Mycenae A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries At Mycenae and Tiryns

EB: New York, Scribner, Armstrong & Company,. Very Good. 1878. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Hardcover. 8vo. Scribner Armstrong & Company, New York. 1878. Lxviii, 384 pages. Profusely illustrated with maps, four color Chromolithograph plates, over 500 full page and in-text illustrations, 21 glossy monochrome plates, and eight plans (including three fold-out). Includes Index and Appendices. First Edition/First Printing. Bound in brown decorated cloth boards with gilt titles and designs present. Boards have light shelf-wear present to the extremities (spine is sunned, faded and rubbed). Previous owner's name present to the FFEP. Text is free of marks. Binding tight and solid. Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890) published Mycenae, an account of his archaeological excavations of the ancient Greek cities of Mycenae and Tiryns, in 1878. Schliemann's astonishing finds revealed that the cities had a historical reality outside Homeric epic. His excavations uncovered many priceless treasures, most famously the 'death mask of Agamemnon' and the shaft graves, filled with pottery, carved stones, skeletons, gold, jewellery and weaponry. He also uncovered much about the layout and architecture of the two lost cities. The volume is generously illustrated with images of artefacts, maps and charts. It is introduced by W. E. Gladstone, who gave Schliemann the political assistance necessary for the excavations to take place. Schliemann's discoveries were met with wild enthusiasm, and while today his methods of excavation are deplored and many of his conclusions thought to be ill-founded, he is rightly credited with the discovery of the lost and ancient Mycenaean civilisation. .