One of these is illustrated in
Fig. 75. These doors are usually opened by a latch-string, which, when
not hung outside, is reached by means of a small round hole through the
wall at the side of the door. Through this hole the owner of the house,
on leaving it, secures the door by props and braces on the inside of the
room, the hole being sealed up and plastered in the same manner that
other openings are treated.
[Illustration: Fig. 75. A barred Zu?i door.]
This curious arrangement affords another illustration of the survival of
ancient methods in modified forms. It is not employed, however, in
closing the doors of the first terrace; these are fastened by barring
from the inside, the exit being made by means of internal ladders to the
terrace above, the upper doors only being fastened in the manner
illustrated. In Pl. LXXIX may be seen good examples of the side hole.
Fig. 75 shows a barred door. The plastering or sealing of the small side
hole instead of the entire opening was brought about by the introduction
of the wooden door, which in its present paneled form is of foreign
introduction, but in this, as in so many other cases, some analogous
feature which facilitated the adoption of the idea probably already
existed. Tradition points to the early use of a small door, made of a
single slab of wood, that closed the small rectangular wall niches, in
which valuables, such as turquoise, shell, etc., were kept. This slab,
it is said, was reduced and smoothed by rubbing with a piece of
sandstone.
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