Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/419

 392 Pkimitivi; Greuci;: Mycenian Art. building, taken at the foot of the wall, averages ten metres fifteen centimetres to ten metres thirty-five centimetres {Figs. 140, 141). It cannot be measured exactly. In the chamber the courses are preserved to the height of cir. three metres. There is no trace of a folding-door. The existence of a wall blocking up the passage is inferred from the stones heaped up high before the threshold. In presence of an edifice in such a poor state, the only hope of finding aught of any interest was to clear the whole place. Fig. 139, — View of mound carrying the tomb. The Taji They began with the entrance passage, and found that the filling was natural earth that had been rammed down about two metres deep. The spade made but small impression on the mass, and, as it contained broken pottery of the same age as the tomb, it was inferred that the passage had been filled after the burial, and had never been re-opened. Towards the end, where the dromos becomes a covered passage, they came upon a very unusual sight. Extending across the whole path, one metre ninety centimetres broad, had been dug a pit ; this the explorers found full of unsquared stones that had fallen from the door leading into the chamber, thus proving that the excavation had been empty until these portions of the masonry gave way.