DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.809#0393
366
ARCHITECTURAL VALUE OF HOUSES
Later
denuda-
tion of
stone-
work.
Surround
ing
houses
supply
fuller
archi-
tectural
evidence
for new
Increase
in size of
houses.
The mass of debris with which the restorers of the building had to
grapple greatly affected the character of the new inner walls, the rubble and
plaster construction of which, as we have seen, also found its reaction in
a new style of frescoes and reliefs. But unfortunately the great denudation
of fine limestone masonry suffered by the West Wing has deprived us of
many illustrative materials regarding the architectural features of the
beginning of the New Era. In the better preserved Domestic Quarter on
the East slope, moreover, it is not always easy to distinguish the new
structural elements from those of the immediately preceding epoch.
Happily, in this and other respects, much supplementary evidence has
been preserved by the remains of the surrounding town-houses built at the
same time. The remains of these, indeed, of which a dozen, have been
now more or less fully explored, convey a truly astonishing idea of the
diffused well-being of the burgher class of Knossos at this time.
Here the heaps of debris to be dealt with in each case were more
compassable and the builders showed themselves less tied by the wall-lines
of the previous habitations. It appears, indeed, that in the better parts of
the town, wherever the new house plans have been explored, they were able
to take in areas which, so far as can be judged from the evidence supplied
outside the South-East Palace Angle, was roughly a third greater than the
houses belonging to the beginning of the Third Middle Minoan Period.
How this increased area was obtained it is impossible to say, but the simplest
explanation is that poorer neighbours were bought out and removed them-
selves to the outskirts of the town. In any case this broadening out of the
sites of private houses is a remarkable sequel to the widespread catastrophe
and seems to point not only to an unbroken spirit of enterprise but to
a considerable reserve of means.
Neolithic
and early
Minoan
house
remains.
Excavation of Early Town-Section, West of Palace (1926).
From the stratigraphic data it is evident that the Palace site itself and
a considerable area round was already thickly populated in Neolithic times.
The early remains uncovered in the South Section of the Central Court
consist of two houses representing the latest Neolithic phase—literally
dovetailed into one another—showing small living-rooms with fixed hearths
and an agglomeration of store cells. Submerged, again, beneath the pave-
ment of the West Court there came to light the rubble walls of other small
houses closely huddled together, the earlier elements of which go back
Middle within the limits of the Early Minoan Age. Of the Town of Knossos as it
houses of existed at the opening of the Middle Minoan Age a fresh glimpse has now
ARCHITECTURAL VALUE OF HOUSES
Later
denuda-
tion of
stone-
work.
Surround
ing
houses
supply
fuller
archi-
tectural
evidence
for new
Increase
in size of
houses.
The mass of debris with which the restorers of the building had to
grapple greatly affected the character of the new inner walls, the rubble and
plaster construction of which, as we have seen, also found its reaction in
a new style of frescoes and reliefs. But unfortunately the great denudation
of fine limestone masonry suffered by the West Wing has deprived us of
many illustrative materials regarding the architectural features of the
beginning of the New Era. In the better preserved Domestic Quarter on
the East slope, moreover, it is not always easy to distinguish the new
structural elements from those of the immediately preceding epoch.
Happily, in this and other respects, much supplementary evidence has
been preserved by the remains of the surrounding town-houses built at the
same time. The remains of these, indeed, of which a dozen, have been
now more or less fully explored, convey a truly astonishing idea of the
diffused well-being of the burgher class of Knossos at this time.
Here the heaps of debris to be dealt with in each case were more
compassable and the builders showed themselves less tied by the wall-lines
of the previous habitations. It appears, indeed, that in the better parts of
the town, wherever the new house plans have been explored, they were able
to take in areas which, so far as can be judged from the evidence supplied
outside the South-East Palace Angle, was roughly a third greater than the
houses belonging to the beginning of the Third Middle Minoan Period.
How this increased area was obtained it is impossible to say, but the simplest
explanation is that poorer neighbours were bought out and removed them-
selves to the outskirts of the town. In any case this broadening out of the
sites of private houses is a remarkable sequel to the widespread catastrophe
and seems to point not only to an unbroken spirit of enterprise but to
a considerable reserve of means.
Neolithic
and early
Minoan
house
remains.
Excavation of Early Town-Section, West of Palace (1926).
From the stratigraphic data it is evident that the Palace site itself and
a considerable area round was already thickly populated in Neolithic times.
The early remains uncovered in the South Section of the Central Court
consist of two houses representing the latest Neolithic phase—literally
dovetailed into one another—showing small living-rooms with fixed hearths
and an agglomeration of store cells. Submerged, again, beneath the pave-
ment of the West Court there came to light the rubble walls of other small
houses closely huddled together, the earlier elements of which go back
Middle within the limits of the Early Minoan Age. Of the Town of Knossos as it
houses of existed at the opening of the Middle Minoan Age a fresh glimpse has now