DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0042
18 THE SACK OF THE PALACE
Once, then, that Sea Power was lost, and the invaders
got a footing on the island, the end was sudden and
overwhelming. Everywhere there are signs of a great
conflagration. The blazing of the oil in the store jars of
the western magazines is probably the reason for the
preservation of the masses of clay tablets in this part of
the Palace. These perishable bits of sun-baked clay, once
released from their broken or burnt coffers of wood, clay,
or gypsum, would never have survived the dampness of
the soil if they had not been charred by an unusually
thorough burning. Fire, that has destroyed so many
libraries, has preserved Mr. Evans's at Knossos.' The
invaders not only burnt but plundered. There is hardly
a trace of metal left in the Palace at Knossos. In one
corner only, on the north-west, a friendly floor level
seems to have sunk just before the plunderers entered it,
and hidden from their view five splendid bronze vessels.
They are all that remain to us, with their delicate designs
of ivy spray and lily chain, to tell us what the gold and
silver work was like that was spoiled from Knossos.2
The invaders came and went, and it seems to have
been men of the old stock who used part of the Palace
site for their humbler dwellings in the days that followed
the sack. Then a silence seems to fall upon the place.
The ghostly figures on the walls of the long corridors
frightened the rude Northern conquerors as they frightened
Manolis ; and a religious sanctity surrounded the dwell-
ings of the old Priest-Kings. Over a great part of the
site there was no building of house, or passing of plough-
share, or planting of tree, for three thousand years.
It is this that accounts for the enormous mass of objects
of art that have been found within what is, after all,
a small area. There was a diligent search for valuables,
but the Northerners' conception as to what was worth
looting was fortunately a limited one. They had not
1 B.S.A. vi. pp. 19, 56, vii. pp. 83, mi.
- Ibid. ix. figs. 76-83, pp. 122-8, vi. p. 68.
Once, then, that Sea Power was lost, and the invaders
got a footing on the island, the end was sudden and
overwhelming. Everywhere there are signs of a great
conflagration. The blazing of the oil in the store jars of
the western magazines is probably the reason for the
preservation of the masses of clay tablets in this part of
the Palace. These perishable bits of sun-baked clay, once
released from their broken or burnt coffers of wood, clay,
or gypsum, would never have survived the dampness of
the soil if they had not been charred by an unusually
thorough burning. Fire, that has destroyed so many
libraries, has preserved Mr. Evans's at Knossos.' The
invaders not only burnt but plundered. There is hardly
a trace of metal left in the Palace at Knossos. In one
corner only, on the north-west, a friendly floor level
seems to have sunk just before the plunderers entered it,
and hidden from their view five splendid bronze vessels.
They are all that remain to us, with their delicate designs
of ivy spray and lily chain, to tell us what the gold and
silver work was like that was spoiled from Knossos.2
The invaders came and went, and it seems to have
been men of the old stock who used part of the Palace
site for their humbler dwellings in the days that followed
the sack. Then a silence seems to fall upon the place.
The ghostly figures on the walls of the long corridors
frightened the rude Northern conquerors as they frightened
Manolis ; and a religious sanctity surrounded the dwell-
ings of the old Priest-Kings. Over a great part of the
site there was no building of house, or passing of plough-
share, or planting of tree, for three thousand years.
It is this that accounts for the enormous mass of objects
of art that have been found within what is, after all,
a small area. There was a diligent search for valuables,
but the Northerners' conception as to what was worth
looting was fortunately a limited one. They had not
1 B.S.A. vi. pp. 19, 56, vii. pp. 83, mi.
- Ibid. ix. figs. 76-83, pp. 122-8, vi. p. 68.