Page:Greek Buildings Represented by Fragments in the British Museum (1908).djvu/217

 THESEUM, ERECHTHEUM, AND OTHER WORKS. 201 I feel certain, i, 2, and the British Museum piece, which may be 3. The triangular piece i was found in 1878, and it is de- scribed by F. Thiersch* It accurately fitted the apex of the opening, and this, to me, seems to settle the question. (Fig. 205.) There is, however, the contributory evidence that, out of so few known slabs, so many as three have sloping ends, for it is obvious that the proportion of slanting ends required is greater to fill the triangular space than would be required to fill the two side spaces, the outer boundaries of which were necessarily upright. That is, allowing for some inter- mediate joints, there would have been more uprights than slants at the sides, and more slants and less uprights in the triangle. The restoration at the Museum has cor- rected a mistake in regard to the capitals which appears in almost all illustrations of them. They are adorned by a series of chevrons, which in illustrations are shown as ar- ranged, so as to oppose one another .symmetrically at the central line. They really all pass around in one direction : < <, not > <. The best early sketch I know of the capital is a drawing in one of Gell's sketch books in the Print Room of the British Museum. He was the first, also, I believe, to re- cognise that it was a capital and not a base. He says, " Near the door observe a semicircular pilaster and its capital very curiously carved in spiral and zigzag lines." (Fig. 207.) Fig. 206. — My- cense. Column and Capital. Fig. 207. — Mycente, from sketches by Gell.
 * Athen. Mitth., 1879. See also 1896.