Pendlebury, John D.; Synge, Wilfrid J. Millington [Hrsg.]: A Handbook to the palace of Minos, Knossos, with its dependencies: Foreword Sir Arthur Evans (London, 1954)

PREFACE

It has been evident for some time that there ought to be a short
guide to Knossos. Not only is the owner of a 1909 Baedeker
liable to be entirely at sea and to wander in a state of complete
bewilderment round a labyrinth in many respects unrecog-
nizable, but the fortunate possessors of The Palace of Minos have
hesitated before hiring the pack animal necessary for the
transport of that monumental work round the site.

Of course there is only one man who could have written
this guide as it ought to have been written - Sir Arthur Evans
- but in view of the Herculean labours in which he is engaged,
I hope that visitors will excuse my temerity in making the
attempt. How great my debt has been both to Sir Arthur and
to Dr. Mackenzie only I can say. Without their guidance I
should have been as completely lost as Theseus without the
clew of Ariadne.

The plan of the guide is as follows. I have first given an
introductory Section on the history of the site, mainly from
the point of view of the architectural development of the
Palace. Tins, I think, was inevitable. Nobody wants either to
be unexpectedly faced with a totally meaningless combination
of letters such as 'Late M.M. lllb' or to be held up while going
round the site by having to read a lot of information, mostly
quite irrelevant to his present position, about the general lay-
out of the Palace at a particular period. I have therefore set
this section first.

Then comes the grand tour of the Palace proper, by what
experience has proved to be the best route. Lastly the out-
lying buildings are described.

Plan No. 9 has the route adopted marked with arrows, and
there are a few photographs to assist in the identification of
landmarks.

I must apologize for addressing the visitor throughout in the
second person. There are two other methods, first the im-

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