DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0116
Chap. IV.
RAIL AT SANCHI.
93
on the top of the pillars, as at Stonehenge; between the pillars are
three intermediate rails, which are slipped into lens-shaped holes,
on either side, the whole showing how essentially wooden the con-
struction is. The pillars, for instance, could not have been put up
first, and the rails added afterwards. They must have been inserted
into the right or left hand posts, and supported while the next pillar
was pushed laterally, so as to take their ends, and when the top rail
was shut down the whole became mortised together as a piece of car-
pentry, but not as any
stone-work was done,
either before or after-
wards.
The next stage in
rail design is exempli-
fied in that of No. 2
Tope, SanobJ (Woodcut
No. 30); there circular
discs are added in the
centre of each pillar,
and semicircular plates
at top and bottom. In
carpentry the circular
ones would represent a
great nail meant to
keep the centre bar in
its place ; the half discs
top and bottom, metal
plates to strengthen the
junctions—and this it seems most probably may really have been the
origin of these forms.
If from this we attempt to follow the progress made in the
ornamentation of these rails, it seems to have been arrived at by
R-iil, So. 2 Tope, SanebL
(From a Drawing by Colonel Maisey.)
Representation of Kail. (From a ltas-rtlief at Ainravati.)
placing a circular disc in each of the intermediate rails, as shown in
the woodcut (No. 31), copied from a representation of the outer face
RAIL AT SANCHI.
93
on the top of the pillars, as at Stonehenge; between the pillars are
three intermediate rails, which are slipped into lens-shaped holes,
on either side, the whole showing how essentially wooden the con-
struction is. The pillars, for instance, could not have been put up
first, and the rails added afterwards. They must have been inserted
into the right or left hand posts, and supported while the next pillar
was pushed laterally, so as to take their ends, and when the top rail
was shut down the whole became mortised together as a piece of car-
pentry, but not as any
stone-work was done,
either before or after-
wards.
The next stage in
rail design is exempli-
fied in that of No. 2
Tope, SanobJ (Woodcut
No. 30); there circular
discs are added in the
centre of each pillar,
and semicircular plates
at top and bottom. In
carpentry the circular
ones would represent a
great nail meant to
keep the centre bar in
its place ; the half discs
top and bottom, metal
plates to strengthen the
junctions—and this it seems most probably may really have been the
origin of these forms.
If from this we attempt to follow the progress made in the
ornamentation of these rails, it seems to have been arrived at by
R-iil, So. 2 Tope, SanebL
(From a Drawing by Colonel Maisey.)
Representation of Kail. (From a ltas-rtlief at Ainravati.)
placing a circular disc in each of the intermediate rails, as shown in
the woodcut (No. 31), copied from a representation of the outer face