Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/310

TlRYNS. 285 we will return to the palace. The door opening in the west wall of the second vestibule gives access to an apartment which, though small, is one of the most interesting portions of the unit (Fig. 86). The floor is formed by a single gigantic block of limestone, four metres long by more than three metres broad, and in thickness averaging seventy centimetres. Its weight is esti- mated at about 20,000 kilogrammes. Its rough edges ran under the masonry of the four walls enclosing the chamber ; along these extended a narrow border, raised three centimetres above the finely- polished rectangle in the centre, measuring three metres five centimetres in length by two metres sixty-five centimetres in breadth. At staled intervals along this border, holes appear in pairs ; their function was evidently to receive the tenons which served to fasten the lining. The wall shows that this lining was of wood ; under the action of fire some of the stones have been reduced to lime, and the clay mortar has been turned Fn;. 87. — Clay pipe of conduit. into bright red terra-cotta. The dimensions and the number of the wooden boards have been inferred from the intervals parting the holes. One might be tempted to seek here a large reservoir for the use of the megaron ; but a door in the south wall shows that this cannot be the case. This door no longer exists, as the whole of the wall has been destroyed ; but its former existence is implied from the fact that no holes exist along a great portion of this wall. That it was a room is certain ; but a room of a peculiar kind, built for a special use. This is shown by the monolith forming the floor, so as to obtain a surface that could not be damaged by perpetual flooding, and a conduit built of earthenware pipes which passed under the eastern wall and carried off used water (Fig. 87), as well as from fragments of a terra-cotta bath found in this chamber, which when put together formed a tub like those in use at the present time. It is self-evident, therefore, that we have here a bath-room. The