DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0105
DORPFELD AND THE PH^STOS PROPYL^A 79
but a Hall or Megaron. Dr. Dorpfeld's mistake is
partly a piece of bad fortune. Both the Italian and
English excavators had observed that the West Court
at Ehaestos, with the theatral steps to the north of it,
and the one-column portico on its southern side,1 were
not organic parts of the Palace as we see it, but belonged
to an earlier building to which the portico gave entrance.
There was no doubt that this West Court was covered
up before the building of a great flight of steps that now
lies to the east of it. This flight of steps leads up still
farther east to a long landing which, with its remains of
walls and column bases, forms one of the most imposing
features of the Palace as we now see it.8 Both the Italian
excavators and Mr. Evans had frequently called this great
landing a Hall or Megaron,' and in their use of the term
the identification was of no particular importance, as
they did not suggest that it differed in construction from
the usual type of Minoan hall as found at Knossos. Dr.
Dorpfeld, however, unfortunately for himself, ignoring
the Minoan system of lighting rooms by means of an
unroofed area at the back that served as a kind of huge
window,4 and laying stress on an apparently different
arrangement of the pillars, argued that the Megaron was
not of the earlier Knossian type at all, but resembled
partly, if not completely, the Megara of Tiryns and
Myceme. It is serious therefore for Dr. Dorpfeld's
theory that Dr. Mackenzie has made the discovery that
1 Nos. 1, 4, and 3 on the plan of the Palace of Phaestos,
originally published in Mon. Ant. xiv. Plate XXVII., and repro-
duced in Dorpfeld's article as Plate X., in Mackenzie's as
Plate V. See p. 58.
a Nos. 66 and 67 + 68 + 69 -f 69' in the Phaestos Plan re-
ferred to above. Dorpfeld curiously ignores in his figuring the
difference between 69 and 69'. Quern Deus vult perdere. . . .
3 E.g. Mon. Ant. xii. Plate IV., xiv. Plate XXX. ; B.S.A.
vii. pp. 24, 116, viii. p. 32.
* No. 69' in the Phastos Plan. For such light-wells, see B.S.A.
viii. figs. 29, 30, pp. 56, 57.
but a Hall or Megaron. Dr. Dorpfeld's mistake is
partly a piece of bad fortune. Both the Italian and
English excavators had observed that the West Court
at Ehaestos, with the theatral steps to the north of it,
and the one-column portico on its southern side,1 were
not organic parts of the Palace as we see it, but belonged
to an earlier building to which the portico gave entrance.
There was no doubt that this West Court was covered
up before the building of a great flight of steps that now
lies to the east of it. This flight of steps leads up still
farther east to a long landing which, with its remains of
walls and column bases, forms one of the most imposing
features of the Palace as we now see it.8 Both the Italian
excavators and Mr. Evans had frequently called this great
landing a Hall or Megaron,' and in their use of the term
the identification was of no particular importance, as
they did not suggest that it differed in construction from
the usual type of Minoan hall as found at Knossos. Dr.
Dorpfeld, however, unfortunately for himself, ignoring
the Minoan system of lighting rooms by means of an
unroofed area at the back that served as a kind of huge
window,4 and laying stress on an apparently different
arrangement of the pillars, argued that the Megaron was
not of the earlier Knossian type at all, but resembled
partly, if not completely, the Megara of Tiryns and
Myceme. It is serious therefore for Dr. Dorpfeld's
theory that Dr. Mackenzie has made the discovery that
1 Nos. 1, 4, and 3 on the plan of the Palace of Phaestos,
originally published in Mon. Ant. xiv. Plate XXVII., and repro-
duced in Dorpfeld's article as Plate X., in Mackenzie's as
Plate V. See p. 58.
a Nos. 66 and 67 + 68 + 69 -f 69' in the Phaestos Plan re-
ferred to above. Dorpfeld curiously ignores in his figuring the
difference between 69 and 69'. Quern Deus vult perdere. . . .
3 E.g. Mon. Ant. xii. Plate IV., xiv. Plate XXX. ; B.S.A.
vii. pp. 24, 116, viii. p. 32.
* No. 69' in the Phastos Plan. For such light-wells, see B.S.A.
viii. figs. 29, 30, pp. 56, 57.