The interior of the inner northern apse.
The interior of the inner northern apse.
The construction of the walls of this apse
seem very poor in comparison to the other three, even down to
poor fitting of the orthostatic slabs themselves. At first we thought that this
reduction in quality may have
been due to reconstruction, particularly the eastern side, which is little more
than dry-stone walling,
but the discrepancy is noted in early accounts of the temple and is
therefore probably an original feature.
It has been suggested that the walls here were originally covered with a
plaster coat which would have
concealed their roughness.
An interesting feature of this apse is the projecting footing stones at the base
of the walls, they are found on
both sides of the apse and nowhere else within the temple.