DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0331
PALACE OF REGULAR CONSTRUCTION : NO MAZE 283
in the twilight of early saga, may well have called up the vision of the
' Greek Labyrinth ' together with the monster that abode within its inmost lair.
The name itself, as has already been pointed out,1 is proper to the True de-
building, but from the old Carian analogies it simply defines it as the 0fname
sanctuary of the labrys or double axe, the symbolic weapon of Minoan °.f tl^,aby"
divinity, worshipped in the Palace shrines and so often repeated on its blocks
and pillars. Among the Anatolian parallels supplied by the later cult of
Zeus Labraundos, we have no hint of such sanctuaries having taken a
labyrinthine form. The ' Labyrinth Fresco' from the Corridor East of the Maze as
' Hall of the Double Axes '2 is another matter, but it depends on a decorative Sjc^o-
tradition taken over, apparently, together with other sphragistic elements, tive f°r.
from Egyptian models of the Sixth and succeeding dynasties.3 Rude human origin,
figures set within these Egyptian maze designs may indeed suggest that
folk-tales were already rife on that side of the same kind as those that in
Greek days were attached to the house of Minos on the site of Knossos. But,
though the maze appears upon its walls, and bull-headed human forms recur
—together with similar composite forms—on Minoan gems, and were beginning
perhaps to acquire a mythological signification * the definite association here
of Minotaur and maze, such as we see on the coins of Knossos, was an after-
work of Hellenic days.
In the Minoan Palace Sanctuary as actually planned, so far as it has Regular
been possible to decipher the remains, there was nothing of these baffling squareUr~
involutions and tortuously secretive approaches. The building—pieced construc-
,i r ■ r < • 11 . 1 1 r 1 tion of
together by means 01 a series 01 insulae —roughly four-square round a Palace.
Central Court, with main approaches North and South and others at the
remaining sides, though of vast scale and designed to cover a multiplicity
of various needs, was in its essence a practical work-a-day construction. In
some respects, as in the substitution of a state entrance Corridor—made to
wind round the South-West Angle of the Palace—in the place of a passage
running directly in from the West, later arrangements have rendered the
original plan somewhat more elaborate. In such structures as the Pillar base-
ments and of the Northern Lustral area, with its stepped descent towards the
bosom of Mother Earth, we may recognize elements of religious mystery,
deliberately designed. The small basement Chambers and the long series of
Magazines in the West wing of the building might by themselves give the
idea of a complicated plan, much broken up by details, but the continued
1 P. of M., i, p. 6. 4 See below, pp. 316, 317, for sacral symbols
2 Ibid., p. 356 seqq., and Fig. 256. associated with the Minotaur on gems.
3 Ibid., p. 359, Fig. 260, a-c.
in the twilight of early saga, may well have called up the vision of the
' Greek Labyrinth ' together with the monster that abode within its inmost lair.
The name itself, as has already been pointed out,1 is proper to the True de-
building, but from the old Carian analogies it simply defines it as the 0fname
sanctuary of the labrys or double axe, the symbolic weapon of Minoan °.f tl^,aby"
divinity, worshipped in the Palace shrines and so often repeated on its blocks
and pillars. Among the Anatolian parallels supplied by the later cult of
Zeus Labraundos, we have no hint of such sanctuaries having taken a
labyrinthine form. The ' Labyrinth Fresco' from the Corridor East of the Maze as
' Hall of the Double Axes '2 is another matter, but it depends on a decorative Sjc^o-
tradition taken over, apparently, together with other sphragistic elements, tive f°r.
from Egyptian models of the Sixth and succeeding dynasties.3 Rude human origin,
figures set within these Egyptian maze designs may indeed suggest that
folk-tales were already rife on that side of the same kind as those that in
Greek days were attached to the house of Minos on the site of Knossos. But,
though the maze appears upon its walls, and bull-headed human forms recur
—together with similar composite forms—on Minoan gems, and were beginning
perhaps to acquire a mythological signification * the definite association here
of Minotaur and maze, such as we see on the coins of Knossos, was an after-
work of Hellenic days.
In the Minoan Palace Sanctuary as actually planned, so far as it has Regular
been possible to decipher the remains, there was nothing of these baffling squareUr~
involutions and tortuously secretive approaches. The building—pieced construc-
,i r ■ r < • 11 . 1 1 r 1 tion of
together by means 01 a series 01 insulae —roughly four-square round a Palace.
Central Court, with main approaches North and South and others at the
remaining sides, though of vast scale and designed to cover a multiplicity
of various needs, was in its essence a practical work-a-day construction. In
some respects, as in the substitution of a state entrance Corridor—made to
wind round the South-West Angle of the Palace—in the place of a passage
running directly in from the West, later arrangements have rendered the
original plan somewhat more elaborate. In such structures as the Pillar base-
ments and of the Northern Lustral area, with its stepped descent towards the
bosom of Mother Earth, we may recognize elements of religious mystery,
deliberately designed. The small basement Chambers and the long series of
Magazines in the West wing of the building might by themselves give the
idea of a complicated plan, much broken up by details, but the continued
1 P. of M., i, p. 6. 4 See below, pp. 316, 317, for sacral symbols
2 Ibid., p. 356 seqq., and Fig. 256. associated with the Minotaur on gems.
3 Ibid., p. 359, Fig. 260, a-c.