DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0006
vi
THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.
Early, Middle, and Late—each with three Sub-Periods, was submitted
by me to the Prehellenic Section of the Archaeological Congress at Athens
in 1905,1 of which I was a President.
The proposed classification was favourably received by my colleagues,
to several of whom I subsequently had an opportunity of explaining many
points in detail on the scene of the excavations at Knossos itself.
Subsequent discoveries made some modifications of the original system
desirable, and a sketch of this revised outline of classification was laid by
me before the Archaeological Congress at Rome in October, 1912, where
the idea of the present work received most welcome encouragement.
In the case of the Palace site of Knossos not only the immense com-
plication of the plan itself, with its upper as well as its lower stories, but the
volume and variety of the relics brought to light—unrivalled perhaps in any
equal area of the Earth's surface ever excavated—have demanded for the
working up of the material a longer time than was required for the actual
excavations. To take a case in point, the painted stucco fragments could
only be gradually pieced together as the result of long and laborious efforts.
Prof. Droop, for instance, who kindly undertook the investigation of the re-
mains of the Shield Fresco devoted a whole season to its reconstitution, and
many weeks again were spent in a necessary revision of this. Mr. Theodore
Fyfe, my architect in the earlier campaigns at Knossos, has done most brilliant
work in illustrating the decorative designs of the wall-paintings,2 while
Mr. Noel Heaton has brought his expert chemical and technical knowledge
to bear on a minute examination and careful analysis of the painted stucco
itself.3 The restoration of the painted stucco reliefs has also been a very
lengthy task. In all this work the fine artistic sense and archaeological intuition
of Monsieur E. Gillieron has been constantly at my disposal. The elaborate
1 Unfortunately, indeed, owing to the incompetent hands to which the editing of the
Comptes rendt/s of the Congress was entrusted, the abstract supplied by me of the above
communication appeared not only in a mutilated but in a wholly misleading form. The order
of Periods was inverted, and I was made, for instance, to ascribe the chief masterpieces of
Minoan Art to the last epoch of its decadence ! I published therefore a corrected version
of the proposed scheme, which appeared in 1906 under the title of Essai de classification des
e'poques de la civilisation minoenne.
' See his monograph on the ' Painted plaster decoration at Knossos \Jonrn. of the Royal Inst,
of British Architects, vol. x, no. 4 (1902).
3 See Noel Heaton, B.Sc, F.C.S., 'The Mural Paintings of Knossos ', Journal of the Royal
Society of Arts, Jan. 7, 1910. 'Minoan Lime Plaster and Fresco Painting', R.I.B.A. fourn.,
Sept. 1911, and compare his contribution to G. Rodenwaldt, Tiryns, vol. ii, p. 211 seqq.
THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.
Early, Middle, and Late—each with three Sub-Periods, was submitted
by me to the Prehellenic Section of the Archaeological Congress at Athens
in 1905,1 of which I was a President.
The proposed classification was favourably received by my colleagues,
to several of whom I subsequently had an opportunity of explaining many
points in detail on the scene of the excavations at Knossos itself.
Subsequent discoveries made some modifications of the original system
desirable, and a sketch of this revised outline of classification was laid by
me before the Archaeological Congress at Rome in October, 1912, where
the idea of the present work received most welcome encouragement.
In the case of the Palace site of Knossos not only the immense com-
plication of the plan itself, with its upper as well as its lower stories, but the
volume and variety of the relics brought to light—unrivalled perhaps in any
equal area of the Earth's surface ever excavated—have demanded for the
working up of the material a longer time than was required for the actual
excavations. To take a case in point, the painted stucco fragments could
only be gradually pieced together as the result of long and laborious efforts.
Prof. Droop, for instance, who kindly undertook the investigation of the re-
mains of the Shield Fresco devoted a whole season to its reconstitution, and
many weeks again were spent in a necessary revision of this. Mr. Theodore
Fyfe, my architect in the earlier campaigns at Knossos, has done most brilliant
work in illustrating the decorative designs of the wall-paintings,2 while
Mr. Noel Heaton has brought his expert chemical and technical knowledge
to bear on a minute examination and careful analysis of the painted stucco
itself.3 The restoration of the painted stucco reliefs has also been a very
lengthy task. In all this work the fine artistic sense and archaeological intuition
of Monsieur E. Gillieron has been constantly at my disposal. The elaborate
1 Unfortunately, indeed, owing to the incompetent hands to which the editing of the
Comptes rendt/s of the Congress was entrusted, the abstract supplied by me of the above
communication appeared not only in a mutilated but in a wholly misleading form. The order
of Periods was inverted, and I was made, for instance, to ascribe the chief masterpieces of
Minoan Art to the last epoch of its decadence ! I published therefore a corrected version
of the proposed scheme, which appeared in 1906 under the title of Essai de classification des
e'poques de la civilisation minoenne.
' See his monograph on the ' Painted plaster decoration at Knossos \Jonrn. of the Royal Inst,
of British Architects, vol. x, no. 4 (1902).
3 See Noel Heaton, B.Sc, F.C.S., 'The Mural Paintings of Knossos ', Journal of the Royal
Society of Arts, Jan. 7, 1910. 'Minoan Lime Plaster and Fresco Painting', R.I.B.A. fourn.,
Sept. 1911, and compare his contribution to G. Rodenwaldt, Tiryns, vol. ii, p. 211 seqq.