THE PALACE OF 'BROAD KNOSSOS' (_continued_)
The discoveries of 1900, important as they were, were evidently
far from having exhausted the hidden treasures of the House of
Minos; but even the explorer himself, who spoke of his task as
being 'barely half completed' by the first year's work, had no
conception of the magnitude of the task which yet lay before him,
or of the richness of the results which it was destined to produce.
The early work in the second year led to a further disclosure of
the large area of the Western Court of the palace, which seems
to have formed the meeting-place between the citizens of Knossos
and their royal masters. Here probably all the business between
the town and the palace-folk was transacted; stores were brought
up, received and paid for by the palace stewards, and passed into
the great magazines; and here, perhaps, the ancients of the Knossian
Assembly gathered in council to discuss affairs, as the men of the
Greek host gathered in the Iliad, while the King sat in state in
the Western Portico, presiding over their deliberations. The Portico
itself, with its wooden central pillar, 16 feet in height, must have
been a sufficiently imposing structure, while the great court on
which it opened, more than 160 feet in length, must have formed a
stately meeting-place for the citizens. Whether as market-place or
open-air council-room, this West Court must have presented a gay
and animated spectacle when the prosperity of the Minoan Empire
was at its height. Along the outer wall of the palace fronting the
court ran a projecting base, which served as a seat where merchants
or suppliants might wait, sheltered from the sun by the shadow of
the vast building at their backs, till their business fell to be
disposed of (Plate XV. 1). Meanwhile they could beguile the time
by watching the ever-changing picture in front of them, where gay
courtier figures, with gold and jewels on neck and arm, mingled with
grave citizens of substance from the town, or gathered round some
Egyptian visitor, newly arrived on board one of the Keftiu ships,
to discuss some matter of trade--a clean-cut and austere-looking
figure, in his garb of pure white linen, beside the more gaudily
clothed Minoans. When their eyes wearied of the glare of sunlight
on the red cement pavement and the brilliant crowd, they could
turn to the wall behind them, where above their heads ran a broad
zone of paintings in fresco--shrines with scenes of religion,
conventional decorations, and lifelike representations of the great
bulls which played so conspicuous, and sometimes so tragic, a part
in the Minoan economy.
But the main discoveries of the season were to lie on the opposite
side of the building from the Western Court. The Central Court,
instead of being, as it had seemed at first, the boundary of the
building on the eastern side, was now found to have been the focus
of the inner life of the palace. For on its eastern margin, as the
excavations progressed, there came to light a mass of building,
fully equal in importance to that on the western side, and perhaps
of even greater interest. Here the slope of the ground had been
such that storey had been piled above storey, even before the level
of the Central Court had been reached, so that on this side it was
not only the basement of the building that had been preserved, but
a whole complex of rooms going down from the central area to different
levels, and connected with one another by a great staircase, which,
in the course of this and subsequent seasons' excavations, was found
to have had no fewer than five flights of steps. Of this staircase,
thirty-eight steps are still preserved, and good fortune had so
brought it about that at the destruction of the palace some of
the upper chambers had fallen in such a manner that their débris
actually propped up the staircase and some of the upper floorings,
and kept them in place; and thus it has been possible to reconstruct
a large part of the arrangement of the various rooms and floors in
this quarter of the building (Plate XVI. 1). Far down below the
level of the Central Court lay a fine Colonnaded Hall about 26 feet
square, from which the great staircase, with pillars and balustrades,
led to the upper quarter (Plate XVII. 2), while adjoining it was
a stately and finely-proportioned hall--the Hall of the Double
Axes--about 80 feet in length by 26 feet in breadth, and divided
transversely by a row of square-sided pillars (Plate XVII. 1). In
this part of the building, and especially in the Colonnaded Hall,
the conflagration in which the glories of Knossos found their close
had been extremely severe, and the evidences of fierce burning
were everywhere. In a small room in an upper storey, whose floor
was near the present surface of the ground, there came to light
also evidence which suggested that the catastrophe of the palace,
in whatever form it may have come, came suddenly and unexpectedly.
The room had evidently been a sculptor's workshop, and the artist
who used it had been employed in the fabrication of those splendid
vessels of carved stone in which the Minoan magnates delighted. One
of them still stood in the room, finished and ready for transport.
It was carved from a veined limestone approaching to marble in
texture, and was of noble proportions, standing 27-1/4 inches in
height, while its girth was 6 feet 8-3/4 inches, and its weight
such that it took eleven men to carry it from the room where it had
waited so long for its resurrection. Its workmanship was superb.
The upper rim was decorated with a spiral band, while round the
bulging shoulder ran another spiral, whose central coils rose up
in bold relief into forms like the shell of a snail, and its three
handles bore another spiral design. But beside it stood another
amphora, smaller than its neighbour, and giving unmistakable proof
that the artist's work had been suddenly interrupted, for it had
only been roughed out, and its decoration had not been begun. The
skilful hand that should have finished it had perhaps to grasp
sword or spear in the last vain attempt to repel the assault of
the invader, and we can only wonder over his half-done work, and
imagine what untoward fate befell the worker, and for what unknown
master, if he survived the sack, he may have exercised the skill
that once gratified the refined taste of his Minoan lord.
