Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/210

 The Origin of Doric Architecture. 169 or cella have a lining of a double course of huge slabs placed edgewise (Fig. 317), whose length is from one metre fifty centi- metres to three metres, and from eighty-four centimetres to one metre fifty centimetres in height. Their dimensions, therefore, greatly exceed those of the superincumbent stones, whilst their salience beyond the wall — eight to ten millimetres — and their proportions single them out from the surrounding courses.' They constitute a species of continuous plinth for the lower Fio. 317. — Basement of cella. portion of the wall, but their intervention is not required by constructional necessity ; the plinth, then, can scarcely be con- sidered otherwise than as a reminiscence of a stone substructure which is allied to masonry made up of crude brick, where it invariably interposed between the damp earth and the clay mass above. The external appearance of this plinth also reminds us of the unwieldy slab or planlc-lining of ancient days which pro- tected walls of small quarry-stone against shocks, and the wear and tear of the section next to the soil. The indelible mark and persistent tradition of wood ties and facings, which formed • J. DuRM, Die Baukumt der Griuhen.