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Case L contains objects carved in bone, ivory, and amber. The ivories are of all periods. Among the earliest are some important carved mirror handles of the Mycenaean period, from Enkomi in Cyprus.

An ivory mirror handle is carved with a lion attacking a bull. In the shade above is a similar mirror handle in a better state of preservation. On one side an armed warrior, whom later Greek legend more definitely specified as an Arimasp, is engaged in combat with a Gryphon, who has large wings, an eagle's head, and a lion's body and legs. On the reverse, a lion is attacking a bull, nearly as in the mirror handle already mentioned.

Among fine works in ivory, note :

A plaque with a subject exquisitely drawn in incised lines. A nymph is kneeling to wash at a pool of water which flows from a lion's head fountain. A young Satyr comes up from behind the rocks and snatches at her drapery. The green tint is perhaps due to the accidental nearness of bronze while the object was buried in a tomb.

In a glass shade above the case are ivory busts and statuettes. At the end of Case L and in three shades above it is an interesting collection of carved ambers.

Cases 91-93. Examples of the comparatively rare Greek grave tablets, with painted subjects. Three of the tablets are from excavations at Amathus (Cyprus).

[A door in the South side of the Room leads, by a Corridor, to the Room of Gold Ornaments and Gems. Immediately adjoining are the Study of the Keeper of the Department, and the Departmental Library and Students' Room.]

ROOM OF GOLD ORNAMENTS AND GEMS (WITH (WITH CORRIDOR).

SUBJECT:-FRESCOES, PORTLAND VASE, GOLD ORNAMENTS, SILVER PLATE, ENGRAVED GEMS, PASTES, ETC.

THE CORRIDOR.

[The cases in the Corridor are, at present, for the most part occupied with the collections bequeathed to the Museum by the late Sir A. Wollaston Franks, K.C.B., which form a part of the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities.*]

*For the classical finger-rings and jewellery, see the Catalogue of the Finger-rings, Greek, Etruscan and Roman, by F. H. Marshall, 1907 (23s.), and the Catalogue of the Jewellery, Greek, Etruscan and Roman, by the same, 1911 (35s.). Copies can be borrowed from the attendant. The numbers of objects in the Jewellery Catalogue are painted on maroon labels.

A wall-case on the right contains small objects in silver. These include a series of silver rings, with intaglio designs cut in the silver or in set stones. See also the trappings of a cuirass, from Xanten, on the Rhine, inscribed with the name of Plinius (Plinio praefecto), probably Pliny the Elder.

No. 1633. A fine oak wreath of silver, with silver-gilt acorns.

On the walls are six mural paintings, which formed a part of the decoration of the ceiling of the tomb of the Nasonii, discovered in 1674, on the Flaminian Way, near Rome.

The principal subject is a scene of the rape of Proserpine by Pluto, who carries her off in his chariot. The other paintings in the corridor include a scene of a music lesson, from Pompeii; a series of smaller examples of various styles of ancient fresco painting; also a fresco from a villa at Boscoreale (near Pompeii). The young Bacchus leans on the shoulder of an old Silenus (who plays the lyre) and pours out wine for his panther.

ROOM OF GOLD ORNAMENTS
AND GEMS.

This room contains a large part of the works of art in precious materials of two Departments-namely, of Greek and Roman, and of British and Mediaeval Antiquities. Those of the former, with which only this Guide is concerned, occupy (subject to rearrangement) the Wall-cases A-H; also the upper part of Wall-cases J-L; Cases P (lower part) and R; two sides (T and U) of the -shaped table-case, the central case (X), and the smaller cases before the three windows.

THE PORTLAND VASE.

To the right end of the room, above Table-case T, is placed the celebrated glass vase, deposited by its owner, the Duke of Portland, in the British Museum, and popularly known as the Portland Vase (Plate XX.). It was found, according to a tradition of doubtful value, in a marble sarcophagus in the Monte del Grano, near Rome, and was formerly in the Barberini Palace. The sarcophagus (of which a cast is shown in the Gallery of Casts) is a work of the third century of our era, but the vase must be assigned to the beginning of the Roman Empire. The ground of the vase is of blue glass; the design is cut in a layer of opaque white glass, after the manner of a cameo. The whole of the white layer, and parts also of the blue underneath, were cut away in the

spaces between the figures. On account of the difficulty of carving in glass, and the brittle nature of the material, which might at any moment break in the hands of the artist, works of this kind are of great rarity.

The interpretation of the subjects is doubtful. That on the obverse, with a woman seated, approached by a lover led on by Cupid, is supposed to represent Thetis consenting to be the bride of Peleus in the presence of Poseidon. That on the reverse, with a sleeping figure and two others, is supposed to be Peleus watching his bride Thetis asleep, while Aphroditè presides over the scene.

On the bottom of the vase, which is detached, is a bust, probably of Paris, wearing a Phrygian cap.

The Portland Vase was wantonly broken to atoms by a visitor in February, 1845. A water-colour drawing is exhibited showing the fragments to which it was reduced. The vase was made familiar by copies issued by Josiah Wedgwood, the potter. The vases first issued were finished by handwork, and specimens are of great scarcity [see a specimen in the Ceramic Room], but the subsequent copies, cast from moulds, are of no particular value.

GOLD ORNAMENTS, ETC.

