Page:History of Art in Phrygia, Lydia, Caria and Lycia.djvu/284

 268 HISTORY OF ART IN ANTIQUITY. FIG. 166. Lydian tomb. Plan. CHOISY, Note, Fig. i. smaller tumuli, but the public has not been given the result of his researches. Hence our information in regard to them is derived from a work lately published by M. Choisy, a French traveller, who visited the Lydian necropolis in 1875. When he reached the spot he discovered that several tombs had recently been opened and cleared by whom no one seemed able or willing to tell so that he had ample opportunity to study the secondary tumuli, and analyze the character of their architecture. 1 Despite slight differences which it is unnecessary to point out, these tombs maybe reduced to one single type (Fig. 166). Thus the mortuary chamber beneath the conical mass is a low and tiny apartment flush with the soil, whose dimensions are ap- preciably uniform, no matter the importance of the covering mound. In round num- bers these dimensions are 3 m. 50 c. for the principal face, 2 m. for the opposite side, and 2 m. in height. The direction of the main sides is east and west. The walls are of hewn blocks, with counter-walls of small uncut stones or rubble at the back. Large flags formed the ceiling of the chamber. A door pierced in the southern face was closed by a stone plug that exactly fitted the door-frame. It communicated with a passage that ran for some distance, and was presently lost in the mass itself. The wall- facings of the apartment were left, as a rule, in an incomplete state, whilst the passage is subdivided into sections, added on at different times, whose execution gets ruder in ratio to its distance from the mortuary-chamber. All the details betray evident precipitation. 2 M. Choisy completes these general indications with a double set of drawings. The main dimensions of the first tomb (Fig. 164) are the following : length of chamber, 2 m. 94 c. ; width, 2 m. i c. ; height, 2 m. 2 c. Passage: width, i m. 51 c. ; height, i m. 98 c. 1 AUGUSTS CHOISY, Note sur les tombeaux Lydiens de Sardes avec planches et plusieurs figures dans le texte (Revue Archeologique, N.S., torn, xxxii. pp. 73-81). 2 Ibid., p. 74.