DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0040
MINOAN LOCK IN SOUTH HOUSE
13
venture to recognize a primitive Minoan key1 of the kind used to lock the
cellar door of the South House.2 Mr. Christian Doll's sketches of the door
jamb and lock are here reproduced, which curiously anticipate the present
discovery (Figs. 7, 8).
An interesting feature is to be observed with regard to the locks here
illustrated. As will be seen from
the horizontal section, Fig. 7, the
locking-pin that secured the wood-
en bar of the door could be in-
serted on either side of it. The
bar itself could only be with-
drawn on the inner side by some
one in the basement room to
which it gave access, but this
could not be done unless the
locking-pin was first removed
from the other side, at the foot
of the little staircase leading: from
the ' Megaron' and entrance sys-
tem of the house. This arrange-
ment is very characteristic of the
carefully devised control system of the Minoan dwellings large and small.
The basement room to which the door led gave beyond into a smaller inner
cellar or store-room where a hoard of bronze tools was found, the door of
which was barred on the inner side while it was itself, apparently, accessible
from an interior room above by means of a trap-door and ladder.
The doorway of the later structure bordering the Lustral basin fitted
on South to a wall-line underlying a line of massive blocks that had
apparently been taken from the earlier Palace ruins to patch up its main
boundary-wall on this North-West section at the time of the general restora-
tion of the building towards the close of M. M. III.3 The doorway itself
Minoan
lock in
South
House.
Fig. 7. Horizontal Section showing Primitive
Lock : South House. (See, too, Fig. 8, p. 14.)
Later
structures
over N.
Lustral
Basin.
1 From the position in which this object
was found it seems less probable that it was
a stilus, as was supposed to have been a
pointed bronze instrument from Palaikastro in
the Fitzwilliam Museum.
2 Ibid., pp. 382-4 and Figs. 217, 218.
3 To determine the date when it was placed
in its present position, I decided, during the
work of 1928, to temporarily turn over one cf
the limestone blocks of this construction. It
was of somewhat wedge-shaped form with
a good face, showing two double-axe signs of
Early Palace type (M. M. I—II), and weighed
as nearly as possible o.\ tons. In an un-
touched element beneath it, among forty
sherds, two were intrusive Neolithic, one was
a part of a M.'M. I a cup, and the rest
M. M. Ill, including one characteristic piece
13
venture to recognize a primitive Minoan key1 of the kind used to lock the
cellar door of the South House.2 Mr. Christian Doll's sketches of the door
jamb and lock are here reproduced, which curiously anticipate the present
discovery (Figs. 7, 8).
An interesting feature is to be observed with regard to the locks here
illustrated. As will be seen from
the horizontal section, Fig. 7, the
locking-pin that secured the wood-
en bar of the door could be in-
serted on either side of it. The
bar itself could only be with-
drawn on the inner side by some
one in the basement room to
which it gave access, but this
could not be done unless the
locking-pin was first removed
from the other side, at the foot
of the little staircase leading: from
the ' Megaron' and entrance sys-
tem of the house. This arrange-
ment is very characteristic of the
carefully devised control system of the Minoan dwellings large and small.
The basement room to which the door led gave beyond into a smaller inner
cellar or store-room where a hoard of bronze tools was found, the door of
which was barred on the inner side while it was itself, apparently, accessible
from an interior room above by means of a trap-door and ladder.
The doorway of the later structure bordering the Lustral basin fitted
on South to a wall-line underlying a line of massive blocks that had
apparently been taken from the earlier Palace ruins to patch up its main
boundary-wall on this North-West section at the time of the general restora-
tion of the building towards the close of M. M. III.3 The doorway itself
Minoan
lock in
South
House.
Fig. 7. Horizontal Section showing Primitive
Lock : South House. (See, too, Fig. 8, p. 14.)
Later
structures
over N.
Lustral
Basin.
1 From the position in which this object
was found it seems less probable that it was
a stilus, as was supposed to have been a
pointed bronze instrument from Palaikastro in
the Fitzwilliam Museum.
2 Ibid., pp. 382-4 and Figs. 217, 218.
3 To determine the date when it was placed
in its present position, I decided, during the
work of 1928, to temporarily turn over one cf
the limestone blocks of this construction. It
was of somewhat wedge-shaped form with
a good face, showing two double-axe signs of
Early Palace type (M. M. I—II), and weighed
as nearly as possible o.\ tons. In an un-
touched element beneath it, among forty
sherds, two were intrusive Neolithic, one was
a part of a M.'M. I a cup, and the rest
M. M. Ill, including one characteristic piece