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Chapter 2 (part 13)
Layer VI: the Mycenaean castle, continued (p.162).
The
VIF building, the ground plan of which is shown in fig.60,
consisted of a single hall, which was about 8.50 m wide and 11.50 m
long on the west side and about 12.00 m on the east. We have already
pointed out the trapezoid shape of the floor plan and explained it by
the radial direction of the side walls. Here, where the difference in
length is a full half meter, no other explanation should indeed be
possible. It seems that the side walls, too, now and then widen
themselves to the east, their boundary lines not being parallel,
but (p.163) directed radially.
 Perhaps this deviation is only
due to the fact that the upper, thinner part of the wall in the eastern
half of the building was destroyed. The eastern enclosing wall b e is
significantly thicker than the other walls (2.60 m versus 1.50 m),
apparently because it was also the retaining wall of the high terrace
on which the building stood. It is divided on its outside by two
projections (c and d) into three parts of 5m each, so it has the same
features as the outer castle wall and the retaining wall of VI M. The
projections are somewhat larger than the other walls, namely 0 25 to
0.30 m, but as far as I can see, they can only have had an artistic
purpose.
Fig.60: Ground plan of building VI F.
Two doors led into the interior
of the building, one (h) is in the western wall, the other (i) found in
the southern. The former was 1.40 m wide, (p.164) the southern 2.07 m;
both would have been double-winged. The wider one (i) was later bricked
up, and since this brickwork does not reach the corner on either side,
it could be ascertained that the door once had a wooden frame. The
wooden posts were still standing when the door was walled up; after the
destruction of the wood, the cavities now filled with earth were
created.
The
construction of the retaining wall, as well as other enclosing walls,
is not as good as in other VI layer buildings. The stones are quite
large on the outside of the wall, but only slightly worked. Especially
in comparison with the excellently smoothed retaining wall of the
neighboring building VI E, the minimal processing of the stones is
striking.
The retaining wall (b e) still offers a special
feature in the former presence of a horizontal wooden beam, the bearing
of which is still recognizable on the outside of the wall (e f).
that there is a 0.20 m high horizontal layer of earth between the
stones. We know the use of wooden longitudinal beams in stone walls
from the buildings of the II layer. However, this type of construction
has also been observed in other buildings of the Mycenaean period, such
as the courtyard walls of the palace of Mycenae. The wooden beam is
seen in section at the left margin of Figure 62 (p. 167), where VI E's
retaining wall is shown in elevation and wall ef sectioned.
Little
can be said about the construction of building VI F, because in the
western half apart from the foundations only small parts of the walls
have been preserved, but in the eastern half even the upper parts of
the foundations and the retaining wall have been destroyed. The type of
lighting inside and the formation of the roof can therefore not be
determined from the ruin itself. That the building, consisting of only
one large room without a vestibule, was a dwelling house can hardly be
doubted.
 The neighboring building to the north, the beautiful
VIE building, has a very similar floor plan. Its large interior is
6.40m wide and 9.80m to 10.00m long. Although there is only a
difference of 0.20m between the eastern and western lengths, the
intended outward widening of the building and the radial direction of
the side walls cannot be misjudged. The floor plan shown in fig.61
shows not only this building but also the adjoining parts of the
neighboring buildings. Some of the walls left entirely white belong to
buildings of the more recent strata. They are drawn in order to show
why the stone structure of layer VI is not indicated in some places.
Fig.61: Ground plan of building VI E.
From
the ground plan we can already see that the walls of our building are
built of stones, although small, but particularly regularly cut; only
at the corners are there large stones. The careful processing of the
stones is even more obvious when you look at photo 25. No
archaeologist would consider a wall like the eastern retaining wall
shown in (p.165) this picture, if found alone, to be a work of the
Mycenaean period. The stones, cut almost square and perfectly smoothed
on the outside, the fine and hardly visible joints and also the two
carefully made corners remind us of Greek walls of the 5th and 6th
centuries and not of the Cyclopean castle walls of the palaces of Tiryns and Mycenae, or those built of small
unworked stones. And yet our
building undoubtedly belongs to the sixth layer and thus to the second
millennium before Christ.
Photo 25: Retaining wall (a-b) and rear wall (d) of building E of the VI layer; House walls (f) from the 2nd period of the VII layer.
