Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/55

34 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. after every storm of rain.^ The dromos was more particularly exposed to ravages of this nature, for its pavement, as a rule, is no more than natural earth ; but in the chamber a concrete floor, composed of beaten clay mixed with pebbles, has generally been laid down,^ which in places still preserves bits of colour.^ The construction of the tomb, then, is like that of the domestic abode, for the same processes have been employed in both. Thus, coatings of stucco which sometimes cover the inner walls of the habitation re-appear in the sepulchral chamber and near its entrance, where they served to conceal the joints of the masonry. One of the chief characteristics of these buildings is the arrangement seen everywhere above the door. The openings were purposely made remarkably high and proportionally broad, to facilitate the transport of the body and the movement of funereal processions. They required huge lintels, but these, in consequence of their great length, were apt to break in the middle under the weight of the upper portion of the wall. To lighten their burden, they contrived a triangular hollow, produced by corbelled courses of stone (Fig. ii8). As far as the cavity was concerned, the end which the builder had in view was obtained ; no stone beam has been found broken above it ; but it had the defect of distributing the pressure unevenly, of throw- ing it on the beam ends, and at these points many of the lintels, notably that of Tomb II. at Mycenae, have come to grief. Here the mischief extended below, and caused the fasciae on either side of the doorway to grow apart ; and but for the side pressure of the thick earth mattress the masonry would not have held together. In working out his scheme, the Mycenian architect displayed less skill than his Egyptian colleague, who, in the pyramid of Cheops, calculated so well, that despite the enormous weight of the masonry over the sarcophagus chamber, not a stone has stirred, though the building has been standing thousands of years. The arrangement adopted by the builder for the tomb ^ A different arrangement seems to have been adopted in Tomb II. There the dromos had a slight slope towards the outside, and was provided with a channel which ran along it and through its entrance to drain off rain-water, so as to prevent its accumulating in the excavation meant to form the floor of the chamber, whilst the construction was in progress. 2 AtheniscJit Mittheilungen, •* This is the case in the Mycenian domed-tomb marked III. on plan.