Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T20:19:52.333Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Answer to “Plaster Under the Tower“

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2021

William S. Godfrey
William S. Godfrey*
Affiliation:
Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The criticisms from Pohl imply that he has refuted certain contentions which I have made concerning the Newport Tower. I have refrained from anything beyond comment on his various statements.

1. Only three of the columns (N, NE, E) rest on circular stones. The stone on which the SE column rests is only partially circular, the missing portion being chinked out with smaller stones. The other four columns rest on “plinths” (see point 3 below) which are composed of many small stones (Means, 1942, and personal observation).

2. The stones, and the column bases, are very close to 4’ in diameter, and probably were 4’ in diameter when the mortar coating which originally covered them was in place.

3. Pohl's discussion of plinths is completely immaterial. The columns did not stand on plinths, but on drums 18” high, which are now buried in the soil with the exception of their top stones. We were able to identify the original floor level in 1949, and to determine that the original floor surface was gravel (Godfrey, 1950b, 1951). The drums were mortared and plastered (or whitewashed) down to this floor.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , July 1953 , pp. 277 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1954

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Godfrey, William S. Jr., 1948. Report to the Annual Meeting of the Preservation Society of Newport County. Issued in mimeograph, distributed by the Newport Chamber of Commerce, 1949.Google Scholar
Godfrey, William S. Jr., 1949. The Newport Puzzle. Archaeology, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 146–9. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Godfrey, William S. Jr., 1950. Newport Tower II. Archaeology, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 82–6. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Godfrey, William S. Jr., 1951a. The Newport Tower, A Reply to Mr. Pohl. Archaeology, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 54–5. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Godfrey, William S. Jr., 1951b. The Archaeology of the Old Stone Mill in Newport, Rhode Island. American Antiquity, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 120–9. Salt Lake City.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Means, Philip Ainsworth Jr. 1942. Newport Tower. Henry Holt, N.Y. Google Scholar
Pohl, Frederick J. 1950. The Newport Tower: An Answer to Mr. Godfrey. Archaeology, Vol. 3, No. 3, p. 183. Cambridge.Google Scholar