Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/522

 Secondary Forms. 495 (Fig. 199). A complete restoration of this pillar will appear in Plates V., VI., XL, XII., to be devoted to a reconstruction of the palace and the tomb. The reader will then gain a clearer idea of what at first sight appears an unnatural inverting of the parts. It looks head downwards. The mind is at first perplexed ; presently, however, it settles down to a reflective mood, and is gradually led back to a time when none but wooden constructions obtained. In this way it pictures to itself the several primitive types of the habitation. There is first the hut of unsquared timbers ; let its shape be conical, circular, or rectangular, the wall membering is invariably composed of piles or posts sunk into the ground. The next step onward is a house made of rubble or crude brick ; its style is still very rude, yet it is already endowed with a certain IEIlIZI Fio. 199. — Spata. Fragment of small ivory column. amount of resisting power, and is also better closed. If wood plays scarcely any part in the actual body of the wall, the build- ing itself is always preceded by a kind of porch, roofed over with planks and beams, which rest on massive timbers.^ The early builders soon found out that these supports must be cut to a point below to facilitate their entering the ground easily. With a little more experience, they learnt how to interpose a slab or cubic stone between the post and the moist earth. When this progressive stage was reached, previous habits were of too long standing to be easily relinquished. Hence is explained why a shape originally given to wooden posts should have been retained in stone pillars. The props of our chairs and tables are a sur- vival of the primitive arrangement in question. Accordingly, the Mycenian column, whether wood or stone, is but an enlarged ^ History of Art,