Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/84

Description and Restoration of Tomb I. 6i below (Fig. 266 and PI. IV. s). That all these pieces came from the same building is proved by similarity of material and design. In the same category should be placed the porphyry fn^ment which is preserved in the British Museum, with three rows of spirals (Fig. 267 and PI. IV. n). The plan of the upper and lower borders, with sealing- holes, serves to show how these bands were joined to one another by means of vertical clamps. When pieced together, they constituted a species of screen, which closed the opening pierced above the lintel. As the thickness of these slabs was but nine centimetres or there- abouts, their collective weight was not great. As might have r t(7U0 '-' Fig. 267.— Tomli 1. ringment of decoration of ra^-arlc. Klcvaiiiin ^>v I'hn. been expected, the course of masonry, which was hidden by the facing whereon they rested, has disappeared. The screen is not in the same vertical plan as the field surrounding it. If the architect contrived an opening above all his domed-buildings, it was not likely that he would hide it away behind a facing which would merge into the rest of the facade ; or make believe that he had put a solid where the rule of his craft required a void. We have no instance of any architecture, as yet uncorrupted by the over-refinements of decadent epochs, wherein ornament, far from disguising the great architectonic divisions, does not very plainly declare them. The closing of the circular chamber involved blocking up this great hollow with a stone curtain ; but as this was drawn somewhat in the rear of the front wall, it