Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/72

Description and Restoration of Tomb I. 49 the lines p p, p' p'. The destination of the marks seen at w is unknown. At x (Fig. 257), on the corresponding point of the door-case opposite, are oval holes, analogous to those seen in the same situation on the Tirynthian and Mycenian gates ; they were designed to receive the bolts which made fast the door. The opening is five metres forty centimetres high, by two metres sixty-six centimetres below, and two metres forty- six centimetres above. It is enframed by double fasciae, and opens on a fa9ade some twelve metres in height and six metres thirty centimetres in width, whose surface may be computed at seventy-five square metres. Our PI. IV. is reproduced from Thiersch ; to his ground-plan we have added, with their actual dimensions, such architectural fragments as have seemingly come from that section of the building. We shall have to account for the place which each piece occupies in the restoration ; for the present the reader is asked to pass them by and direct his whole attention to what Thiersch carefully studied and noted down : a wall, pierced by many dowel-holes of varying size, with facing slabs which are not arranged in one plane, the upper courses being set back from the lower ones. Then, too, from the lintel to the penult course occurs a triangular space extending right through the wall. Other buildings of the same nature have taught us that this void was not a window meant to light the chamber,^ for this was always closed after the entombment, here by a triangular door, elsewhere by a wall of massive masonry, or a system of slabs. The conviction which forces itself upon the mind after a cursory glance at this facade, is that it was enriched by a casing of many plates, held together with bronze hooks, and carried liberally over wall and door. In order to determine the position which the decorator has assigned to the several elements, now scattered all over Europe, it will be well first to define the processes which he employed in putting the pieces together, and draw attention to such indications as are deducible from the state of the facing. Metal plates were fixed to the wall with bronze clamps ; pins of the same material, vertically set, served to join the sheets to one another. On the faQade are six rows of dowel-holes, of six each : to these correspond numbers from i to 6, seen on the ^ The triangular cavity of Tomb II., towards the chamber, still preserves its well- prejiared casing slabs. VOL. II. E