However, it must be attributed to the
end of this layer, because as with the castle walls, we must also
distinguish older and younger structures in the internal buildings of
the VI layer. Building VI F is one of the older structures of the
Homeric castle because of its little-worked stones and its not very
careful construction (p.166), while our building VI E is one of the
more recent ones. Both of such different construction methods are
visible next to each other on the left edge of photo 25. After a
neatly worked corner (a), the beautiful retaining wall merges into the
wall made of only minimally worked stones, marked (e), which connects the two
buildings VI E and VI F with each other. Despite the great difference
in construction, there can be no doubt that the two walls belong to the
same stratum.
Looking
again at the remaining walls shown in photo 25, we first notice a ramp
(c) (designated m in Figure 6l) which conceals the middle part of the
retaining wall. It must be attributed to the 1st period of the 7th
layer, ie the time when, after the destruction of the 6th castle,
residential houses were first built on the castle hill again. The house
walls (f) belong to the 2nd period of the same layer, recognizable by
the high-edged slabs of their foundations. Through a gap in the left
wall (f) we see in the background on the one hand a regularly built
wall (d), the rear wall of our building VI E, and on the other hand a
high mass of rubble on which a few foundation stones (g) of building IX
J of the Roman layer are preserved.
 We subsequently excavated
the western part of the beautiful retaining wall even further than can
be seen in photo 25. However, since no good photograph of its lower
part could be taken, I give a drawing of the left corner and the
adjoining piece of wall in full height in fig.62. To the left of the
corner one sees the above-mentioned, less well-built connecting wall,
and next to it, in section, is the north-eastern wall of VI F with its
wooden longitudinal beam (see p.164). To the right of the corner there
is a 5 m high uncovered piece of the retaining wall, slightly less well
built and not perfectly smoothed in its lower part.
Fig.62: The east retaining wall of building VI E and section through the north wall of VI F.
The corner itself,
which is not quite worked up to the lower edge of the wall, deviates
from the vertical line by 0.26 m in the front view. The corresponding
northern corner has a similar slope, but does not go down as low
because the floor was higher at this point because of the ramp-like
ascent to the middle castle (cf. fig.40). The inclination of the two
corners and the resulting narrowing of the substructure towards the top
gave the viewer the impression of great solidity. This seems to me to
be certain that the builder intended this effect and that he was not
only a competent technician but also a good artist.
In
addition, some other peculiarities of our retaining wall can be pointed
out. First of all, it has received an embankment that is visible on
average and that is 0.36 m across the entire height, an excellent
measure for strength and stability. But the embankment is not even, it
is smaller in the lower part of the wall than in the upper one. As a
result, the outer edge forms an average curve of about 0.05m (p.167)
arrow height.
This cannot be the case for technical reasons,
because, as we have seen in the discussion of the north-east tower VI
g, these require a reverse curvature, namely a stronger embankment
below and a weaker one above. One could therefore consider the curve to
be unintentional and assume that it was created either by mistake or by
a subsequent change in the slope, but the careful finishing of the
outer surface and in particular the fact that this was done later,
after the entire wall had been erected, exclude this assumption in my
opinion. In addition, the retaining wall also forms a curve in plan
(p.168), which can be seen in fig.61. I cannot give an acceptable
explanation for any of these curvatures. It hardly seems possible to me
that they could have had an artistic or technical purpose.
The
section through the eastern part of the castle on Plate VIII
gives us an idea of the former shape of the building and of its
position in relation to the eastern castle wall and building VIC. To
the west of the eastern wall of the castle, drawn in black, you can see
the wide path that ran along the ring wall, later occupied by the
houses of the VII layer. Its original height is not exactly known;
during the existence of the VI layer, when some pithoi were placed
here, it was about 32m above sea level. The western boundary of the
path is formed by the retaining wall of our building VI E, which is cut
through and also drawn in black.
Their destruction goes deeper
than the old floor inside the building. In the drawing, therefore, both
the upper part of the retaining wall and the upper wall above it had to
be supplemented with dotted lines. The old floor height of the interior
can be assumed to be 34.40m; it is secured by the rubble, which must
have been lying under the floor, and then by a step on the back wall,
which was caused by the widening of the foundation. This projection of
the foundation can be seen both in the large section and in the ground
plan (fig.61). In order to get to building VI C, which is drawn further
to the left and has also been cut through, one had to climb another 1 m.
