Evans, Arthur J.: The Palace of Minos: a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustred by the discoveries at Knossos (Band 1): The Neolithic and Early and Middle Minoan Ages (London, 1921)

THE MINOAN AGE

5

is an oblong tank.1 Here, too, along the back wall runs a rock-cut bench or
divan, and the chamber was approached by an ante-room orpronaos.

Cult arrangements are often handed down almost unaltered through The ^
long periods ot years, and the striking analogies here presented afford priest-
a real presumption lor believing that the much earlier Room of the Throne KmSs-
at Knossos and its adjoining tank were devised for similar rites of initia-
tion and purification. Like him who presided over these Anatolian rites,
a Minoan priest-king may have sat upon the throne at Knossos, the adopted

r

GRIFFIN FACING THRONE GRIFFIN FACINC THRONE

. _ .....,

1

STONE BENCH



5S.+5SS& ^N^iss^S



ini



STONE BENCH



THRONE





- a----"

CENTRAL AREA OF
PAVEMENT COVERED
WITH PAINTED STUCCO

DC ,

ALABASTRA
ON FLOOR

ANTE-
ROOM

INNER SHRINE

f——

-n.

STONE BENCH WITH SOCKETS
OF COLUMNS ,/

•

BALUSTRADE

TANK

^ BLOCKED f-"

DOOR

to Q

\

Mi

I

REMAINS OF
FRESCO WITH
BULLS FOOT

Fig. 1. Plan of 'Room of the Throne' at Knossos. Scale, i cm. = i m, circa.

Son on earth of the Great Mother of its island mysteries. Such a person-
age, indeed, we may actually recognize in the Palace relief of a figure wearing a
plumed lily crown and leading, we may believe, the sacral Griffin.2 It is prob-
able, indeed, that in Crete the kingly aspect was more to the fore than in
the religious centres of Asia Minor. But both the actual evidence from
the Palace site and the divine associations attributed to Minos lead to the
conclusion that here, too, each successive dynast was ' a priest for ever
alter the order of Melchizedech ' and ' made like unto the Son of God'.3

The names both of Minos and of Knossos, together with others bound
up with the religion of the spot, connect themselves with those Asianic
regions where priest-kings most thrived. The termination in -cos, ' quite
foreign to Greek nomenclature ', is characteristic of a whole class of personal

1 See the plan given by Sir W. M. Ramsay, Minor, B. S. A., xviii, p. 41, Fig. 1.
Sketches in the Religious Antiquities of Asia 2 See Vol. IF frontispiece (PI. I). 3 Heb. vii. 3.