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Updated: June 29, 2025
Excavations conducted here by Schliemann in 1880-81 brought to light the broken fragments of a ceiling of greenish schist with which this lateral chamber was once covered. The beautiful sculptured decoration consists of elements which recur in almost the same combination on a fragment of painted stucco from the palace of Tiryns. The pattern is derived from Egypt.
The classic example of these constructions is the citadel wall of Tiryns in Argolis. Huge blocks of roughly dressed limestone some of those in the lower courses estimated to weigh thirteen or fourteen tons apiece are piled one upon another, the interstices having been filled with clay and smaller stones. This wall is of varying thickness, averaging at the bottom about twenty-five feet.
The present generation has witnessed remarkable discoveries in Mesopotamia and in Egypt, but neither Niffur nor Abydos disclosed a world so entirely new and unexpected as that which has been revealed by the work of Schliemann and his successors at Troy, Mycenæ, and Tiryns, and by that of Evans and the other explorers Italian, British, and American in Crete.
Sometimes they were inlaid with colored stones. The walls of the great hall had a painted frieze running about them. And around the whole palace went a thick stone wall. One such old palace has been uncovered at Tiryns near Mycenae. To-day a visitor can walk there through the house of an ancient king. The watchman is not there, so the stranger goes through the strong old gateway.
Thus there are bits of what must once have been a beautiful frieze of alabaster, inlaid with pieces of blue glass. Essentially the same design, somewhat simplified, occurs on objects of stone, ivory, and glass found at Mycenae; and in a "bee-hive" tomb of Attica. Again, there are fragments of painted stucco which decorated the walls of rooms in the palace of Tiryns.
And they that possessed Argos and Tiryns of the great walls, Hermione and Asine that enfold the deep gulf, Troizen and Eionai and Epidauros full of vines, and the youths of the Achaians that possessed Aigina and Mases, these were led of Diomedes of the loud war-cary and Sthenelos, dear son of famous Kapaneus.
The great gate of the city, a portion of the wall, and four of the towers of defense, are in tolerable condition. The name of Epaminondas hallows these remains, which otherwise, grand as they are, do not impress one like the cyclopean walls of Tiryns.
He discovered that he could learn many useful things from the men who dwelt behind the high stone walls of Mycenae, and Tiryns. He was a clever pupil. Within a short time he mastered the art of handling those strange iron weapons which the AEgeans had brought from Babylon and from Thebes. He came to understand the mysteries of navigation. He began to build little boats for his own use.
In the foot-race down the straight course of the stadion was Likymnios' son Oionos first, from Nidea had he led his host: in the wrestling was Tegea glorified by Echemos: Doryklos won the prize of boxing, a dweller in the city of Tiryns, and with the four-horse chariot, Samos of Mantinea, Halirrhothios' son: with the javelin Phrastor hit the mark: in distance Enikeus beyond all others hurled the stone with a circling sweep, and all the warrior company thundered a great applause.
It remains to glance at the most important early varieties of Greek pottery. We need not stop here to study the rude, unpainted, mostly hand-made vases from the earliest strata at Troy and Tiryns, nor the more developed, yet still primitive, ware of the island of Thera. But the Mycenaean pottery is of too great importance to be passed over.
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