Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/106

 Description and Restoration of Tomb I. "]"] but -Gell, a very attentive observer, noticed the holes for the bolts.^ Above the lintel, the discharging space was closed by a triangular slab. A scarcely happy note would have been sounded had it been left plain and bare; we have therefore reproduced here the pattern seen on the porphyry slabs, which fulfil the same function in the facade. Had the circular chamber originally a furniture proportional to its importance ? Local gossips informed Schliemann that the workmen of Veli Pasha had found *'a marble table and a long bronze chain, from which depended a bronze candelabrum." ^ These objects, if they ever existed, which is doubtful, have disappeared ; and on the slender strength of hearsay evidence we could not undertake to re-establish the accessories in ques- tion. They are, moreover, details of minor importance ; whether the vault was provided with a door or not, whether a lamp hung frorii a chain, will make no difference to the essential character- istics of the building, and it is these distinctive peculiarities which we have at heart to bring home to the reader, by means of our restoration. Our aim has been to give a general and true impression, so as to suggest a transient vision of what internally and externally an edifice, respecting which the Mycenian architect put forth all the resources of his art, may have been. If the reader has thus far followed our explanations, whereby we have accounted for our mode of procedure, he will have recognized that there is not one of the ornaments which figure in this unit but has come from the existing portions of the doorway and the column. The facings have not of course all been found ; and it is quite possible that this or that band, of which scraps are to hand, does not occupy the place of its original in our restoration. But notwithstanding these substitutions, which we are far from conceding as facts, in despite also of lacunae filled in from analogies that have not been lightly invoked, we flatter our- selves that we have grasped the spirit of this decoration, and faithfully rendered its general aspect. The faQade, imposing even in its mutilated state, has suffered 1 Gell, Itinerary : " On the right, a door is seen which has been secured by strong bolts." So Dodwell, Tour. Neither of them saw the holes sunk in the threshold of the main doorway to receive the bolts, for at that time the sill was still hidden under accumulated earth ; but those pierced in the lintel did not escape Leake {Travels in Morea), ^ Schliemann, Mycence,