10 DR. SCHLIEMANN'S DISCOVERIES. 



smaller value, but not a single inscrijotion or coin. The weight of all the 

 golden articles yet found amounts to over nineteen pounds. Their archaj- 

 ological value is inestimable, because Dr. Schliemann states that no golden 

 Greek antiquities prior to the Macedonian period exist in any museum in 

 Europe." 



On November 28th. 1876, Dr. Schliemann sent the following enthusiastic 

 dispatch to the King of Greece, announcing his discoveries. 



"To His Majesty King George: "With unbounded joy I announce to your 

 Majesty that I have discovered the monuments which the tradition related 

 by Pausanias indicates as the tombs of Agamemnon, Cassandra, Eurymedon, 

 and their companions who were killed while feasting at a banquet by Cly- 

 temnestra and her lover ^gisthus. 



" These tombs are surrounded by a double parallel circle, with tablets 

 undoubtedly erected in honor of the victims. In these tombs I have found 

 immense archaeological treasures and numbers of articles of pure gold. 



"The treasure alone is sufficient to fill a large museum, and the most 

 splendid in the world. In succeeding ages I am sure it will attract to 

 Greece thousands of strangers from abroad. As I am laboring simply for 

 the love of science I waive all claim to the treasure and offer it, with in- 

 tense enthusiasm, entirely to Greece. 



"Sire, may these treasures, with God's blessing, become the corner stone 

 of immense national wealth. Dr. Henri Schliemann. 



"Mycenffi, November 28, 1876." 



Dr. Schliemann writes, under date Mycenae, December 2, 1876: 



^ -^^ ^ -^ ■^ -^ 9(: -^ ^ 



"Already, while engaged in the excavation of the large fourth tomb, the 

 results of which I have described in my last two letters, I explored the fifth 

 and last sepulchre, which is immediately to the northwest of it, and which 

 had been marked by the large slab, with the bas relief of two serpents, and 

 by an unsculptured tombstone, both of which were eleven and two-thirds 

 feet below the surface of the mount, as it was when I began the excavations. 

 At a depth uf ten feet below the tombstone, or of twenty. one feet eight 

 inches below the former surface, I found two evidently much older un- 

 sculptured tombstones, and onl}^ three feet four inches below these I found 

 a tomb eleven and a half feet long, nine feet eight inches broad, which had 

 been cut out in the calcareous rock to a depth of only two feet, so that its 

 bottom is twenty-seven feet below the former surface of the mount. In 

 variance with the other tombs, the four inner sides of this sepulchre were 

 not lined with any walls; but, as usual, the bottom was strewn with a layer 

 of pebble stones. On this I found the mortal remains of only one person, 

 who, like all the other bodies, had been burnt on the precise spot where it 

 lay. This was proved as well by the calcined pebbles below and around 

 the corpse as by the undisturbed masses of ashes with which it was cov- 

 ered, and, finally, by the marks of the funeral fire on the rock walls. 

 Around the skull of the body, which was unfortunately too fragile to be 

 saved, was a golden diadem, with impressed ornaments, representing in the 

 midst two suns, the remaining space being filled up with spiral ornaments. 

 On the right side of the body 1 found a lance-head, with a ring on either 

 side; further, two small bronze swords and two long knives of the same 

 metal; on its left was found a golden drinking cup, with one handle, the 

 ornamentation of which represents two horizontal rows of fish-spines and 

 one row of arrow-heads. With the swords were found many small rags of 

 beautifully woven linen, which doubtless belonged to the sheaths of these 



