Pendlebury, John D.: A handbook to the palace of Minos at Knossos, with its dependencies (London)

THE DEPENDENCIES OF THE PALACE

i. the little palace (passing the house
of the frescoes)

7*HE House of the Frescoes lies some eighty yards from
the Theatral Area to the left of the ancient road.
It is in the south-east corner of the cutting, and dates
from the transition period M.M. Ill b-L.M.. I a, i.e.
c. 1600 b.c. The other houses are earlier (M.M. Ill a,
i.e. c. 1750 b.c.). The entrance is in a small wing which
projects north and contained, in addition to the en-
trance lobby, a doorkeeper's room to the left. From
the lobby are entered two passage rooms to the east,
and to the west a long narrow room which, in its turn,
gave on to the main room of the house in which was
found the stack of frescoes. These thin fragile slabs
of painted plaster had been carefully piled here in
layers, and when, with infinite labour, they had been
separated, strengthened, and fitted together they gave
an idea of the brilliance of the decoration of even a
small house. Reproductions of some of them are in
the room above the Throne Room (see page 38). The
originals are in the Museum. South of the Room of
the Frescoes lie three more rooms, in the easternmost of
which occurred a number of vase fragments decorated
with designs of double axes.

Leaving the House of the Frescoes, you continue
along the ancient road, passing on your right the
depression which marks the site of the 'Arsenal' which
has now been filled in, until you climb up to the
modern road. On the far side of the road, just north of
the village street, a flight of steps leads up the far bank
and thence over a small bridge into the Little Palace.
The Little Palace is the second largest building hither-