The cities and cemeteries of Etruria . d centuries since. Hinges, strictly speaking, there are none;for the doors have one side lengthened into a pivot above andbelow, which pivots work in sockets made in the stone lintel andthreshold ; just as in the early gateways of Etruscan cities,1 andas doors were hung in the middle ages—those of the Alhambrafor instance. There can be no doubt of the antiquity of thesedoors ; it is manifest in their very arrangement; for the lintel isa huge mass of rock buried beneath a weight of superincumbentearth; and must have been laid after the slabs were in theirp
The cities and cemeteries of Etruria . d centuries since. Hinges, strictly speaking, there are none;for the doors have one side lengthened into a pivot above andbelow, which pivots work in sockets made in the stone lintel andthreshold ; just as in the early gateways of Etruscan cities,1 andas doors were hung in the middle ages—those of the Alhambrafor instance. There can be no doubt of the antiquity of thesedoors ; it is manifest in their very arrangement; for the lintel isa huge mass of rock buried beneath a weight of superincumbentearth; and must have been laid after the slabs were in theirplaces ; and it is obvious that none but those who committed 1 Ut supra, p. IT. y 322 CHIUSL—The Cemetery. [chap. liv. their treasures to this sepulchre, would have taken so muchlabour to preserve This was not a common mode ofclosing* the tomb, which was generally done with one or moreslabs of rock, often fitted to the doorway, and sometimes adornedwith reliefs, as in the Grotta delle Inscrizioni at Tarquinii. ifSSI. DOOR OF THE TOMBA L>KL COLLK CASUCOINI, CHIUSI. Just outside the door a small chamber opens on either hand,probably for the freedmen or slaves of the family. The tombitself has three chambers, two only decorated with paintings, thethird unfinished. The first is the largest,3 and has a doorway inthe centre of two of its walls, opening into the other chambers ;but on the third wall is a false door recessed and painted tocorrespond, as in the tomb of Tarquinii just mentioned. All thedoors, true or false, narrow upwards, and have the usual Etruscan 2 This ancient doorway is shown in theabove woodcut. The door is 4 ft. 4 , and each leaf or flap is ahout 18inches uMe, and nearly ~> thick. The depthof the architrave is 1(5 inches. The ironhandles are a modern addition. 3 The dimensions of this chamber areabout 14 feet by 10 ; the height to thecornice is 6 ft. 8 in., and about 7 ft. 6 the central beam, which runs trans-vcrscly. The tom
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublisherl, booksubjecttombs
