384 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



corresponding to 6he one chamber in the Atreus tomb. Though the con- 

 action of the New Grange dromos is megalithic, that of the tholos is 

 microlithic, in spite of the fads thai the walls are masked allroirnd with 

 colossal blocks of stone.'ahd that the side tomb-chambers are roofed with large 

 Blabs. New Grange is thus transitional in style between a megalithic and a 

 microlithic constraction. The large stones are elaborately decorated with 

 spirals,lozi 2 - md other geometrical devices. 



When the wonderful discoveries that our generation lias seen in the island 

 of Crete began to be mad.', in the closing pears of the last century, they were 

 hailed in the Brat rush of enthusiasm as the source and explanation of all the 

 developments of Broi - ulture in Central and Northern Europe. It was 

 naturally supposed that the spiral pattern originated in Crete, and passed 

 into the hands of the late Minoans of th<' mainland— the people that had till 



then 1 n called Mycenaeans— and that from them it travelled along definite 



trade-routes to the barbarians of the North. The merchant caravans of the 

 cultured Aegean peoples journeyed to the far north lands of Scandinavia and 

 Britain, and to the far west land of Spain, in search of amber, tin, and other 

 valuable commodities; and in return they taught some of the arts of the 

 \ gean to the rude tribes with which they came in contact. The dromos 

 tombs of Mycenae and Orchomenos, with their rich spiral decorations, were 

 the prototypes; the dromos t"inl> of New Grange, with its barbaric spirals, 



was ii py. The date of New Gran gi nfidently fixed at about 1200- 



100U n.c., on the basis of this supposed connexion between it and the tombs 

 of Mycenae, the dates "f which can be approximately determined, 



I short, the 1 nd Mycenaean traders took the place that an earlier 



rati. mi of antiquaries bad accorded i" the I'hoeuicians. 1 Iretan cults and 



culture ed where the contemporaries of Stukelej and of Vallancey 



hid Been "the god Baal." Now the •_""! Had. as underal 1 by Stukeley and 



his friends, had 110 e even in Phoenicia ; and I have foi some time 



felt an increasing suspicion that the Far-travelled Cretan merchants are 

 destined to follow him to dreamland. 



There can 1"' no denial of the remarkable resemblance between the 



m dromos tomb and the New Grange type of sepulchre. The same 



plan is followed in both. The same motives of ornament appear in both. 



But lei us for a mom. lev what is of necessity implied in the accept- 



proof of the radiation of art-influences outward 

 from the A.e§ _ the trade-routes. Ii means that the traders 



were pot only merchants, but 1 enthusiastic missionaries. It means 



that they took the trouble to teach the ba with whom they came in 



contict how to r< the dead aright, and how to build and to decorate 



