Part 4 (1/2)
Neither does the shape of the area appear to be particularly well adapted to the purpose suggested; and, on the whole, if it were really designed for a theatre, we must admit that the Minoan architects were less happily inspired in its erection than in most of their other works. At the same time, however, the obstinate fact remains that we can suggest no other conceivable purpose which the place can have served; and so, until some more likely use can be suggested, we are scarcely ent.i.tled to demur to Dr. Evans's theory.
Admitting, then, for want of any better explanation, that it may have been a Theatral Area, what were the games or shows which were here presented to the Minoan Court and its dependents? Certainly not the bull-fight. For that there is manifestly no s.p.a.ce, as the flat area is not larger than a good-sized room; while the undefended position of the spectators would as certainly have resulted in tragedies to them as to the toreadors. But from the great rhyton found at Hagia Triada, from a steat.i.te relief found at Knossos in Igor, and from various seal-impressions, we know that boxing was one of the favourite sports of the Minoans, as it was of the Homeric and the cla.s.sical Greeks; and the Theatral Area may have served well enough for such exhibitions as those in which Epeus knocked out Euryalus, and Odysseus smashed the jaw of Irus. Or perhaps it may have been the scene of less brutal entertainments in the shape of dances, such as those which delighted the eyes of Odysseus at the Palace of Alcinous. To this day the Cretans are fond of dancing, and in ancient times the dance had often a religious significance, and was part of the ceremonial of wors.h.i.+p. So that it is not impossible that we have here a spot whose a.s.sociations with the House of Minos are both religious and literary--'the Choros (or dancing-ground) which Daedalus wrought in broad Knossos for fair-haired Ariadne' (Iliad XVIII., 590).
If the Theatral Area be really the scene of the palace sports, it has for us a romantic as well as an historical interest; for Plutarch tells us that it was at the games that Ariadne first met Theseus, and fell in love with him on witnessing his grace and prowess in the wrestling ring. It may be permissible to indulge the imagination with the thought that we can still behold the very place where, while the grim King and his gaily-bedecked courtiers looked on at the sports which were meant only as a prelude to a dreadful tragedy, the actors in one of the great romances of the world found love waiting for them before the gates of death. In any case, the spot may well have been a most fitting one for the birth of an immortal tale of love. For it is not improbable that, in its religious aspect, it had a connection with a greater, a Divine namesake of the human Ariadne. The great G.o.ddess of Knossos, in one aspect of her nature, was the same whom the Greeks knew later as Aphrodite, the foam-born G.o.ddess of Love. To this G.o.ddess there was attached in Crete the native dialect epithet of 'The Exceeding Holy One,' 'Ariadne,' and the Theatral Area may well have been the place where ceremonial dances were performed in her honour.
Within the palace walls abundant remains of fine polychrome ware of the Middle Minoan period were found as the season's work went on.
The dungeons of the preceding year's excavations were supplemented by the discovery of four more, making six in all, and it was shown that these pits must have belonged to a very early period in the history of the buildings, for they have no structural connection with the walls of the Later Palace, which, indeed, cross them in some places. But the great discovery within the area was that of the Temple Repositories. As the eastern side of the palace gave evidence of having been the domestic quarter, so the west-central part showed traces of having had a special religious significance in the palace life. Religion, indeed, seems to have bulked very largely in the economy of the House of Minos, which is what might have been expected when one remembers the closeness of the relations between Zeus and Minos as depicted in the legends, and realizes that very probably the Kings of Knossos were Priest-Kings, and perhaps even incarnations of the Bull-G.o.d.
Near the west-central part of the palace the Double Axe sign occurred very frequently, and other evidences seemed to suggest that somewhere in this vicinity there must have been a sanctuary of some sort.
This season's explorations confirmed the suggestion, for, near the Pillar Room at the west side of the Central Court, there were discovered two large cists, which had been used for the storage of objects connected with the palace cult. The cist which was first opened was closely packed, to a depth of 1.10 metres, with vases; and below these there was a deposit of fragments and complete examples of faence, including the figures of a Snake G.o.ddess and her votaresses, votive robes and girdles, cups and vases with painted designs, and reliefs of cows and calves, wild goats and kids. In fact, this Repository was a perfect treasure-house of objects in faence; but in the second cist such objects were wanting, with the exception that a missing portion of the Snake G.o.ddess was found, the place of the faence being taken by gold-foil and crystal plaques.
