DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4266#0107
SUBTERRANEOUS CHAMBER AT MYCENJJ. 27
incidence occurs in the foundation of the latter city, about 1379 b. c. by Perseus, the cotemporary
of Minyas, whose treasury is so particularly noticed by Pausanias, About 1185 b. c. Agamemnon
died, and 720 years afterwards the city was destroyed. On the supposition that this edifice is one of
the tombs or treasuries enumerated by Pausanias, the date carries us at all events as far back as 1185
is. c, or even prior to Atreus, to the time of its founder, which gives the chamber the same antiquity
as the Treasury at Orchomcnus. Eurystheus, the immediate predecessor of his uncle Atreus, is said
by Diodoms % Eustathius, and others to have secretly constructed a brazen vessel under ground to
secure a safe retreat, when terrified by the return of Hercules. If we divest this relation of its meta-
phor, and consider the form of the subterraneous chamber, which resembles an inverted vase, the
illustration of the passage is evident, and the similarity is confirmed by the fact, that the interior of
this edifice was once lined with thin plates of metal; the bronze nailsb for attaching which to the
construction still remain. The brazen subterraneous chamber at Argosc, in which Acrisius confined
his daughter, was probably similar in plan and section to the others of the adjacent rival city.
Numerous are the buildings and excavations in Egypt, Sicily, and Italy, constructed in a manner
similar to that of this subterraneous chamber. In the Memnonium at Thebes d is an oblong chamber
covered by a semicircular vaulting, the stones of which have horizontal courses projecting beyond each
other as they advance in height, so as to produce that curvilinear form. Near Notoe in Sicily, in the
district of Falconara, on the road from Militello to Vizzi; also in Sardiniaf, where these chambers are
known by the name of Norages ; and at Tusculum E, near Rome, the same construction obtains : but
of none of these do we possess such correct dates, as Pausanias and history itself furnishes of those
of Orchomenus and Mycenae.
In endeavouring to ascertain the date of these monuments, the assumption of Pausanias is
received as indisputably correct; but Gogueth calls in question the accuracy of the information de-
rived from that classic author. He suggests that it seems difficult to imagine that edifices, which dis-
play, even in their rude state, a certain degree of perfection in their construction, should have
been erected prior to the invention of the plane, the saw, the gimblet, the square, and the mode
of erecting the perpendicular by means of a weight attached to the end of a cord, and which are
attributed by numerous ancient authors to Daadalus, who lived, according to all the chronologists, so
many years after the reign of Minyas. And indeed there is some reason to doubt whether all these
instruments, so useful in the erection of edifices of magnitude and intricacy of construction, were
known at so early a period to the Greeks : for Homer, although he enumerates many tools, such as the
axe with a double edge, plane, gimblets, the level, and a rule for regulating the timbers, never men-
tions a square, compass, or saw. Yet we cannot but imagine that he would give Ulysses all the tools
necessary for his work in the island of Calypso. Daedalus travelled in Egypt in order to instruct him-
self in the arts of that people. Following, therefore, the construction necessary, in some positions,
f°i" the covering of a large opening, that had an immense superincumbent mass, so as to relieve the
supercilium, by a bold flight of imagination the circular form may have been adopted in Greece and
restricted with superstitious awe to the sepulchral chambers, where alone this variety of construction
appears to be found in Egypt, as in the Pyramids'. That this construction was so restricted, appears
a *o» lout o QatriXtbs (EujiJo-Sto;) E7ri rut upew (ptfotru, x.a.1 (po^eU, d Description de l'Egyptc Antiquites, vol. II. pi. 39.
hpv^tv iavrit ii« xaXxoSv mQ0v. Diod. lib. IV. e Houel, Voyage Pittoresque de la Sicile.
b These nails are composed of a metal containing eighty-eight f Dodwell's Tour through Greece, vol. II. p. 234.
parts of copper to twelve of tin ; the orichalcum or brass of later s Nibby Contorni di Roma. Vide pi. 2. of this chapter.
ages consisted of copper and zinc, according to Dr. Clarke. h At p. 205. vol. II. of his work " De l'Origine des Lois, des
Paus. Corin. c. XXIII. Pondelet, in his "Art de batir", Arts, et des Sciences."
