DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0066
28 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
may be ascribed to the Mycenaeans who had just borne an
honorable part at Thermopylae and Plataea, we may discover
in them further provocation for the jealousy of Argos.
The original height of the wall was not uniform, but
varied with the contour of the rock. As noted above, the
Strength of so-called polygonal tower rises to a height of 56
wails feet, but this is undoubtedly exceptional. Again,
the wall is not of uniform thickness, but in the portions still
intact it varies from 10 to 25 feet. It seems to have been
strongest at two points, namely, in the north line and in the
eastern half of the southern side, where the state of the
ruins (according to Schuchhardt) indicates " an original
thickness of as much as 46 feet." These stronger sections
of the circuit were once supposed to have been pierced with
galleries, such as we find at Tiryns, where they clearly served
as magazines for storing supplies and munitions of war.
But the excavations now (1895) show that no such gallery
exists or has ever existed in the walls still standing at
Mycenae, whatever may have been the case with the sec-
tions that have been destroyed. There are, it is true,
several passages of the same "vaulted " construction with the
corridors at Tiryns; but corridors, in the strict sense, they
are not, for there are no chambers to give them a raison
d'etre. One of them (L in Plan) is simply a secret exitj
and another (K) is now found to be an entrance to a tunnel
communicating with a hidden reservoir outside the walls.1
The fortress has two gates, — one piercing the west
front near the north-west corner (A in the Plan) the other
Entrances: m ^ne northern wall not far from its eastern
Lions' Gate extremitv. The first is the famous Lions' Gate
(Plate I.). It is approached by a gradually ascending
roadway, 50 feet long and some 28 feet wide, bounded on
1 See p. 40 for a full account of this unique arrangement.
may be ascribed to the Mycenaeans who had just borne an
honorable part at Thermopylae and Plataea, we may discover
in them further provocation for the jealousy of Argos.
The original height of the wall was not uniform, but
varied with the contour of the rock. As noted above, the
Strength of so-called polygonal tower rises to a height of 56
wails feet, but this is undoubtedly exceptional. Again,
the wall is not of uniform thickness, but in the portions still
intact it varies from 10 to 25 feet. It seems to have been
strongest at two points, namely, in the north line and in the
eastern half of the southern side, where the state of the
ruins (according to Schuchhardt) indicates " an original
thickness of as much as 46 feet." These stronger sections
of the circuit were once supposed to have been pierced with
galleries, such as we find at Tiryns, where they clearly served
as magazines for storing supplies and munitions of war.
But the excavations now (1895) show that no such gallery
exists or has ever existed in the walls still standing at
Mycenae, whatever may have been the case with the sec-
tions that have been destroyed. There are, it is true,
several passages of the same "vaulted " construction with the
corridors at Tiryns; but corridors, in the strict sense, they
are not, for there are no chambers to give them a raison
d'etre. One of them (L in Plan) is simply a secret exitj
and another (K) is now found to be an entrance to a tunnel
communicating with a hidden reservoir outside the walls.1
The fortress has two gates, — one piercing the west
front near the north-west corner (A in the Plan) the other
Entrances: m ^ne northern wall not far from its eastern
Lions' Gate extremitv. The first is the famous Lions' Gate
(Plate I.). It is approached by a gradually ascending
roadway, 50 feet long and some 28 feet wide, bounded on
1 See p. 40 for a full account of this unique arrangement.