Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/447

 420 Primitive Greece : Mycenian Art. period. Be that as it may, the ruins of Goulas should be narrowly looked into ; they doubtless belong to the oldest civilization of Boeotia. The walls of this acropolis, whose style of construction is identical with that of the embankments skirting the borders and stretching across the basin of Lake Copais, were designed to collect the waters of the streams and fountains rippling in the adjacent valleys, which they conducted by walled channels on to the right bank (Fig. 156). The works in question have been sedulously studied by M. Kambanis, secretary to the society Fi(/i56. — Wall of ancient dyke, Lake Copais. which has undertaken the draining of these morasses ; ^ and, judging from the capital style of masonry seen here, as well as from literary evidence, he would attribute these structures to the Minyans. Orchomenos can boast no walls as old as these ; for the town ^ Michel L. Kambanis, Le Dessechement du lac Copais par Us ancietis, Kam- banis continues his interesting studies in BuiUHn^ 1893, on the drainage of Lake Copais. In his estimation it embraces two distinct epochs : damming, canalization, and draining off of the waters by keeping the Katavothres carefully open, should be attributed to the Minyans ; whilst the second epoch occurs in the day of Alexander the Great, when Crates, surnamed the " Miner '' or /xtVaXXcvri/c, commenced but never finished a subterranean channel which was to have run under the Kephalari Pass. See also E. Curtius, DU Deichbauten der Minyer.