DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.809#0156
UNDERGROUND SPRING-CHAMBER
J 3i
doorway with the ear-like projections of its side posts, perforated for the cross-
bar, which in b and c is actually seen locked in a similar projection of the door
itself. It is true that the Italian hut-urns show, especially as regards the roofs,
with their timbering at intervals to keep down the thatch and the triangular
openings for the escape of smoke at the front and back, a much greater wealth
of structural details. The gabled form of roof that they generally affect
belongs, too, to a different class (see inset, p. 130, a, b). Sometimes (c),
however, we see a kind of pavilion roof of sub-conical shape approaching
that of the Cretan specimens. This latter type, with its imitation of wooden
posts supporting the eaves, has a particular interest as presenting the closest
resemblance to what must have been the prototype of the Temple of Vesta
in ancient Rome, with its surrounding columns. Her shrine, indeed, con-
tained within no other personification than the living flame on the hearth.
Actual remains of hut-circles on the Esquiline and elsewhere attest, as
we know, the existence of the round huts that supplied the original of the
Tugurium Faustuli and the Casa Romuli of the Palatine.1
In Crete, on the other hand, we have seen that from Late Neolithic
times onwards there was a prevailing tradition of rectangular houses, the
lower courses of which, at any rate, were of stone. The primitive beehive
ossuaries themselves form a special category, fitting on, as has been pointed
out,2 to a widespread Libyan type, both of tombs and dwellings. That there
also existed in the Island from early times the simple wigwam form of the
hut3 is made probable by a class of intaglios on bead-seals, going back at
least to the last Middle Minoan Period, of which examples have been given
above,4 showing what certainly appear to be round hut-like buildings with
conical roofs, and also, after the manner of the house of Vesta and the Latial
1 Compare Ovid, Fasti, iii. 183 :
Quae f'uerit nostri, si quaeris, regia nati;
adspice de canna straminibusque
domimi.
So, too {Fasti, vi. 261), of the Temple of
Vesta :
Quae nunc aere vides stipula tunc tecta
videres;
Temple of
Vesta.
Casa
Romuli.
Evi-
dences of
wigwam
type in
Crete.
et paries lento vimine textus erat.
The Sanctuary of the Penates in Lavinium,
the Curia Saliorum on the Palatine, and the
Roman Capellae of the Lares are all described
as huts (koXio., KaXia.i'. Cf. Helbig, Die
Italiker auf der Poebene, 1879, p. 51.
2 See above, p. 35 seqq.
3 Professor Mosso, op. at., p. 125, excavat-
ing at Phaestos at a spot where a bronze
tripod cauldron had come to light, found
numerous fragments of rough tripod pots of an
ordinary Late Minoan class, and 'a hut floor
with a large round hearth' (' il fondo di
una capanna, con un grande focolare ro-
tondo'). Unfortunately neither the shape
nor the size of the hut floor is given, but the
Italian expression ' fondo di capanna' and
the form of the hearth suggest a round struc-
ture.
* P. ofM., i, p. 674, Figs. 493, 494. It is
possible that they were in all cases intended
to represent round buildings.
K 2
J 3i
doorway with the ear-like projections of its side posts, perforated for the cross-
bar, which in b and c is actually seen locked in a similar projection of the door
itself. It is true that the Italian hut-urns show, especially as regards the roofs,
with their timbering at intervals to keep down the thatch and the triangular
openings for the escape of smoke at the front and back, a much greater wealth
of structural details. The gabled form of roof that they generally affect
belongs, too, to a different class (see inset, p. 130, a, b). Sometimes (c),
however, we see a kind of pavilion roof of sub-conical shape approaching
that of the Cretan specimens. This latter type, with its imitation of wooden
posts supporting the eaves, has a particular interest as presenting the closest
resemblance to what must have been the prototype of the Temple of Vesta
in ancient Rome, with its surrounding columns. Her shrine, indeed, con-
tained within no other personification than the living flame on the hearth.
Actual remains of hut-circles on the Esquiline and elsewhere attest, as
we know, the existence of the round huts that supplied the original of the
Tugurium Faustuli and the Casa Romuli of the Palatine.1
In Crete, on the other hand, we have seen that from Late Neolithic
times onwards there was a prevailing tradition of rectangular houses, the
lower courses of which, at any rate, were of stone. The primitive beehive
ossuaries themselves form a special category, fitting on, as has been pointed
out,2 to a widespread Libyan type, both of tombs and dwellings. That there
also existed in the Island from early times the simple wigwam form of the
hut3 is made probable by a class of intaglios on bead-seals, going back at
least to the last Middle Minoan Period, of which examples have been given
above,4 showing what certainly appear to be round hut-like buildings with
conical roofs, and also, after the manner of the house of Vesta and the Latial
1 Compare Ovid, Fasti, iii. 183 :
Quae f'uerit nostri, si quaeris, regia nati;
adspice de canna straminibusque
domimi.
So, too {Fasti, vi. 261), of the Temple of
Vesta :
Quae nunc aere vides stipula tunc tecta
videres;
Temple of
Vesta.
Casa
Romuli.
Evi-
dences of
wigwam
type in
Crete.
et paries lento vimine textus erat.
The Sanctuary of the Penates in Lavinium,
the Curia Saliorum on the Palatine, and the
Roman Capellae of the Lares are all described
as huts (koXio., KaXia.i'. Cf. Helbig, Die
Italiker auf der Poebene, 1879, p. 51.
2 See above, p. 35 seqq.
3 Professor Mosso, op. at., p. 125, excavat-
ing at Phaestos at a spot where a bronze
tripod cauldron had come to light, found
numerous fragments of rough tripod pots of an
ordinary Late Minoan class, and 'a hut floor
with a large round hearth' (' il fondo di
una capanna, con un grande focolare ro-
tondo'). Unfortunately neither the shape
nor the size of the hut floor is given, but the
Italian expression ' fondo di capanna' and
the form of the hearth suggest a round struc-
ture.
* P. ofM., i, p. 674, Figs. 493, 494. It is
possible that they were in all cases intended
to represent round buildings.
K 2