Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 2.djvu/267

 220 Primitive Greece: Mycenian Art. of the buildings it contained. But we have conformed with the scanty indications furnished by the fragment in question. In it, as in our restoration, the houses are provided with flat roofs, rectangular doors and windows. To this and similar points of agreement there is apparently an exception, in that our circular wall is crowned with battlements ; but the difference is only skin deep. In the wall which we have raised from its ruins, the stone is only carried slightly above the platform occupied by the defenders ; the line of the wall coping is somewhat irregular, but a little earth would soon bring it to a level surface. On this platform thus constituted we have placed a crenelated parapet of crude brick, faced here and there by quarry-stones. Though standing on the wall, the parapet is but a make-shift, a pro- visionary and separate structure, set up against an impending war, but which will be left to itself in time of peace. Hence it may well happen that a sudden surprise will find the walls destitute of breastworks and crenelations. In placing here these crude brick defences, M. Chipiez has but used a right which every architect who undertakes a restoration possesses, namely, to show a building as complete as it should be in time of need, and of presenting it in the best possible conditions, so that it should not fail of its purpose, or of a pleasing outward appearance. The wall strictly so called is made of great blocks, and as free from cr-enelations as in the picture which the Mycenian artist has drawn. In regard to the earthwork, I think I can see them on the wall coping. How, except by the presence of a parapet, can we account for the lower part of the woman being invisible ? From a continuous to a crenelated parapet, which would afford better defence and accommodation for the archers, there is but a step, and why should we deem the art of fortification of that period incapable of having made the advance during the interval which parts the Mycenae of the first period figured by the gold- smith who executed the goblet, from the later Mycence which we have essayed to re-construct ? The interest which centres round this antiquity is due to the theme treated by the artist even more than the figuration of walls and domestic abodes. The subject, a battle fought between hostile forces under the walls of a beleaguered city, has been met before, whether among the nations of Anterior Asia, or in