A MYKtNA1 AN TREASURE FROM AEGINA. 223
of historic Greece. The continuity of ceramic types is shown by the
survival of the Biigelkanne or false-necked amphora and the occurrence of
painted vessels in the style of the ' warrior vase' from Mykenae, as well as by
the appearance of a new type of fibula, the outgrowth of the more primitive
fiddle-bow-shaped one of the close of the preceding period and which itself
supplied the prototype of the Dipylon form.52 Cast bronze figures in an
Egyptianizing style, perhaps of Cypro-Phoenician import, are now found for
the first time.63 Some gold plaques, such as one in the Polytechnion at
Athens in which the diverging spiral ornament is associated with rows of
orientalizing animals, may best be classed with the remains of this late
Myknmaan age.
Hitherto, however, the remains of gold-work belonging to this late period
have been extremely scarce. Hence the great value of the present hoard,
which must evidently be brought down to the latest age of Mykenman art.
The great difference in style between the 1Egiha jewels and those so well
represented alike of the Archaic and of the most flourishing period of
Mykenman culture brings them down well beyond their date. The cup
indeed with its diverging spiral ornament shows the old tradition living
on in a very pure form, though the workmanship is somewhat less bold than
that of the same kind of decoration on the earlier gold plates and vases. On
the other hand the evidence of strong Phoenician influence and of contact
with the Geometrical Style is quite in keeping with what we know of other
remains of this late period.
Other collateral evidence bears out the same approximate chronology.
The parallels noticed with ornament found in the North-West Palace at
Nineveh bring us to the first half of the ninth century B.C.and the reign
of Assurnazirpal (885-860). Some of the beads suggest Egyptian
comparisons which take us to the Twenty-Second and Twenty-Third
Dynasties-975 to c. 800 B.C. Some late Phoenician parallels on the other
hand, suggested by some objects in the Palestrina tombs, reach down to
the seventh century B.c. The perpetuation, again, of certain forms of
ornament and the occurrence of the Salaminian shield lead us to the borders
of the historic period of Greece.
The prolongation moreover of an offshoot of Myknaean culture on the
Lower Danube, of which other remarkable evidence exists, also affords
some valuable chronological data. The parallelism between the gold cup
of AEgina and ceramic forms found in Hungary and its borderlands and
belonging there to the late Bronze Age brings us down to the first
centuries of the first millennium B.C.
82 To the question of the Mykenman fibulae Kition, also of gold and of the same form as the
I hope to return on another occasion. Gold above, is in the New York Museum. It is
fibulm of this type are found in Cyprus. Two engraved by Perrot et Chipiez, Phn*icie, &c.
from Paphos, found in company with a Biigel- p. 831, Fig. 595.
kanne with geometric ornament, are in the Ash- 53 See Tsountas, 'EK MvKnYcry;'Eep. 'APX.,
molean Museum at Oxford, presented by the 1891, p, 22 seqq., and P1. II. Figs. 1, 4, 4a.
Cyprus Exploration Committee. Another from
224 A MYKNA2EALNTREASURE FROM AEGINA.
On the other hand the comparisons instituted with certain types and
6rnaments belonging to the 'Hallstatt' group in Italy and Central Europe
afford a valuable corroboration of the chronological data supplied from other
sources. It has been pointed out that the open-work jewels of the Algina
Treasure, such as that exhibiting the male figure holding the two water-fowl,
or that with the apes and confronted dogs, supply, if not the prototypes, at
least the highest artistic representatives of a whole class of rude open-work
ornaments of bronze which characterize the late Bronze and early Iron Age
deposits of Italy, some of which, as for instance that from the hoard of
S. Francesco at Bologna, go back to the ninth century before our era while
others come down to the eighth century. The pendant ducks and disks
find analogies in the same quarter, and the comparison extends, as
we have seen, to the early cemeteries of the Caucasus, which may be
referred to the ninth and succeeding centuries B.C. But what makes
this last comparison specially interesting is the fact that the bronze
fibulae found at Koban and in other Caucasian cemeteries are modelled on
the late Mykenaean type already referred to as characteristic of the same
period. The statement of Ezechiel,54 who speaks of Javan, or the Ionian
Greeks, as bringing in conjunction with Mesech (the Moschi) and Tubal (the
Tibarenes) vessels of brass, made no doubt from the ore of that Caucasian
region, to the Tyrian markets, seems thus to receive a remarkable confirma-
tion-and inclines us to suppose that the trade connexions of the Ionians
with those Pontic shores had begun some time before the days of
Ezechiel.
