EPHESUS, CYPRUS, AND MYCENM. 659 



It is difficult to assign an exact place, either in history or art, to Ces- 

 nola's discoveries. He uses the general term " Cypriote" to designate them, 

 in contradistinction to the Egyptian, Assyrian, and archaic Grecian ele- 

 ments which are combined in so many of the objects : this term must suffice 

 until scholars are able to separate, or at least classify, the latter, and deter- 

 mine something in regard to their historical precedence. Already Mr. 

 Newton and Mr. A. !S. Murray appear to diverge somewhat in their esti- 

 mates of the age of the pottery, while both are disinclined to attach much 

 weight to the far greater antiquity of the fictile art in Egypt and Assyria. 

 Every advance into the prehistoric past awakes a natural, perhaps uncon- 

 scious tendency, both to shorten the successive periods of civilization and to 

 attach a certain symbolism of faith to forms which may have descended 

 into mere conventional use. Yet the position of Cyprus, visible from the 

 shores of Syria (Phoenicia) and Ciiicia, must have led to its settlement many 

 centuries before it was conquered by Thothmes III. about 1600 b. c. This 

 is the first historic mention of the island, and if one of the statues found at 

 G-olgos should prove to be, as is surmised, that of the Egyptian king, it 

 cannot reasonably be ascribed to a later period. Greek immigration, sub- 

 jection to Phoenicia, Assyria, Persia, and again to Egypt, succeeded during 

 the next thousand years, leaving those mingled traces which make the Ces- 

 nola collection, in this particular, the most remarkable in the world. A 

 very curious circumstance, and one which may throw some light on the 

 simultaneous use of emblems belonging to several different faiths, is the 

 separation of the many statues of Golgos into groups, according to their 

 nationality. It is almost the only instance, in archseology, where the latter 

 rule has not sought to destroy or mutilate the tokens of the earlier. 



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Since the publication of Dr. Schliemann's work, I have re-examined 

 the greater portion of the objects in the Cesnola collection, in the Metro- 

 politan Museum ; and I have been surprised to find so many of them iden- 

 tical with those found by Schliemann at Mycenae. The diadems of gold- 

 leaf, the wreaths of laurel-leaves, the golden buttons (some of them show- 

 ing exactly the same ornamental patterns, in repousse work), the bronze 

 hatchets and sword-blades, are not to be distinguished from the same 

 objects among the Mycensean spoils ; while there is scarcely a type of pot- 

 tery, or a form of the rude terra-cotta idols, contained in the latter, which 

 is not matched by something from Idalium, Golgos, or Curium. When we 

 add thereto the similar objects from what Schliemann styles the pre-Trojan 

 city at Hissarlik, and the Ehodian vases from lalysus, we find ourselves 

 face to face with one and the same school of ceramic and decorative art. 

 The inference which might be drawn from this fact seems to conflict with 

 former historical theories. Certainly the same race could not have posses- 

 sed these separated shores and islands at the same time, nor could one 

 divinity (however related, as we know, wore the ancient theologies) have 

 received the same honor in each place. We are thus led to accept the 



