Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/503

 476 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. more spontaneous that the builder beheld in it a friend of long standing. Here, as in all countries where there is an unfailing supply of wood, trunks of trees, planks, and branches may have constituted the primitive habitation; Here and there the walls might be of pise or rubble, yet the supports, the roof, and verandah would be timbered. This is why the domestic abode at Tiryns and Mycenae, even when it develops into a roomy and ample building — as in the princely palaces — will always retain certain features recalling the primitive mode of construction. We have already engraved many specimens illustrative of an atavism which prompted the artisans to use timber, even when capable of cutting and preparing stone.^ If there is a vulnerable part in the building which more than any other requires to be protected against the weather and the peril of eventual shocks, it is the corner of the wall where three of its sides stand free, as also the sides of gate- ways and porches extending on three faces only of the court. Should the walls happen to be of freestone, the requisite solidity can be had at small cost; blocks heavier than those forming the body of the wall will effectually do this ; for we then obtain the strengthening and projection which the Greeks called para- stacUe and the Romans antce. But our difficulties are greater when we have to build a pillar at the head of the wall with crude squares or small stones, and bring its surface to a smooth and firm front, uniting it intimately at the same time with the masonry, to which it acts as a cuirass. There is one way of solving the problem which seems to have been adopted in the Cnosus palace,^ namely, to set up stone posts in advance of the wall, of sufficient massiveness to stand any agent, however destructive. It is a mode, however, which presupposes a builder accustomed to handle huge and unwieldy stone masses, but he can scarcely be expected to acquire the habit in localities where he almost entirely builds with very small materials. Of blocks that may be cited for their dimensions, there are but one or two at Troy, where they appear as sills. On the contrary, we find joisted ceilings, and timbered door-posts as tall as the house itself covering the free end of the wall. Six of these posts, in a carbonized condition, have been found in place at the entrance of the palace (PI. I. a, and Fig. 48). These timbers — twenty- 1 History of Art. « Ibid.