To the account of this well and of the objects found in it the following additions should be made.

A. There is one fragment of a funnel-shaped rhyton in stone from Mycenae in the National Museum at Athens. It is fluted and well-polished, and was found by Tsountas in his excavations on the acropolis (Athens Nat. Mus., No. 2669, height ·07, width ·065, thickness ·02 m.). A fragment of another was found in the Palace in 1923, see below, p. 183.

After we had spent several days in preparations, including the purchase and despatch of timber and other stores, Miss Lamb left Athens for Mycenae on May 11th, and began work the next day with six men. Dr. Boethius arrived on May 12th and the Director on May 13th. The other members of the party, Miss Lorimer, Mr. Heurtley, Mr. Hutchinson and Dr. Smith, arrived on May 16th and 17th. The number of men employed gradually rose to fifty-five, and then towards the end of the excavations was reduced by degrees to thirty, and finally to four when work closed on August 15th. The headquarters were again established in the Metrovgenes house, and accommodation was reserved at the ‘Fair Helen’ Hotel for the women members of the party.

In view of the decision to abandon the excavation of Mycenae, special efforts were made to get all museum work done at Nauplia and Athens, and all plans and drawings completed for the contemplated publications. In Athens Mr. P. de Jong was busy with the plans from his return in February till May 12th, when he went to Knossos. Monsieur E. Gillièron fils was also occupied in Athens from the end of January in preserving, restoring and drawing the frescoes and small objects. The Director was employed in writing the report, which involved several flying visits to Nauplia and Mycenae, and in superintending the work generally till October 8th. In Athens help was given by Miss Lamb, Miss Eldridge and Miss Pybus. In March and June over six weeks were spent at Nauplia in museum work, in sorting, cleaning, mending and studying the pottery and other finds. Two basement rooms of the museum were floored with cement and whitewashed to serve as store-rooms, and additional shelves were erected in the museum itself to display some of the finds.

The ancient approach to the Lion Gate (Fig. 1) probably began at the north-west angle of the circuit wall, and thence gradually ascended to the gate itself. Thus all possible assailants would have to pass through the fire from the west side of the north-west angle, even before they reached the court-like area directly before the gate. Here they would be faced with a triple fire, from the gate, from the great rectangular bastion (1) which flanks the gate on the west, and from the wall immediately to the east of the gate. Exactly the same defensive plan is provided for the so-called Postern Gate in the northern circuit wall not far from the original north-eastern angle. Some have suggested that the terrace wall (2), which is called a kyklopische Stützmauer by Steffen, and juts below the north-west corner of the rectangular bastion, is part of the ancient roadway, which mounted here in zigzags, and then turned abruptly to the right to enter the gate.

The Palace at Mycenae was first found and excavated by Tsountas in 1886, although Schliemann had previously in 1874 dug one or two trial pits on the summit of the Acropolis here. His shafts are shewn on Steffen's excellent plan. Tsountas published a full report of his excavations in the Πρακτικά, and in succeeding campaigns cleared more of the ruins of the Palace, and also laid bare the foundations of the Doric temple which was built over the ruins of the Palace in later times. Unfortunately, no full account or plan of these supplementary excavations has ever been published, so that our knowledge of the Palace at Mycenae was incomplete. In 1914 Dr. Rodenwaldt re-examined the painted stucco floors in the Court and in the Megaron, and at the same time republished, together with important new fragments which he was lucky enough to find, all the known pieces of wall-painting from the Megaron. We began work on the Palace in 1920, and continued our re-investigation of the ruins during the three following campaigns, of which that of 1923 was very short. The results of our observations and the few new points discovered by us are here set out. We have to thank Dr. Leicester Holland for the splendid plan published here (Plate II.). In it all the foundation walls of the Doric temple are omitted and most of the Hellenistic and other late walls, so as not to confuse the plan of the Mycenaean Palace.

At the time of Schliemann's excavations in 1876 six tholos tombs were known at Mycenae, the Treasury of Atreus, the Tomb of Clytemnestra, the Lion Tomb, the Epano Phournos, the Cyclopean Tomb and the Kato Phournos. Most of these had been seen by earlier travellers, such as Leake and Dodwell. Lord Sligo and Lord Elgin had conducted explorations in the Treasury of Atreus: Veli Pasha had attacked the Tomb of Clytemnestra, and apparently was responsible for the destruction of its dome. Steffen marks all these six on his excellent map of Mycenae and its environs. Schliemann in 1873 and 1876 was the first to begin the excavation of the tholos tombs. He made some tests in the Treasury of Atreus, and Mrs. Schliemann superintended the operations intended to clear the Tomb of Clytemnestra, but she was unable to complete them. By 1879 Stamatakes had cleared the dromos and chambers of the Treasury of Atreus, which, till then, as shewn clearly in the Elgin drawings preserved in the British Museum, were blocked with a large accumulation of earth. In 1886 Tsountas commenced his long and fruitful series of excavations, and among other important finds was rewarded by the discovery of three more tholos tombs.

In 1922 we had heard rumours of the existence of a Cyclopean building to the west of the Lion Tomb and on the north or reverse side of the ridge from the Tomb of Clytemnestra. We dug here for one day then and verified the presence of big walls. Accordingly, during our brief campaign in 1923, we could not resist the temptation to see what this building might be, as it lies well outside the acropolis and outside the Hellenistic wall of the lower town, and in an area where no Mycenaean ruins have yet been excavated.

The plan in Fig. 91 shews the extent of wall we were able to trace. On the west at the foot of the slope we found a very heavy wall built in Cyclopean style with large blocks of limestone. It is 2·70 m. thick, in places as much as 2 m. high, and runs along for a distance of 15 m., and may have extended still further northwards. A wall returns at right angles from this straight into the hillside, and divides the space behind it into two sections, which we have provisionally called the north and south chambers.

Among the ruins of the Hellenistic buildings at the south end of the Great Ramp, in the fourth or southern chamber (Pl. I. 34), three fragments of a stele (now in the Nauplia Museum) were found. The stele is of a simple and common type, and is made of the same white limestone as the other Mycenaean stele found by Tsountas, which it closely resembles even in its weathering. Except for the top left-hand corner and a gap on the right side the whole stele is preserved. It is ·969 m. in height, ·41–·436 m. in breadth (·41 m. at the ninth line of the inscription) and ·11–·125 m. thick. At the top there is a plain frieze, ·065 m. high : ·02 m. below the frieze begins an inscription which fills twenty lines and ends ·50 m. above the bottom of the stele. The letters are ·008–·01 m. high. The space between the lines is ·009–·011 m. The surface of the stone is very much worn, and it was consequently difficult to make out the letters and their accurate forms. The sketch (Fig. 93) shows the arrangement of the text.

The citadel of Mycenae owes much of its impressiveness to the fact that it lies at the foot of and between the twin heights of Hagios Elias to the north and Zara to the south. These two bare peaks of limestone rise very steeply, and seem to stand like two sentinels specially posted by nature to add to the dignity of Mycenae. Their mountain wildness is in strong contrast to the smiling fertility of the Argive plain, which stretches away to the south-west. Zara is some 659 m. high, and has no remains of antiquity on its summit. Hagios Elias is higher, some 807 m., and has been known, since the days of Schliemann, to be crowned by the ruins of ancient fortifications.

We made an expedition to the summit on the evening of June 18th, 1922, camped for the night there, and spent the next day in planning the walls and making trial excavations within them. The view from the summit is magnificent (Fig. 96). To the south the whole of the Argive plain lies at one's feet; Argos itself, Lerna, Tiryns, Mideia, Nauplia and Asine are all visible.