DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.810#0033
4io 'ROYAL VILLA': UPPER FLOOR WITHIN HAIL
Upper
Megarcn
within
hall of
lower.
The facilities of intercourse generally secured by the Minoan light-well
system were here improved on by the very artful method of construction.
The master of the house, seated in the raised alcove, could, as it were,
control the occupants of both floors. If he wished to speak, let us say, to
Ariadne he had hardly to raise his voice to call her to the balcony opposite.
Conversation could be held on both sides, and, if there were music or song in
Fig. 236. Ladies lolling out of Windows of Sanctuary Building on Fresco
Fragment from Mycenae.
Careful
choice of
aspect.
the ladies' chamber, their lord, and whoever may have stood on the narrow
platform beside the niche, might have the full enjoyment of it. The life of
a household rises before us, as it was carried on some sixteen centuries
before our era.
In their choice of position the builders of the ' Royal Villa', by setting
it in a cutting facing East, had sought to secure the greatest amount of
protection, on the one hand, from the hot sun, and on the other, from the
prevailing North and South winds. The same careful selection of aspect
and situation recurs in the case of the Domestic Quarter of the Palace, in
that of the fine unexplored mansion, the facade of which appears in the
Upper
Megarcn
within
hall of
lower.
The facilities of intercourse generally secured by the Minoan light-well
system were here improved on by the very artful method of construction.
The master of the house, seated in the raised alcove, could, as it were,
control the occupants of both floors. If he wished to speak, let us say, to
Ariadne he had hardly to raise his voice to call her to the balcony opposite.
Conversation could be held on both sides, and, if there were music or song in
Fig. 236. Ladies lolling out of Windows of Sanctuary Building on Fresco
Fragment from Mycenae.
Careful
choice of
aspect.
the ladies' chamber, their lord, and whoever may have stood on the narrow
platform beside the niche, might have the full enjoyment of it. The life of
a household rises before us, as it was carried on some sixteen centuries
before our era.
In their choice of position the builders of the ' Royal Villa', by setting
it in a cutting facing East, had sought to secure the greatest amount of
protection, on the one hand, from the hot sun, and on the other, from the
prevailing North and South winds. The same careful selection of aspect
and situation recurs in the case of the Domestic Quarter of the Palace, in
that of the fine unexplored mansion, the facade of which appears in the