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140 ANTIQUITIES IN THE MUSEUM AT PALERMO.
of some local residents, examined these buildings, and
found shafts of fluted columns arranged so as to show
that the temple was hexastyle and peripteral. 1 In
March of the following year excavations were commenced,
which brought to light some architectural
members and the Gargoyles now deposited in the
Museum at Palermo. 2 From this date till 1877, when
Salinas published his Memoir, entitled " Le Grondaje
del Tempio d'lmera," the investigation appears to have
been suspended in consequence of want of funds and
exorbitant demands made by the proprietors.
These relics help us to form some idea of the temple
as it stood before its beauty was defaced by Punic
violence; being executed in a very hard material, cretaceous
limestone, they are well preserved, while the
columns of softer tufo have suffered greatly from external
agencies. Originally a gargoyle, two channels, and a
portion of the cornice were made of one block, but so
much was shattered in the fall that none of the blocks
are now complete, and the Museum possesses three heads
broken off in the same way, a part of the cornice, and
two stones containing the channels only. A piece of
metal also has been preserved, which was used in joining
two stones of the cornice ; it seems that they were united
by a process of dovetailing, and that lead was afterwards
poured in to make the small stone inserted fit in the
large ones more accurately. 3
The lions' heads bear a general resemblance to each
other, with some diversity in details as we might expect
from that fertility of invention which characterised the
1 i.e., it had six columns at either end
and columns along the sides. This plan
- was usually adopted in the Doric Temples
* of Sicily, as may be seen by comparing
the structures still remaining at Segesta
and Agrigentum, or the fragmentary
ruins at Selinus. The great Temple of
Neptune at Paestum is a conspicuous
example of the same arrangement in
Magna Graecia. Scharf's Introduction to
" Wordsworth's Greece," pp. 28, 30.
2 Mr. Dennis has noticed these
Gargoyles in the briefest manner possible;
partly on this account I describe them at
some length.
3 For the use of metal in joining stones
see " The Unedited Antiquities of Attica,"
published by the Society of Dilettanti;
Rhamnus, chap, vi, Temple of Nemesis,
Plate viii, Plan of the Lacunaria, " The
whole was strongly fastened together by
means of cramps run in with lead." Mr.
C. T. Newton, " Halicarnassus, Cnidus
and Branchidie," vol. i, Plate xvii,
Mausoleum, Plan of the Pyramid showing
the positions of the Ridges and Cramps.
In vol. ii, part i, pp. 169, 172, 173, 178,
cramp-holes and cramp-marks are mentioned
; comp. vol i, Pis. xxvi, Fig. 8 ;
xxvii, Figs. 4, 7, 8.