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)

STRATUM IN WHICH RELIEFS WERE DEPOSITED

171

asterisks.1 They were largely embedded in debris of rubble masonry Stratum

belonging to the face of the back wall to which the stucco base of the reliefs i°ngtam"

had been applied. The whole deposit indeed seems to mark a destruction Painted

. frag--

= Green Blue WtRed ■ Dark Red ■ Black
Fig. 115. Part of Foreground of Stucco Friezes showing Conventional Rockwork.

of the upper fabric of the Portico, carried out at some particular time. As
the stratum itself was on an average quite a metre higher than that on
which L. M. Ilia pottery rested, there is every reason for believing that
this destruction took place not earlier, at least, than the Geometrical Aee,
the remains of which appear in the neighbouring area North of this.2

The striving-after a natural effect in the painted reliefs of the olive-
trees stands in strong contrast to the very artificial manner in which the
rocky foreground of the composition was executed. Some fragments of
this, found together about the centre of the line of deposit, are restored in
Fig. 115, showing part of a band of intersecting waves with relieved borders,
one of them about 18 centimetres in height, though probably of varying

1 These must not be confounded with the
eight-rayed star signs on some of the blocks of
the ' bastions'.

2 The first definite remains of the ' Geo-
metric ' town begin about 20 metres North of

the Palace boundary on this side. Here a
well containing an abundance of ' Geometric '
pottery had been sunk on the Southern border
of the Minoan 'Pillar Crypt'.

Remains
ofrock-
work
fore-
ground.