TERRA-COTTA ROOFING-TILES. 27 



amples of Greek architecture dating back, at least, eight 

 or nine centuries before the Christian era. It will be no- 

 ticed that this earliest known roofing-tile which Graeber 

 designates as the normal tile, has a wide curved tegula, 

 and a narrow semi-cylindrical imbrex (fig. 5) being iden- 

 tical with the Oriental' one (compare fig. 11). The size 

 of the tegula was 1.50 metres in length by .50 centimetres 



o ~ / 



in breadth. Graeber says that this tile, common in the 

 Middle Ages, is still much used to-day ; it is particularly 

 associated with convent roofs. I have before remarked 

 that this normal tile of Graeber's differs from the normal 

 tile in that region to-day in having a wide tegula and nar- 

 row imbrex. The nearest approach to this in the Middle 

 Ages is the one seen on the old cathedral at Athens. 



Graeber states that these early roofing-tiles of the Tem- 

 ple of Hera were covered with a black glaze ; he also says 

 that glazed tiles have been determined from Argos and 

 Mycenae. The tiles, however, on the Temple of Hera at 

 Argos were not glazed. It is also stated that a few mon- 

 umental buildings in Sicily, Italy, Peloponnesus and Ath- 

 ens reveal the use of roofing-tiles. Besides this primitive 

 normal tile described by Graeber, there is another form 

 of tile which must be regarded as an outgrowth from the 

 normal tile, inasmuch as a narrow imbrex covers the line 

 of junction between two adjacent tegulse. In the last 

 mentioned form the tegula is rectangular in shape, flat, 

 with lateral edges turned upward as shown in fig. 37. 

 Graeber describes two varieties of these, one found in 

 Greece in which the upturned edge stands at right angles 

 to the flat portion as shown in fig. 38. In the earlier 

 forms of this variety the reflexed edge is low and is ac- 

 companied by a semi-cylindrical imbrex. At a very early 

 date, however, the angular imbrex makes its appearance, 

 and from the time marble tiles were adopted from the 

 terra-cotta form, this becomes the definitive shape of the 





