( XV ) 



from Cniclos, or the bronze head from. Thessaly, held by some to re- 

 present Aphrodite, by others, Artemis, teach ns in their noble spiri- 

 tuality of expression to feel more Tiyidly than "vre have ever felt 

 before to what a high ideal of pure womanhood had Greek art 

 attained long centuries before a Raphael or a Leonardo lived. 



And, passing further back still, from the period of Hellenic to pre- 

 Hellenic art, the discoveries of M. Sehliemann, at Hissarlik, are of a 

 value to archaeologists, the amount of which it is impossible now to 

 estimate — and this is true, in whatever way the vexed question 

 may hereafter be decided as to whether the Ilium Xovum, on the 

 site of which these discoveries have been made, was indeed on the 

 same site as the Homeric Troy. This involves questions as to how 

 far history can be educed from mythology ; how far Homer, as a poet, 

 may be accepted as a historian ; how near the time of the siege of Troy 

 Homer lived. But the objects themselves, thousands in number, 

 photographs of which are now in our Library, bear evidence in them- 

 selves that they belong to a period in art which is not only non- 

 Hellenic, but pre-Hellenic, and to use the words of Mr. iSTewton, 

 they appear to be '' of that remote antiquity which we, vaguelv 

 groping in the twilight of an uncertain past, call pre-historic." 



These objects, found in a stratum of red ashes and calcined ruins 

 at the depth of fi-om twenty-three to thirty-three feet, consist of 

 pottery, spearheads, said to be of copper, terra-cotta figures and orna- 

 mented discs or beads, and ornaments in gold and silver. The pottery 

 is wrought and polished by the hand, to a lustrous surface, and orna- 

 mented with incised patterns, while Greek pottery is painted or 

 varnished. There are no weapons of wrought bronze, such as those of 

 the Greeks; there is no intelligible writing, with one doubtful excep- 

 tion, and, to quote from 3Ir. IS'ewton, "while there is an attempt to 

 model a face, whether human or owlish, the conception of the human 

 form as an organic whole, a conception which we meet with at the very 

 dawn of Greek art, nowhere appears ;" nor, the same writer adds, 

 " can I detect, as in archaic Greek art, any trace of Oriental or 

 Egyptian influence in any of the ornaments or devices." 



On the other hand, the pottery does resemble that found in Rhodes, 

 Cyprus, Santorin, and Etruria, such as may be fairly held to be pre-his- 

 toric, examples of which in Latium and Santorin were found under 

 layers of lava, from volcanoes long since extinct ; and there is a re- 



