DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.809#0375
348 DESTRUCTIONS AT PHAESTOS AND KNOSSOS
Palace at
Phaestos
not
affected.
But cut
short in
L. M. I
by other
agencies.
Similar
evidence
in town
houses at
Knossos,
&c.
Archi-
tectural
survival
at Phaes-
tos.
Parts of
Knossian
Palace
supported
by cut-
tings in
hill-side.
S. Front
mostly
destroyed
and
aban-
doned.
magnificently restored early in the last Middle Minoan Period, survived
intact for the most part to a mature phase of L. M. I. At that time its
existence, at least as a princely abode, was cut short by some extraneous
cause, though without any such signs of wholesale ruin as seem to have
marked its earlier disaster.
Similar evidences of destruction, in cases perhaps of simple dereliction,
at that epoch are presented by several houses in the immediate neighbour-
hood of the Knossian Palace as well as of other sites on that side, including
Tylissos and Niru Khani. To a large extent, indeed, these and like traces
of contemporary ruin that extend to the East of the Island—to Gournia, for
instance, and Palaikastro—may have been due to the tyrannous lust of
domination on the part of the lords of Knossos. Minoan Crete in fact at
that epoch of its history seems to have anticipated the unfortunate spectacle
of ruinous internecine struggles that repeated itself throughout Hellenic
times when its cities were in turn the constant prey of rival combinations.
Nothing short of Roman dominion was capable of putting an end to these
suicidal feuds in later times.
The simple grandeur that strikes the visitor to Phaestos as compared
with the more intricate and composite remains of a large part of the Palace
site at Knossos is due to the fact that so much of the fine M. M. Ill work
was there preserved intact. The great Earthquake, so destructive on the
site of Knossos, does not seem to have much affected this Southern region.
It is true that in the Palace of Knossos itself, where parts of the building
were held together by artificial cuttings in the hill-side, a good deal of the
M. M. Ill structures had been preserved practically in their original con-
dition. Such was the case in the Domestic Quarter with its' Grand Staircase,
three flights of which and part of a fourth were found in position. So, too,
the fine bastions of the Northern Entrance, partly supported by a similar
backing, survived the shock. But the Southern front, rising above the steep
On that side, was so ruined that most of it was left out of the plan of the
restored building, and the new outer wall-line on that side receded behind
the original South Corridor, the Western section of which, like the South-
East Angle, was now entirely given up.
The same recession of the Palace boundary is observable in the North-
West region, but the evidence tends to show that this may have been the
result of a considerable overthrow that seems to have befallen the building
about the close of the earlier M. M. Ill phrase or, roughly speaking, about
the middle of the seventeenth century b. c. The elegant stone ewers with
their plaitwork decoration and the spouted bowls with their shell inlays,
Palace at
Phaestos
not
affected.
But cut
short in
L. M. I
by other
agencies.
Similar
evidence
in town
houses at
Knossos,
&c.
Archi-
tectural
survival
at Phaes-
tos.
Parts of
Knossian
Palace
supported
by cut-
tings in
hill-side.
S. Front
mostly
destroyed
and
aban-
doned.
magnificently restored early in the last Middle Minoan Period, survived
intact for the most part to a mature phase of L. M. I. At that time its
existence, at least as a princely abode, was cut short by some extraneous
cause, though without any such signs of wholesale ruin as seem to have
marked its earlier disaster.
Similar evidences of destruction, in cases perhaps of simple dereliction,
at that epoch are presented by several houses in the immediate neighbour-
hood of the Knossian Palace as well as of other sites on that side, including
Tylissos and Niru Khani. To a large extent, indeed, these and like traces
of contemporary ruin that extend to the East of the Island—to Gournia, for
instance, and Palaikastro—may have been due to the tyrannous lust of
domination on the part of the lords of Knossos. Minoan Crete in fact at
that epoch of its history seems to have anticipated the unfortunate spectacle
of ruinous internecine struggles that repeated itself throughout Hellenic
times when its cities were in turn the constant prey of rival combinations.
Nothing short of Roman dominion was capable of putting an end to these
suicidal feuds in later times.
The simple grandeur that strikes the visitor to Phaestos as compared
with the more intricate and composite remains of a large part of the Palace
site at Knossos is due to the fact that so much of the fine M. M. Ill work
was there preserved intact. The great Earthquake, so destructive on the
site of Knossos, does not seem to have much affected this Southern region.
It is true that in the Palace of Knossos itself, where parts of the building
were held together by artificial cuttings in the hill-side, a good deal of the
M. M. Ill structures had been preserved practically in their original con-
dition. Such was the case in the Domestic Quarter with its' Grand Staircase,
three flights of which and part of a fourth were found in position. So, too,
the fine bastions of the Northern Entrance, partly supported by a similar
backing, survived the shock. But the Southern front, rising above the steep
On that side, was so ruined that most of it was left out of the plan of the
restored building, and the new outer wall-line on that side receded behind
the original South Corridor, the Western section of which, like the South-
East Angle, was now entirely given up.
The same recession of the Palace boundary is observable in the North-
West region, but the evidence tends to show that this may have been the
result of a considerable overthrow that seems to have befallen the building
about the close of the earlier M. M. Ill phrase or, roughly speaking, about
the middle of the seventeenth century b. c. The elegant stone ewers with
their plaitwork decoration and the spouted bowls with their shell inlays,