DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.807#0575
M.M. Ill: MINOAN FRESCO: WALL PAINTINGS, ETC. 533
finest layers of the rock were sought, no doubt mainly for structural purposes,
from a very early time. Some blocks half sawn out are of a Minoan character ' Laby-
and the laminations of the stone answer to those visible on many of the Palace Gortyna
blocks. A similar subterranean quarry above Gortyna, long known to ^°™~d
travellers, has been described as the Labyrinth.1 It is clear, however, that
classical tradition connected the name of the Labyrinth at Knossos with the
remains of an actual building, the portico of which is shown on vases repre-
senting the slaughter of the Minotaur.2 There can be little doubt that it
was the great Palace itself.
In Early Minoan times only a single colour seems to have been
applied to the plaster-surface, a red ochre which was afterwards burnished
by hand. This red-faced plaster was applied indiscriminately to walls and
pavements.3 But by the close of the First Middle Minoan Period, as is
shown by the remarkable fragment of painted stucco from the Early Palace
reproduced in Coloured Plate I above, a considerable advance both in
colour and in the decorative method had been already achieved. We note Early
here the presence of three colours, red, white, and black, and can trace not Re^oan
only the skilful imitation of the ' barbotine ' decoration of the contemporary Facing,
polychrome pottery, but the use of some mechanical appliance for printing
the curvilinear pattern. There can be little doubt that the complicated
spiraliform designs of the Middle Minoan Age were produced as in this
case with the aid of a stencil or of a template, and it has even been
possible, with the help of an engraved figure of the latter object on a craft-
man's signet of M. M. II date, to reconstruct the pattern of a contemporary
ceilingr4
Of the colours mainly used in the wall-paintings at the time of the full Pigments
perfection of the Art in the Knossian Palace, Mr. Heaton5 considers that Later
the white ' was composed of calcium carbonate, probably employed in the Frescoes-
1 Spratt {Travels and Researches in Crete,
i, p. 65), who knew of the 'Labyrinth' of
Gortyna, did not advance beyond the con-
jecture that there might have been 'a similar
subterranean quarry or labyrinth in the heart
of the adjacent hills that surround the site
of the Capital of Minos'. The mouth of the
Knossian quarry is much concealed, which
may account for the fact that its existence had
escaped the observation of himself and other
travellers.
2 See P. Wolters, Darstellungen des Laby-
rinths {Sitzungsberichte d. K. Bayer. A had.,
1907, p. 113 seqq.).
3 A good example of this Early Minoan
red-faced plaster was found near the N E.
Magazines at Knossos. The wall plaster was
here indistinguishable from that of the floor
and both were hand polished. For the use of
this red-faced plaster at Vasiliki, see above,
p. 72.
4 See Cretan Pictographs, &c. (_/". H. S., xiv)
PI. XII and p. 50 seqq., and cf. p. 274, above.
5 R.I. B. A. Jonrn., xviii, pp. 4, 5.
finest layers of the rock were sought, no doubt mainly for structural purposes,
from a very early time. Some blocks half sawn out are of a Minoan character ' Laby-
and the laminations of the stone answer to those visible on many of the Palace Gortyna
blocks. A similar subterranean quarry above Gortyna, long known to ^°™~d
travellers, has been described as the Labyrinth.1 It is clear, however, that
classical tradition connected the name of the Labyrinth at Knossos with the
remains of an actual building, the portico of which is shown on vases repre-
senting the slaughter of the Minotaur.2 There can be little doubt that it
was the great Palace itself.
In Early Minoan times only a single colour seems to have been
applied to the plaster-surface, a red ochre which was afterwards burnished
by hand. This red-faced plaster was applied indiscriminately to walls and
pavements.3 But by the close of the First Middle Minoan Period, as is
shown by the remarkable fragment of painted stucco from the Early Palace
reproduced in Coloured Plate I above, a considerable advance both in
colour and in the decorative method had been already achieved. We note Early
here the presence of three colours, red, white, and black, and can trace not Re^oan
only the skilful imitation of the ' barbotine ' decoration of the contemporary Facing,
polychrome pottery, but the use of some mechanical appliance for printing
the curvilinear pattern. There can be little doubt that the complicated
spiraliform designs of the Middle Minoan Age were produced as in this
case with the aid of a stencil or of a template, and it has even been
possible, with the help of an engraved figure of the latter object on a craft-
man's signet of M. M. II date, to reconstruct the pattern of a contemporary
ceilingr4
Of the colours mainly used in the wall-paintings at the time of the full Pigments
perfection of the Art in the Knossian Palace, Mr. Heaton5 considers that Later
the white ' was composed of calcium carbonate, probably employed in the Frescoes-
1 Spratt {Travels and Researches in Crete,
i, p. 65), who knew of the 'Labyrinth' of
Gortyna, did not advance beyond the con-
jecture that there might have been 'a similar
subterranean quarry or labyrinth in the heart
of the adjacent hills that surround the site
of the Capital of Minos'. The mouth of the
Knossian quarry is much concealed, which
may account for the fact that its existence had
escaped the observation of himself and other
travellers.
2 See P. Wolters, Darstellungen des Laby-
rinths {Sitzungsberichte d. K. Bayer. A had.,
1907, p. 113 seqq.).
3 A good example of this Early Minoan
red-faced plaster was found near the N E.
Magazines at Knossos. The wall plaster was
here indistinguishable from that of the floor
and both were hand polished. For the use of
this red-faced plaster at Vasiliki, see above,
p. 72.
4 See Cretan Pictographs, &c. (_/". H. S., xiv)
PI. XII and p. 50 seqq., and cf. p. 274, above.
5 R.I. B. A. Jonrn., xviii, pp. 4, 5.