DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0342
M. M. II. THE TOWN MOSAIC
307
A-G depict front views of houses showing considerable variety in structure.
The elevations O-W seem, on the other hand, to be the backs of similar
houses built for defence without lower windows, and probably ranged along
the town wall. I-M are outer towers and crates—K showing two double
entrances. Of the towers, I is remarkable from the clear rendering of the
upright posts of the gate—recalling that on the silver vase from Mycenae
with the siege scene, and Egyptian parallels. The small window here to
the left of the entrance was evidently intended for observation on the part
of the warder.
Of the exceptional facade, Fig. 226, N, two specimens occurred. Its
curious incurved window-openings recall in outline the Minoan altar bases,
and, as shown below, we may here recognize the back of a sanctuary
building dedicated to the Minoan Goddess.
We are here, as already noted, outside the walls of the Palace itself.
Neither can the house facades before us be regarded as typical of the
more spaciously planned mansions of its immediate surroundings. They
display, on the contrary in an eminent degree the restricted frontage of
houses shut in by city walls. Their defensively constructed backs, in fact,
together with the towers and bastions, sufficiently show that we have here
to do with a fortified City, though the details of the architecture, the
timbering and panel work, the windows, the imitation of the round beam
ends, and the isodomic masonry are still of Cretan type.
We see here, indeed—beyond all hope recovered for us—an actual
presentment of the street fronts and outer borders of a fenced Minoan City
as it existed at the close of the Second Middle Minoan Period.
Whether we may locate the town in the immediate neighbourhood
of the Palace itself or in Minoan territory abroad, the towers constructed
of isodomic masonry, the gates and bastions here before us must be taken
as evidence that the idea of fortification was still quite alive in the island
at this time. Interesting parallels, moreover, are to be found in the castel- Castel-
lated buildings that appear on some clay sealings, of slightly later date, Bulid-
found at Zakro in East Crete (Fig. 227, a, 6).1 m§s-
That, the castellated structures on these, the first of which (a) presents
isodomic masonry, found a further source of strength in divine or heroic
guardianship is shown by the associated emblems, best seen on b. The
helmet with ear-pieces and the 8-shaped shields recur on ritual vessels,2 and
the object to the right seems to be a seated Sphinx.
1 Hogarth, Zakro Sealings, J. H. S., xxii, goblets of religious use from Tomb V at
p. 88, and PL X, Nos. 130, 131. Isopata (Archaeologia, lxv, 1914, p. 26 seqq.
2 They are seen together on polychrome and p. 27, Fig. 37, a, b). See Vol. II.
X 2
307
A-G depict front views of houses showing considerable variety in structure.
The elevations O-W seem, on the other hand, to be the backs of similar
houses built for defence without lower windows, and probably ranged along
the town wall. I-M are outer towers and crates—K showing two double
entrances. Of the towers, I is remarkable from the clear rendering of the
upright posts of the gate—recalling that on the silver vase from Mycenae
with the siege scene, and Egyptian parallels. The small window here to
the left of the entrance was evidently intended for observation on the part
of the warder.
Of the exceptional facade, Fig. 226, N, two specimens occurred. Its
curious incurved window-openings recall in outline the Minoan altar bases,
and, as shown below, we may here recognize the back of a sanctuary
building dedicated to the Minoan Goddess.
We are here, as already noted, outside the walls of the Palace itself.
Neither can the house facades before us be regarded as typical of the
more spaciously planned mansions of its immediate surroundings. They
display, on the contrary in an eminent degree the restricted frontage of
houses shut in by city walls. Their defensively constructed backs, in fact,
together with the towers and bastions, sufficiently show that we have here
to do with a fortified City, though the details of the architecture, the
timbering and panel work, the windows, the imitation of the round beam
ends, and the isodomic masonry are still of Cretan type.
We see here, indeed—beyond all hope recovered for us—an actual
presentment of the street fronts and outer borders of a fenced Minoan City
as it existed at the close of the Second Middle Minoan Period.
Whether we may locate the town in the immediate neighbourhood
of the Palace itself or in Minoan territory abroad, the towers constructed
of isodomic masonry, the gates and bastions here before us must be taken
as evidence that the idea of fortification was still quite alive in the island
at this time. Interesting parallels, moreover, are to be found in the castel- Castel-
lated buildings that appear on some clay sealings, of slightly later date, Bulid-
found at Zakro in East Crete (Fig. 227, a, 6).1 m§s-
That, the castellated structures on these, the first of which (a) presents
isodomic masonry, found a further source of strength in divine or heroic
guardianship is shown by the associated emblems, best seen on b. The
helmet with ear-pieces and the 8-shaped shields recur on ritual vessels,2 and
the object to the right seems to be a seated Sphinx.
1 Hogarth, Zakro Sealings, J. H. S., xxii, goblets of religious use from Tomb V at
p. 88, and PL X, Nos. 130, 131. Isopata (Archaeologia, lxv, 1914, p. 26 seqq.
2 They are seen together on polychrome and p. 27, Fig. 37, a, b). See Vol. II.
X 2