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False Doors on Tombs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

F. J. Tritsch
F. J. Tritsch
Affiliation:
The University, Birmingham
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Extract

Among all the tantalising questions relating to Lycian pillar tombs, the one that has never been touched is that concerning the top openings which are usually called doors. Yet an enquiry into their meaning may, I think, prove a crucial test. These apertures measure in width 0.20 m. (Isinda Tomb), 0.30 m. (Lion Tomb), 0.41 m. (Harpy Tomb), and 0.45 m. (Trysa Tomb). They give access to a sort of cavity the floor-level of which, however, is a good deal below the bottom of the opening, and from within they must have looked rather like windows. All these openings are high (4-6 m.) above the ground and were filled with stone slabs. No coffin could have passed through them, for their size is exceedingly small. Yet they are called doors. What was their real purpose? Were they for offerings, or for cremation urns, or for sacrifices? Is this tower-like tomb to be compared with Persian cremation towers, or with primitive granaries, or is it a survival of some legendary burial in trees?

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The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 63 , November 1943, pp. 113 - 115
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Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1943

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References

1 Pryce, , B. M. Cat. Sculp. i, 118 (Lion, T.)Google Scholar, 127 (Harpy T.); Akurgal, E., Griech. Rel. aus Lykien, 52 ff. (Isinda, T.), 98 f. (Trysa T.)Google Scholar. On another pillar tomb at Xanthos the opening is a mere hole (Benndorf, , Oe. Jh. iii, 98 ff., fig. 26Google Scholar; T.A.M. i, p. 14)Google Scholar. All the other pillar tombs are either too badly damaged or not well enough examined to allow of any measurements being quoted.

2 Benndorf, l.c., shows that it had been the Lycian custom to hollow out the cavity within the top of the monolith, while leaving the edges all round at their original height so as to serve as a basis for the relief-slabs surrounding this chamber. On the Isinda Tomb (Akurgal, l.c. pl. 10) the aperture is just underneath the flat capstone, in the uppermost part of the relief-slab, thus 0·45 m. above the top of the monolith, and adding the depth of the cavity, about double this height above the floor of the interior chamber.

3 For Persian influence: Benndorf, , Reisen i, 108 f.Google Scholar; Collignon, , Sculpt. Gr. i, 260Google Scholar; Picard, , Manuel i 421 f., 552 fGoogle Scholar.— For granary interment: Oelmann, , Arch. Anz. 45, 240 ff.Google Scholar; Grenier, , REA 1932, 42Google Scholar.

4 Reisen i, pl. 20, ii, pl. 13b; T.A.M. i, 20, 65, 90Google Scholar.

5 Montelius, , Orient und Europa i, 143Google Scholar; Ebert, , Reall. ix, 43 ff.Google Scholar, pls. 57–72; xiv, 290.

6 Antiquity xvii, 55Google Scholar, reviewing do Paço's, A. article in Anais, 1941Google Scholar. Cf. Leisner, , in Marburger Studien, i, 147 ffGoogle Scholar.

7 AJA 1930, 390 f.Google Scholar; 1931, 479; 1934, 268 ff.; A. S. Atene, 1934, 160Google Scholar. For collected evidence cf. Wiesner, J., Grab und Jenseits, 52 ffGoogle Scholar. (H. Kosmas, Syros, Messara), 80 (Psychro). Top openings also occur in vaulted tombs of Cyprus (Gjerstad, , Studies, 68)Google Scholar.

8 Ebert, , Reall. viii, 77f.Google Scholar, x, 350 ff.; Proc. Preh. Soc. 1939, 125, 129Google Scholar, figs. 3, 8, pl. xv; 1940, 133 ff., 163, fig. 7, pls. xi–xvi.

9 BSA xxv, 346Google Scholar. For the architectural function: BSA xxv, 14f., 283 ffGoogle Scholar.

10 BSA xxv, 289, 294 (Wace), 397 (Holland)Google Scholar.

11 Similarly a rock-hewn chamber-tomb at Kalyvia near Sparta has a triangular opening above the entrance cut into the rock. ‘This feature, familiar from built tholoi, is here superfluous owing to the toughness of the rock, but it enabled the original despoilers of the tomb to force an entrance’ (Woodward, in JHS 47, 257Google Scholar). Thus, in antiquity, only this opening can have been visible from the outside.— Picard, (Manuel, i, 336 n. 5)Google Scholar suggests that the entrance to the temple of Prinias shows a reminiscence of this ‘relieving triangle.’