The
only door of building VI E of which we have found traces was in the
south-west corner, at (i) in fig.61. There the western wall is breached
and in front of it is a ramp-like porch. If there was indeed a door
here, one did not step outside through it, but entered the interior of
building VI C through a second door (k). However, there are doubts as
to whether or not the door opening (i) may have only occurred in
the VII layer. It is possible that the building contained a door in its
north wall, but this could not be determined with certainty given the
great destruction of the walls.
We
know just as little about the interior lighting in building VI E
as we do in the other buildings of the VI Castle. We can assume that
the roof is a wooden ceiling with a horizontal layer of earth, although
we cannot give any positive reason for this. Since there was no inner
wall, the building, like VI F, contained only a single room, which must
have served as living space.
However, building VI E can only
be considered a special dwelling house for a family if there was direct
access from the outside in addition to door (i), because otherwise the
interior could only be entered from building VI C and would only be a
back room of the latter have formed. This is of course very unlikely
because the two buildings not only have separate (p.169) walls, but
also a narrow gap of 0.30 m; also, neither the width nor the design is
the same for both. I am therefore more inclined to believe that there
was another door in the north side wall, now unrecognizable, and
that building VI E was therefore a single dwelling house.
Before
we turn to the discussion of the neighboring building VI C, it is
advisable to first mention the remains of buildings VI Q and VI P,
because they are buildings that not only have a similar plan to those
which VI E and VI F had, but also, just like these, lay directly on the
wide path leading next to the castle wall.
As can be seen from
Plates III and V, only the northern corner and two sections of wall at
the southern end of the VIQ building are known; the south-east wall has
been destroyed by the north-east ditch, while the other walls probably
still lie under the Roman ashlar floor covering the space between
Temple IX P and Altar IX Z. However, the excavated remains are
sufficient to explain the building, taking into account its plan, its
altitude and its design, as a complex very similar to buildings VI E
and VI F.
The fact that its north-eastern wall, facing the
castle wall, is thicker than the others and that it had an embankment
as a retaining wall is secured by the uncovered corner and can be seen
in the ground plan. Good smoothing of the sloped outside indicates the
building belonged to thelater period of the VI layer. The length of the
only interior was probably about 15m, the width about 6.50m. Nothing is
known about the position of the doors and their number. Between VI Q
and VI E was the broad, ramped path that led up from Gate VI S to the
center of the castle.
There is only a single wall of building VI
P just off the north corner of VI Q. Because of its construction and
its altitude, it can be counted with certainty to the VI layer. I
suppose it to be the eastern side wall of a building similar to
building VI Q, and continuing the series of outer buildings situated on
the first terrace. Its entire western part seems to have been destroyed
during Schliemann's excavations, if it hadn't disappeared earlier.
Further
to the west, along the entire north side of the castle mound, up to the
building found on the west, no other walls of the sixth layer have come
to light. Nevertheless, we are entitled to assume that here, parallel
to the northern castle wall, there were other buildings that, together
with the buildings VI B, A, M, G, F, E, Q and P already described,
formed a full circle of houses. They were on a raised terrace, but
lower than the central part of the castle. If it may be permitted to
give an indication of the number of houses in this first row or first
terrace, I should estimate it at 17-18.
While most of the
uncovered houses have a wide and sloping retaining wall on the outside,
towards the castle wall (p.170), this is not the case with buildings VI
G, VI A and perhaps also VI B. One might assume that later
reconstructions took place on these buildings, and that in their place
there used to be structures that were more similar to the other
buildings.
Such residues are in fact preserved under VI G. For
example, the V e wall, which we above (p. 105) with some hesitation
counted as part of the V stratum, may possibly have belonged to a
structure similar to building VI F, to which the corner of a building
of the VI stratum could be expected. Furthermore, VI A, which, as we
have seen, arose only in the youngest period of Layer VI, deserves to
be recalled in this connection.
Unfortunately, almost only
fragments have survived of the buildings that we have to think of as
the second circle or second terrace of the castle. Its walls were
broken down during the great destruction of the castle at the end of
the sixth layer and during the demolition of the central peak of the
hill at the beginning of the ninth layer. Only one building in this
series has been preserved to such an extent that its floor plan can
definitely be reconstructed, namely building VI C.
