been lost. Otherwise the work is in good preservation, in spite of
its uninterrupted exposure for more than three thousand years. The
technique is quite different from that of the gravestones, for all
parts of the relief are carefully modeled. The truth to nature is
also far greater here, the animals being tolerably life-like. The
design is one which recurs with variations on two or three
engraved gems of the Mycenaean period (cf Fig. 40), as well as in
a series of later Phrygian reliefs in stone. Placed in this
conspicuous position above the principal entrance to the citadel,
it may perhaps have symbolized the power of the city and its
rulers.

If sculpture in stone appears to have been very little practiced
in the Mycenaean age, the arts of the goldsmith, silversmith, gem-
engraver, and ivory carver were in great requisition. The shaft-
graves of Mycenae contained, besides other things, a rich treasure
of gold objects--masks, drinking-cups, diadems, ear-rings,
finger-rings, and so on, also several silver vases. One of the
latter may be seen in Fig. 43. It is a large jar, about two and
one half feet in height, decorated below with horizontal flutings
and above with continuous spirals in repousse (i.e., hammered)
work. Most of the gold objects must be passed over, interesting
though many of them are. But we may pause a moment over a group of
circular ornaments in thin gold-leaf about two and one half inches
in diameter, of which 701 specimens were found, all in a single
grave. The patterns on these discs were not executed with a free
hand, but by means of a mold. There are fourteen patterns in all,
some of them made up of spirals and serpentine curves, others
derived from vegetable and animal forms. Two of the latter class
are shown in Figs. 34, 35. One is a butterfly, the other a cuttle-