Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/173

 152 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. the centre ; they still maintained their original situation, for it will be remembered that the pumice filling the room was un- touched. This fact enables us to affirm the existence of a central support, towards which converged these small beams. The inner walls of most houses had no better facing than the same coarse plaster which unites the blocks of masonry ; examples of walls whitewashed and ornamented with successive bands of diverse colours, flowers and other ornaments, akin to the decoration of the vases, are not very uncommon. Strewing* the floor of one of these chambers were a number of coloured plaster fragments, which, according to M. Gorceix, could only have fallen from the ceiling. One house seems to have had two storeys ; for about the walls of chamber c (Fig. 29) were still pieces of wood which must have constituted the ceilings.^ Elsewhere the explorers noticed a large enclosure which had been made water- tight by having the stone flags of its floor well fitted together, and its walls overlaid with a thick coating of lime. That it was some kind of cistern for collecting rain-water is pretty clear. Further on they found, leaning against the main apartments, smaller ones, sometimes half sunk in the ground, to which refer- ence has already been made, as places for storing provisions. Stables also seem to have been recognized. The house of this period, then, was already far removed from the hut which the savage is obliged to share with animals and the little stock of provisions which he has set in reserve for himself; but all of which take up a space he can ill spare. It had dependencies or special apartments for the different purposes of life ; and that its living-rooms were bolted and made secure against rude and unwelcome intrusion from without, is proved by holes found in the wall at either side of the entrance, clearly meant to receive wooden bars. Hence the family could carry on existence after its own fancy and pleasure, and indulge in a certain degree of elegance. These excavations have unearthed a rich ceramic store, which will find due recognition in the chapter we shall devote to pottery. For the present we may state in a general way that the clay employed in its fabrication was not carefully sifted and purified, for it contains large proportions of crystals, fragments of lava, and other non-plastic elements. The surface has been more or ^ FoUQUfi, Santorin,