If sculpture in stone appears to have been very little practiced in the Mycenaean age, the arts of the goldsmith, silversmith, gem-engraver, and ivory carver were in great requisition.  The shaft-graves of Mycenae contained, besides other things, a rich treasure of gold objects—­masks, drinking-cups, diadems, ear-rings, finger-rings, and so on, also several silver vases.  One of the latter may be seen in Fig. 43.  It is a large jar, about two and one half feet in height, decorated below with horizontal flutings and above with continuous spirals in repousse (i.e., hammered) work.  Most of the gold objects must be passed over, interesting though many of them are.  But we may pause a moment over a group of circular ornaments in thin gold-leaf about two and one half inches in diameter, of which 701 specimens were found, all in a single grave.  The patterns on these discs were not executed with a free hand, but by means of a mold.  There are fourteen patterns in all, some of them made up of spirals and serpentine curves, others derived from vegetable and animal forms.  Two of the latter class are shown in Figs. 34, 35.  One is a butterfly, the other a cuttle-fish, both of them skilfully conventionalized.  It is interesting to note how the antennae of the butterfly and still more the arms of the cuttle-fish are made to end in the favorite spiral.

The sculptures and gold objects which have been thus far described or referred to were in all probability executed by native, or at any rate by resident, workmen, though some of the patterns clearly betray oriental influence.  Other objects must have been, others may have been, actually imported from Egypt or the East.  It is impossible to draw the line with certainty between native and imported.  Thus the admirable silver head of a cow from one of the shaft-graves (Fig. 36) has been claimed as an Egyptian or a Phenician production, but the evidence adduced is not decisive.  Similarly with the fragment of a silver vase shown in Fig. 37.  This has a design in relief (repousse) representing the siege of a walled town or citadel.  On the walls is a group of women making frantic gestures.  The defenders, most of them naked, are armed with bows and arrows and slings.  On the ground lie sling-stones and throwing-sticks,[Footnote:  So explained by Mr A. J. Evans in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, XIII., page 199. ] which may be supposed to have been hurled by the enemy.  In the background there are four nondescript trees, perhaps intended for olive trees.

Another variety of Mycenaean metal-work is of a much higher order of merit than the dramatic but rude relief on this silver vase.  I refer to a number of inlaid dagger-blades, which were found in two of the shaft-graves.  Fig. 38 reproduces one side of the finest of these.  It is about nine inches long.  The blade is of bronze, while the rivets by which the handle was attached are of gold.  The design was inlaid in a separate thin slip of bronze, which was then inserted into