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 3): The great transitional age in the northern and eastern sections of the Palace (London, 1930)

M. M. Ill DATE OF MINIATURE FRESCOES

33

Of the relatively early date of this Miniature class—at any rate well
within the limits of M. M. Ill—we have, however, some quite conclusive
evidence.

The painted stucco fragments found between the ' Kasella' floors in Frag--
the Thirteenth Magazine have been already cited as giving evidence of early ^^s

Fig. 15 b.

Painted Stucco Fragment showing Crowds of Spectators from below
Kasella Floor of Thirteenth Magazine.

date. They were covered by the floors of more superficial cists at an epoch
which in view of our present knowledge must be taken to correspond with
the time of the great restoration after the seismic catastrophe towards the
end of M. M. Ill, and belong therefore to the pre-seismic stage of that
Period. But these, it has been shown, included pieces depicting the crowded
heads of male spectators, above a wall, like those of the Miniature Frescoes,
slightly larger in scale but executed in the same style, and by means of the
same artistic 'shorthand' and, in fact, inseparable from those of the present
group (Fig. 15 b).1

A minute but striking piece of evidence was acquired, moreover, by the
very careful analyses carried out in 1925 and 1926 of untouched elements
beneath the later West facade of the Central Court.2 The latest sherds
there found showed that the ceramic contents, like those found elsewhere

Thir-
teenth
Maga-
zine.

1 Repeated from Vol. i, p. 527, Fig. 384.
III. D

2 See Vol. i, pp. 442, 443.

Charac-
teristic
specimen
beneath
base-
block of
later
fagade.