12 A.M. 1923, pl. 6, 1; Antike, iv, 198, fig. 30Google Scholar.

13 Oldenburger Jahrb. 31, 250 ff.Google Scholar; Ebert, , Reall. xii, 2 fGoogle Scholar.

14 In Bächtold, and Stäubli, , Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, ii, 1329 ffGoogle Scholar, iii, 477 ff., viii, 1189 f., there is a very rich collection of evidence from all over Europe. Altogether, the custom of opening the windows of the house when death occurs is so widespread in Europe, particularly among the peasant population, that almost everybody has heard of it.

15 id. ii, 1333; for mediaeval France, add Folk-lore Record., i, 102Google Scholar (about removing the roof from a sick man's hut, that the soul might more easily fly away). Spirits are notoriously wont to pass through windows and roof-openings (chimney, smoke-hole).

16 Hunnius, M., Baltische Häuser, 1926, 30Google Scholar; Ellis, H. R., Road to Hel, 1943, 46, 103, 166Google Scholar; Clemen, C., Altgerm. Relig., 1934, 92Google Scholar; cf. the Ynglinga Saga in Heimskringla i, 22 fGoogle Scholar. ‘at the death of Frey, a great howe was built with a door and three windows.’

17 Neither the English ‘porthole’ and ‘kennel-hole’ nor the German ‘Seelenloch’ seem to have the necessary dignity.

18 Proc. Preh. Soc. 1940, 162 ff. (Clifford, and Daniel, )Google Scholar.

19 Proc. Preh. Soc. 1935, 14Google Scholar.

20 Hančar, F., Urgeschichte Kaukasiens, 1937, 243 ff., pl. 35–39Google Scholar; E.S.A. ix.

21 Wiesner, , Grab und Jenseits, 52 f.Google Scholar, 60, 80–3, 109, 123, 180, 194.

22 Ebert, , Reall. vii, 251 ff.Google Scholar, xi, 276, xii, 2f.; v. Duhn, , Ital. Gräberkunde i, 357Google Scholar.

23 Wiesner, l.c., 60, 82, 194. These holes either occur in the bottom or in the lid, never in both.

24 v. Duhn, in Arch. Rel. Wiss. xix, 441 ff.Google Scholar; Thomsen, P. in Ebert, , Reall. viii, 108, 112, 115Google Scholar; Rev. Bibl. 1910, 549 ffGoogle Scholar. Most of these Palestine megaliths have big openings from the top (by means of slabs easily removed). The older ones have only cup-holed stones, no doors.

25 Mendel, , Cat. Mus. Ottom. i, 149, 348 ff.Google Scholar; M.A.M.A., iv, pl. 15–16. The type varied according to local tradition.

26 de Vogüé, Ch., Syrie Centrale, Architecture, 116Google Scholar, pl. 92.

27 Xanthos: Benndorf, in Oe. Jh. iii, 98 ff., fig. 26Google Scholar; T.A.M. i, p. 14Google Scholar. At Säret: Spratt, , Travels i, 66Google Scholar; Benndorf, , Reisen i, 109Google Scholar.

28 Pryce, , B. M. Cat. Sculp. i, 123Google Scholar. The height of the interior chamber is given as 7 ft. 6 in., while the relief-slabs are only 3 ft. 3 in. (or 1·02 m.) high, yet Fellows says the capstone rested on the relief-slabs. As the capstone was probably not hollowed out (Fellows would have mentioned it and, in any case, that could only account for 5–6 in.), the floor of the chamber must have been about 4 ft. underneath the bottom of the relief-slabs and the door.

29 Pryce, l.c., 132–4, figs. 180–2, pls. 26–7. For sarcophagi see note 4.

30 It would be out of place here to give a chronology of tombs with pseudo-doors, or to trace their general development. For similar reasons I cannot discuss here the Egyptian false doors, nor the ghost-holes on Indian megaliths. What I wish to show is the widespread tradition of pseudo-doors in Europe and Hither Asia throughout the ages.