Not far from the sculptor's workshop, and in the same quarter of
the palace, was found a splendid and convincing proof of the
magnificence of the appointments of the House of Minos in its palmy
days. This was a board which had evidently been designed for use
in some game, perhaps resembling draughts or chess, in which men
were moved to and fro from opposite ends. The board was over a
yard in length, and rather more than half a yard in breadth. Its
framework was of ivory, which had originally been overlaid with thin
gold plate, and it was covered with a mosaic of strips and discs
of rock-crystal, which in their turn had been backed alternately
with silver and blue enamel paste. Round its margin ran a border of
marguerites whose central bosses were convex discs of rock-crystal
which had probably been set originally in a blue paste background.
At the top of the board were four beautiful reliefs representing
nautilus shells, set round with crystal plaques, and bossed with
crystal. Below them came four large medallions, set among crystal
bars backed with silver plate, and then eleven bars of ribbed crystal
and ivory, alternating with one another. Eight shorter bars of
crystal backed with blue enamel fill spaces on either side of the
topmost section in the lower part of the board, which consists of
a two-winged compartment with ten circular openings, the medallions
of which have been broken out, but were probably of crystal backed
with silver. The remaining space of the board was filled with flat
bars of gold-plated ivory alternating with bars of crystal on the
blue enamel setting. The mere summary of its decoration conveys
no idea of the splendour of a piece of work which, as Professor
Burrows says, 'defies description, with its blaze of gold and silver,
ivory and crystal.' The Late Minoan monarch who used it--for so
gorgeous a piece of workmanship can scarcely have been designed
for anyone but a King--must have been as splendid in his amusements
as in all the other appointments of his royalty (Plate XVIII.).
The gaming-board suggested the lighter and more innocent side of
the palace life. A darker and more tragic aspect of it was hinted
at by the fresco which was found in the following season among
débris fallen from a chamber overlooking the so-called Court of
the Olive Spout. This was a picture of those sports of the arena in
which the Minoan and Mycenæan monarchs evidently took such delight,
and in which the main figures were great bulls and toreadors. In
this case the picture is one of three toreadors, two girls and
a boy, with a single bull. The girls are distinguished by their
white skins, their more vari-coloured costumes, their blue and
red diadems, and their curlier hair, but are otherwise dressed
like their male companion. In the centre of the picture the great
bull is seen in full charge. The boy toreador has succeeded in
catching the monster's horns and turning a clean somersault over
his back, while one of the girls holds out her hands to catch his
as he comes to the ground. But the other girl, standing in front
of the bull, is just at the critical moment of the cruel sport.
The great horns are almost passing under her arms, and it looks
almost an even chance whether she will be able to catch them and
vault, as her companion has done, over the bull's back, or whether
she will fail and be gored to death. With such a sport, in which
life or death depended upon an instant, in which a slip of the
foot, a misjudgment of distance, or a wavering of hand or eye meant
horrible destruction, we may be sure that the tragedies of the
Minoan bull-ring were many and terrible, and that the fair dames
of the Knossian Palace, modern in costume and appearance as they
seem to us, were as habituated to scenes of cruel bloodshed as
any Roman lady who watched the sports of the Colosseum, and saw
gladiators hack one another to pieces for her pleasure.
That the sport of the bull-ring, and particularly this exciting
and dangerous game of bull-grappling, or [Greek: taurokathapsia],
was an established and habitual form of Minoan sport is proved by
the multitude of representations of it which have survived. The
charging bull of Tiryns, the first to be discovered, was a mystery
so long as it stood alone; but it is only one of a succession of
such pictures--painted upon walls, engraved upon gems, and stamped
on seal impressions--which show that the Cretans and Mycenæans
were as fond of their bull-fights as a modern Spaniard of his.
Where did they get the toreadors, male and female, whose lives
were to be devoted to such a terrible sport--a sport practically
bound to end fatally sooner or later? We may be fairly sure, at
all events, that bull-grappling was not taken up voluntarily even
by the male, and still less by the female, toreadors; and one of
the discoveries made in the excavations of 1901, and followed up
later, gave its own suggestion of an explanation. Not very far from
the North Entrance of the palace, beneath the room where, the year
before, had been found the fresco of the Little Boy Blue gathering
crocuses--an innocent figure to cover so grim a revelation--there
came to light the walls of two deep pits, going right down, nearly
25 feet, to the virgin soil. The pits were lined with stone-work
faced with smooth cement, and it seems most probable that these
were the dungeons of the palace, in which we may imagine that the
miserable captives brought back by the great King's fleet from its
voyages of conquest and plunder, and the human tribute paid by the
conquered states, dragged out their existence until the time came
for them either to be trained for the cruel sport to which they
were devoted, or actually to take their places in the bull-ring.
If it be so, then the dungeons of Minos would keep their captives
securely enough; escape from the deep pits, with their smooth and
slippery walls, must have been practically impossible, save by
connivance on the part of the guards, or by the intervention of
some tender-hearted Ariadne.
If those dark walls could only reveal the story of the doomed lives
which they once imprisoned, we should probably be able to realize,
even more fully than we do, the shadowed side of all the glittering
splendour of Knossos, and the grim element of barbaric cruelty
which mingled with a refined artistic taste and a delight in all
forms of beauty. In none of these great civilizations of the ancient
world were splendour and cruelty separated by any great interval
from one another, nor was a very remarkable degree of refinement
inconsistent with a carelessness of life, and even such a thirst
for blood, as we would consider more natural in a savage state;
but it is seldom that the evidences of the two things lie so close
to one another as where at Knossos the innocent figure of the
crocus-gatherer almost covers the very mouth of the horrible pit
in which the captives of Minos waited for the day when their lives
were to be staked on the hazard of the arena.
