DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.786#0414
chap, ui.] LABYRINTHINE PASSAGES IN THE BOCK. 397
there it bends back on itself, and forms an inner sweep,
leading again to the circular chamber—now it terminates
abruptly, after a longer or shorter course,—and now,
behold! it brings you to another tomb in a distant part of
the hill. Observe, too, as you creep on your echoing way,
that the passages sometimes rise, sometimes sink, and
rarely preserve the same level; and that they occasionally
swell out or contract, though generally regular and of
uniform dimensions.2
What can these cuniculi mean 1 is a question every one
asks, but none can satisfactorily answer. Had they been
beneath a city, we should find some analogy between them
and those often existing on Etruscan sites, not forgetting
the Capitol and Rock Tarpeian. Had they been beneath
some temple, or oracular shrine, we might see in them the
secret communications by which the machinery of jugglery
was carried forward; but in tombs—among the mouldering
ashes of the dead, what purpose could they have served 1
Some have thought them part of a regularly planned
labyrinth, of which the circular tomb was the centre or
nucleus, formed to preserve the remains and treasure
there deposited from profanation and pillage.3 But surely
they would not then make so many superfluous
means of access to the chamber, when it already had a
regular entrance. Moreover, the smallness of the passages
—never more than three feet in height, and two in
width, as small, in truth, as could well be made by the
hand of man, which renders it difficult to thread them
on all fours; the irregularity of their level; and the
fact that one has its opening just beneath the ceiling,
2 For plans of the several stories in The plans and plates are by M. Gruner,
this tumulus, and for illustrations of the the well-known artist. The plan given
articles found in the tombs, see the beau- at page 394 is from that work,
tiful work of Dr. Braun cited above. 3 Fenerbach, Bull. Inst. 1841, p. 8.
there it bends back on itself, and forms an inner sweep,
leading again to the circular chamber—now it terminates
abruptly, after a longer or shorter course,—and now,
behold! it brings you to another tomb in a distant part of
the hill. Observe, too, as you creep on your echoing way,
that the passages sometimes rise, sometimes sink, and
rarely preserve the same level; and that they occasionally
swell out or contract, though generally regular and of
uniform dimensions.2
What can these cuniculi mean 1 is a question every one
asks, but none can satisfactorily answer. Had they been
beneath a city, we should find some analogy between them
and those often existing on Etruscan sites, not forgetting
the Capitol and Rock Tarpeian. Had they been beneath
some temple, or oracular shrine, we might see in them the
secret communications by which the machinery of jugglery
was carried forward; but in tombs—among the mouldering
ashes of the dead, what purpose could they have served 1
Some have thought them part of a regularly planned
labyrinth, of which the circular tomb was the centre or
nucleus, formed to preserve the remains and treasure
there deposited from profanation and pillage.3 But surely
they would not then make so many superfluous
means of access to the chamber, when it already had a
regular entrance. Moreover, the smallness of the passages
—never more than three feet in height, and two in
width, as small, in truth, as could well be made by the
hand of man, which renders it difficult to thread them
on all fours; the irregularity of their level; and the
fact that one has its opening just beneath the ceiling,
2 For plans of the several stories in The plans and plates are by M. Gruner,
this tumulus, and for illustrations of the the well-known artist. The plan given
articles found in the tombs, see the beau- at page 394 is from that work,
tiful work of Dr. Braun cited above. 3 Fenerbach, Bull. Inst. 1841, p. 8.