Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/134

Fortified Towns and their General Characteristics. 105 at the present moment (June 1893) are not advanced enough, nor do they establish with sufficient distinctness the successive stages through which the fortress passed, to make possible the restoration of a structure uniquely composed of elements, the relative age of which has been determined with certainty. More- over, the unlovely appearance of rubble walls, overlaid through- out with mud, would have been exceedingly unattractive. It is quite different at Tiryns and Mycenae. There the circuit-wall has been cleared along its whole perimeter, and the mass, with the exception of a few gaps, stands revealed before the eye of the beholder. Moreover, the colossal materials of which the masonry is composed are suggestive to a practised eye of the stupendous effort which was required to erect these redoubtable citadels. Hence, in Pis. VIII., IX., X., we have done our best to reconstruct the walls of the fastnesses in question, showing them as they must have been when, fully equipped for defence, they made ready to sustain a siege. Above the dentalled line of walls we have shown the top of spacious and richly-decorated royal habitations, with many towers and gates, with stony masses soldered on to the escarp of the rock, the whole forming an effectual protection both against turbulent subjects and the attacks of inimical forces. That our perspective views of the two restored acropoles should have a continuous crenelation along the whole length of the wall coping, cannot come as a surprise to the reader. The employment of embattled edges leads back to the glimmerings of fortifications in every country. Nature itself is the teacher and model. Is not the first instinctive movement of every man, on perceiving that a ball or arrow is speeding towards him, to "file" or slip behind anything that happens to be at hand — stone, tree, faggots, or earth, in order that he may avert the blow, or at least minimize the chances of being wounded ? What are crenelations but these haphazard shelters transferred to the wall top ? Sometimes they were movable and provisionary, thought of at the very last moment, just as the assault was impending; and in that case they would be no more than a few faggots or sacks of earth hastily placed on the rampart. As, however, aggressions were of frequent occurrence, it seemed more natural to make crenelations permanent, and connect them with the construction. PI. VIII. shows examples of two methods