TERRA-COTTA ROOFING-TILES. 



29 



lief. The eaves imbrex has its end closed, not by a cir- 

 cular disc, but by a broad ornamental piece standing erect 

 with anthemion decoration in relief. These designs vary 

 greatly in different fragments, but are all of the same gen- 

 eral nature. The roof imbrex continues the same width 

 over the ridge spanning it like a saddle, and has a similar 

 process projecting upward at the crest with decoration in 

 relief on both sides. . A ridge-tile of the form of a plain 

 imbrex probably covered the junction of the tegulae at the 

 crest. This treatment of the ridge-tile has no parallel in 

 the Orient so far as I know. In another form the ridge- 

 tile is semi-cylindrical bearing a leaf-like crest decorated 

 in polychrome ; on the lower edge a portion is cut out to 

 admit the ends of the semi-cylindrical imbrices as they 

 approach the crest (fig. 39). This figure is copied from 



FIG. 39. 



Bpetticher's work on Olympia (p. 207) and represents a 

 tile from the treasury of the Geloans (Sicilians) at Olym- 

 pia. In the minute investigation of this subject made 

 by Graeber, he often alludes to the great variety in the 

 minor details of the roofing-tiles seen on these ancient 

 sites. Referring to Olympia, he says: "still more striking 

 than the diversity of the clay material is the multiformity 

 of the kinds of construction presented by the antique roof 

 in Olympia. The terra-cotta roofs there offer such a 

 wealth of forms that one has well-nigh to doubt that all of 

 them sprang from a handicraft native to Olympia, or to 

 the district of Elis, and to believe rather that they repre- 



