then inserted into a sinking on the blade. The materials used are
various. The lions and the naked parts of the men are of gold, the
shields and trunks of the men of electrum (a mixture of gold and
silver), the hair of the men, the manes of the lions, and some
other details of an unidentified dark substance; the background,
to the edges of the inserted slip, was covered with a black
enamel. The scene is a lion-hunt. Four men, one armed only with a
bow, the others with lances and huge shields of two different
forms, are attacking a lion. A fifth hunter has fallen and lies
under the lion's fore-paws. The beast has already been run through
with a lance, the point of which is seen protruding from his
haunch; but he still shows fight, while his two companions dash
away at full speed. The design is skilfully composed to fill the
triangular space, and the attitudes of men and beasts are varied,
expressive, and fairly truthful. Another of these dagger-blades
has a representation of panthers hunting ducks by the banks of a
river in which what may be lotus plants are growing, The lotus
would point toward Egypt as the ultimate source of the design.
Moreover, a dagger of similar technique has been found in Egypt in
the tomb of a queen belonging to the end of the Seventeenth
Dynasty. On the other hand, the dress and the shields of the men
engaged in the lion-hunt are identical with those on a number of
other "Mycenaean" articles--gems, statuettes, etc.--which it is
difficult to regard as all of foreign importation. The
probability, then, seems to be that while the technique of the
dagger-blades was directly or indirectly derived from Egypt, the
specimens found at Mycenae were of local manufacture.

The greatest triumph of the goldsmith's art in the "Mycenaean"
period does not come from Mycenae. The two gold cups shown in Fig.