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)

M. M. II. THE TOWN MOSAIC *o

Unexpected as have been many of the revelations of this ancient
Cretan culture the appearance of these house facades with their two and
three stories and roof attics and their windows of four and even six panes
of a date not later, probably, than the last half of the eighteenth century b. c.
is perhaps the most astonishing. In view of the generally grandiose character Fagades
of the Palace itself, the indications in it of upper stories appear natural holes'"
enough. But in the houses of the Mosaic we can hardly fail to recognize
the dwellings of the ordinary Minoan citizens. That these should have
already attained the tall proportions of a modern street-front points surely
back to long generations of civic life. Some of the plaques representing
house-fronts and towers have been tentatively placed together in the photo-
graphic view, Fig. 223. Window openings of somewhat later date have been
recognized both in the inner Courts of the Palace and the outer walls, showing
the dowel-holes for their wooden framework. Thus Suppl. PI. VII shows
the window in the South wall of the light-well of the Hall of Colonnades,
which lighted the landing of the back-stairs, with the woodwork restored,1
while another, in the light-well of the Double Axes, is given both as found
and as restored (Figs. 253 a, 253 b)r The windows in question follow a con-
ventional type, such as we see on the tablets B, D, G (Fig. 226), and others,
in which their sills and lintels are continuous with the horizontal beams that
traverse the masonry. But it is to be observed that another type, foreign
it would seem to the later Minoan structural fashions, is well represented
in the house fagades (A, C, H, and S seqq.) in which the framework of the
windows is isolated in the masonrv.

That windows with four or even six panes, containing some substitute for Great
window glass, should have already existed at this time is itself only another ofrogTes
proof of the extraordinary anticipation of modern civilized usage achieved in I^1°c1]^stIC
the great days of Minoan history—an anticipation not less marked in their tecture.
hydraulic and sanitary appliances. The house-fronts are clearly those of
town houses, adapted to standing in rows.

Apart from the scarlet filling of the windows and window-panes, not
always preserved, the colouring of the tablets, though of somewhat more
sombre tones, approaches that of the faience objects to be described below
from the Temple Repositories. The ground is of a pale or greyish tint,
the timbering and disks are brown with transitions to crimson and green.
The analysis given below 3 of the faience material of the relics of that
distinctly later deposit is also applicable to the Town Mosaic.

1 See p. 353.

2 See below, p. 352.

3 See p. 486 seqq.