TAA i.3.23.27
Page 15 of first draft on shrines, handwritten. Harold Plenderleith is also mentioned on this page.
The whole text or part of the text is fully struck through on this page but is not indicated in the transcription. On this page, strikethrough formatting is reserved for the author’s edits and deletions within the main body of the text, which would otherwise be difficult to distinguish.
© Griffith Institute,
University of Oxford
Pairs of simple tenons – i.e. “/<a> “two tenons in the same plane” on the same
end of one piece of material,” – were almost invariably employed, especially
for joining the panel boards to their vertical members.
Stub tenons – “when a tenon passes only partially through
the material” – were used for securing the vertical posts of the doorway
to the chief beam (or over door frieze), and the sill.
<Cross-grained> tongues inserted into corresponding mortises, at intervals, was the method of fixing the crowning members on to the under-structure.
The tongues were made of a hard wood, like oak and Christ’s thorn wood,
or copper, alternate. One of the copper tongues (see fig ...) was
examined by Dr. Plenderleith, who found it to be “of copper containing
some tin and a little gold – tin 1.54 per cent., gold 0.07 per cent.”
He also found “the metal was only superficially oxidised and still
bore traces of the resinous material which had been used to lute it
in position.”
The mouldings are stuck or planted on. “A stuck moulding
is worked directly on the solid framing,” and this was the case
with the “gorge” – or over hanging hollow moulding – of the cavetto
cornices. “A planted moulding is separately worked and
fixed in position with headless wooden pins.” The plain roll
moulding beneath the cornice and carried down the external
angles of the corner posts was in every case planted.
To enable these large structures to pass into the tomb, they were
made up of a number of separate sections members or sections, which