Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/138

Fortified Towns and their General Characteristics. 107 out, crenelations about Mycenian walls could not be exactly on the same lines as those beheld in the strongholds of Egypt and Western Asia. Rain is less prevalent in those countries than in Greece ; besides, brick baked in the kiln was among the properties of Chaldjea and Egypt from time immemorial, the resisting power of which against the elements is infinitely greater than brick dried in the sun. It often rains in Argolis, Hence Fig. 294.— Resloralion of Tirynthian crenelalioiis. Old Messcniaii crenelations, the need may have been felt of protecting, by means of a horizontal slab placed upon the clay squares, both the void between each pair of battlements and the head of the merlon. We are inclined to attribute the origin of the peculiar arrange- ments which we meet in certain crenelations of the historic age to climatic exigencies. Fig. 294 shows the juxtaposition of the Tirynthian battlements, as conjecturally restored by us, with