DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7476#0087
EARLY SAW-WORK AT MYCENAE
7i
remains of various hard materials belonging to the earlier Palace at Knossos,
and are seen on the conglomerate slabs and jamb that were re-used in the
pavement of the West Porch itself, dating from the latest M.M. Ill phase.
They are well marked on the very beautiful rosette and half-rosette reliefs
in a close-orainecl orey-green limestone which, as we shall see, belono- to
deposits belonging to the earlier as well as the later stage of that period.
Our late foreman, Ali Aga Baritakis, who had great experience of
the traces of such technical methods, on visiting Mycenae was struck with
the absolute correspondence of the saw-work visible in the case of the con-
glomerate bases beneath the engaged columns of the ' Atreus' facade with
those of the decorative bands at Knossos and the early Knossian technique
in general. The same comparison extends to the decorative bands of hard
grey limestone similar to, if not identical with, the Cretan, from the same
facade. Early elements at Tiryns show the use of a similar form of saw,
but Baritakis remarked that in the later work on that site saw-marks of
a very inferior kind were observable, showing that they had been produced
by a rounded implement, which was liable to bite irregularly into the surface
of the softer stone then in use.1
In other words, the use of the saw in cutting conglomerate and other
materials, so far from being a late characteristic, is a typically M. M. Ill
technique, parallel with similar work at Knossos. There, indeed, the masons
were but following in the wake of the native lapidaries who, with the aid of
long instruction from Egypt, had acquired the art of attacking stones as
hard as obsidian by the opening of the Middle Minoan Age. At Knossos,
too, this capacity declined in the last Late Minoan Period.
Saw-marks of the fine early class are very perceptible on the cut
surfaces of the sides and backs of certain decorative bands of hard greyish
limestone, some of them in a special way connected with great portals.
Within borders worked into curves, accompanied above and below with
delicate grooves in cavetto, the surface of these bands presents a series of
rosettes or elongated half-rosettes, divided by ' triglyphs ' in a magnificent
style of relief.
M. M. Ill Reliefs of Knossos parallel with those of Mycenae Facades.
For the dating and destination of these relief bands recent researches
on the Palace site at Knossos—supplementing the similar results of earlier
discoveries—have brought out evidence of a convincing kind. The most
splendid examples of this kind of work are the fragments of a rosette band,
' This observation is corroborated by Dr. Mackenzie.
7i
remains of various hard materials belonging to the earlier Palace at Knossos,
and are seen on the conglomerate slabs and jamb that were re-used in the
pavement of the West Porch itself, dating from the latest M.M. Ill phase.
They are well marked on the very beautiful rosette and half-rosette reliefs
in a close-orainecl orey-green limestone which, as we shall see, belono- to
deposits belonging to the earlier as well as the later stage of that period.
Our late foreman, Ali Aga Baritakis, who had great experience of
the traces of such technical methods, on visiting Mycenae was struck with
the absolute correspondence of the saw-work visible in the case of the con-
glomerate bases beneath the engaged columns of the ' Atreus' facade with
those of the decorative bands at Knossos and the early Knossian technique
in general. The same comparison extends to the decorative bands of hard
grey limestone similar to, if not identical with, the Cretan, from the same
facade. Early elements at Tiryns show the use of a similar form of saw,
but Baritakis remarked that in the later work on that site saw-marks of
a very inferior kind were observable, showing that they had been produced
by a rounded implement, which was liable to bite irregularly into the surface
of the softer stone then in use.1
In other words, the use of the saw in cutting conglomerate and other
materials, so far from being a late characteristic, is a typically M. M. Ill
technique, parallel with similar work at Knossos. There, indeed, the masons
were but following in the wake of the native lapidaries who, with the aid of
long instruction from Egypt, had acquired the art of attacking stones as
hard as obsidian by the opening of the Middle Minoan Age. At Knossos,
too, this capacity declined in the last Late Minoan Period.
Saw-marks of the fine early class are very perceptible on the cut
surfaces of the sides and backs of certain decorative bands of hard greyish
limestone, some of them in a special way connected with great portals.
Within borders worked into curves, accompanied above and below with
delicate grooves in cavetto, the surface of these bands presents a series of
rosettes or elongated half-rosettes, divided by ' triglyphs ' in a magnificent
style of relief.
M. M. Ill Reliefs of Knossos parallel with those of Mycenae Facades.
For the dating and destination of these relief bands recent researches
on the Palace site at Knossos—supplementing the similar results of earlier
discoveries—have brought out evidence of a convincing kind. The most
splendid examples of this kind of work are the fragments of a rosette band,
' This observation is corroborated by Dr. Mackenzie.