ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES. (GEEECE.) 



found in repairing this structure that it had 

 been partly rebuilt with sepulchral and other 

 stones, among which were one bearing a Latin 

 inscription containing the name of Septimius 

 Severus and the stone with the Greek inscrip- 

 tion. This stone, which is about two feet long 

 and one foot wide, is engraved on one side. At 

 the top it is ornamented with two squares, di- 

 vided by cross-lines into eight triangles, and 

 on either side is the so-called palm-branch 

 found on both pagan and Christian monuments 

 of the classical age. Between the palm-branches 

 runs an inscription in twelve lines. From a 

 photograph and casts of the inscription that 

 were sent to him, Prof. George Stephens pro- 

 nounced it to be Runic. Other casts have 

 been taken and subjected to the examination 

 of English scholars during the past year, who 

 have decided that the inscription is Greek. 

 Prof. A. H. Sayce and Dr. Isaac Taylor attrib- 

 ute it to about the fifth century of the Chris- 

 tian era. Some other critics assign it a date 

 nearer the beginning of the Christian era. A 

 closer examination has made it to appear to 

 be in hexameter verse. As the inscription is 

 much defaced and indistinct in many places, 

 and is not grammatical in structure, a variety 

 of interpretations and readings of it have been 

 proposed. Most of them agree in supposing it 

 to be a funeral inscription of a youth, named 

 Hermes of Commagene, who died at the age 

 of sixteen, while traveling in Britain, with an 

 address of farewell, and an invocation. 



Leaden Articles. Hitherto no specimens of ar- 

 ticles of use or adornment made of lead have 

 been found in any of the prehistoric monu- 

 ments that have been scientifically investigated 

 in Europe. The eminent archraologist and Ori- 

 entalist, F. Kanitz, has now discovered among 

 the masses of fragments found in the tumulus 

 of Rosegg in Carinthia, parts of a prehistoric 

 wagon of lead, which shows that the rich de- 

 posits of lead in the neighborhood of Villach 

 were not only known in prehistoric times, but 

 were utilized in the art of the people. Kanitz 

 has published an interesting account of this 

 find in the sixteenth volume of the " Transac- 

 tions" of the Vienna Anthropological Society, 

 1884, and has now issued it as a separate essay. 

 Other articles in lead than the parts of the 



LEADEN FIGURE FOUND AT ROSEGG. 



wagon were found in the same tumulus, and are 

 represented in the monograph figures of ani- 

 mals and fragments of two horsemen all of 

 which indicate an extremely limited degree of 



graphic talent in the prehistoric Alp-dwellers. 

 The engraving represents one of the figures of 

 horsemen. 



The Palace of the Kings of Tiryns. Dr. Henry 

 Schliemann, assisted by Dr. William Dorpfeld, 

 of Berlin, has explored the Acropolis and the 

 Palace of the Kings at Tiryns, one of the most 

 ancient cities of Greece. The whole upper and 

 the whole middle Acropolis were carefully ex- 

 cavated, and two cross-trenches were dug in 

 the lowest terrace. The mean thickness of the 

 walls was twenty-four feet, while in some 

 places on the upper Acropolis the extreme 

 thickness was forty-eight feet The wall of 

 the upper Acropolis consisted of a lower part 

 resting on the rock, and an upper part reced- 

 ing by about twenty-six feet, and provided in 

 several places with narrow, longitudinal cov- 

 ered galleries, whence doors led to the terrace 

 of the projecting lower wall. The walls were 

 composed of large, almost un wrought blocks, 

 which were piled one on another without any 

 binding material. Traces were found on the 

 top of the wall of what appeared to have been 

 a roofed passage around the citadel, having a 

 wall of raw bricks on the outside and columns 

 on the inside. The principal entrance to the 

 Acropolis was on the eastern side, close to the 

 remains of the best preserved of several towers 

 of which ruins were found at places along the 

 wall. This tower stood to the right of the 

 ascending passenger, so that the assailants of 

 the fortification had to expose their right side, 

 which was unprotected by the shield, to the 

 defenders. The principal gate of the upper 

 citadel was formed by two uprights, ten and 

 ten and a half feet high, three feet broad, and 

 four and a half feet deep, and had a breadth ot 

 nine feet three inches. The holes in which 

 the door-hinges turned are still preserved in 

 the threshold, and in the two uprights are 

 holes, six inches in diameter, for the wooden 

 cross-bar by which the gate was fastened. The 

 holes of the door-hinges are also preserved in 

 the threshold between the vestibulum and the 

 hall of the propyLasum. In one of the courts 

 was an altar, which is compared with an altar 

 mentioned in the " Odyssey " (xxii, 335, 336), 

 as in the court of the palace of Ulysses, which 

 was sacred to Zeus. The floors of all the 

 apartments and courts were formed of a mo- 

 saic of lime and small pebbles, corresponding 

 with the " beaten floor " in the palace of Ulys- 

 ses. The floor of the principal hall, which was 

 on the northern side of the court of the altar, 

 was divided by incised lines into squares, and 

 shows traces of the red painting with which it 

 was adorned. The fore-room is connected on 

 the west with several corridors and small 

 rooms, among which was a bath-room about 

 ten feet square, the floor of which was a single 

 block of limestone about two feet two inches 

 thick. A large fragment of a bathing-tub of 

 terra-cotta, ornamented with spirals, was also 

 found ; and traces of the gutter and sewer by 

 which the water was carried off were observed. 



