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)

THEATRAL PILLARS

65

Royal VillaJ a split tree-trunk could be made use of, retaining to a great
extent its taper form. The Corridor again that runs beneath the .East wall

of the great Palace Hall adjoin-
ing the 'Domestic Quarter'
shows the same system carried
out in the case of upright
timbering. Here, as will be seen
from Suppl. PI. XXXV,«, show-
ing a. section of M. M. Ill a
walling superposed on a massive
M. M. II course, the taper form
of the trunk is clearly preserved
in the lower section.2

The visible function of
these ' superposed pillars' in
the case of the Temple Fresco,
as part of the Grand Stand,
and apparently as supports of
some kind of roof or awning
above the tiers of spectators
at ceremonial sports in honour
of the Goddess, explains their
introduction beside represen-
tations of agonistic episodes on
the small reliefs and intaglios.
They are there the symbols of
the theatre itself and are introduced as indications of the ceremonial and
religious character of the sports. They find in fact an exact parallel in the
single Doric or Ionic column placed beside the scenes on Greek painted
vases—those, too, often of an agonistic nature—and which stand there as
abbreviated indications of the Temple or the Stoa.

Theatral
signifi-
cance of
single
pillars in
agonistic
scenes.

FiG; 37. Part of Steatite ' Rhyton ' with
Offertory Scene and Superposed Pillars.

1 See Vol. ii, Pt. II, pp. 407, 408 and
Fig. 235.

2 Here, as in other cases, in order to pre-
serve the record of the carbonized timbering,

and at the same time to maintain the whole
structure, the interval originally occupied by
the woodwork has been filled in with ferro-
concrete.

nr.