To the discoverer himself, the supreme interest of his
finds always lay in the thought that they were the direct prototypes,
if not the actual originals, of the civilization described in the
Homeric poems; but to the question whether this was so or not, a
question interesting in itself, but largely academic, there succeeded
a much more important one. Here was proof of the existence of a
civilization, obviously great and long-enduring, whose products
could not be identified with those of any other art known to exist.
To what race of men were the achievements of this early culture
to be ascribed, and what relation did they hold to the Hellenes
of history?
The work of Schliemann was continued and extended by successors
such as Doerpfeld, Tsountas, Mackenzie, and others, and by the end
of the nineteenth century it had become apparent that the culture
of which the first important traces had been found at Mycenae had
extended to some extent over all Hellas, but chiefly over the
south-eastern portion of the mainland and over the Cyclades. The
principal find-spots in Greece proper were in the Argolid and in
Attica; but, besides these, abundant material was discovered at
Enkomi (Cyprus) and at Phylakopi (Melos), while from Vaphio, near
Amyklae in Laconia, there came, among other treasures, a pair of
most wonderful gold cups, whose workmanship surpassed anything
that could have been imagined of such an early period, and is only
to be matched by the goldsmith work of the Renaissance.
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