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Palladia from Mycenae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

The objects which form the subject of the present paper, and which may be easily identified by the accompanying cuts, Nos. 5—8, have for some time been a puzzle to students of Mycenaean archaeology. Certain specimens exhibited in the cases of the Mycenae Room in the Polytechnic Museum at Athens are described as ‘objects of unknown use’; and although some suggestions have been thrown out in various publications of isolated examples, I do not think any satisfactory explanation of them has yet been offered. The cause of this failure seems to be the impossibility of understanding properly any such specimen, apart from the whole class to which it belongs. I will therefore begin this paper with a list of instances which, while not pretending to be exhaustive, is at least representative, and so will give some notion of the character, size, shape, and material of the objects now before us.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1893

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References

1 Some of these objects were found by Dr. Schliemann; most of the others by M. Tsountas, whose discoveries at Mycenae and elsewhere are too wall known to need further acknowledgment.

2 So also one found by Dr.Schliemann, , Mycenae, p. 111Google Scholar; ‘it has on its lower side a tubular hole for fastening it to something else.’

3 Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1891, Pl. ii. 2.

4 Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1891, p. 12, n. 1.

5 Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1888, Pl. x. 28. Myk. Vasen, E. 5, 22, 24. They are in one or two cases explained as bivalve shells; sometimes they approximate to this form on gems; but other examples cannot be so explained, and the whole class must go together.

6 Bull. Corr. Hell. 1886, Pl. ii. Mitchell, , Ancient Sculpture, p. 155Google Scholar. Schuchhardt (English Ed.) p. 229.

7 Schliemann, , Mycenae, p. 52Google Scholar (Schuchhardt, Eng. Ed. p. 171).

8 Schliemann, p. 174, No. 254 (Schuch. p. 196, No. 178).

9 Schliemann, p. 202, No. 313. This group is quite misunderstood by the draughtsman; but the outlines of the two shields can be seen even in his drawing.

10 E.g. the breastplates, Schliemann, , My cenae, p. 301Google Scholar (Schuch. p. 255).

11 Schliemann, , Mycenae, p. 354Google Scholar, No. 530 (Schuch. p. 277).

12 Ἐφ. Ἀρχ. 1887, Pl. x. (Schuch. p. 291).

13 Gardner, P., Types of Greek Coins, p. 48Google Scholar.

14 Head, , Hist. Num. p. 291Google Scholar.