Among the other treasures recovered by this season's work was a
quantity of fine painted pottery which had fallen from the upper
rooms into the basement when the palace floors collapsed. Some of
the fragments were of that early polychrome style known as 'Kamares
ware,' from the cave on the southern slope of Mount Ida, where it
was first discovered by Mr. J. L. Myres. Its designs are purely
conventional and largely geometric--zigzags, crosses, spirals, and
concentric semicircles--and are executed in beautiful tints of
brown, red, yellow, black, and white, the design being sometimes
in dark on a light ground, and sometimes in light upon dark. The
extraordinary thinness of the walls of these polychrome vessels,
and the fineness of the clay from which they are fabricated, show to
what a pitch the potter's craft had reached at the early period to
which they belong. Of the later pottery of Knossos, which substituted
naturalistic motives, executed in monochrome, for the conventional
polychrome designs of the Kamares period, many specimens were also
found during the excavations of this season.
The frescoes of the previous year were supplemented by the discovery
of a number of others, representing zones of human figures, about
one-third of life-size, set out on blue and yellow fields with
triple borders of black, red, and white bands. One well-preserved
figure is that of a girl with very large eyes, lips of brilliant
red, and curling black hair. Her high-bodied dress is looped up
at the shoulder with a bunch of blue, with red and black stripes,
and fringed ends. A border of the same robe, adorned with smaller
loops, crosses the bosom, and between its blue and red bands the
white tint of the skin displays itself, showing that the material
of the robe was diaphanous. Relief work in stucco was represented
by fragments of a life-sized figure, since pieced together by M.
Gilliéron, which must have been that of some Minoan King. The head
wears a fleur-de-lys crown and peacock plumes, and round the neck
of the finely modelled torso there runs a collar of fleur-de-lys
ornament.
Again the connection of Knossos with Egypt was evidenced, and this
time in most interesting fashion. Near the wall of a bathroom which
was unearthed by the north-west side of the North Portico, there was
found the lid of an Egyptian alabastron, bearing the cartouche of
a King, which reads, 'Neter nefer S'user-en-Ra, sa Ra Khyan.' These
are the names of one of the most famous Kings of the enigmatical
Hyksos race--Khyan--'the Embracer of the Lands,' as he called himself,
one of whose memorials, in the shape of a lion figure, carved in
granite, and bearing his cartouche upon its breast, was found as
far east as Baghdad, and is now in the British Museum. The statuette
of Sebek-user, son of Ab-nub, evidenced a connection between Knossos
and Egypt in the time of the later Middle Kingdom. This cartouche
of Khyan shows that the connection was maintained in that dark
period of Egyptian history which lay between the fall of the Middle
Kingdom and the rise of the Empire. The intercourse between Crete
and Egypt, however, goes much farther back than either the domination
of the Hyksos or the Middle Kingdom. The discovery of various stone
vessels in translucent diorite, and other hard materials familiar
to the student of Early Egyptian work as characteristic of the
taste of the earliest dynasties, shows that for the beginning of
the connection between the two great Empires we must go back to
the early days of the Old Kingdom in Egypt. The two civilizations,
as we shall see later, can be equated period by period from the
earliest times until the catastrophe of Knossos.
Among the seal impressions in clay, which were found in considerable
numbers this season, were two worthy of attention: the one of great
importance, the other scarcely of importance, but at least of interest.
The first was an impression of the figure of a female divinity,
dressed in the usual flounced garb of the Mycenæan period, standing
upon a sacred rock on which two guardian lions rest their forefeet,
the arrangement of the design being very much the same as that of
the relief on the Lion Gate at Mycenæ, only with the figure of
the goddess taking the place of the sacred pillar. In her hands the
goddess holds something which may be either a weapon or a sceptre,
and before her stands a male votary in an attitude of adoration.
In the background is a shrine with sacred columns, in front of
which rise the 'horns of consecration,' which were characteristic
of Minoan temples, as apparently also of other Eastern religious
structures. The second discovery was a clay matrix, formed from
the impression of an actual seal, and evidently designed for the
purpose of providing counterfeit impressions. In fact, we have
here an evidence, brought to light after three millenniums, of some
very ancient attempt at forgery in the very palace of the great
law-giver.
The main result of the season of 1902 was the practical reconstruction
of a large part of the Eastern or Domestic Quarter of the palace.
The chief room in this part of the building was the Queen's Megaron,
an inner chamber divided transversely by a row of pillars, along
whose bases ran a raised seat, where, no doubt, the maids of honour
of the Minoan Court were wont to sit and gossip. The pillared portico
opened upon another elongated area, a characteristic feature of
Minoan architecture, which served the purpose of a light-shaft,
illuminating the inner room. The light-well had been covered with
a brilliant white plaster, on which were the remains of a bird
fresco--a long, curving wing, with feathers of red, blue, yellow,
white, and black. Adjacent to the Queen's Megaron was a small bathroom,
constructed for a portable bath--a fragment of which, in painted
terra-cotta, was found in the portico of the adjoining hall.
The fresco of the bull-fight, already referred to, was paralleled in
subject, and more than matched in artistic quality, by the discovery,
in a small secluded room which had apparently served as a treasury,
of a deposit of ivory figurines of the most exquisite workmanship.
The height of the best preserved specimen is about 11-1/2 inches,
and it is hard to say whether the boldness of the design or the
precision with which the details of the tiny figure are wrought out
is the more admirable. The attitude is that of a man flinging himself
forth in the abandon of a violent leap, with legs and arms extended.
