CHAPTER V.

EXCAVATIONS IN AND NEAR THE ACROPOLIS--_continued_.

THE LIONS' GATE AND THE AGORA.

The Treasury excavated by Mrs. Schliemann--Older and less sumptuous than that of Atreus--The entrance, its ornaments--Archaic pottery found in the passage--Necklace beads--Fragment of a marble frieze--Threshold of the Lions' Gate--The great double row of parallel slabs, probably not of a remote antiquity--The Acropolis only partly accessible to chariots--The gateway double, like the Scæan Gate at Troy--Corridors of Cyclopean house-walls--Hera-idols and arrow-heads of bronze and iron--Door-keeper's lodge--Retaining walls--Tower of the Acropolis resting on a massive wall--The double circle of slabs formed the enclosure of the royal tombs and the Agora--Arguments in proof of this view--Objects of interest found there--A vast Cyclopean house with cisterns and water conduit, probably the ancient Royal Palace--The spring Perseia--No windows in the house--Objects of art and luxury found there--An onyx seal-ring--Vase-paintings of mail-clad warriors--Hand-made pottery in the Acropolis 118

NOTE 138