DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8757#0087
OF THE LITTLE PALACE AT KNOSSOS
61
space flanked by balustrades and approached by descending steps. The enclosed
space, which seems to have been originally paved with gypsum slabs, cannot be
regarded as a light-well,and its characteristic features,the sunken floor, the balus
trade and steps, serve no apparent utilitarian ends. The use of the term ' bath
room' in connexion with these spaces is hardly appropriate, as there is no trace
in these areas of any inlet for water, nor even, as is universal in the ordinary
Minoan light-wells, of any outlet. On the other hand, the sunken space of this
kind adjoining the 'Room of the Throne' in the Palace itself stands in an
obviously sacral connexion, and it is probable that the later occupants of the
' Little Palace', who converted the similar area there into a closed shrine, were
Approximate level of Upper Floor
A-------------------------------A
SECTION A. A.
Fig. 75. Section and elevation of room of the sunken area.
only readapting in their primitive fashion what had already been set apart for
some allied religious usage. The openings between the still existing wooden
columns were now deliberately blocked, while the back ledge of the balustrade
was used for fetish images consisting of grotesque natural concretions. These
were set beside the traditional sacral horns of plaster together with a rude votive
figure of an Agrimi or Cretan wild goat in painted clay, and parts of others.
There were also found within the sunken area, or on its borders, certain earlier
relics which may well have belonged to a sanctuary connected with the original
building. Among these, indeed, were fragmentary sealings, one of which shows
part of the facade of a pillar shrine, while another contained part of a group of con-
fronted lions guarding a rocky base, such as that on which the Minoan Goddess—
61
space flanked by balustrades and approached by descending steps. The enclosed
space, which seems to have been originally paved with gypsum slabs, cannot be
regarded as a light-well,and its characteristic features,the sunken floor, the balus
trade and steps, serve no apparent utilitarian ends. The use of the term ' bath
room' in connexion with these spaces is hardly appropriate, as there is no trace
in these areas of any inlet for water, nor even, as is universal in the ordinary
Minoan light-wells, of any outlet. On the other hand, the sunken space of this
kind adjoining the 'Room of the Throne' in the Palace itself stands in an
obviously sacral connexion, and it is probable that the later occupants of the
' Little Palace', who converted the similar area there into a closed shrine, were
Approximate level of Upper Floor
A-------------------------------A
SECTION A. A.
Fig. 75. Section and elevation of room of the sunken area.
only readapting in their primitive fashion what had already been set apart for
some allied religious usage. The openings between the still existing wooden
columns were now deliberately blocked, while the back ledge of the balustrade
was used for fetish images consisting of grotesque natural concretions. These
were set beside the traditional sacral horns of plaster together with a rude votive
figure of an Agrimi or Cretan wild goat in painted clay, and parts of others.
There were also found within the sunken area, or on its borders, certain earlier
relics which may well have belonged to a sanctuary connected with the original
building. Among these, indeed, were fragmentary sealings, one of which shows
part of the facade of a pillar shrine, while another contained part of a group of con-
fronted lions guarding a rocky base, such as that on which the Minoan Goddess—