Evans, Arthur J.: Scripta minoa: the written documents of minoan Crete with special reference to the archives of Knossos (Band 1): The hieroglyphic and primitive linear classes (Oxford, 1909)

LINEAR SCRIPT OF CLASS B

43

The clay documents forming 'the Deposit of the Chariot Tablets' were
found for the most part in a much broken condition. They lay on or near the
floor level, and the conclusion most compatible with the circumstances of the find
was that they had been stored in rows of small cases set on shelves along the
back wall of this small area. Most of the pieces, like the remains of the wooden
chests that accompanied them, showed traces of burning. Owing, however, to the Delete-
comparatively low level at which they had been originally placed, some had escaped "fmois-
the effects of fire and were much in their original condition. I had indeed a disastrous ^re-
experience of how easily moisture could affect the tablets when in this unbaked state.
A group of four such which lay intact in their original order on the pavement of the

Scalings with countermarks and endorsements (j).

room, held together by some indurated earth, were carefully cut out by me in one
piece with their earthy matrix, and transferred on a wooden tray to the old Turkish
house in the glen below Kephala, which served as head quarters. But a torrential
storm coming on during the night, the rain-water poured in at several places owing to
the bad state of the roof, and unfortunately inundated the tray containing the group
of tablets. When the mischief was discovered it was too late, and they had been
already reduced to a pulpy mass.

In the South-East corner of the eighth West Magazine there also occurred on the
floor level a small hoard of very imperfectly baked tablets.1 These were embedded in

1 ' Ktiossos,' Report, 1900, p. 35. See btlow, p. 45, Fig. 21.