DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.809#0031
TRADITIONAL ANATOLIAN CONNEXIONS 7
within about three metres of the East wall of the temple and have afforded
the first clue to its approximate date. The vase fragments themselves were
generally plain, showing only in rare cases a black or red
glaze. They seem to have mainly belonged to the kautharos
type with handles curving out from the inside of the cup.
There were, however, a great number of miniature handle-
less cups, only c. 2-30 cm. in height and clearly of a votive
class (see inset).
The existence of this Hellenic temple within the Palace area has 'Houseof
a special interest since it fits in with the statement of Diodoros that in his and
day there were still visible on the site of Knossos the foundations of the Q^*|s*t
House of Rhea and a very ancient cypress grove.1 It is certainly something Knossos.
more than a coincidence that the later shrine of which we have now the
evidence stands on the borders of the Central Sanctuary of the Minoan
Goddess, depicted on its official seals like the later Mother of the Cretan
Zeus, between lion supporters.2
The occurrence of Greek remains at this spot is itself, so far as the
excavation of the Palace is concerned, an unique phenomenon. Nowhere
else within its boundaries, extended as they were, was any similar record of
occupation in classical times brought to light, though outside them, especi-
ally to the North-West, there were abundant signs of habitation from the
Geometrical period onwards. The probability that a great part of the site
was covered in later antiquity by the Grove of Rhea gains support from
the straggling specimens of Ctipressus horizontalis3 that still grow wild in
the gorge of the old Kairatos stream below. The mighty cypress beams
of the Palace themselves suggest the accessibility of fine specimens of
this tree in early times. Who shall say that during the dark period that
followed on the fall of Minoan civilization in the Island this forest growth
may not, in the valleys at least, have regained part of the area that it had
lost by excessive exploitation ? The deserted site of Knossos would thus
have more nearly recalled the state in which it was first found by primitive
man. In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo it is spoken of as the ' many tree'd '.*
With the exception of a small part of the area near the border of the Two
Central Court where these intrusive classical remains were found on the upper ^"'0
level, the Neolithic deposit that had lain immediately beneath the original pave- in the
r J & r Neolithic
1 Diod. Sic, lib. v, c. 66. the true botanical name. A Cretan seal even
2 See Knossos, Report, ic;or, p. 29, Fig. 9, suggeststhat itstimberwasexported(seep.248).
and cf. below, § 65. 4 1. 392, nokvlivhpwv.
3 This, rather than sempemretis, seems to be
Houses.
within about three metres of the East wall of the temple and have afforded
the first clue to its approximate date. The vase fragments themselves were
generally plain, showing only in rare cases a black or red
glaze. They seem to have mainly belonged to the kautharos
type with handles curving out from the inside of the cup.
There were, however, a great number of miniature handle-
less cups, only c. 2-30 cm. in height and clearly of a votive
class (see inset).
The existence of this Hellenic temple within the Palace area has 'Houseof
a special interest since it fits in with the statement of Diodoros that in his and
day there were still visible on the site of Knossos the foundations of the Q^*|s*t
House of Rhea and a very ancient cypress grove.1 It is certainly something Knossos.
more than a coincidence that the later shrine of which we have now the
evidence stands on the borders of the Central Sanctuary of the Minoan
Goddess, depicted on its official seals like the later Mother of the Cretan
Zeus, between lion supporters.2
The occurrence of Greek remains at this spot is itself, so far as the
excavation of the Palace is concerned, an unique phenomenon. Nowhere
else within its boundaries, extended as they were, was any similar record of
occupation in classical times brought to light, though outside them, especi-
ally to the North-West, there were abundant signs of habitation from the
Geometrical period onwards. The probability that a great part of the site
was covered in later antiquity by the Grove of Rhea gains support from
the straggling specimens of Ctipressus horizontalis3 that still grow wild in
the gorge of the old Kairatos stream below. The mighty cypress beams
of the Palace themselves suggest the accessibility of fine specimens of
this tree in early times. Who shall say that during the dark period that
followed on the fall of Minoan civilization in the Island this forest growth
may not, in the valleys at least, have regained part of the area that it had
lost by excessive exploitation ? The deserted site of Knossos would thus
have more nearly recalled the state in which it was first found by primitive
man. In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo it is spoken of as the ' many tree'd '.*
With the exception of a small part of the area near the border of the Two
Central Court where these intrusive classical remains were found on the upper ^"'0
level, the Neolithic deposit that had lain immediately beneath the original pave- in the
r J & r Neolithic
1 Diod. Sic, lib. v, c. 66. the true botanical name. A Cretan seal even
2 See Knossos, Report, ic;or, p. 29, Fig. 9, suggeststhat itstimberwasexported(seep.248).
and cf. below, § 65. 4 1. 392, nokvlivhpwv.
3 This, rather than sempemretis, seems to be
Houses.