B. One of the cross slabs with the tenons, b, b, to drop into the notches a, a.
N.B.—The slabs are not all of the dimensions here shown, but vary in size in different parts of the circle. (See p. [124].)
The slabs of the double circle, which serves both as the enclosure of the Agora and for its benches, are in a slanting position from the entrance on the north side all along the east side until a few yards before the point on the south side where the double circle passes from the rock on to the wall which supports it in the lower part of the Acropolis. At this point the slabs have the maximum size, which seems to have been maintained by all the slabs which stood on the supporting wall, and which have now nearly all fallen; but their inclination can be recognised by observing those still standing on the north-west side of the circle. On the north, on both sides of the entrance, where the Agora is bordered by those tomb-like recesses in which we have recognised small reservoirs, the slabs of these recesses are of necessity all perpendicular, because, had they been slanting, they would not have sustained the pressure of the water.
No. 191. The Village of Charvati, with the ancient Quarry of Mycenæ.
CHAPTER V.
EXCAVATIONS IN AND NEAR THE ACROPOLIS—continued.
THE LIONS' GATE AND THE AGORA.