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)

424

THE PALACE OF MINOS, ETC.

Threshing Floor that overlay the remains of the N.W. Porch.1 Most of these
fragments seem to have been thrown out at the time of the great remodelling
of this part of the building in the last Palace epoch, and some at least of the
fragments may go back within the limits of the present Period. The more
complete remains of the ' Miniature Frescoes' and the Spiral Ceiling found
on the basement floors themselves point to the conclusion that at the opening
of the Late Minoan Age there had existed highly decorated sanctuary
chambers at the angle between this end of the Central Court and the West
border of the N. Entrance Passage. But these remains seem to be better
grouped with the earliest L. M. I elements of the Palace,
w. Porch, The N.W. Portico and adjoining purificatory area may well be regarded

Official* as tne na-tural avenues of approach for pilgrims and devotees visiting the
Entrance, religious centres of the building. On the other hand, the Western Porch
and Corridor, if we may judge by their later associations, present every
appearance of having been the chosen avenues of royal and official approach,
w. Porch This porch, as already shown, represents an amplified version of an

and Cor- orjo-mal plan characteristic of the earlier part of the Middle Minoan A^e,

ridor in © i i .

existing and of which good examples exist at Phaestos.2 Its fundamental lines possibly
Late ' belong to the present Period, but the existing external remains such as the wall
Mmoan. decoration and pavement are clearly Late Minoan.:: The same is true of the
Corridor on which it opens, and beneath the pavement of which characteristic
M. M. III^ sherds occurred. Much of this fine entrance system on the
West, including the Propylaeum to which it led above the Southern Terrace
and the stepped approach beyond, seems, in its original shape, to have
gone back to this and, in part at least, to a still earlier epoch. The details,
however, that have been preserved, such as the remains of the stately
Procession Fresco, mostly fit on to the later architectural history of the
Palace, and are best dealt with in that connexion,
w. Palace ^ ls dear indeed that a good deal of the basement plan of the West
Section: Section of the Palace eoes back to its earliest sta^e. With some superficial

tripartite \ . ° . ° 1 .

division, remodelling indeed it survived to its latest days, except where, as in the
Throne Room region, it was displaced by entirely new constructions.
The existing remains in this region rest for the most part on the tabula rasa
of Neolithic clay left by the levelling away of the original hill top, though
here and there were pockets in this, like the ' Vat Room Depositillustrating
the incipient phase of M.M. I and which may have belonged to a still earlier
Palace Sanctuary. Exclusive of the Magazines, which form a separate zone,

1 Knossos, Report, 1900, p. 46. The main 2 See above, p. 214, Figs. 159, 160.
heap lay above the east line of the porch. 3 See Vol. II.