DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0305
SOME PHASES OF MYCENAEAN ART 253
From traces of other houses on the same general plan,
we may conclude that this type was quite familiar to the
founders of the prehistoric city on Hissarlik ofMyee-
which Dorpfeld assigns to the latter half of the £ut*-it anPe
third millennium B. c. And it differs from the earlier9ta^
. Mycenaean type only in the absence of pillars, which is a
mark of high antiquity. For the rest the resemblance is so
close that they cannot possibly he considered in- without
dependent of each other. To account for the re- collin,ns
semblance, it has been said1 that the-type was introduced
from Egypt into the Troad and Greece, but thatvin keeping
the pillars which the Trojans discarded, the Mycenaeans
adhered more closely to the foreign model. But, in fact,
there is no very close correspondence between the Egyptian
house and our palaces ; and, if there were, it quite fails to
explain how the Trojan princes, dwelling on the foothills
of well-forested Ida, came to discard the column — so
universal in Egyptian architecture — and to discard it so
systematically that neither in the hall nor in the porticoes
nor in the gateway is there any trace of its use. For the
present, then, we can only affirm that in ground-plan the
palaces of the Mycenaean age have a striking resemblance
to that of Troy, but that, being many centuries later, they
show a significant advance upon it in the use of columns.
But this use of columns at Tiryns and Mycenae, as we
have seen, is an important factor in the problem of roofing
there; without the four pillars about the hearth orclere.
there could he no clere-story elevation to carry story
off the smoke and light the shadowy hall. In the absence
of such columns the Trojan megaron — though much
feet ; the smaller building is 15 feet wide, and the rooms are respectively 20,
24 and 29 feet deep.
1 O. Bie, Jahrb. des Arch. Inst., 1891, p. 1 ff.
From traces of other houses on the same general plan,
we may conclude that this type was quite familiar to the
founders of the prehistoric city on Hissarlik ofMyee-
which Dorpfeld assigns to the latter half of the £ut*-it anPe
third millennium B. c. And it differs from the earlier9ta^
. Mycenaean type only in the absence of pillars, which is a
mark of high antiquity. For the rest the resemblance is so
close that they cannot possibly he considered in- without
dependent of each other. To account for the re- collin,ns
semblance, it has been said1 that the-type was introduced
from Egypt into the Troad and Greece, but thatvin keeping
the pillars which the Trojans discarded, the Mycenaeans
adhered more closely to the foreign model. But, in fact,
there is no very close correspondence between the Egyptian
house and our palaces ; and, if there were, it quite fails to
explain how the Trojan princes, dwelling on the foothills
of well-forested Ida, came to discard the column — so
universal in Egyptian architecture — and to discard it so
systematically that neither in the hall nor in the porticoes
nor in the gateway is there any trace of its use. For the
present, then, we can only affirm that in ground-plan the
palaces of the Mycenaean age have a striking resemblance
to that of Troy, but that, being many centuries later, they
show a significant advance upon it in the use of columns.
But this use of columns at Tiryns and Mycenae, as we
have seen, is an important factor in the problem of roofing
there; without the four pillars about the hearth orclere.
there could he no clere-story elevation to carry story
off the smoke and light the shadowy hall. In the absence
of such columns the Trojan megaron — though much
feet ; the smaller building is 15 feet wide, and the rooms are respectively 20,
24 and 29 feet deep.
1 O. Bie, Jahrb. des Arch. Inst., 1891, p. 1 ff.