"m; II. p. 10, pi. 10. quotes from the Musaeum Etruseum of ' Sir Isaac Newton's "Chronology", fixes the building of
on> two extraordinary instances of the introduction of the arch what is called the First Pyramid about the year 838 b. c.
reek construction: the one in the Gulph 0f Arta, the other Homer wrote at least fifty years before. Bishop Horsley's New-
in the Gulp], of Corinth. The date of these examples is not as- ton, vol. V. p. 22.
cer ained, but their general appearance announce a high antiquity.
incidence occurs in the foundation of the latter city, about 1379 b. c. by Perseus, the cotemporary
of Minyas, whose treasury is so particularly noticed by Pausanias, About 1185 b. c. Agamemnon
died, and 720 years afterwards the city was destroyed. On the supposition that this edifice is one of
the tombs or treasuries enumerated by Pausanias, the date carries us at all events as far back as 1185
is. c, or even prior to Atreus, to the time of its founder, which gives the chamber the same antiquity
as the Treasury at Orchomcnus. Eurystheus, the immediate predecessor of his uncle Atreus, is said
by Diodoms % Eustathius, and others to have secretly constructed a brazen vessel under ground to
secure a safe retreat, when terrified by the return of Hercules. If we divest this relation of its meta-
phor, and consider the form of the subterraneous chamber, which resembles an inverted vase, the
illustration of the passage is evident, and the similarity is confirmed by the fact, that the interior of
this edifice was once lined with thin plates of metal; the bronze nailsb for attaching which to the
construction still remain. The brazen subterraneous chamber at Argosc, in which Acrisius confined
his daughter, was probably similar in plan and section to the others of the adjacent rival city.
Numerous are the buildings and excavations in Egypt, Sicily, and Italy, constructed in a manner
similar to that of this subterraneous chamber. In the Memnonium at Thebes d is an oblong chamber
covered by a semicircular vaulting, the stones of which have horizontal courses projecting beyond each
other as they advance in height, so as to produce that curvilinear form. Near Notoe in Sicily, in the
district of Falconara, on the road from Militello to Vizzi; also in Sardiniaf, where these chambers are
known by the name of Norages ; and at Tusculum E, near Rome, the same construction obtains : but
of none of these do we possess such correct dates, as Pausanias and history itself furnishes of those
of Orchomenus and Mycenae.
In endeavouring to ascertain the date of these monuments, the assumption of Pausanias is
received as indisputably correct; but Gogueth calls in question the accuracy of the information de-
rived from that classic author. He suggests that it seems difficult to imagine that edifices, which dis-
play, even in their rude state, a certain degree of perfection in their construction, should have
been erected prior to the invention of the plane, the saw, the gimblet, the square, and the mode
of erecting the perpendicular by means of a weight attached to the end of a cord, and which are
attributed by numerous ancient authors to Daadalus, who lived, according to all the chronologists, so
many years after the reign of Minyas. And indeed there is some reason to doubt whether all these
instruments, so useful in the erection of edifices of magnitude and intricacy of construction, were
known at so early a period to the Greeks : for Homer, although he enumerates many tools, such as the
axe with a double edge, plane, gimblets, the level, and a rule for regulating the timbers, never men-
tions a square, compass, or saw. Yet we cannot but imagine that he would give Ulysses all the tools
necessary for his work in the island of Calypso. Daedalus travelled in Egypt in order to instruct him-
self in the arts of that people. Following, therefore, the construction necessary, in some positions,
f°i" the covering of a large opening, that had an immense superincumbent mass, so as to relieve the
supercilium, by a bold flight of imagination the circular form may have been adopted in Greece and
restricted with superstitious awe to the sepulchral chambers, where alone this variety of construction
appears to be found in Egypt, as in the Pyramids'. That this construction was so restricted, appears
a *o» lout o QatriXtbs (EujiJo-Sto;) E7ri rut upew (ptfotru, x.a.1 (po^eU, d Description de l'Egyptc Antiquites, vol. II. pi. 39.
hpv^tv iavrit ii« xaXxoSv mQ0v. Diod. lib. IV. e Houel, Voyage Pittoresque de la Sicile.
b These nails are composed of a metal containing eighty-eight f Dodwell's Tour through Greece, vol. II. p. 234.
parts of copper to twelve of tin ; the orichalcum or brass of later s Nibby Contorni di Roma. Vide pi. 2. of this chapter.
ages consisted of copper and zinc, according to Dr. Clarke. h At p. 205. vol. II. of his work " De l'Origine des Lois, des
Paus. Corin. c. XXIII. Pondelet, in his "Art de batir", Arts, et des Sciences."
"m; II. p. 10, pi. 10. quotes from the Musaeum Etruseum of ' Sir Isaac Newton's "Chronology", fixes the building of
on> two extraordinary instances of the introduction of the arch what is called the First Pyramid about the year 838 b. c.
reek construction: the one in the Gulph 0f Arta, the other Homer wrote at least fifty years before. Bishop Horsley's New-
in the Gulp], of Corinth. The date of these examples is not as- ton, vol. V. p. 22.
cer ained, but their general appearance announce a high antiquity.