LION-KILLER OF SEAL AND HELLENISTIC COPY 125

like the hunters on the dagger-blade, attacks a lion fully erect on his hind
legs.1 In several cases, however, the spearman is shieldless as on the gold
bead-seal from Thisbe (Fig. 77). Still more remarkable—and indeed
transcending the limits of human power—is the scene on the engraved gold

bead from the Third Shaft Grave
at Mycenae2 (Fig. 78), where the
hero is depicted as seizing the
great beast by the neck and
stabbing it with a short sword.

One of the most extraor-
dinary phenomena—perhaps in
the whole range of archaeological
discovery—is that the design on
this bead-seal, together with that
of a sardonyx bead-seal from the
same Shaft Grave, apparently
representing a combat of two
heroes with great body-shields, were revived by a Greek engraver of about
300 b. c. on the two sides of an ivory ring-bezel of that date.3 This

Type of
hero
stabbing
lion on
Mycenae
bead-
seal.

Fig. 77. Spearman and Lion on Gold Bead-
seal from Thisbe.

Copied
by third-
century
Greek
engraver.

Fig. 78. Warrior stabbing Lion, on
Gold Bead-seal, Mycenae.

Fig. 79. Warrior stabbing Lion, on
Ivory Ring-bezel, from Hellenistic
Tomb, Canea.

was found in a tomb of the Canea (Kydonia) district, together with two
others of the same material and characteristic shape presenting typical Greek

1 On a black paste of lentoid type also from
the Vapheio tomb {ibid., PI. X, 7). The
figure of the hunter is imperfectly preserved.

2 Schliemann, Mycenae, p. 174, Fig. 253.

3 See my Address on The Minoan and
Mycenaean Element in Hellenic Life (J. H. S.,
1912, p..281 seqq.), p. 294 seqq., and p. 295,
Figs. 7 a, 7 b.