DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0083
NO EARLY MINOAN PALACE AT KNOSSOS 57
by the two pillars. Such a cellar was in the great
Minoan periods common in the houses of well-to-do
citizens,1 and does not prove a palace. At so early
a stage as this, however, it would probably point to an
unusually elaborate building. That considerable build-
ings, more than one story high, did exist at the time, is
shown by Mr. Seager's excavations at Vasiliki, where
the complex of more than twenty rooms, in which the
Early Minoan II. mottled ware was found, belonged
in all probability to a single house.8
On the other hand there was so much planing down
of earlier strata on the hill of Knossos to secure good
foundations for later building 3 that any pit or cellar
no longer in use might well be made a dumping-ground
for rubbish, some of which was not only older than
the new building under construction, but older than the
pit or cellar itself. Thus in one of the large deep-walled
pits north-west of the Central Court there were found
several pieces of Neolithic pottery. These strange
25-feet-deep cells,4 two of which are figured in our Strata
section (Plate III.), beneath the flooring of the later
Palace, are undoubtedly an integral part of an earlier
Palace—perhaps, as Mr. Evans suggests, its dungeons.
Up their slippery cemented sides no captive or " human
tribute" from Megara or from Athens could hope to escape
till he was called to take his turn in the boxing ring or
the bull fight " to grace a Minoan holiday." Mr. Evans,
however, does not conclude from the Neolithic potsherds
that they were built in Neolithic or even in Early Minoan
times, but rather that the potsherds " must have reached
their positions through some later filling in." 5 Even,
therefore, if some of the pottery in the basement of the
Monolithic pillars is still held by Mr. Evans, as it was
1 Bosanquet in B.S.A. viiL p. 306.
2 T.D.A.P. i. 3, pp. 213-21. See above, pp. 24, 49.
3 B.S.A. ix. p. 94, and D. Mackenzie in ibid. xi. p. 183.
4 Ibid. vii. pp. 35, 36, ix. pp. 22-8. 6 Ibid. vii. p. 36.
by the two pillars. Such a cellar was in the great
Minoan periods common in the houses of well-to-do
citizens,1 and does not prove a palace. At so early
a stage as this, however, it would probably point to an
unusually elaborate building. That considerable build-
ings, more than one story high, did exist at the time, is
shown by Mr. Seager's excavations at Vasiliki, where
the complex of more than twenty rooms, in which the
Early Minoan II. mottled ware was found, belonged
in all probability to a single house.8
On the other hand there was so much planing down
of earlier strata on the hill of Knossos to secure good
foundations for later building 3 that any pit or cellar
no longer in use might well be made a dumping-ground
for rubbish, some of which was not only older than
the new building under construction, but older than the
pit or cellar itself. Thus in one of the large deep-walled
pits north-west of the Central Court there were found
several pieces of Neolithic pottery. These strange
25-feet-deep cells,4 two of which are figured in our Strata
section (Plate III.), beneath the flooring of the later
Palace, are undoubtedly an integral part of an earlier
Palace—perhaps, as Mr. Evans suggests, its dungeons.
Up their slippery cemented sides no captive or " human
tribute" from Megara or from Athens could hope to escape
till he was called to take his turn in the boxing ring or
the bull fight " to grace a Minoan holiday." Mr. Evans,
however, does not conclude from the Neolithic potsherds
that they were built in Neolithic or even in Early Minoan
times, but rather that the potsherds " must have reached
their positions through some later filling in." 5 Even,
therefore, if some of the pottery in the basement of the
Monolithic pillars is still held by Mr. Evans, as it was
1 Bosanquet in B.S.A. viiL p. 306.
2 T.D.A.P. i. 3, pp. 213-21. See above, pp. 24, 49.
3 B.S.A. ix. p. 94, and D. Mackenzie in ibid. xi. p. 183.
4 Ibid. vii. pp. 35, 36, ix. pp. 22-8. 6 Ibid. vii. p. 36.