Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/203

 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. in which we find the rampart suggests another hypothesis. The brick wall near the gate fo, which there still rises to a con- siderable height, has its upper courses damaged by fire, whilst its foot is uninjured. This difference is best accounted for by supposing that a wood gallery ran a-top of the wall, in which the defenders of the fortress could circulate under shelter. A fire having broken out, set ablaze all this timber along the whole extent of the enclosure, and thence spread to the adjacent buildings. A very peculiar feature is noticeable in the brick wall : at stated intervals occur square holes, of about thirty Bill, 1 •"T n '4% - ^i.. -t __j W.=:,_^,^^ Fio. 41. — Wall of crude brick. centimetres, at the side, which run right through it (Fig. 41) ; whilst here and there its external face is seamed by longitudinal grooves. What they mean will be more easily grasped when we come to the main building on the acropolis. The first wall (dotted on PI. I.) was already furnished on all its fronts with strengthening towers, a mode of defence which they repeated each time they enlarged the enclosure, without however binding themselves to rigorous symmetry. Thus, on some points of the earliest fortification, the lowers are barely ten metres apart; but this space is doubled in the second wall. In regard to the question whether these masses of masonry should