Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/290

 TlRVNS. 265 is of another opinion. "All the stones in the walls of Tiryns," he writes, "were bonded with clay mortar. If some of the joints have no binding material, it is because it was washed away by rain or some other cause — lizards and mice, which live in countless numbers in these walls. Some foundations alone appear to have had their stones put together without mortar." ^ Then, too, the term "polygonal," usually employed in speak- ing of this masonry, is hardly correct ; for the image it calls forth is that of a complicated, net-like appearance made by many joints, where we should look in vain for anything approaching a regular stratification. This occurs in a portion of the circuit- wall of Mycenae. At Tiryns, however, despite the unequal size and imperfect cut of the blocks, we find almost everywhere regular courses ; and the marked tendency to horizontal beds which crops up here and there is even perceptible where the masonry is at its roughest {Fig. 72). To this I would add a general observation to the effect that the wall at Tiryns no- where offers the incline which I pointed out as a rare occurrence, and pecuhar to the fortification wall of Pteria, in Cappadocia,'' and which Schliemann also noticed at Hissarlik.' No talus is Tirym ^ See .ibove, pp. 1
 * History of Art.