Buried Cities, Volume 3 - Mycenae by Jennie Hall
page 10 of 20 (50%)
page 10 of 20 (50%)
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Then one day a spade grated on gravel. Once before that had happened,
and they had found gold below. They called out to Dr. Schliemann. He and his wife came quickly. Fire leaped into Schliemann's eyes. "Stop!" he said. "Now I will dig. Spades are too clumsy." So he and his wife dropped upon their knees in the mud. They dug with their knives. Carefully, bit by bit, they lifted the dirt. All at once there was a glint of gold. "Do not touch it!" cried Schliemann, "we must see it all at once. What will it be?" So they dug on. The men stood about watching. Every now and then they shouted out, when some wonderful thing was uncovered, and Schliemann would stop work and cry, "Did not I tell you? Is it not worth the work?" At last they had lifted off all the earth and gravel. There was a great mass of golden things--golden hairpins, and bracelets, and great golden earrings like wreaths of yellow flowers, and necklaces with pictures of warriors embossed in the gold, and brooches in the shape of stags' heads. There were gold covers for buttons, and every one was molded into some beautiful design of crest or circle or flower or cuttle-fish. And among them lay the bones of three persons. Across the forehead of one was a diadem of gold, worked into designs of flowers. "See!" cried Schliemann, "these are queens. See their crowns, their scepters." |
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