His straining muscles are indicated with perfect faithfulness, and
even the veins in the diminutive hand and the nails of the tiny
fingers are clearly marked. The hair had been formed by curling
strands of thin gold wire inserted in the skull. There can be no doubt
that these figures formed part of a scene like that of the toreador
fresco, for the violent motion suggested is consistent with nothing
but some desperate feat of agility like bull-grappling. Probably the
leaping figures were suspended by thin gold wires over the backs of
ivory bulls, and thus presented a realistic miniature reproduction
of the Minoan bull-ring. The extraordinary multiplication of such
scenes, in painting, in the round, on gems and seal impressions,
helps one to realize the hold which the passion of bull-fighting,
or, rather, bull-grappling, had upon the Cretan mind, a hold no
doubt connected with the important part which the bull appears
to have played in the Minoan religion (Plate XIX.).
[Illustration XII: MINOAN PAVED ROAD (_p_. 110)
NORTH ENTRANCE, KNOSSOS (_p_. 75)]
One of the season's finds was peculiarly useful and interesting, as
having yielded a considerable mass of material for reconstructing
the appearance of a Minoan town. A great chest of cypress wood--in
which perhaps some Knossian Nausicaa once kept her store of linen--had
been decorated with a series of enamelled plaques, depicting a
Minoan town, with its towers and houses, its fields and cattle
and orchards. The chest itself had perished in the conflagration
of the palace, leaving only a charred mass of woodwork; but the
plaques survived. Some of them represent houses, evidently of wood
and plaster fabric, for the round ends of the beams show in the
frontage. On the ground-floor are the doors, in some cases double;
above are second and third storeys, with rows of windows fitted with
some red material, which may have been oiled and tinted parchment,
while some of the houses have an attic storey with windows above the
third floor. It is evident that the houses of the Minoan burghers
were not the closely-packed mud hovels, separated from one another
only by narrow alleys, which characterize the plan of the Egyptian
town discovered by Petrie at Illahun, but were substantial structures,
giving accommodation which, even to modern ideas, would seem
respectable. Of course, one must suppose that the poorer quarters
of the town would scarcely be represented on a fabric designed
for use in the palace; but the actual remains of a Minoan town,
unearthed at Gournia by Mrs. H. B. Hawes, show that that town,
at least, was largely composed of houses which must have pretty
closely resembled those on the porcelain plaques of Knossos.
Most surprising of all, however, in many respects, was the revelation
of the amazingly complete system of drainage with which the palace
was provided. The gradient of the hill which underlay the domestic
quarter of the building enabled the architect to arrange for a
drainage system on a scale of completeness which is not only
unparalleled in ancient times, but which it would be hard to match
in Europe until a period as late as the middle of the nineteenth
century of our era. A number of stone shafts, descending from the
upper floors, lead to a well-built stone conduit, measuring 1 metre
by 1/2 metre, whose inner surface is lined with smooth cement.
These shafts were for the purpose of leading into this main conduit
the surface-water from the roofs of the palace buildings, and thus
securing a periodical flushing of the drains. In connection with
this surface-water system, there was elaborated a system of latrines
and other contrivances of a sanitary nature, which are 'staggeringly
modern' in their appointments.
In the north-eastern quarter, under the Corridor of the Game-Board,
are still preserved some of the terra-cotta pipes which served as
connections to the main drain. They are actually faucet-jointed
pipes of quite modern type, each section 2-1/2 feet in length and
6 inches in diameter at the wide end, and narrowing to 4 inches at
the smaller end. 'Jamming was carefully prevented by a stop-ridge
that ran round the outside of each narrow end a few inches from the
mouth, while the inside of the butt, or broader end, was provided
with a raised collar that enabled it to bear the pressure of the
next pipe's stop-ridge, and gave an extra hold for the cement that
bound the two pipes together'[*] (Plate XX. 2).
[Footnote *: R. M. Burrows, 'The Discoveries in Crete,' p. 9.]
Indeed, the hydraulic science of the Minoan architects is altogether
wonderful in the completeness with which it provided for even the
smallest details. On a staircase near the east bastion, on the
lower part of the slope, a stone runnel for carrying off the surface
water follows the line of the steps. Lest the steepness of the
gradient should allow the water to descend too rapidly and flood
the pavement below, the runnel is so constructed that the water
follows a series of parabolic curves, and the rapidity of its fall
is thus checked by friction. The main drains are duly provided
with manholes for inspection, and 'are so roomy,' says Dr. Evans,
'that two of my Cretan workmen spent days within them clearing out
the accumulated earth and rubble without physical inconvenience.'
Those who remember the many extant descriptions of the sanitary
arrangements, or rather the want of sanitary arrangements, in such
a town as the Edinburgh of the end of the eighteenth century, will
best appreciate the care and forethought with which the Minoan
architects, more than 3,000 years earlier, had provided for the
sanitation of the great Palace of Minos (Plates XVI. 2 and XX. 1).
