Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/308

TiRYNS. 283 wanted, and sufficient light poured in upon the portion of the hall usually occupied by the inmates. We must next ascertain what kind of roof was placed over this and the other buildings of the palace. From indications to be distilled out of the Homeric poems, and the mode of roofing prevalent at the present day in the country, we may safely assert that none but flat roofs were placed over the building, which in summer might be used as a rough shake-down. This is all that can be urged with any certainty, for the walls have lost their coping and the pillars their capitals. Hence a restoration of the frame- ■■^Mt- i I '•iKCn— 1 { Fig. 85. — Decoration of pavement in the megaron. work must be conjectural to a large extent, and Dorpfeld has not cared to commit himself thus far.^ If the ruins give us no hint as to the nature of either roof or ceiling, the pavement, as has been shown, is fairly well preserved. The concrete floor of the second vestibule is quite plain, but that of the fore-chamber and the megaron has a design made up of sunken lines, which bisect one another at right angles and divide the surface into squares (Fig. 85), within which are distinct traces of red colour. On the narrow bands separating these are evan- escent scraps of blue. " Hence the inference that the floor was originally of a bright simple carpet pattern." ^ ^ A restoration has been essayed by Prof. Middleton, in Hellenic Studies^ entitled, A Suggested Restoration of the Great Hall {megaron) in the Palace of Tiryns. 2 Tiryns,