Page:Mycenaean Troy.djvu/108

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104
MYCENAEAN TROY

further development in artistic form or technique, such as we admire in the gold cups from Vaphio, the gold dagger-blades from Mycenae, and the characteristic pottery. This interruption may be accounted for by the invasion of a northern tribe into the Peloponnesus. According to tradition, such an invasion was made by the Dorians about 1200 B.C.[1] In Crete alone there is no evidence of this interruption, since that island could be but remotely affected by


Fig. 39 - Kyanos frieze from palace at Tiryns

Fig. 39.Kyanos Frieze from Palace at Tiryns


such a movement.[2] But the Mycenaean civilization did not disappear without extending its influence among the invaders.[3]

The Homeric world stands in close relation to the Mycenaean age. Such a palace as that at Tiryns furnishes us a fair specimen of those princely abodes described in the Odyssey. Here we find the gates, the vestibules, the courts surrounded with columns, the men's hall, the women's apartment, and even the bath room. The cornice of blue glass paste, or kya-


  1. Cf. Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, Vol. I, p. 259.
  2. Cf. Evans, op. cit., p. 359.
  3. Cf. Furtwängler und Löschcke, op. cit., p. vii.