Turning from the material to the spiritual, evidence as to the
religious conceptions of the inhabitants of the palace was forthcoming
in two instances. In one early chamber there was found a little
painted terra-cotta object consisting of a group of three columns
standing on an oblong platform. The square capitals of the columns
each carried two round beams, their ends showing, exactly as in
the case of the pillar on the Lion Gate at Mycenæ; and on the top
of the beams doves were perched. Here is the evidence of a cult in
which a Dove Goddess--a Goddess of the Air--was worshipped under
the form of a trinity of pillars; and confirmation of the existence
of such a form of belief was afforded by the discovery, in the
south-east corner of the palace, of a little shrine, in which,
along with the usual 'horns of consecration' and sacred Double
Axes, were found three figures of a goddess, of very archaic form,
on the head of one of which there was also perched a dove. The Double
Axes in the shrine again emphasized the importance in the palace
worship of the Labrys, and underlined the suggestion that the Palace
of Knossos is nothing more nor less than the legendary Labyrinth of
Minos. 'That the _Labrys_ symbol should be the distinguishing cult
sign of the Minoan Palace makes it more and more probable that
we must in fact recognize in this vast building, with its maze of
corridors and chambers and its network of subterranean ducts, the
local habitation and name of the traditional Labyrinth.'[*]
[Footnote *: A. J. Evans, _Annual of the British School at Athens_,
vol. viii., p. 103.]
The season of 1903 was marked by two important discoveries within
the palace area. Of these we may first consider the so-called Theatral
Area. (Plates XXI. and XXII.). Such an area had been found at Phæstos
by the Italian explorers, and it was natural to expect that something
corresponding to it would not be lacking at Knossos. When found,
it proved to be of later date and of more developed form than the
structure at Phæstos; but the general idea was the same. At the
extreme north-west angle of the palace, abutting on the West Court,
there was discovered a paved area about 40 by 30 feet, divided up
the centre by a causeway. On its eastern and southern sides it
was overlooked by two tiers of steps, the eastern tier having at
one time consisted of eighteen rows, while the greatest number on
the south side was six, diminishing to three as the ground sloped
upwards. At the southeastern angle, where the two tiers met, a
bastion of solid masonry projected between them.
[Illustration XIII: RELIEF OF BULL'S HEAD (_p_. 77)
From 'The Palace of Minos,' by Arthur J. Evans, in _The Monthly
Review_.]
This area, for whatever purpose it may have been designed, was
evidently an integral portion of the Later Palace structure, for no
fewer than five causeways converge upon it from different directions;
but it was in no sense a thoroughfare, and the rows of steps around
it do not lead, and can never have led, anywhere. What can have been
the purpose of its existence? Dr. Evans's view, which is generally
accepted, is that it was some sort of a primitive theatre, where
the inhabitants of the palace gathered to witness sports and shows
of some kind, the tiers of steps affording sitting accommodation
for them, while the bastion at the south-east angle may have been
a kind of Royal Box, from which Minoan majesty and its Court circle
surveyed the games. There would be accommodation on the steps for
some four or five hundred spectators.
It must be confessed that the place leaves much to be desired as
a theatre. The shallow steps must have made somewhat uncomfortable
sitting-places, though one must remember that the Minoan ladies
often, apparently, adopted a sitting posture which was more like
squatting than sitting, and that a seat found in 1901, evidently
designed for a woman's use, was only a trifle over 5 inches in
height. But male dignity required more lofty sitting accommodation;
the seat of the throne of Minos is nearly 23 inches high, and the
spectators of the Knossian theatre cannot have been all women.
Neither does the shape of the area appear to be particularly well
adapted to the purpose suggested; and, on the whole, if it were really
designed for a theatre, we must admit that the Minoan architects
were less happily inspired in its erection than in most of their
other works. At the same time, however, the obstinate fact remains
that we can suggest no other conceivable purpose which the place can
have served; and so, until some more likely use can be suggested,
we are scarcely entitled to demur to Dr. Evans's theory.
Admitting, then, for want of any better explanation, that it may
have been a Theatral Area, what were the games or shows which were
here presented to the Minoan Court and its dependents? Certainly
not the bull-fight. For that there is manifestly no space, as the
flat area is not larger than a good-sized room; while the undefended
position of the spectators would as certainly have resulted in
tragedies to them as to the toreadors. But from the great rhyton
found at Hagia Triada, from a steatite relief found at Knossos
in Igor, and from various seal-impressions, we know that boxing
was one of the favourite sports of the Minoans, as it was of the
Homeric and the classical Greeks; and the Theatral Area may have
served well enough for such exhibitions as those in which Epeus
knocked out Euryalus, and Odysseus smashed the jaw of Irus. Or
perhaps it may have been the scene of less brutal entertainments
in the shape of dances, such as those which delighted the eyes of
Odysseus at the Palace of Alcinous. To this day the Cretans are
fond of dancing, and in ancient times the dance had often a religious
significance, and was part of the ceremonial of worship. So that it
is not impossible that we have here a spot whose associations with
the House of Minos are both religious and literary--'the Choros
(or dancing-ground) which Dædalus wrought in broad Knossos for
fair-haired Ariadne' (Iliad XVIII., 590).
If the Theatral Area be really the scene of the palace sports,
it has for us a romantic as well as an historical interest; for
Plutarch tells us that it was at the games that Ariadne first met
Theseus, and fell in love with him on witnessing his grace and
prowess in the wrestling ring. It may be permissible to indulge
the imagination with the thought that we can still behold the very
place where, while the grim King and his gaily-bedecked courtiers
looked on at the sports which were meant only as a prelude to a
dreadful tragedy, the actors in one of the great romances of the
world found love waiting for them before the gates of death. In
any case, the spot may well have been a most fitting one for the
birth of an immortal tale of love. For it is not improbable that,
in its religious aspect, it had a connection with a greater, a
Divine namesake of the human Ariadne. The great goddess of Knossos,
in one aspect of her nature, was the same whom the Greeks knew
later as Aphrodite, the foam-born Goddess of Love. To this goddess
there was attached in Crete the native dialect epithet of 'The
Exceeding Holy One,' 'Ariadne,' and the Theatral Area may well
have been the place where ceremonial dances were performed in her
honour.
