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The earliest Hellenic images were of wood hewn into the rough semblance of human figures. There was no attempt at more than vaguely indicating the limbs. The heavy blocks were, however, covered with richly embroidered dresses which served to hide some of their rudeness. When stone began to be used instead of the more perishable wood, the masons did not conceive the possibility of any great improvement. Yet these painted wooden images were not the first instances of the sculptor’s art in the Ægean peninsula. Six hundred years before, the Mycenæan civilisation in the south of the Peloponnesus and in the island of Crete, which the excavations of Dr. Schliemann and Sir Arthur Evans have recently revealed, had given birth to work far nearer to nature than any produced in the eighth and ninth centuries. But during the years following the so-called Dorian invasion this was lost. Mycenæ, Tiryns, and Cnossus became vague memories—the dwelling-places of mythical kings and heroes—invaders and natives, settling down to an agricultural life in a not-too-fruitful country. The bare necessities of life were hard to come by. There was no leisured class such as alone could support an art like sculpture.