Abstract
SIR ARTHUR EVANS'S paper on “The Shaft Graves of Mycenae and their Contents in Relation to the Beehive Tombs,” which was read before the Anthropo logical Section of the British Association at Oxford, was something in the nature of a bomb-shell, of which the effects will be far-reaching. The relation of the great beehive tombs at Mycenæ, which were found empty of their sepulchral contents, to the shaft-graves, so rich in sepulchral relics, found by Schlieman within an extension of the Acropolis wall, has always been a puzzle to archaeologists. Sir Arthur's paper revived a theory, first put forward by Prof. Gardner and arrived at independently by himself, that at a time of danger the royal burials had been trans ferred from the mausolea outside the walls to a site which could be included within the enceinte. This theory has not found favour among archaeologists, and the view generally held is that the two classes of tombs correspond to earlier and later dynasties at Mycenae. Mr. Wace recently has carried the matter further and suggested that the two finest shaft-graves, the “Treasury of Atreus” and the “Tomb of Clytemnestra,” belong to the latest groups, making them contemporary with a time when the Palace of Knossos was in ruins and the civilisation of Crete on the downward path. Sir Arthur Evans's latest dis coveries render this theory untenable. He has found decorative sculptures, not later in date than the end of the Third Middle Minoan period and in vogue about 1700 B.C., which run parallel with those of the facade of the “Atreus” tomb. Vases characteristic of the same epoch were found in the “Tomb of Clytem nestra.” He was able to demonstrate archæologically that the finest of the beehive tombs belong to the same date as the earliest elements in the shaft graves, and that both are equally Minoan. On this view their culture, with the exception of certain in trusive barbaric elements, can no longer be regarded as a ‘mainland’ culture and, as Sir Arthur pointed out, the term ‘Helladic’ as applied to it becomes a misnomer.
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News and Views. Nature 118, 313–316 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118313c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/118313c0