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. Ill: THE DOMESTIC QUARTER

327

above, also gives a general view of the Staircase, the adjoining section of the

Middle East-West Corridor, also now brought to light, and of part of the

Hall of the Colonnades below as seen before its restoration.

The sudden stepped descent to the right on emerging from the Residen-

Corridor of the Bays was the first intimation of the existence of the great Quarter

Cutting in the East slope of the Palace site, the execution of which has m (^re;it
& 1 E. Cut-

been referred in Section 9 above to the M. M. II Period.1 Of the earlier ting :

constructions within it, the light-area to the South, and the containing walls

to West and North have already received illustration. The drainage system its

in its original form also belongs to this epoch, and some M. M. II door- Jre*atureg

iambs were found in position opening from the ' Corridor of the Painted mostly

1 1 • > o j obliter-

Pithos into an early chamber with a ' kaldenm pavement. Beyond ated.

this, however, and the earlier pavements beneath the Queen's Megaron little

remains within the Cutting that can be certainly referred to this earlier

period of construction, though it is clear that some stepped descent must

have preceded the Grand Staircase as it at present exists.

The M. M. Ill architects in constructing here the new residential The

quarter evidently worked on some of the earlier existing lines. The pjan of

supporting walls that enclosed the boundaries of the Cutting were naturally q°™^:1c

adhered to and to a certain extent earlier lines were doubtless followed in the

interior divisions. A good instance of the superposition of the later walls

on the original lines is indeed supplied by the section of the neighbouring

' Loom-Weight Area'. The older drainage system was in the same way

adapted to the new conditions, but the inner area of the Domestic Quarter

must on the whole have been re-designed with great freedom. As will at

once be seen from Figs. 239, 240, it forms a highly elaborate but brilliantly

unitary plan.

It would seem that the debris due to the falling in of masses of sun- Upper
dried bricks from the upper stories had infiltrated (partly owing to the g^'es
subsequent solution of the clay) into the covered part of the building ported by
below, and thus led to the formation of a compact filling which had held up Fallen
the floors and terraces above. The wooden columns themselves seem to bricks-
have for the most part survived awhile in an unburnt condition. Later on,
however, when owing to the result of chemical action they had become car-
bonized, their function of supporting the incumbent structures above had b0^;zec]
been taken up by this natural concretion of the fallen materials. Only in Columns
the case of their wooden architraves and the transverse beams that traversed Beams.

1 See p. 204 seqq.