CHAPTER I.

EXCAVATIONS AT TIRYNS.

Situation of the City--Description by Pausanias--Cyclopean Walls: meaning of the epithet--The Quarry--The rock of Tiryns and its bordering Wall--Galleries, Gate, and Tower--Walls and Terraces of the Acropolis--Mythical traditions and History of Tiryns--Its destruction by the Argives--Its connection with the myth of Hercules--Morasses in the Plain of Argos--The Walls of Tiryns the most ancient monument in Greece--Pottery a test of antiquity--Beginning of the Excavations--Cyclopean house-walls and conduits--Objects discovered--Terra-cotta cows, and female idols with cow's-horns--Both represent the goddess HERA BOÖPIS--A bird-headed idol--A bronze figure, the only piece of metal at Tiryns, except lead--No stone implements found--Pottery--Hellenic remains outside the citadel, which was the primitive city--Proofs of different periods of habitation--The later city of Tiryns--The archaic pottery of Tiryns like that of Mycenæ--Its forms and decoration denote higher civilisation than the rude walls would lead us to expect--Older pottery on the virgin soil, but no cows or idols--Probable date of the second nation at Tiryns, about 1000 to 800 B.C.; of the Cyclopean walls, about 1800 to 1600 B.C.--No resemblance to any of the pottery in the strata of Hissarlik, except the goblets--A human skeleton found--Whorls--Estimate of soil to be moved at Tiryns--Greater importance of MYCENÆ _Page_ 1

NOTE A.--"HERA BOÖPIS" 19