CY'CLOPE'AN ARCHITECTURE, or NA SONRY. The name frequently used fur an ancient wall of Mtge, irregular stones, rudely hewn or quite unwrought. The term originated in Greece, where structures of this kind were fabled to have been the work of the Cyclopes. The ancients also attributed them to the Pelasgians (q.v.), whence such walls are sometimes called Pelasgian. The walls of nuns (q.v.), near Nauplia, are an ex ample of the ruder style of Cyclopean masonry. They are of irregular unshapen stones, from 0 to 10 feet long, from 3 to 4 feet wide, and from 2 to 3 feet deep; the interstices are filled up by small stones, and clay mortar was employed to bind them, though it has now been washed away to a great extent. The walls of 31yeeire are in part of the salve rude construction as at Tiryns, but near the Lion Gate they are faced with huge rectangular blocks, fitted in rudely horizontal courses, and the same style of masonry (but more carefully executed) is employed in the great beehive tombs. A portion of the van of Alyeence—probably of later date—is built of polygonal stones, carefully fitted so as to leave no interstices. Walls of the same general char acter arc found in Asia and Italy, where they surround many of the old Etruscan towns, though here the walls are more commonly in the rude ashlar masonry found at Nyeerne. While
in Greece these ',calls belong for the most part lo the :Nlyeempan period, and are probably to be attributed to the Achason domination, it is not likely that this style of fortification was peculiar to any one race, as similar masonry has been found in China, and also in Peru, and on a smaller scale in the British Isles. Polygonal masonry, composed of carefully hewn and ,fitted blocks, is common in Greek works of later times, and the early walls of Troy, as well as the tombs already mentioned, show that the Alyeem•ancivi lization was capable of building walls of hewn and fitted stones, as good as. or better than, those erected in the classical times. The Cyclopean architecture is discussed in histories of archi tecture (q.v.), or in works dealing with the Alyeemean Age (see ARcIIJ:OLOOY), or Etruria (q.v.). For a description of the remains of Cyclopean architecture in Greece and Italy, consult: Middleton, Grecian Remains in Italy (London, 1812) , a rare work; Dod well, 1 icws and Descriptions of Cyclopean or I'clasgic Remains in Greece and Italy (Lon don, 1834) ; and, for a more general discussion, Pe t i t -Ra del , Rcelicrchcs sur lcs monuments cyclo picns (Paris, 1841).