DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8755#0025
14
a. J. Evans
§ 3.—Notes on the Opening of Doors.
The heavy rains of this season first brought clearly out the scorings on
the thresholds caused by the opening and shutting of the doors. This was
first noticed in the Hall of the Double Axes and adjoining Hall of the
Colonnades, but afterwards clear traces were observed in various parts of
-the Palace and its dependencies. In the ' Royal Villa' to be described
below it was specially perceptible. This phenomenon coupled with the
appearance of the hinge sockets and many bolt-holes makes it possible to
understand, a great deal more about the interior arrangements of the
building. The doors, as Dr. Mackenzie has justly noted, were controlled on
the side towards which they opened, and the private rooms and passages
are in this way found to command the more public quarters.
Mr. Fyfe has prepared a plan of some characteristic examples of these
door openings (Fig. 6) and has supplied the following descriptive note :
Four of the examples illustrated (Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4), show unmistakable
marks in the floor-slabs of the doorways, caused by the friction of the doors,
moving on their hinges.
I, —Double, or 'Two Leaf Doors.'1
All the examples given (except No. 1, and No. 6 which is too large a door to
come into the argument) confirm the supposition that double doors were the rule
where the door-jambs have double 'reveals.' Each leaf folded back into the recess
of the gypsum jamb (which formed a base for a similar recess in the woodwork
above), after the manner of a modern folding door, or a shutter in its shutter-
boxing. Double doors are found in doorways communicating between the various
rooms and corridors of a system, in house or palace.
II. —Single, or ' One Leaf Doors.
Single doors were evidently the rule where the door-jambs have only one
reveal (see Nos. 3 and 4). They occur more particularly where the end of a
system is reached, as is apparently the case in No. 4, where the private quarter of
the Women's Apartments and Royal Stores is shut off from the ' Hall of
Colonnades'—a partly open colonnaded court looking on to the main staircase and
corridor giving access to the East Slope Halls.
To take these doors in detail, in their order of illustration :—
No. 1, from the Pillar Room of the Royal Villa (marked 'North door of
N.-E House' on Plan) shows a rather puzzling double door, in which the
leaves do not appear to have met. It is impossible to account for this except
by the supposition that one leaf of the door was generally kept closed, and fastened
by a bolt running into the rectangular socket in the floor slab ; the other, and
a. J. Evans
§ 3.—Notes on the Opening of Doors.
The heavy rains of this season first brought clearly out the scorings on
the thresholds caused by the opening and shutting of the doors. This was
first noticed in the Hall of the Double Axes and adjoining Hall of the
Colonnades, but afterwards clear traces were observed in various parts of
-the Palace and its dependencies. In the ' Royal Villa' to be described
below it was specially perceptible. This phenomenon coupled with the
appearance of the hinge sockets and many bolt-holes makes it possible to
understand, a great deal more about the interior arrangements of the
building. The doors, as Dr. Mackenzie has justly noted, were controlled on
the side towards which they opened, and the private rooms and passages
are in this way found to command the more public quarters.
Mr. Fyfe has prepared a plan of some characteristic examples of these
door openings (Fig. 6) and has supplied the following descriptive note :
Four of the examples illustrated (Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4), show unmistakable
marks in the floor-slabs of the doorways, caused by the friction of the doors,
moving on their hinges.
I, —Double, or 'Two Leaf Doors.'1
All the examples given (except No. 1, and No. 6 which is too large a door to
come into the argument) confirm the supposition that double doors were the rule
where the door-jambs have double 'reveals.' Each leaf folded back into the recess
of the gypsum jamb (which formed a base for a similar recess in the woodwork
above), after the manner of a modern folding door, or a shutter in its shutter-
boxing. Double doors are found in doorways communicating between the various
rooms and corridors of a system, in house or palace.
II. —Single, or ' One Leaf Doors.
Single doors were evidently the rule where the door-jambs have only one
reveal (see Nos. 3 and 4). They occur more particularly where the end of a
system is reached, as is apparently the case in No. 4, where the private quarter of
the Women's Apartments and Royal Stores is shut off from the ' Hall of
Colonnades'—a partly open colonnaded court looking on to the main staircase and
corridor giving access to the East Slope Halls.
To take these doors in detail, in their order of illustration :—
No. 1, from the Pillar Room of the Royal Villa (marked 'North door of
N.-E House' on Plan) shows a rather puzzling double door, in which the
leaves do not appear to have met. It is impossible to account for this except
by the supposition that one leaf of the door was generally kept closed, and fastened
by a bolt running into the rectangular socket in the floor slab ; the other, and