Although this
building was divided into two parts by the northeast ditch during the
excavations of 1882 and its southern longitudinal wall was partially
demolished, its floor plan could be drawn as a coherent plan because
the destroyed wall was measured at the time. As fig.63 indicates, the
building consisted of a large hall and a very narrow vestibule facing
west. The hall was 15.30 m long and 8.40 m wide in the west. Because of
the great destruction of the northern wall, I could not determine
whether it was wider in the east and thus, like VI E and VI F, formed a
trapezium that narrowed towards the center of the castle; the surviving
pieces of the foundation walls, made of almost unworked stones, do not
permit precise measurement.
 The strength of the individual
walls of building VI C varies considerably; while the eastern wall is 1.90 m, the
longitudinal walls are 1.40 m and the western transverse wall is only 1
m thick. I can only explain the greater thickness of the east wall by
the fact that the outer wall facing the castle wall was thicker than
the rest of the buildings in the second row as well.
Fig.63: Ground plan of building VI C and its neighboring walls.
However, the
difference in terrain between the two terraces in our building is only
small, but it may very well have been larger in other buildings. The
thinness of the western transverse wall is probably due to the fact
that it had no roof beams to support it; in any case, these rested with
their ends on the two longitudinal walls.
Of
great importance for the completion and assessment of our building, as
in general of all buildings of the VI layer, was the discovery of a
stone column base in its original place inside the (p.171) hall. This
was the first time the use of inner columns had been demonstrated for
layer VI.Apparently, in addition to the surviving base (f) (in fig.
63), two other bases (g) and (h) should also be added, so that the
columns could form a central row and thus support the ceiling (cf. Troy 1893, p. 24).
 The
shape and dimensions of the base can be seen in fig.64. On an irregular
foundation stone, made of the same stone, rises a cylindrical or, more
correctly, slightly conical base, 0.28 m high, 0.62 m at the bottom and
0.57 m at the top. On the surface it can be seen from the weathering
that a pillar of only 0.38m in diameter, made of wood at least, stood
on the stone base.
Fig.64: Slim column base (f) from Building VI C.
As is almost always the case with the oldest column
bases in Egypt and Greece, this protruded a significant distance
(almost 0.10 m) over the shaft of the column. How high the base was
visible above the floor cannot be said with certainty; in the section
(Plate VIII) I have assumed the visible height to be about 0.20 m. In
any case, the Trojan base was considerably higher than the bases in the
palaces of Tiryns and Mycenae.
 The
base of the column and its immediate vicinity can also be seen in the
photograph of fig.65, where it is marked (b). The wall (a) in the left
part of this picture is a piece of the southern longitudinal wall
of building VI C; (d) is the cuboid foundation of a votive
offering
belonging to the IX layer; (c) are two pithoi of the VII layer; while
(e) again belongs to a Roman foundation.
Fig.65: The south wall (a) and column base (b) of building VI C and later remains.
The position of these
remains, which come from different periods and are almost the same
height, is characteristic of the central part of the castle and was
created by the fact that the walls of the VII and VIII layers were
demolished at this point when the Roman temple area was laid out and
the Roman buildings are now directly over which the VI layer (p.173)
were built. From the VII stratum only the pithoi have been preserved
because they were deep in the earth, but they have been cut off at the
top.
We
have already mentioned one door of the hall of building VI C when
discussing building VI E, namely the opening between e and d in fig.63.
I doubt whether there really was a door in the sixth layer. If the spot
chosen for the door (a corner of the hall) is already striking, the
lack of care taken in the preparation of the door pillars must also
give cause for concern.
In any case, we must accept another
door in the western wall between the vestibule and the hall. However,
since no trace of one was found in this wall, it must remain doubtful
where the door was and how big it was. The most likely assumption is
that it was located exactly in the middle of the wall, opposite the row
of columns. The temple of Neandria (Winckelmann's Program of the Archaeological Society in Berlin
from 1892) may be mentioned as an example of a similar position of the
main door, opposite a row of columns in the middle, especially since
this building offers many points of comparison with building VI C.
