DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0039
12
PRIMITIVE KEY FOUND IN DOORWAY
basements, they had no connexion with any other walls, the stones being
simply built up against cuttings in the virgin soil. This direct contact
with Mother Earth and the descent into her bosom beneath the
sombre vault above fits
in with the sugges-
tion already made that
these sunken purifica-
tory basins connected
themselves with the
Goddess in her chthonic
character, as Lady of
the Underworld and
wreathed with its em-
blematic snakes. In this
earthquake - stricken
region it is hardly neces-
sary again to recall the
special need of divine protection from the infernal Powers.1 A Jlagello
terraemotus libera nos may well have formed part of a Minoan litany, long
before the days when the prayer was taken over by the Christian Church.2
Fig. 5.
Plan of Later Doorway in Corridor
South of Lustral Basin.
Minoan
'key'
found in
doorway
of later
passage.
Fig. 6. Bronze Locking-pin or Primitive Key from Doorway South of Lustral Area.
Dis aliterplacitum. It looks, indeed, as if an earthquake shock about
the close of M. M. Ill a—of which there seems to be other evidence on the
Palace site 3—played a leading part in the ruin of the Lustral Basin itself.
The destruction over this area was indeed so severe that in the succeeding
restoration no attempt was made to rebuild this structure. Its basin, choked
with charcoal and rubble, was found overlaid by later walls traversingit from
South to North. The principal of these, which ran out at a slightly higher
level from the massive line of walling that bordered this area on the South
side, was shown by the exploration of 1928 to have a doorway consisting
of massive gypsum jambs with a threshold of the same material, Fig. 5,
above which an interesting find occurred. In the rubble debris near the
threshold was a kind of pointed bronze instrument, Fig. 6, in which we may
1 See P. of M., ii, Pt. I, p. 322.
3 Ibid., p. 320 and note 2.
Jbid.
PRIMITIVE KEY FOUND IN DOORWAY
basements, they had no connexion with any other walls, the stones being
simply built up against cuttings in the virgin soil. This direct contact
with Mother Earth and the descent into her bosom beneath the
sombre vault above fits
in with the sugges-
tion already made that
these sunken purifica-
tory basins connected
themselves with the
Goddess in her chthonic
character, as Lady of
the Underworld and
wreathed with its em-
blematic snakes. In this
earthquake - stricken
region it is hardly neces-
sary again to recall the
special need of divine protection from the infernal Powers.1 A Jlagello
terraemotus libera nos may well have formed part of a Minoan litany, long
before the days when the prayer was taken over by the Christian Church.2
Fig. 5.
Plan of Later Doorway in Corridor
South of Lustral Basin.
Minoan
'key'
found in
doorway
of later
passage.
Fig. 6. Bronze Locking-pin or Primitive Key from Doorway South of Lustral Area.
Dis aliterplacitum. It looks, indeed, as if an earthquake shock about
the close of M. M. Ill a—of which there seems to be other evidence on the
Palace site 3—played a leading part in the ruin of the Lustral Basin itself.
The destruction over this area was indeed so severe that in the succeeding
restoration no attempt was made to rebuild this structure. Its basin, choked
with charcoal and rubble, was found overlaid by later walls traversingit from
South to North. The principal of these, which ran out at a slightly higher
level from the massive line of walling that bordered this area on the South
side, was shown by the exploration of 1928 to have a doorway consisting
of massive gypsum jambs with a threshold of the same material, Fig. 5,
above which an interesting find occurred. In the rubble debris near the
threshold was a kind of pointed bronze instrument, Fig. 6, in which we may
1 See P. of M., ii, Pt. I, p. 322.
3 Ibid., p. 320 and note 2.
Jbid.