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THE MYCENAEAN CITY
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pean walls of Tiryns and Mycenae;[1] but the same style of building in structures inside the citadel, where was found pottery characteristic of the best Mycenaean period, establishes the fact that the city was a fortress of the Mycenaean Age. The massive stones, with their close interstices and their well-wrought surface, are visible to-day in spite of exposure to the weather and in spite of the violent destruction which the town must have suffered.

The cross section of the north corner of the tower shows that the scarp in the lower portion, which is about 3 m. high, was greater than in the upper portion, which once may have had a height of 6 m. The increase in the scarp in the lower part of a fortification, such as is seen on the northeast surface of our tower, shows the technical skill of the old builder. Should we supply a slightly scarped upper structure of brick, we should get a twice-broken line whose whole shape bears a marked resemblance to the Eiffel Tower.

In time of the Mycenaean City this massive tower, 18 m. broad, with its substructure 9 m. high, on which arose a perpendicular upper wall, dominated the whole northeast part of the citadel. The dwellers in the VII Stratum repaired the upper wall with quarry stones, while the Greek settlers of the VIII Stratum built the steps beside the tower and the walls of small stones, which we can recognize on the right of fig. 20. Even at so late a date a portion of the Northeast Tower remained visible. But this last relic of the


  1. Cf. Dörpfeld, Introduction to Tsountas and Manatt's The Mycenaean Age, p. xxx.