DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0052
ZAKRO, GOURNIA, AND PALAIKASTRO 27
but since that time so entirely deserted that many of the
best objects of bronze and terracotta were found within
less than 2 feet of the surface.1 We see here the ground-
plan of masses of houses, with their upper walls of lire-
baked brick on a basis of stone, and traces of staircases
and second stories ; houses whose general effect must have
been just that which we see on the porcelain mosaic from
Knossos.' We can pass up to the palace on the hill
through street after street of the houses of the people,
treading the narrow five-foot roadway of flagged stones
as it winds through them like the Sacred Way at Delphi
or at Rome. In the centre of the town, too, approached
by a well-worn road of its own, was a little shrine about
10 feet square ; and on the floor of beaten earth a
primitive terracotta idol of a goddess, with a snake
entwined around her, and little doves and a three-legged
altar, and vases decorated with the double axe and the
horns of consecration familiar to Minoan cult.3
At Roussolakkos, the " red hollow " at Palaikastro,
red from the mouldering of the Minoan brickwork,
there has been excavated just another such city as at
Gournia.4 Apart from the important outlying sites, the
Neolithic houses at Magasa, and the early ossuaries in
the mountain glens, and the sanctuary from which came
the Queen Elizabeth figurines at Petsofa,6 the British
School has unearthed a city of continuous houses, more
than 400 feet long by 350 broad, whose many blocks or
" insula; " might seem almost to need the more elaborate
grouping of the " regiones " of Pompeii.'
Above all, at Phasstos, in the centre of the southern
coast, some ten miles from Gortyna, Dr. Halbherr and the
Italian mission have excavated a Palace which from
1 C.R.A.C. p. 226 ; A.S.I. 1904, pp. 561-70.
» See p. 20. 3 A.S.I. 1904, Plate II. fig. 1.
* B.S.A. viii., ix., x., xi
5 Ibid. xi. pp. 260-8, ix. pp. 344-50, 356-87. See below
p. 53. 0 Ibid. ix. Plate VL, xi. Plate IX.
but since that time so entirely deserted that many of the
best objects of bronze and terracotta were found within
less than 2 feet of the surface.1 We see here the ground-
plan of masses of houses, with their upper walls of lire-
baked brick on a basis of stone, and traces of staircases
and second stories ; houses whose general effect must have
been just that which we see on the porcelain mosaic from
Knossos.' We can pass up to the palace on the hill
through street after street of the houses of the people,
treading the narrow five-foot roadway of flagged stones
as it winds through them like the Sacred Way at Delphi
or at Rome. In the centre of the town, too, approached
by a well-worn road of its own, was a little shrine about
10 feet square ; and on the floor of beaten earth a
primitive terracotta idol of a goddess, with a snake
entwined around her, and little doves and a three-legged
altar, and vases decorated with the double axe and the
horns of consecration familiar to Minoan cult.3
At Roussolakkos, the " red hollow " at Palaikastro,
red from the mouldering of the Minoan brickwork,
there has been excavated just another such city as at
Gournia.4 Apart from the important outlying sites, the
Neolithic houses at Magasa, and the early ossuaries in
the mountain glens, and the sanctuary from which came
the Queen Elizabeth figurines at Petsofa,6 the British
School has unearthed a city of continuous houses, more
than 400 feet long by 350 broad, whose many blocks or
" insula; " might seem almost to need the more elaborate
grouping of the " regiones " of Pompeii.'
Above all, at Phasstos, in the centre of the southern
coast, some ten miles from Gortyna, Dr. Halbherr and the
Italian mission have excavated a Palace which from
1 C.R.A.C. p. 226 ; A.S.I. 1904, pp. 561-70.
» See p. 20. 3 A.S.I. 1904, Plate II. fig. 1.
* B.S.A. viii., ix., x., xi
5 Ibid. xi. pp. 260-8, ix. pp. 344-50, 356-87. See below
p. 53. 0 Ibid. ix. Plate VL, xi. Plate IX.