Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/68

 5o A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.ka. noble and diversified public edifices of the Greek colonists, and of Rome afterwards. Are we therefore to infer relationship between Italiots and miragh builders ? We are of opinion that so long as the Calabrese specchie are imperfectly understood, it would be rash, not to say unjustifiable, to draw a similar conclusion. Viewed in its simplest expression, this mode of building rests on two fundamental ideas, namely, to provide a large base to ensure solidity, making the walls to slope upwards by means of corbelled and superimposed stones, the remaining space being filled up by a huge slab. It is a style which is likely to originate with primitive peoples, and which does not necessarily imply imitation by contact with other nationalities. But it is quite a different matter when a whole and complicated system, with special arrangement, has been evolved, testifying to considerable powers of reflection and adjustment as to ways and means. If we meet with the same distribution in Sardinia and the Baléares, if this resemblance is emphasized by the same leading features in the tombs around nuraghs and talayots, then and only then are we justified in our conclusion that something other than mere coincidence brought this about, that the two people were closely related, that they had continuous intercourse with each other, and if data are wanting for placing such an hypothesis beyond dispute, we may reasonably suppose them to belong to a common stock, and that anterior to their separation they were possessed of the first elements of this mode of architecture, which they applied and developed respectively in their new homes. § 3. — Giants Tombs ; Cromlechs, 07' Dolmens. In our last section we incidentally stated that the sepulchres of the tower-builders were always found in the immediate vicinity of nuraghs (Fig. 32). * These tombs consist of an hémicycle, forming a kind of vestibule, a large stela, and a grave varying in length from five to ten metres and upwards. Hence the name of " sepolture dessi giganti," applied to these monuments by the natives (Fig. 36) ; whilst the stela, never less, and often more than three metres high, is oblong in shape towards the upper 1 Consult La Marmora's description of these sepulchres {Voyage en Sardaigne, Ft. II. pp. 16, 21, 23, 27, etc.).