Evans, Arthur J.: The Palace of Minos: a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustred by the discoveries at Knossos (Band 2,2): Town houses in Knossos of the new era and restored West Palace Section (London, 1928)

690 INTERIOR ARRANGEMENT OF PROPYLAEUM

Spurs of
cross-
walling. .

Central
steps.

Green
slate
pave-
ment of

as rebuilt with shrunken dimensions tell a very different tale—a tale indeed
constantly repeated throughout the Palace area. If the M. M. Ill walls
were already to a great extent compounded of the ruins of earlier structures
the rubble material of this later fabric represents the ruin of a ruin. Most
of its stonework consisted of much smaller and fragmentary blocks, largely
supplemented by clay mortar, and the cohesion of its surface was greatly
due to the fine stucco coating with which it was overlaid, and which was
covered with brilliant painted decoration of the same kind as the ' Corridor
of the Procession '. The relative date of these later walls was, at the same
time, fully established by the Cist containing only M. M. Ill b sherds which,
as we shall see, ran under the East wall.

From the centre of the West wall a cross-wall ran out, the terminal
section of which corresponded with the position of the column-base to the
South. This wall, in its existing form, was a late restoration, but supple-
mentary excavation showed that it rested on earlier foundations. These
foundations, moreover, were traced in a direct line to the East wall, afford-
ing evidence of the original existence of a corresponding spur of cross-wall
running out from that side. On the other hand, the rubble support, 4-47 metres
wide, that linked these cross-walls pointed to the existence of a couple of broad
steps at this point. This indication was confirmed in 1926 when a part of a
broad gypsum step, i-6o metres long, was found overlying the Eastern border
of the neighbouring filled-in cist described below, which had evidently formed
part of the lower of these central steps.1 Another piece was subsequently
found. Owing to the decided rise of the ground level steps were required
here in addition to the gradual slope of the tarazza pavement of the central
part of the hall, continued throughout its Northern Section.

The partly artificial hill on which the Palace was built had in this
part sloped somewhat steeply down on its Southern side, and it had been
necessary for the support of the upper terrace on which the Propylaeum
stood to pile up great masses of rubble stones, which were contained below
by the massive limestone blocks and huge timber balks at the back of the
inner gallery that lay behind the South Corridor as it originally existed.
In the early part of the excavation a trench had been dug into this along
the middle part of the floor of the Propylaeum, and it was found that the
whole of its front section rested on this stone filling.

In the wings of this Section, especially that on the West side, were con-
siderable remains of green slate slabs, identical with those preserved on each

1 It is possible that this, like the column-bases, was an inheritance from the M. M. Ill

structures.