DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0272
ADDENDA—September 1907
The demand for a reprint of my book makes it possible to give a
short account of the fresh discoveries made by Mr. Evans at Knossos
this spring. I expected that new ground would be broken on the
south and west, and had for that reason left my Plan unfinished on
both those sides.1 This season's work, however, as described by Mr.
Evans in a letter to the Times of July 15, surpassed all anticipations.
Test-trenches on the south-west suggest that a whole wing of the
Palace may yet have to be excavated, stretching far to the south,2 and
ending in a water-gate over the stream which still, though with a
slightly different course, runs below the Palace-hill on that side.3
A little farther to the east, just in front of the South Entrance,'1
there was discovered, among the substructures, the dome of a huge
beehive chamber cut into the rock. We are at once reminded of the
Early Minoan Tholoi of Hagia Triada and Koumasa.5 In their case,
however, we have left to us only the bottom section of the Tholos
walls, while here we enter from the top. Mr. Evans has indeed not
yet been able to reach the bottom, even with a shaft 25 feet deep.
" The great cavity," to use his words, " still continued widening and
descending." Mr. G. G. A. Murray has thrown out the interesting
suggestion 8 that we may have here the actual Labyrinth, an under-
ground Bull Temple like those which revived in the Mithras cult in
after ages. The difficulty is that the Tholos is choked with pottery
debris dating from Middle Minoan I., and that a terra cotta drainpipe
1 See Plate IV. and pp. v, vi, 4.
2 The account in the Times is, of course, only provisional, and must,
indeed, already be modified in view of some further work carried out
by Dr. Mackenzie since Mr. Evans left Crete. In a letter to me dated
August 30, Mr. Evans explains that a roadway which he thought was
a passage conecting the south-west corner of the new wing with the
West Court is now shown to have run outside the Palace walls ; what
appeared to be the west wall of the passage is more probably a row
■of house-walls. Next year's systematic excavations will show how far
this affects the 3,000 square yards which the letter to the Times esti-
mated as the approximate extent of the new wing.
3 Cf. the probable water-gate on the east side, p. 7.
4 Plate IV. 4. s See pp. 29, 30.
6 In a review of my book in the Nation, July 27, 1907.
2-i5
The demand for a reprint of my book makes it possible to give a
short account of the fresh discoveries made by Mr. Evans at Knossos
this spring. I expected that new ground would be broken on the
south and west, and had for that reason left my Plan unfinished on
both those sides.1 This season's work, however, as described by Mr.
Evans in a letter to the Times of July 15, surpassed all anticipations.
Test-trenches on the south-west suggest that a whole wing of the
Palace may yet have to be excavated, stretching far to the south,2 and
ending in a water-gate over the stream which still, though with a
slightly different course, runs below the Palace-hill on that side.3
A little farther to the east, just in front of the South Entrance,'1
there was discovered, among the substructures, the dome of a huge
beehive chamber cut into the rock. We are at once reminded of the
Early Minoan Tholoi of Hagia Triada and Koumasa.5 In their case,
however, we have left to us only the bottom section of the Tholos
walls, while here we enter from the top. Mr. Evans has indeed not
yet been able to reach the bottom, even with a shaft 25 feet deep.
" The great cavity," to use his words, " still continued widening and
descending." Mr. G. G. A. Murray has thrown out the interesting
suggestion 8 that we may have here the actual Labyrinth, an under-
ground Bull Temple like those which revived in the Mithras cult in
after ages. The difficulty is that the Tholos is choked with pottery
debris dating from Middle Minoan I., and that a terra cotta drainpipe
1 See Plate IV. and pp. v, vi, 4.
2 The account in the Times is, of course, only provisional, and must,
indeed, already be modified in view of some further work carried out
by Dr. Mackenzie since Mr. Evans left Crete. In a letter to me dated
August 30, Mr. Evans explains that a roadway which he thought was
a passage conecting the south-west corner of the new wing with the
West Court is now shown to have run outside the Palace walls ; what
appeared to be the west wall of the passage is more probably a row
■of house-walls. Next year's systematic excavations will show how far
this affects the 3,000 square yards which the letter to the Times esti-
mated as the approximate extent of the new wing.
3 Cf. the probable water-gate on the east side, p. 7.
4 Plate IV. 4. s See pp. 29, 30.
6 In a review of my book in the Nation, July 27, 1907.
2-i5