Some of the small faence reliefs are of particularly exquisite design and execution, particularly one of a Cretan wild-goat and her young, the subject being executed in pale green, with dark sepia markings, and characterized by great directness and naturalism of treatment. Most interesting, however, were the figures of the Snake G.o.ddess and her votaresses. The G.o.ddess is 13-1/2 inches in height. She wears a high tiara of purplish-brown, with a white border, and her dress consists of a richly embroidered jacket, with laced bodice, and a skirt with a short double _panier_ or ap.r.o.n. Her hair is dressed in a fringe above her forehead, and falls behind on her neck and shoulders; the eyes and eyebrows are black, and the ears are of extraordinary size; the bust is almost entirely bare. But the curious feature of the little figure is that around her are coiled three snakes. One, which is grasped in the right hand, pa.s.ses up the arm, descends behind the shoulders and down the left arm to the hand, which holds the tail. Two other snakes are interlaced around her hips, and a fourth coils itself around the high tiara. The figure of the votaress is somewhat similar; but her skirt is flounced all the way down in the regular Minoan style, and she holds a snake in her right hand. The characteristic feature of both figures is the modernness of their lines, which are as different as possible from those of the statues of cla.s.sic Greece. The waist is exceedingly slender, and altogether 'the lines adopted are those considered ideal by the modern corset-maker rather than those of the sculptor.'
There can be little doubt that these tiny figures point to the wors.h.i.+p of an earth G.o.ddess, whose emblem is the snake--the other aspect of the heavenly divinity whose symbols are the doves. It may be noted that at Gournia Miss Boyd (Mrs. Hawes) found a primitive figure of a G.o.ddess, twined with snakes and accompanied by doves, together with a low, three-legged altar, and the familiar horns of consecration. Strangely enough, along with the Snake G.o.ddess of Knossos there was found in the Temple Repositories a cross of veined marble, with limbs of equal length, which Dr. Evans believes to have actually been the central object of wors.h.i.+p in the cult, and which he has placed in this position in his reconstruction of the little shrine. This discovery, 'pointing to the fact that a cross of orthodox Greek shape was not only a religious symbol of the Minoan cult, but an actual object of wors.h.i.+p, cannot but have a profound interest in its relation to the later cult of the same emblem which still holds the Christian world.' The fact of the equal-limbed cross having at so early a date been the object of wors.h.i.+p also suggests the reason why the Eastern Church has always preferred the Greek form of cross to the unequal-limbed form of the Western Church.
Outside the area of the palace proper discoveries of almost equal importance were made. About 130 yards to the east of the Northern Entrance there came to light the walls of a building which Dr. Evans has designated the Royal Villa. It proved to be by far the finest example yet discovered of Minoan domestic architecture on a moderate scale, and contained a finely preserved double staircase; while among the relics found within its walls were some very beautiful examples of the ceramic art, including a fine 'stirrup' or 'false-necked'
vase of the Later Palace style, decorated in l.u.s.trous orange-brown on a paler l.u.s.tred ground. Still more beautiful was a tall painted jar, nearly 4 feet in height, bearing an exquisite papyrus design in relief (Plate XXIII.).
[Ill.u.s.tration XIV: CLAY TABLET WITH LINEAR SCRIPT, KNOSSOS (_pp_.
80 & 241)
From 'The Palace of Minos,' by Arthur J. Evans, in _The Monthly Review_]
The main feature of the Villa was a long pillared hall, measuring about 37 by 15 feet. At the one end of it was a raised das, separated by a bal.u.s.trade from the rest of the hall, and approached by an opening in the bal.u.s.trade with three steps. Immediately in face of the opening a square niche breaks the wall behind the das, and here stand the broken fragments of a gypsum throne. A fine stone lamp of lilac gypsum stands on the second step of the das (Plate XXIV.). The two rows of pillars which run down the hall divide it into a nave and side aisles, and the hall presents all the elements of a primitive basilica, with its throne for the presiding Bishop or Priest-King. It is possible that we have here the first suggestion of that style of architecture which, pa.s.sing through the stage where the King-Archon of Athens sat in the 'Stoa Basilike'
to try cases of impiety, found its full development at last in the Roman Basilica, the earliest type of Christian church. 'Is the Priest-King of Knossos, who here gave his decisions,' says Professor Burrows, 'a direct ancestor of Praetor and Bishop, seated in the Apse within the Chancel, speaking to the people that stood below in Nave and Aisles?'[*]
[Footnote *: 'The Discoveries in Crete,' pp. 10, 11.]
So far in the explorations at Knossos metal-work had been conspicuous by its absence. That the Minoans were skilled metal-workers was obvious, for many of their ceramic triumphs presented manifest indications of having been adaptations of metal forms; and the gold cups of Vaphio, which, there can be little doubt, came originally from Crete, bore witness to a skill which would not have disgraced the best Renaissance goldsmiths. But the men, whoever they may have been, who plundered the palace at the time of its great catastrophe, had done their work thoroughly, and left behind them little trace either of the precious metals or of bronze. It turned out, however, that in a block of building which stands between the West Court and the paved area to the north-west of the palace, a strange chance had preserved enough to testify to the art of the bronze-workers of Knossos. One of the floors of this building had sunk in the conflagration before the plunderers had had time to explore the room beneath, and under its debris were found five magnificent bronze vessels--four large basins and a single-handled ewer. The largest basin, 39 centimetres in diameter, is exquisitely wrought with a foliated margin and handle, while another has a lovely design of conventionalized lilies on its border.
