DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0067
THE FORTRESS-CITY 29
the left as one enters by the circuit wall, and on the right
by a nearly parallel wall which forms part of a large quad-
rangular bastion. Through this narrow passage, affording
room for not more than seven men abreast, an enemy would
have to approach the gate exposed to a rain of missiles in
front and on both flanks; and on clearing the gate he would
find himself shut up in a small court 13 feet square and
opening on the citadel by a passage only 7 feet wide.
The gateway is nearly quadrangular, with a height of
10 feet 4 inches, and a width of 9 feet 10 inches to 9 feet,
narrowing upward as usual with the doors of the period.
The gate-posts, the threshold, and the lintel are great
blocks of breccia, showing clearly the traces of the saw by
which they were cut out of the quarry. In threshold and
lintel we still see the sockets in which the pivots of the
double gate turned. For the ancient door in general dif-
fered from the modern in this, that, instead of hingeing on
the jamb, it was mortised to an axis of its own in the shape
of a vertical beam which projected above and below it, and
fitted into two sockets cut in the threshold and lintel
respectively. The wooden uprights did not work directly
in the grooves, but were shod with bronze pivots — an
example of which has been found in the socket of a doorsill
in the Tiryns palace. There are several sockets also in the
gate-posts, and one of them, a large square hole in the
right-hand post, must have served to receive the strong bar
or cross-beam used to bolt the door on the inside.
Above the gate, the wall is not built up solid, but the
successive courses on either side overlap until they meet in
a sort of pointed arch (as already described) and Reiieving
thus leave a great triangular opening. This is space
designed to lighten the otherwise enormous pressure upon
the lintel, for even that massive block — it is some 15 feet
the left as one enters by the circuit wall, and on the right
by a nearly parallel wall which forms part of a large quad-
rangular bastion. Through this narrow passage, affording
room for not more than seven men abreast, an enemy would
have to approach the gate exposed to a rain of missiles in
front and on both flanks; and on clearing the gate he would
find himself shut up in a small court 13 feet square and
opening on the citadel by a passage only 7 feet wide.
The gateway is nearly quadrangular, with a height of
10 feet 4 inches, and a width of 9 feet 10 inches to 9 feet,
narrowing upward as usual with the doors of the period.
The gate-posts, the threshold, and the lintel are great
blocks of breccia, showing clearly the traces of the saw by
which they were cut out of the quarry. In threshold and
lintel we still see the sockets in which the pivots of the
double gate turned. For the ancient door in general dif-
fered from the modern in this, that, instead of hingeing on
the jamb, it was mortised to an axis of its own in the shape
of a vertical beam which projected above and below it, and
fitted into two sockets cut in the threshold and lintel
respectively. The wooden uprights did not work directly
in the grooves, but were shod with bronze pivots — an
example of which has been found in the socket of a doorsill
in the Tiryns palace. There are several sockets also in the
gate-posts, and one of them, a large square hole in the
right-hand post, must have served to receive the strong bar
or cross-beam used to bolt the door on the inside.
Above the gate, the wall is not built up solid, but the
successive courses on either side overlap until they meet in
a sort of pointed arch (as already described) and Reiieving
thus leave a great triangular opening. This is space
designed to lighten the otherwise enormous pressure upon
the lintel, for even that massive block — it is some 15 feet