DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0112
70 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
The upper floors of these dwellings were constructed
very much like the palace roof already described — prob-
ably, in the simplest way, by laying slender sapling trunks
from wall to wall and so close together as to leave little or
no space between them. The ends of such trunks we have
found represented by the discs on the capital in the relief
above the Lions' Gate, as well as in the decorated doorway
of a chamber tomb and on the facade of the tomb of Clytem-
nestra. Of the roofing of the private house we have no
positive knowledge; but we may infer that the pitched roof
Pitched was in prevailing (if not invariable) use. On the
Roofs one nan(j the excavations have brought to light
nothing which goes to establish a flat or terrace roof for
these abodes, while at Thera a chamber was found with the
sloping rafters of a conical roof still in place. And we
have the further testimony of the rock-hewn tombs, which
are undoubtedly modeled upon the habitations of the living,
and which in the great majority of cases have the gable or
hip-roof. The fair inference is that this was the prevailing
style for private houses in the Mycenaean age. The roof-
frame was of wooden rafters, doubtless covered with thatch,
as neither tiles nor slabs suitable for the purpose have been
thus far found. This pitched roof in popular use, as we
infer, must have been the national Mycenaean type, while
the flat roof was a borrowed form confined to the palaces of
the rich and powerful, who, as we may reasonably assume,
would be the first to introduce and apply such an innovation.
The flat roof, adapted as it is to warm and dry climates, was
always in use in the Orient, and from that quarter undoubt-
edly it was introduced into Greece. In the Homeric age
the two modes of roofing are still equally common, but in
the fifth century b. c. flat roofs obtain almost without ex-
ception at Athens, and the gable roof is reserved for the
The upper floors of these dwellings were constructed
very much like the palace roof already described — prob-
ably, in the simplest way, by laying slender sapling trunks
from wall to wall and so close together as to leave little or
no space between them. The ends of such trunks we have
found represented by the discs on the capital in the relief
above the Lions' Gate, as well as in the decorated doorway
of a chamber tomb and on the facade of the tomb of Clytem-
nestra. Of the roofing of the private house we have no
positive knowledge; but we may infer that the pitched roof
Pitched was in prevailing (if not invariable) use. On the
Roofs one nan(j the excavations have brought to light
nothing which goes to establish a flat or terrace roof for
these abodes, while at Thera a chamber was found with the
sloping rafters of a conical roof still in place. And we
have the further testimony of the rock-hewn tombs, which
are undoubtedly modeled upon the habitations of the living,
and which in the great majority of cases have the gable or
hip-roof. The fair inference is that this was the prevailing
style for private houses in the Mycenaean age. The roof-
frame was of wooden rafters, doubtless covered with thatch,
as neither tiles nor slabs suitable for the purpose have been
thus far found. This pitched roof in popular use, as we
infer, must have been the national Mycenaean type, while
the flat roof was a borrowed form confined to the palaces of
the rich and powerful, who, as we may reasonably assume,
would be the first to introduce and apply such an innovation.
The flat roof, adapted as it is to warm and dry climates, was
always in use in the Orient, and from that quarter undoubt-
edly it was introduced into Greece. In the Homeric age
the two modes of roofing are still equally common, but in
the fifth century b. c. flat roofs obtain almost without ex-
ception at Athens, and the gable roof is reserved for the