Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/492

 Mode of Construction. 465 In spite of this serious drawback, the process in many respects was found so convenient as to have affirmed itself and survived the Mycenian period. Thus, Homer describes Poseidon "casting into the sea all the foundations of stone and timber which the Achseans have erected with much labour and trouble in front of their hollow ships."* Similarly, Euripides writes in regard to the Theban ramparts : ** You shall see foundation stones and trees, obedient to the voice of Amphion and the witchery of his music, forsake their mother earth to come and pFace themselves within reach of the workmen." ^ The poets would scarcely express themselves in this fashion, unless cognizant of walls such as they depict. The arrangement of these ties is not as regular in stone as it is in brickwork, where they form a wooden frame, with ."irr — ■ 'hlis. ""Full 1 mm p " 1H '"|iN).. -MM- Fig. iSo. — Mycenae. Profile of palace wall, showing old and present state. which the builder sought to impart greater power of resistance to his wall. Look for instance at our illustration (Fig. 175), where the mason seems only to have consulted his own sweet will or fancy. One of the ties appears eighty-five centimetres above the ground, whilst the topmost is sixty centimetres below the summit.* This is very unlike the symmetrical division of the wall surface which we find at Hissarlik. On the other hand, we should not conclude from this that the mason had any difficulty in carrying out his work. Although the upper face of the schistose blocks is left almost in its native rudeness, all the edges of the joints are well dressed ; they show a rectangular hole at stated intervals, from six to eight centimetres, whose purpose can have been no other than to receive a clamp for fixing the stone to the beam. This commingling of the two ^ Iliad, 2 These lines were lately found on an EgyjHian papyrus. ^ TSOUNDAS, Ilfxxcrdca r^c o^ypAoKoyixfi^ IratpicLc. VOL. I. H H