Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/187

CHAPTER VIII. MVCENIAN BUILDINGS, AND THE ORIGIN OF DORIC ARCHITECTURE. Out of the different forms evolved by the Mycenian builder, one alone, that of the domed-buildings, is represented to-day by edifices which, in despite of much weathering, bear noble witness to the practical knowledge and the taste of their originators. Of the other type, that of the palace, complete or almost complete ground-plans are visible on the soil, whether at Troy, Tiryns, or Mycenae. The height above ground of the existing part of the wall, though feeble enough, affords certain information to him who undertakes to put back the elevations of buildings, the height and spacing of whose columns, the composition and modes of con- struction of whose walls, are matters of common knowledge among archaeologists. If we have chosen to utilize these data, to the end that we might define the methods applied to the construction of the Mycenian palaces, if we have made it our business to raise them from their ruins, to grasp their ordinance and re-establish their probable outward semblance, the motive impulse was perhaps less due to the wealth and fairness of the external and inner portions of the buildings we have restored, than to the historical juxtapositions to which this constructive scheme lends itself. As we strove to re-establish these ancient blocks of buildings, the conviction was forced upon us that many forms seen in classic architecture can only be satisfactorily explained as survivals of distinct peculiarities, which in an older architecture had been due to the materials to hand. That these differed from those which Hellas subsequently employed in the erection of her temples will be sufficiently proved, we hope, by a few examples, without having