Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/305

 28o Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. altar in question rose towards the middle of the court, in sight of the buildings situate on the south face in one direction, and the men's apartment, overhanging the adjacent structures, in the other (Fig. 83). As the walls at this culminating-point are thicker than anywhere else, it has been conjectured that they were also loftier. Every detail about this apartment, the largest in the palace, points to its exceptional importance ; its facade, like the front of a Greek temple, was approached by two massive stone steps dressed fair, which led from the court into the fore-room ; its entrance, moreover, stood exactly in the middle of the northern side of the court, the architect having taken pains to impress the beholder with the noble arrangement of his entrance, and further to enhance the effect he called in, as will be seen by and by, all the resources known to the decorative art of the period. This was in fact the Homeric megaron, or reception- room, where the master received his guests. The plan of its fore-room, or ante-chamber, is the same as that of the two propylaea, ^. e, of the templa in antis ; the bases of its two columns and its two antae are still in situ (Fig. 84). This porch or fore-hall is connected with the second by three doors, whose thresholds of huge blocks of breccia are still in position. The holes for the hinges found at the outer edge of the ground- sills prove that the doors when opened rested against the massive uprights of timber, and thus facilitated free and easy circulation to and fro. Wood played a great part in the order- ing of this room. It constituted the end wall of the spacious ante-chamber and the upper part of the antse. On the upper face of the great stones, placed against the heads of the walls, at either side of the porch, a border of about thirty centimetres has been smoothed around the edge, and over it appear five round holes. The remainder of the surface is left in the rough, and raised some inches above the surrounding band. Hence the conclusion is forced upon us that the surface of this lower block was not designed to receive a second stone, and that the upper portion of the anta was composed of five uprights fixed by tenons into the holes of the base-block. We might also suppose that transverse beams were laid on the stone plinth and extended along the whole length of the wall, as in the similar buildings at Troy and Mycenae. The side-walls of the vestibule perhaps also the foot of the wall, but certainly the