DRAFTED

MASONRY  , in architecture, the term given to large stones, on the face of which has been dressed round the edge a draft or sunken surface, leaving the centre portion as it came from the quarry . The dressing is worked with an adze of eight teeth to the inch, used in a vertical direction and to a width of 2 to 4 in . The earliest example of drafted masonry is found in the immense platform built by Cyrus 530 B.C. at Pasargadae in Persia . It occurs again in the palace of Hyrcanus, known as the Arak-el-Emir (176 B.C.), but is there inferior in execution . The finest drafted masonry is that dating from the time of Herod, in the tower of David and the walls of the Haram in Jerusalem, and at Hebron . In the castles built by the Crusaders, the adze has been worked in a diagonal direction instead of vertically . In all these examples the size of the stones employed is some-times enormous, so that the traditional influence of the Phoenician masons seems to have lasted till the 12th century .