From these converging lines of evidence, not one of which crosses the
other in the slightest degree, we are led to refer the deposit of the A2Egina
Treasure to the eighth or ninth century before our era or approximately
to about 800 B.c.
We must therefore infer that up to about that date Agina had remained
an insular stronghold of Achaean power and still upheld something of the
traditional culture of Mykenae. From the wealth of gold contained in the
hoard itself we may gather that in those days of Achamandepression the
island folk had retained something of the well-being of old times and that
the commercial prosperity which distinguished 2Egina in the early days of
classical Greece went back in fact to an older period.
These conclusions will be found to agree very well with what is
traditionally known of the early history of 2Egina. Of the ancient
superiority of the 2Eginetans in maritime craft a record has been preserved
by Hesiod 5-
01 8' 'Tro01~rpCrodt
1ei?av via apcpeXloe'V
0 3'' loa V'ro
a;,
IIpC^rot O
0rrTepa Ve
7rooT7rropoto.
'
64 Ch: xx. v. 13, Javan, Tubal, and Meshech inerchandise.'
they were thy traffickers; they traded the " Catal. Pragm.
96, Kinkel.
persons of men and vessels of brass for thy
A MYKANAEAN TREASURE FROM AEGINA. 225
According.to Pausanias the 2Eginetans in very early times had traded with
the Arcadians through the Eleian port of Kyllene. Politically their old
importance was shown by their participation, along with Athens, Orcho-
menos and other cities, in the Amphiktyony of Kalauria.
JEgina is said to have been conquered by the Dorians of Epidauros, but
from the Mykenaean and oriental character of jewels of the present hoard
we must infer that this conquest had not been effected at the time of its
deposit. In any case her industrial pre-eminence survived the shock, nor as
a matter of fact was 1Egina long dependent on its Dorian metropolis. The
extensive commerce of the 2Eginetans is attested by their later connexion
with Naukratis, where the temple of Zeus was built by them, as well as
by the plantation of a factory on the Umbrian coast. But the wide-spread
adoption of their monetary standard is indeed the best tribute to their
commercial superiority. Pheidon, King of Argos, whose supremacy extended
over the island, is said, according to the well-known tradition, to have first
struck coins in XEgina,and it is certain that the coinage of 2Egina was -the
earliest of European Greece, dating back to the seventh century before our
era.
The standard on which these coins were struck is known as the
AEginetanand, according to Dr. Head,56was probably a degraded form of the
Phoenician standard. The original weight of the stater was somewhat over
200 grs. (12.960 grammes). On the other hand the remarkable conformity
that has already been noticed in the weight of the gold rings of the .Egina
treasure 7 which weigh on an average exactly 130 grains (8.4 grammes),
the highest being 135 grs. (8.7 grammes), points to the existence of a pre-
Pheid6nxian stater in the island almost exactly answering to the Euboic
silver stater of 135 grs. This find therefore throws a new light on the
introduction of the Euboic and Attic standard into Greece. Assuming that
the highest weight of therings-135 grains-most nearly represents the original
gold standard, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we have here an
original Iykenaean standard, based perhaps on a slight reduction of the
Egyptian Kat of 140 grains.58 It is far more likely, and indeed it is in
accordance with usual precedent, that a commercial people should have
slightly reduced a borrowed standard than that they should have deliberately
raised it, as would have been the case were we to suppose, as has been
hitherto assumed, that this weight was borrowed from the light Assyrian and
Babylonian stater of 130 gr. On the other hand it is almost inconceivable
that a people so advanced in arts and commerce as the Myk6naeans should
have had no standard of their own and that the Ionian colonists on the coasts
of Asia Minor should first have taken the idea of borrowing an eastern
standard some seven centuries after the great days of Agamemn6n's City.
" B. M. Cat. Attica, &c. p. lxvi. and cf. low as 136.8 grains (Naukratis, p. 75). For a
Hist. Numn.p. 331, criticism of some of Mr. Petrie's conclusions
57 See above p. 211. see Prof. Ridgeway, Origin of Currency, and
85 Head, Hist. Num. p. xxix. Some of those Weight Standard.9,p. 241 note.
weighed by Prof. Petrie from Naukratis scaled as
226 A MYKANZEAN TREASURE FROM AEGINA.