Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/532

 Secondary Forms. 505 trave bears upon the joisted ant^, and above all the side-walls whereon it rests and which it penetrates. The carpentry of any one frontispiece which we have essayed to reconstruct (Pis. XL, XII.) results in a system of assemblage which, theo- retically at least, could be taken to pieces without injury to any one of them, just as the constituents of a chair or table may be displaced. The whole forms a frame, the most essential parts of which are the lateral uprights ; it may also be compared to a comb, of which the teeth would be the columns. When the two walls were very widely spaced, the timbered archi- trave was necessarily composed of several pieces mortised into one another, and further secured by pins and clamps. The point of junction between any two pieces was of course the weakest part, and most apt to break. These points required the strengthening support of the thickest part of a pillar ; if the diameter of the shaft was less below, no great inconvenience could arise therefrom, since it bore but a feeble part of the total weight of the entablature. The arrangements that will obtain in after times, when tufa or marble architraves, instead of being mortised into one another, will simply be placed on stone pillars and antse, are widely different from these. That such a change of method should have been wrought in the shape, and what may be termed the significance of the column, is easily grasped. In dealing with the construction, we explained by what pro- cesses dowel-holes were bored and cuttings made in the blocks for the reception of timbered antse. ^ From the position of these holes, and the traces left by the wood on the bases, we are enabled to estimate the dimensions of the posts ; these averaged from twenty-five to thirty square centimetres.^ Whenever a wood beam thrown athwart a void rested its ends on the side- walls, the builder set up antse composed of a bundle of stout timbers. As the walls were built of indifferent materials, antae served to strengthen their corners, and enabled them to bear the weight of an entablature with superincumbent and heavy terraces. The Tirynthian palace still preserves twenty-six bases ^ History of Art ^ ScHLiEMANN, Tiryns, Between the first and second vestibule of the Mycenian palace, the beams, according to M. Tsoundas, are as much as seventy-one centi- metres at the side.