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)

522 PRIMITIVE STONE PILLARS WITH DOWNWARD TAPER

Com-
parison
with

primitive
stone
pillars
of Malta
and

Balearic
Islands.

Knossian
example
now to
hand.

Fig. 214. Pillar supporting Rook of 'Nau',
Minorca. (A. E., Myc. Tree and Pillar Cult, Fig. 61.)

yet it is difficult to see
why this arrangement is „;m
not as much structurally "w*
justified as the others
with the upward taper.
In the case of wooden
posts this reversed ar-
rangement is necessary
to counteract a possible
flow of sap and conse-
quent budding. Else-
where I had already re-
ferred to the parallels
presented by the stone
pillars that support the
vaults of primitive monu-
ments known as Covas
and Nmis in the Balearic
Islands, and, again, to
similar examples from the

side cells of the megalithic buildings of Malta,
which, as has been shown, stood in a direct con-
nexion with Crete (see Fig. 214). But some
very telling parallels have been since supplied
at Khossos itself in the pillars formed of blocks
gradually increasing in size that served as the
supports for the actual bases of the columns in
the ' Stepped Portico' leading up to the Palace
from the bridge-head of the Great South Road.
(See Fig. 215.)

That examples of such a class of stone
pillars should thus have made their appearance
on the site of Knossos itself affords a strong
corroboration of the suggested influences of such
on upward tapering wooden shafts of the Minoan
architects. In the 'Stepped Portico' these but
repeated the stone pillars below.

The existence of fluted columns within the Palace has been already
ascertained in the case of a carbonized shaft found on the upper-story level

Fig. 215.
Pillar of

Stone supporting
Stepped Portico '.