Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/267

 Bk. III. Ch. I. PELASGIC ART. 235 one beyond the other, till one small stone closed the whole, and made the vault complete. As will be explained further on, this was the form of dome adopted by the Jaina architects in India. It prevailed also in Italy and Asia Minor wherever a Pelasgic race is traced, down to the time when the pointed form again came into use in the Middle Ages, though it was not then used as a horizontal, bi;t as a radiating arch. On one side of this hall is a chamber cut in the rock, the true sepulchre apparently, and externally is a long passage, leading to a doorway, which, judging from the fragments that remain (Woodcut No.l23), must have been of a purely Asiatic form of art, and very unlike any- thing found subsequent to this period in Greece. To all appearance the dome was lined internally with plates of brass or bronze, some nails of which metals are now found there; and the holes in which the nails were inserted are still to be seen all over the place. Another of these tombs, erected by Minyas at Orchomenos, de- scribed by Pausanias as one of the wonders of Greece,' seems frotn the remains still existins; to have been at least 20 ft. wider than this one^ and proportionably larger in every respect. All these were covered with earth, and many are now probably hidden which a diligent search might reveal. It is hardly, however, to be hoped that an unrilied tomb may be discovered in Greece, though numerous examples are found in Etruria. The very name of treasury must have excited the cupidity of the Greeks ; and as their real destination was forgotten, no lingering respect for the dead could have restrained the hand of the spoiler. As domes constructed on the horizontal principle, these two are the largest of which we have any knowledge, though there does not appear to be any reasonable limit to the extent to which such a 123. Fragment of Pillar in front of Tomb of Atreus at Mycense.
 * Pausanias, ix. .38.