Within the palace walls abundant remains of fine polychrome ware of
the Middle Minoan period were found as the season's work went on.
The dungeons of the preceding year's excavations were supplemented
by the discovery of four more, making six in all, and it was shown
that these pits must have belonged to a very early period in the
history of the buildings, for they have no structural connection
with the walls of the Later Palace, which, indeed, cross them in
some places. But the great discovery within the area was that of
the Temple Repositories. As the eastern side of the palace gave
evidence of having been the domestic quarter, so the west-central
part showed traces of having had a special religious significance
in the palace life. Religion, indeed, seems to have bulked very
largely in the economy of the House of Minos, which is what might
have been expected when one remembers the closeness of the relations
between Zeus and Minos as depicted in the legends, and realizes
that very probably the Kings of Knossos were Priest-Kings, and
perhaps even incarnations of the Bull-god.
Near the west-central part of the palace the Double Axe sign occurred
very frequently, and other evidences seemed to suggest that somewhere
in this vicinity there must have been a sanctuary of some sort.
This season's explorations confirmed the suggestion, for, near
the Pillar Room at the west side of the Central Court, there were
discovered two large cists, which had been used for the storage of
objects connected with the palace cult. The cist which was first
opened was closely packed, to a depth of 1.10 metres, with vases; and
below these there was a deposit of fragments and complete examples of
faïence, including the figures of a Snake Goddess and her votaresses,
votive robes and girdles, cups and vases with painted designs, and
reliefs of cows and calves, wild goats and kids. In fact, this
Repository was a perfect treasure-house of objects in faïence; but
in the second cist such objects were wanting, with the exception
that a missing portion of the Snake Goddess was found, the place
of the faïence being taken by gold-foil and crystal plaques.
Some of the small faïence reliefs are of particularly exquisite
design and execution, particularly one of a Cretan wild-goat and
her young, the subject being executed in pale green, with dark
sepia markings, and characterized by great directness and naturalism
of treatment. Most interesting, however, were the figures of the
Snake Goddess and her votaresses. The goddess is 13-1/2 inches in
height. She wears a high tiara of purplish-brown, with a white
border, and her dress consists of a richly embroidered jacket,
with laced bodice, and a skirt with a short double _panier_ or
apron. Her hair is dressed in a fringe above her forehead, and
falls behind on her neck and shoulders; the eyes and eyebrows are
black, and the ears are of extraordinary size; the bust is almost
entirely bare. But the curious feature of the little figure is
that around her are coiled three snakes. One, which is grasped in
the right hand, passes up the arm, descends behind the shoulders
and down the left arm to the hand, which holds the tail. Two other
snakes are interlaced around her hips, and a fourth coils itself
around the high tiara. The figure of the votaress is somewhat similar;
but her skirt is flounced all the way down in the regular Minoan
style, and she holds a snake in her right hand. The characteristic
feature of both figures is the modernness of their lines, which
are as different as possible from those of the statues of classic
Greece. The waist is exceedingly slender, and altogether 'the lines
adopted are those considered ideal by the modern corset-maker rather
than those of the sculptor.'
There can be little doubt that these tiny figures point to the
worship of an earth goddess, whose emblem is the snake--the other
aspect of the heavenly divinity whose symbols are the doves. It may
be noted that at Gournia Miss Boyd (Mrs. Hawes) found a primitive
figure of a goddess, twined with snakes and accompanied by doves,
together with a low, three-legged altar, and the familiar horns
of consecration. Strangely enough, along with the Snake Goddess
of Knossos there was found in the Temple Repositories a cross of
veined marble, with limbs of equal length, which Dr. Evans believes
to have actually been the central object of worship in the cult,
and which he has placed in this position in his reconstruction
of the little shrine. This discovery, 'pointing to the fact that
a cross of orthodox Greek shape was not only a religious symbol
of the Minoan cult, but an actual object of worship, cannot but
have a profound interest in its relation to the later cult of the
same emblem which still holds the Christian world.' The fact of
the equal-limbed cross having at so early a date been the object
of worship also suggests the reason why the Eastern Church has
always preferred the Greek form of cross to the unequal-limbed form
of the Western Church.
Outside the area of the palace proper discoveries of almost equal
importance were made. About 130 yards to the east of the Northern
Entrance there came to light the walls of a building which Dr. Evans
has designated the Royal Villa. It proved to be by far the finest
example yet discovered of Minoan domestic architecture on a moderate
scale, and contained a finely preserved double staircase; while among
the relics found within its walls were some very beautiful examples
of the ceramic art, including a fine 'stirrup' or 'false-necked'
vase of the Later Palace style, decorated in lustrous orange-brown
on a paler lustred ground. Still more beautiful was a tall painted
jar, nearly 4 feet in height, bearing an exquisite papyrus design
in relief (Plate XXIII.).
[Illustration XIV: CLAY TABLET WITH LINEAR SCRIPT, KNOSSOS (_pp_.
