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)

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ITS HIGH COLUMN-BASES

High
column-
base con-
nected
with it.

1929, which laid bare the massive gypsum block supporting the Southern
column of the later 'Megaron', there came to light, together with some

iron-stone slabs of the ' mosaiko'

r

48

<£5

class, a large fragment of a
column-base of the tall early form,
cut out of a very fine black stone.1
As part of both the topand bottom
face of this was preserved, the
exact height, 48 centimetres, as
well as the diameter, 68 centi-
metres, could be recovered and
the whole restored as shown in
Fig. 237. A clearly marked band
of rough surface, 12 centimetres
high, showed the original depth

Fig. 237. High Column-kase (restored) of the base from the upper level
from Earlier East Portico of ' Queen's
Megaron '.

Other
evi-
dences of
M. M.
lib
date of
'mosaiko'
pave-
ments.

of the pavement, so that it would
have risen above it 36 cm. A
further rough band 11 cm. wide, but less well marked, showed that it had been
later set in a pavement at a higher level, above which it rose only 25 cm.
Above this line the polished face of the stone was brilliantly preserved.

It will be seen that wherever exact chronological evidence is forth-
coming the fine ' mosaiko' class of pavement marks some considerable
restoration of the building that took place towards the close of M. M. II b?
This is well shown in the case of the ' Room of the Knobbed Pithos',
described above, where slabbing of this class had truncated an M. M. II a
' knobbed pithos' standing on a typical ' kalderim' floor.3 In this Section,
too, a clay and stucco floor, supporting vessels of M. M. Ill a date, is
almost immediately superposed on the 'mosaiko' level. In the neigh-
bouring N.W. Portico a variety of this class of iron-stone pavement
appears, in which the slabs are of a rectangular shape, its M. M. II date
being also established by the character of the sherds that lay immediately

1 My head mason, George Spourdalakis,
stated that a black stone of the same kind was
to be obtained below the surface of the ground
near Spinalunga. The stone showed in places
very fine quartz-like veins.

! This class of pavement survives in the
ensuing period in the case of the central
squares of gypsum floors, a late example of

which is seen in the ' Room of the Throne'.
It also finds a later analogy in the green schist
pavements specially rife in M. M. Ill and
L. M. I. The interstices of these were filled
in the same way with a clay and plaster
cement, showing a bright red or white facing.
3 See above, p. i8seqq., and p. 24, Fig. 12.