DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.810#0288
ORIGINAL ENTRANCE FROM WEST PORCH 661
double line of paving slabs, though prima facie its functions were by no
means so important as those of the Northern branch. From its direction,
moreover, it would seem to have been constructed to serve an entrance
passage running East (see Fig. 423).
To these contradictory aspects, moreover, must be added a peculiarity Conta-
in the construction of the Porch itself, which offends any architecturally aspect of
trained eye. Instead of standing fully open towards the Court, it is so set approach,
that a part of its Eastern section is concealed by a projecting angle of the
West Palace facade, giving the whole an asymmetrical aspect.
The explanation of these anomalies was finally supplied by a careful Ex-
analysis of the existing remains, revealing elements of earlier construction, by traces
and showing that the plan of this Palace entrance had in fact been radically of orii>,|nal
° ■ t / entrance
changed. A clue to an original arrangement, according to which the main running
entrance here faced due West, is supplied by the appearance, a little in front
of the neighbouring section of the West facade, of a series of great foundation
slabs, already referred to, showing that the older frontage of the building had
taken a course some three metres West of its later line.1 From the way, more-
over, that the base-blocks are set in a curving order at their Southern end,
it has already been inferred that the orthostats above had here curved in, as
in the case of the old facade visible in the N.W. angle of the Central Court.
As suggested in the first Volume of this work, we seem to have to do with
two diagonally opposed corners of what may have been, partly at least, in the
original plan a free-standing insula of the building.2
Supplementary investigations in this area undertaken in 1923 and the Slabs of
succeeding years made it clear that there was in fact an open passage Causeway
leading East into the building- at the South-West corner of this original contmu~
00 e> mg under
insula. It was found that the terminal slabs of the broader causeway that wail,
runs from West to East were actually cut into by the plinth that here forms the
angle of the new Palace facade. A part of the Eastern border of the terminal
slab, the Northern section of the succeeding slabs (6 and c), and the Eastern
border of 4 have been hacked away to make room for this new struc-
ture (see Plans, Figs. 423 and 425), the chips being set in the interstices, or
worked into its base.
Other traces are not far to seek of this earlier arrangement, to which,
as in analogous cases, the term ' proto-palatial' may be applied. Beneath
the walling of the facade angle at the West end of the First Magazine—itself,
1 See P. of M., i, p. 130, Fig. 06, and see later frontage line,
above, pp. 613, 614, for the insertion of the ! Ibid., p. 139, and compare p. 203.
altar in the interspace between the older and
double line of paving slabs, though prima facie its functions were by no
means so important as those of the Northern branch. From its direction,
moreover, it would seem to have been constructed to serve an entrance
passage running East (see Fig. 423).
To these contradictory aspects, moreover, must be added a peculiarity Conta-
in the construction of the Porch itself, which offends any architecturally aspect of
trained eye. Instead of standing fully open towards the Court, it is so set approach,
that a part of its Eastern section is concealed by a projecting angle of the
West Palace facade, giving the whole an asymmetrical aspect.
The explanation of these anomalies was finally supplied by a careful Ex-
analysis of the existing remains, revealing elements of earlier construction, by traces
and showing that the plan of this Palace entrance had in fact been radically of orii>,|nal
° ■ t / entrance
changed. A clue to an original arrangement, according to which the main running
entrance here faced due West, is supplied by the appearance, a little in front
of the neighbouring section of the West facade, of a series of great foundation
slabs, already referred to, showing that the older frontage of the building had
taken a course some three metres West of its later line.1 From the way, more-
over, that the base-blocks are set in a curving order at their Southern end,
it has already been inferred that the orthostats above had here curved in, as
in the case of the old facade visible in the N.W. angle of the Central Court.
As suggested in the first Volume of this work, we seem to have to do with
two diagonally opposed corners of what may have been, partly at least, in the
original plan a free-standing insula of the building.2
Supplementary investigations in this area undertaken in 1923 and the Slabs of
succeeding years made it clear that there was in fact an open passage Causeway
leading East into the building- at the South-West corner of this original contmu~
00 e> mg under
insula. It was found that the terminal slabs of the broader causeway that wail,
runs from West to East were actually cut into by the plinth that here forms the
angle of the new Palace facade. A part of the Eastern border of the terminal
slab, the Northern section of the succeeding slabs (6 and c), and the Eastern
border of 4 have been hacked away to make room for this new struc-
ture (see Plans, Figs. 423 and 425), the chips being set in the interstices, or
worked into its base.
Other traces are not far to seek of this earlier arrangement, to which,
as in analogous cases, the term ' proto-palatial' may be applied. Beneath
the walling of the facade angle at the West end of the First Magazine—itself,
1 See P. of M., i, p. 130, Fig. 06, and see later frontage line,
above, pp. 613, 614, for the insertion of the ! Ibid., p. 139, and compare p. 203.
altar in the interspace between the older and