Page:Troja by Heinrich Schliemann.djvu/122
as their interior sides are vertical, if they had not been strengthened with wooden posts (z m on No. 18), which were placed vertically against the walls, at intervals of from 2 m. to 2.50 m. and of which considerable remains are still visible, of course in a carbonized state. We recognize them also by the impressions they have left on the walls. In order to make them firmer, they were set 0.50 m. deep into the ground of the gateway: they must have been 0.20 m. thick, this being the diameter of the holes in which they stood. At several places where these wooden posts have stood, the heat produced by their combustion has been so great that the stones have been burnt to lime, which, by the action of rain, has been fused with the wall-coating into so hard and compact a mass, that we had the very greatest trouble to cut it away with pickaxes. These wooden posts had a double purpose; first, to prop up and sustain the unstable quarry-stone walls, and secondly, to support the crossbeams of the ceiling and the upper edifice. But in spite of these precautions, the northern part of this gateway (i i on No. 18 and Plan VII.) appears to have at some time broken down, or at least to have been very near breaking down, for it has been faced on the east side with a panelling, the posts of which, consisting of two beams side by side, stand at average intervals of 0.60 m.; the intermediate space being filled up with quarry-stones. The whole exterior side of the panelling is covered with a clay coating and daubed over with a thin layer of clay.
In the southern part of the gate, where the entrance is (f y on No. 18 and Plan VII.), the masonry is composed of larger stones joined with clay-cement, no doubt in order to make it more solid. It even appears that, for the same reason, this wall has been artificially baked, as an additional precaution, for the clay cement between the stones is baked much more than the exterior coating of the wall. So far as the gate-road was covered by the upper edifice, its walls were vertical; but at its northern end (k on the engraving