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)

3$6 GYPSUM PAVEMENT AND PILLARED STYLOBATES

of M. M. Ill sherds—representing sea creatures like limpets, pecten-shells,
barnacles, and small crabs moulded from matrices formed on the actual objects.1

Gypsum
pave-
ment
answers
later
struc-
tures.

Under-
lying
stratum
M. M.
Ill a in
E. sec-
tion of
Mega-
ron.

Fig. 243. Part of Decorative Border in Red Gypsum imitating Rock with
Massed Growths. (Width 24 cm., Height 19 cm )

Gypsum Pavement and Pillared Stylobates of ' Queen's Megaron'.

The gypsum slabbing that, as we have seen, overlay the fine ' mosaiko'
pavement—separated from it by a deposit from 9 to 10 centimetres thick—
has every appearance of being a continuation of that, already described,
which covered the interior sections of the ' Hall of the Double Axes', with
which, indeed, it is connected without a break by the similar pavement of
the intervening ' Dog's-leg Corridor'. In both these cases a series of
exploratory excavations showed that the latest pottery found beneath the
pavement-level belonged to a mature stage of M. M. Ill a. It was reason-
able, therefore, to expect the same result from the numerous tests made
beneath the floor of the ' Queen's Megaron', and as regards the Eastern
Section this expectation was verified, explorations in a pure element beneath
the slabs producing only early M. M. Ill sherds. But in the case of the
inner Section of the Hall the results of similar researches beneath the
gypsum pavement in various parts of this area were consistently different
from this. There were in many places mixed elements, but it may be said
1 P. of M., i, pp. 521-2, Figs. 380, 381.