80 & 241)
From 'The Palace of Minos,' by Arthur J. Evans, in _The Monthly
Review_]
The main feature of the Villa was a long pillared hall, measuring
about 37 by 15 feet. At the one end of it was a raised daïs, separated
by a balustrade from the rest of the hall, and approached by an
opening in the balustrade with three steps. Immediately in face
of the opening a square niche breaks the wall behind the daïs,
and here stand the broken fragments of a gypsum throne. A fine
stone lamp of lilac gypsum stands on the second step of the daïs
(Plate XXIV.). The two rows of pillars which run down the hall
divide it into a nave and side aisles, and the hall presents all the
elements of a primitive basilica, with its throne for the presiding
Bishop or Priest-King. It is possible that we have here the first
suggestion of that style of architecture which, passing through the
stage where the King-Archon of Athens sat in the 'Stoa Basilike'
to try cases of impiety, found its full development at last in
the Roman Basilica, the earliest type of Christian church. 'Is
the Priest-King of Knossos, who here gave his decisions,' says
Professor Burrows, 'a direct ancestor of Prætor and Bishop, seated
in the Apse within the Chancel, speaking to the people that stood
below in Nave and Aisles?'[*]
[Footnote *: 'The Discoveries in Crete,' pp. 10, 11.]
So far in the explorations at Knossos metal-work had been conspicuous
by its absence. That the Minoans were skilled metal-workers was
obvious, for many of their ceramic triumphs presented manifest
indications of having been adaptations of metal forms; and the gold
cups of Vaphio, which, there can be little doubt, came originally
from Crete, bore witness to a skill which would not have disgraced
the best Renaissance goldsmiths. But the men, whoever they may
have been, who plundered the palace at the time of its great
catastrophe, had done their work thoroughly, and left behind them
little trace either of the precious metals or of bronze. It turned
out, however, that in a block of building which stands between the
West Court and the paved area to the north-west of the palace,
a strange chance had preserved enough to testify to the art of
the bronze-workers of Knossos. One of the floors of this building
had sunk in the conflagration before the plunderers had had time
to explore the room beneath, and under its débris were found five
magnificent bronze vessels--four large basins and a single-handled
ewer. The largest basin, 39 centimetres in diameter, is exquisitely
wrought with a foliated margin and handle, while another has a
lovely design of conventionalized lilies on its border.
Mention has already been made of the paved causeway which bisects
the Theatral Area of the palace. This was found, in 1904, to have
a continuation in the shape of a well-made road leading in a
north-westerly direction towards the hillside (Plate XII. 1). It
was overlaid by a Roman roadway, and an interesting comparison
was thus made possible between the Minoan work and that of the
great road-makers of later days. The Roman road came out rather
badly from the comparison, the earlier construction being superior
in every respect. The central part of the Minoan road consisted
of a well-paved causeway, rather more than 4-1/2 feet wide, while
on either side of this there extended to a breadth of more than
3-1/2 feet a strip of pebbles, clay, and pounded potsherds rammed
hard, making the whole breadth of the road almost 12 feet. Close
by this first European example of scientific road-making ran the
remains of water conduits, which may have led from a spring on Mount
Juktas, and near the road also were found magazines of clay tablets,
giving details of numbers of chariots, bows, and arrows, while in
the immediate neighbourhood of these were two actual deposits of
bronze-headed shafts.
As the Minoan road was followed up in 1905, it led the explorers
towards an important building in the face of the hill to the north-west.
Its exploration was rendered extremely difficult by the fact that
its masonry ran right back into the side of the hill, which was
covered by an olive wood, beneath whose roots lay a stratum made
up of the remains of Græco-Roman houses. But the building, when
explored, proved to be well worth the labour, for the Little Palace,
as it is called, was an important structure with a frontage of
over 114 feet, and its pillared hall was worthy of comparison even
with the fine rooms of its great neighbour. In Late Minoan times
part of this fine hall had been used as a shrine, and in it were
found, along with the usual 'horns of consecration,' three fetish
idols, grotesque natural concretions of quasi-human type. Of these,
the largest had some resemblance to a woman of ample contours, while
a smaller nodule suggested the figure of an infant, and near it
was a rude representation of a Cretan wild-goat. The third nodule
was of apelike aspect. In view of all the religious associations
of Crete, it can scarcely be doubted that these grotesque images,
'not made with hands,' represent Mother Rhea, the infant Zeus, and
the goat Amaltheia. The cult of stones, meteorites and concretions
such as these of the Little Palace, has been widespread in all
ages; one has only to remember the black stone which forms the
most sacred treasure of Mecca, the black stone which stood in the
Temple of the Great Mother at Rome, and the image of the great
goddess Diana at Ephesus, 'which fell down from Jupiter.' Hesiod's
story of how Kronos or Saturn devoured a stone under the belief
that he was swallowing the infant Zeus evidently belongs to the
recollections of a worship in which such natural idols as these
were adored.
Hitherto Knossos had yielded only one small and inadequate
representation of that seafaring enterprise upon which the Minoan
power rested, though even this had, in its own way, a certain
suggestiveness of the romance and terror of the sea. It was a
seal-impression, found in 1903, in the Temple Repositories, on
which a great sea-monster, with dog's head and open jaws, is seen
rising from the waves and attacking a fisherman, who stands up in
his light skiff endeavouring to defend himself. The Little Palace
yielded a somewhat more adequate representation of the Minoan marine
in the shape of another seal-impression, which showed part of a
vessel carrying one square sail, and propelled also by a single
bank of oars, whose rowers sit under an awning. Imposed upon the
figure of the vessel is that of a gigantic horse, and the impression
has been construed as a record of the first importation of the
thoroughbred horse into Crete, probably from Libya, an interpretation
which seems to demand a certain amount of faith and imagination, for
Mosso's criticism, that 'the perspective is faulty,' is extremely
mild. But at least the representation of the vessel itself gives
us some idea of the galleys which maintained the Minoan peace in
the Ægean.
