4 o2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



dark dungeons, ornamented with the mosaic patterns shown in previous 

 views. A modern steel gate with a big lock keeps out unaccompanied 

 travelers. After we enter, get candles and register our name and 

 address, the guide conducts us from one room to another, sometimes 

 coming up into rooms open above, but which we had not seen before, 

 and then going down again until we get bewildered. 



The details of the mosaics are interesting (Fig. 10). As is already 

 seen from the picture, the design is partly cut and partly laid. The 

 pattern projects about two inches and in the lower part is very peculiar 

 in its angles and in the regularity of its irregularity. The entire struc- 

 ture, even the smallest pieces, is of stone, there being no bricks in the 

 construction. Not only the mosaics, but all other parts of the build- 

 ings are put together without any mortar or cement. The fitting is 

 extremely accurate and the edges of the stones, in many cases, are as 

 sharp as if recently cut. The stone is like that found everywhere in 

 the neighboring mountains. 



Aside from the mosaics, the ornamentation has largely disappeared. 

 The guide informed us that even within his memory there had been 

 large patches of picture writing like that shown in Fig. 11, but that 

 enterprising tourists had cbipped off so much of it that the entrances 

 to the chambers had been walled up as in this picture, so that they 

 are now reached only when the steel gate is unlocked by the guide. 

 By looking closely just above the walled portion, one can see the gen- 

 eral character of this ornamentation. The groundwork is a hard 

 plaster painted a dark red, while the tracing is in white. 



What the buildings were for is a problem which the tourist is more 

 ready to solve than those who are better informed. Perhaps these are 

 the ruins of a great temple. To one tourist, at least, they seem to 

 have been better adapted to the festivities of a great royal court. But 

 whatever they may have been for, they prove that the people who 

 built them were well advanced in art and architecture. 



