DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1066#0080
CRETE, FORERUNNER OF GREECE
of Bronze Age Cretans, and his right to Minoan
kinship and alliance cannot be gainsaid.
The West Wing of the palace presents some
puzzling problems. Dr. Evans' idea that an inner
court (K) and the Rooms of the Double-axe Col-
umns had a special sanctity should be mentioned,
although there are, we believe, some valid objec-
tions to it. The double-axes are carved thirty-
times on two square pillars in adjoining rooms, and
it is not surprising that they excited great interest.
in the first season's excavations; but since then
the same sign has been found in all parts of the
palaces of Knossos and Phaestos, and even scratched
on the outer wall of the small palace at Gournia,
that is, in many places which cannot have a
religious significance. We are not even convinced
by the discovery of the precious wreckage from
an older shrine, gathered into cists below the floor
of a room close to the chamber of the Double-axe
Columns, for the room was a depository only. N|
The main feature of the West Wing is a great
corridor (L) about 300 feet long and n£ feet broad,
running north and south, and flanked by twenty
long narrow magazines on the west side. These
store-rooms are still full of tall jars, large and
numerous enough to hide the Forty Thieves; and
one suffers a sharp pang of unsatisfied curiosity,
when peering into the empty treasure cists care-
fully built beneath their floors. Above this en-
tire section there once extended large apartments,
whose plan can be partly determined by the
position of supports for upper walls and columns.
Dr. Evans supposes them to have been halls of
state, the most magnificent in the palace, and
of Bronze Age Cretans, and his right to Minoan
kinship and alliance cannot be gainsaid.
The West Wing of the palace presents some
puzzling problems. Dr. Evans' idea that an inner
court (K) and the Rooms of the Double-axe Col-
umns had a special sanctity should be mentioned,
although there are, we believe, some valid objec-
tions to it. The double-axes are carved thirty-
times on two square pillars in adjoining rooms, and
it is not surprising that they excited great interest.
in the first season's excavations; but since then
the same sign has been found in all parts of the
palaces of Knossos and Phaestos, and even scratched
on the outer wall of the small palace at Gournia,
that is, in many places which cannot have a
religious significance. We are not even convinced
by the discovery of the precious wreckage from
an older shrine, gathered into cists below the floor
of a room close to the chamber of the Double-axe
Columns, for the room was a depository only. N|
The main feature of the West Wing is a great
corridor (L) about 300 feet long and n£ feet broad,
running north and south, and flanked by twenty
long narrow magazines on the west side. These
store-rooms are still full of tall jars, large and
numerous enough to hide the Forty Thieves; and
one suffers a sharp pang of unsatisfied curiosity,
when peering into the empty treasure cists care-
fully built beneath their floors. Above this en-
tire section there once extended large apartments,
whose plan can be partly determined by the
position of supports for upper walls and columns.
Dr. Evans supposes them to have been halls of
state, the most magnificent in the palace, and