Against
the presence of a door in the western wall, however, a fact remains to
be mentioned, based on the section in Table VIII. The wall is preserved
higher than the upper edge of the column base. The floor in the porch
and thus the door threshold was higher than the floor inside the hall.
However,
this difficulty can be resolved slightly by the assumption of two
steps, where you can climb down from the lobby into the hall. There is
also a similar height difference between the porch and the hall in the
temple of Neandria used for comparison; there, too, they climbed down
to two stages to the cella. In our Trojan building VI C, the height
difference was caused by the VI castle in terraces and the floor of the
hall was taken in the middle between the higher floor of the square
west in front of the building VI C and the floor of the building VI E
on the lower terrace .
While there is little to say about the
architectural design of building VI C because we do not know the
appearance of its porch or the shape of its inner columns, we may still
discuss its interpretation. In the book Troja 1893
(p. 37) I listed several reasons that make it possible for me to
consider this building as a temple. Some have misunderstood my evidence
by taking only a possibility for an almost secure fact. Even now I
still believe that the construction could have been a temple, but have
never thought it proven as such. Anyone who considers the
existence of a temple to be impossible or only unlikely for certain
reasons may do so pending further evidence.
The reasons that I
formerly used essentially remain (p.174) after the
excavations of 1894. At first I had pointed out that the construction
would emerge from its floor plan. Building VI C is the only
one who demonstrably had a middle row of columns inside. It alone has
such a narrow porch that it could hardly be used for practical purposes
and therefore only seems to have served as a decoration. It also lies
near that area of the castle near which the Hellenistic and Roman
temple of Athena later stood. Finally, the square in front of its porch
as a special district also seems to have been completed; at least
a wall has been found between the northwest corner of VI C and the
south -east corner of VI D, which delimited the forecourt (see
Plan V and fig. 63). If it is considered that the construction is
similar to that of the ancient Greek temple of Neandria in some
relationships,it cannot be denied that it may have been a Torchenian
temple.
However, some facts can also be mentioned which to not
seem favorable to such an interpretation First of all, Building VI C
faces West Northwest, an orientation that is very unusual for a temple.
But the Temple of Neandria has an almost the same direction. Secondly,
the rear connecting link with building VI E mentioned above speaks
against a temple, provided that it really dates from layer VI. However,
since this, as we saw, is doubtful, we must not put much reliance on
the existence of the door.
Thirdly, the fact that Tiryns and
Myceneae and in the other castles of the Mycenaean period have so
far not been revealed any temples, thus favoring the view of those who
deny all temple buildings for the Mycenaean era. Of course, according
to Homer in Troja there are two temples, one of Athena (Ilias VI, 88) and one of Apollo (Ilias V, 446), but on the one hand these places are interpreted differently (see W. Reichel, On the PreHellenic Culture,
p. 55, note 24) And on the other hand, such interpretations are not
considered here, because in this book it is only important to let the
ruins speak for themselves and to explain the results of the
excavations regardless of Homer. Under these circumstances, it would be
unjustified to see a temple in Building VI C as secure or even
probability; but the possibility that it was a temple cannot be denied.
The
other buildings that may be attributed to the VI layer are so small or
so insignificant that it is not worth describing them individually.
Only briefly, however, a corner in H 4, which we assign a building VI
D, must be mentioned, several pieces of wall in H 6 and G 6, and some
wall residues and under the propylaion IX D of the Roman layer. They
seem to include all buildings of the second terrace, but unfortunately
they are so destroyed that their floor plans will always remain unknown.
(p.175)
In the middle parts of the castle, no ruins of the VI layer have been
preserved at all, at least no wall from this era has been found there.
However, this is not unexpected, because in the middle of the hill the
floor of the VI layer was so much higher than that of the IX stratum
that even the foundations of the buildings of the Mycenaean period were
destroyed by the creation of the large horizontal temple precinct of
the Romans. It is unknown to how much the Center of the Castle rose
over the outer terraces and is also difficult to determine. If I have
accepted a height mass in the average on p. 32 and on table VIII
and entered this with dotted lines, this is only based on
assumption.
Photo 26:
Retaining walls (a and b) of buildings E and F of the VI layer; House
walls (c and e) of the VII layer; Square foundations (d) of the IX
layer.
[Continue to Chapter 2, part 14]
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