[Illustration XV: (1) PALACE WALL, WEST SIDE. MOUNT JUKTAS IN BACKGROUND
(_p_. 84)
(2) BATHROOM, KNOSSOS]
Among other treasures yielded by the Little Palace was a vessel of
black steatite in the shape of a bull's head. The idea was already
familiar from other examples, but the execution of this specimen
was beyond comparison fine. 'The modelling of the head and curly
hair,' says Dr. Evans, 'is beautifully executed, and some of the
technical details are unique. The nostrils are inlaid with a kind
of shell like that out of which cameos are made, and the one eye
which was perfectly preserved presented a still more remarkable
feature. The eye within the socket was cut out of a piece of
rock-crystal, the pupil and iris being indicated by means of colours
applied to the lower face of the crystal which had been hollowed
out, and had a certain magnifying power.'[*] Students of Early
Egyptian art will be reminded of the details of the eyes in the
statues of Rahotep and Nefert, and in the bronze statue of Pepy.
'Even after the Cnossian ivories, faience figurines, and faience
and plaster reliefs,' writes Mr. Hogarth, 'after the Cnossian and
Haghia Triadha frescoes, after the finest "Kamares" pottery, and
the finest intaglios, the Vaphio goblets and the Mycencæ dagger
blades, one was still not prepared for the bull's head _rhyton_
... with its painted transparencies for eyes, and its admirable
modelling, and the striking contrast between the black polished
steatite of the mass and the creamy cameo shell of the inlay work.[**]
[Footnote *: The _Times_, August 27, 1908.]
[Footnote **: _Fortnightly Review_, October, 1908, pp. 600, 601.]
Within the palace proper, the work of 1907 witnessed the discovery
of a huge beehive chamber excavated in the rock underlying the
Southern Portico. It had been filled in with later débris and sherds
of the Middle Minoan period, and evidently belonged to a period
antedating that of the construction of even the earliest palace.
Its floor was only reached in 1908 by a small shaft at the depth
of 52 feet from the summit of its cupola; and as yet the floor
remains largely unexplored, and may be expected to furnish valuable
information as to the Early Minoan culture. Professor Murray has
suggested that this huge underground vault may be the actual Labyrinth
of the legend, the underground Temple of the Bull-God, and the scene
of the dark tragedies which belong to the story of the Minotaur;
but for the confirmation or negation of this suggestion we must
wait until the great vault itself has been thoroughly explored.
Such, then, have been the outstanding results of the excavation
of the ancient palace of the Cretan Sea-Kings, so far as it has
yet proceeded. Of the wealth of material which has been brought to
light much, of course, still waits, and, perhaps, may long wait,
for interpretation. The facts are there, but the significance of
them is not always easily discerned. But, at least, the importance
of the supreme fact cannot be questioned; the emergence of this
magnificent relic of a civilization, so great and so advanced as to
fill the mind with wonder, so curiously corroborating the ancient
legends as to the greatness and power of the House of Minos, and
yet so absolutely lost as to have left no trace of itself, save
in romantic story, until the patience and skill of present-day
explorers restored its relics to the light of day to tell, though
as yet only imperfectly, their own tale of splendour and disaster.
The interpretation and co-ordination of the immense body of material
gathered by Dr. Evans must for long be the work of scholars. Perhaps
it is not too much to hope that when the Minoan script has at length
yielded up its secrets we shall be able to comprehend clearly those
historical outlines of the rise and magnificence and fall of a
great monarchy and culture, which at present have to be cautiously
and sometimes precariously inferred from the indications afforded
by scraps of potsherd and fragments of stone or metal. And then
the actual story of the House of Minos will appeal to all. To-day,
perhaps, the main impression left on the ordinary student by this
resurrection is one of sadness. Here was a kingdom so great and
so imposing, a civilization so highly advanced and so full of the
joy of living. And it has all passed away and been forgotten, with
its vivid life, and its hopes and fears; and we can only wonder
how life looked to the men and women who peopled the courts of
the vast palace, and what part was played by them in the fragments
of old legend that have come down to us.
The pathos of this aspect of his discoveries has not been missed by
the explorer. Writing of the restoration of the Queen's apartment
of the palace, a restoration rendered necessary by the decomposing
action of wind and rain on the long-buried materials, Dr. Evans
says: 'From the open court to the east, and the narrower area that
flanks the inner section of the hall, the light pours in between
the piers and columns just as it did of old. In cooler tones it
steals into the little bathroom behind. It dimly illumines the
painted spiral frieze above its white gypsum dado, and falls below
on the small terra-cotta bath-tub, standing much as it was left
some three and a half millenniums back. The little bath bears a
painted design of a character that marks the close of the great
"Palace Style." By whom was it last used? By a Queen, perhaps,
and mother, for some "Hope of Minos"--a hope that failed.'[*]
[Footnote *: The _Times_, August 27, 1908.]
The little bath-tub in the Queen's Megaron at Knossos takes its
place with the children's toys of the Twelfth Dynasty town at Kahun
in bringing home to us the actual humanity of the people who used
to be paragraphs in Lemprière's 'Classical Dictionary' or Rollin's
'Ancient History.'