Mention has already been made of the paved causeway which bisects the Theatral Area of the palace. This was found, in 1904, to have a continuation in the shape of a well-made road leading in a north-westerly direction towards the hillside (Plate XII. 1). It was overlaid by a Roman roadway, and an interesting comparison was thus made possible between the Minoan work and that of the great road-makers of later days. The Roman road came out rather badly from the comparison, the earlier construction being superior in every respect. The central part of the Minoan road consisted of a well-paved causeway, rather more than 4-1/2 feet wide, while on either side of this there extended to a breadth of more than 3-1/2 feet a strip of pebbles, clay, and pounded potsherds rammed hard, making the whole breadth of the road almost 12 feet. Close by this first European example of scientific road-making ran the remains of water conduits, which may have led from a spring on Mount Juktas, and near the road also were found magazines of clay tablets, giving details of numbers of chariots, bows, and arrows, while in the immediate neighbourhood of these were two actual deposits of bronze-headed shafts.
As the Minoan road was followed up in 1905, it led the explorers towards an important building in the face of the hill to the north-west.
Its exploration was rendered extremely difficult by the fact that its masonry ran right back into the side of the hill, which was covered by an olive wood, beneath whose roots lay a stratum made up of the remains of Graeco-Roman houses. But the building, when explored, proved to be well worth the labour, for the Little Palace, as it is called, was an important structure with a frontage of over 114 feet, and its pillared hall was worthy of comparison even with the fine rooms of its great neighbour. In Late Minoan times part of this fine hall had been used as a shrine, and in it were found, along with the usual 'horns of consecration,' three fetish idols, grotesque natural concretions of quasi-human type. Of these, the largest had some resemblance to a woman of ample contours, while a smaller nodule suggested the figure of an infant, and near it was a rude representation of a Cretan wild-goat. The third nodule was of apelike aspect. In view of all the religious a.s.sociations of Crete, it can scarcely be doubted that these grotesque images, 'not made with hands,' represent Mother Rhea, the infant Zeus, and the goat Amaltheia. The cult of stones, meteorites and concretions such as these of the Little Palace, has been widespread in all ages; one has only to remember the black stone which forms the most sacred treasure of Mecca, the black stone which stood in the Temple of the Great Mother at Rome, and the image of the great G.o.ddess Diana at Ephesus, 'which fell down from Jupiter.' Hesiod's story of how Kronos or Saturn devoured a stone under the belief that he was swallowing the infant Zeus evidently belongs to the recollections of a wors.h.i.+p in which such natural idols as these were adored.
Hitherto Knossos had yielded only one small and inadequate representation of that seafaring enterprise upon which the Minoan power rested, though even this had, in its own way, a certain suggestiveness of the romance and terror of the sea. It was a seal-impression, found in 1903, in the Temple Repositories, on which a great sea-monster, with dog's head and open jaws, is seen rising from the waves and attacking a fisherman, who stands up in his light skiff endeavouring to defend himself. The Little Palace yielded a somewhat more adequate representation of the Minoan marine in the shape of another seal-impression, which showed part of a vessel carrying one square sail, and propelled also by a single bank of oars, whose rowers sit under an awning. Imposed upon the figure of the vessel is that of a gigantic horse, and the impression has been construed as a record of the first importation of the thoroughbred horse into Crete, probably from Libya, an interpretation which seems to demand a certain amount of faith and imagination, for Mosso's criticism, that 'the perspective is faulty,' is extremely mild. But at least the representation of the vessel itself gives us some idea of the galleys which maintained the Minoan peace in the aegean.
[Ill.u.s.tration XV: (1) PALACE WALL, WEST SIDE. MOUNT JUKTAS IN BACKGROUND (_p_. 84)
(2) BATHROOM, KNOSSOS]
Among other treasures yielded by the Little Palace was a vessel of black steat.i.te in the shape of a bull's head. The idea was already familiar from other examples, but the execution of this specimen was beyond comparison fine. 'The modelling of the head and curly hair,' says Dr. Evans, 'is beautifully executed, and some of the technical details are unique. The nostrils are inlaid with a kind of sh.e.l.l like that out of which cameos are made, and the one eye which was perfectly preserved presented a still more remarkable feature. The eye within the socket was cut out of a piece of rock-crystal, the pupil and iris being indicated by means of colours applied to the lower face of the crystal which had been hollowed out, and had a certain magnifying power.'[*] Students of Early Egyptian art will be reminded of the details of the eyes in the statues of Rahotep and Nefert, and in the bronze statue of Pepy.
'Even after the Cnossian ivories, faience figurines, and faience and plaster reliefs,' writes Mr. Hogarth, 'after the Cnossian and Haghia Triadha frescoes, after the finest ”Kamares” pottery, and the finest intaglios, the Vaphio goblets and the Mycencae dagger blades, one was still not prepared for the bull's head _rhyton_ ... with its painted transparencies for eyes, and its admirable modelling, and the striking contrast between the black polished steat.i.te of the ma.s.s and the creamy cameo sh.e.l.l of the inlay work.[**]
[Footnote *: The _Times_, August 27, 1908.]
[Footnote **: _Fortnightly Review_, October, 1908, pp. 600, 601.]