Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/383

 356 Primitive Greece : Mvcenian Art. capitals, mouldings, and the like which formerly graced the facade were carefully put together and stowed away. Had an architect seen this front about the year 1800, he would have found to liis hand almost all the requisites for a restoration, without having to call in the help of conjecture ; for at that time some of the sculp- tured stones were still in position, whilst the rest, in a fragmentary state, was lying on the ground around the tomb. Unfortunately the artists and archseolt^ists of that day had no eye or thought for anything that was not classical ; and the style exhibited here Small domed -lomb. looked so peculiar and strange that nobody felt inclined to take up so unpromising and thankless a task. The interest evinced by travellers in these odd-looking mouldings who visited the place since Lord Elgin's agent {1802-1803), translated itself into the barbarous form of taking with them all they could conveniently carry. Hence it is that the disjecta membra of this facade are now distributed in the public collections of London, Berlin, Munich, and Carlsruhe ; British subjects in this line being perhaps the greater sinners. Greece in those days had no railroads ; many a large block had to be broken ere it could go on the