Greek, Phoenician, Etruscan, and Roman.*

Of the period antecedent to the historical age of Greece, and now commonly known as the 'Mycenaean' period (see pp. 2 and 193), several groups of gold ornaments are exhibited: (1) from Enkomi and other early sites in Cyprus; (2) from one of the Greek Islands, perhaps Aegina; (3) from Crete and Ialysos in Rhodes.

(1) Enkomi. Compartment 6 (one-half) and the greater part of the table-cases before the three windows contain a remarkable series of objects of the late Mycenaean class, obtained principally from the excavations carried on at Enkomi, near Salamis (in Cyprus), with funds bequeathed by Miss E. T. Turner.† These excavations were made during the spring and summer of the year 1896 on a site that had not previously been touched in modern times. Comparisons between objects found at Enkomi and corresponding Egyptian finds seem to show that the general date of the site was between 1300 and 1100 B.C., with a few later elements. Among the finds are numerous gold diadems, plain or stamped with patterns, gold mouth pieces, earrings, rings, beads and other ornaments, engraved stones and cylinders, carved ivories, etc. A series of earring pendants approximating to the bull's head shape show in

* See above, p. 127, for the Catalogue of the Jewellery.

For the excavations at Enkomi, see Excavations in Cyprus, by A. S. Murray, A. H. Smith, and H. B. Walters (30s.).

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an interesting way the process of transition from a representation to a conventional decoration (fig. 53).

Compartment 6 (right half). Engraved cylinders, scarabs, etc.,

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Fig. 53.-Diagram showing the development of bull's head earrings.

from Enkomi, together with a few from other Mycenaean sites in Cyprus; also stamped gold diadems, and (821) a silver cup of typical Mycenaean form. (Beside it is a gold cup, no. 820, from the Forman collection, of the same period.)

The shade above compartments 10, 11 contains an ivory draught-box, with reliefs. On the top is the board, divided into

squares; the central row has twelve squares, and on each side are two rows of only four squares each, grouped at one end. (Draughtboards similarly divided may be seen in the Third Egyptian Room.) On one side a man in a chariot drawn by galloping horses pursues a herd of deer and ibex. He is drawing his bow, but most of the deer are already transfixed with his arrows. On the opposite side are more varied scenes of hunting. The figure in the chariot pursues cattle (one of the bulls has turned against him), deer and ibex. A figure on foot is spearing a lion. At the closed end of the box are two bulls reclining, and at the other end is a smaller relief of a pair of ibex standing on each side of a sacred tree. (For other ivories from Enkomi, cf. p. 127.)

[graphic]

Fig. 54.

Pendant from Enkomi.

Further objects from Enkomi are shown in the windows. In

the first window on the right are a pendant in pomegranate form, covered with minute globules of gold (fig. 54) and a singular double ring with four animals carved in intaglio.

In the middle window are a large pectoral ornament, in the Egyptian style, with rows of pendant ornaments, and two pendant lotus flowers divided into compartments filled with blue, pink and white paste, in the manner of Egyptian inlaid work; a ring with twelve heads of lions in relief; a gold bar; some beads of amber, probably brought across to the Mediterranean by trade routes from the Baltic, and hitherto little found in Mycenaean deposits.

In the third window, further objects from Enkomi, including a series of pins of a singular form, with an eye in the middle of the shaft, probably used like a brooch, for fastening drapery.

(2) Aegina (?). In Table-case T, compartments 1, 2, and in the corresponding divisions, nos. 37, 38, on the reverse slope of the case, is a series of objects which were found together in a tomb in one of the Greek islands, perhaps Aegina. The treasure includes six pendant ornaments, a bracelet, a large number of beads in gold, sard, amethyst, etc., which have been strung in necklaces, a series of finger-rings inlaid with blue paste in imitation of lapis lazuli, a number of stamped rosettes, each pierced with a hole for securing it to a dress, some gold diadems, stamped and plain, and a gold cup. None of these objects is of actual Egyptian manufacture, but in several cases they reflect the influence of Egyptian art, as, for example, in the pendant in which a figure in Egyptian costume and attitude holds a swan by the neck in each hand, and in the inlaid finger-rings. On the other hand, they repeat themes already familiar in objects from Mycenae, such as the elaborate spiral ornaments on the gold cup. For some objects the nearest parallels adduced belong to the early Italian culture (cf. p. 171). In some respects, too, such as the maeander pattern on one of the rings, there are resemblances with the early products of the subsequent periods. Hence it would seem that the treasure belongs to the close of the Mycenaean period, and almost to the time of transition to post-Mycenaean times, say 1200-1000 B.C.

(3) Crete and Ialysos. Compartments 34, 35, 36 contain further specimens of the gold work of the Mycenaean period, principally from Crete and from the cemetery of Ialysos in Rhodes. A kneeling figure of a Cretan goat (815), with pendants attached, resembles the pendants in the treasure just described. A hawk from Crete (817) is prepared for inlaying in the Egyptian manner. A draped female figure (803) has flounced sleeves and skirt, of a characteristic Cretan and Mycenaean type. A porcelain scarab of Amenophis III. (about B.c. 1450), which was found in the cemetery of Ialysos, is shown in compartment 34. Regarded as an aid to fixing a date, it is obvious that the name of a particular king necessarily gives a superior limit, but does not necessarily fix the inferior limit of date.

The beginnings of jewellery of the Greek period proper are

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