An obviously important fact to be remembered in any discussion on this point is that, in sharp contrast to the Mycenæan cities of the mainland, Knossos and Phæstos were in the main unfortified. It is true that M. Dussaud has suggested that Knossos was fortified, but the vast majority of scholars agree that his supposed “fortifications” were nothing of the kind. Dr. Burrows has devoted a special chapter to this point in the as yet unpublished revised edition of his book, the manuscript of which he left in my care when he died. His general conclusion is that, while there may have been some sort of fortification in the early days of Crete, Knossos established a peaceful regime when she won her supremacy in L.M.I. In any case, Knossos was not fortified in the days of her empire. She had no fear from within the island, and she had command of the seas.
Chapter 7: Minoan Architecture and Fresco Painting
Perhaps the most vivid traces of the ancient civilization of Crete are the remains of the buildings which have been found in the soil. Here you have the rooms that were lived in, and the appeal to the imagination is direct. The relics of buildings are more extensive than those of any other kind, and they were the first discovered by the excavator, just as they are the first points of interest to the visitors who nowadays go to the island.
The buildings of the Stone Age have left hardly a trace of themselves, because they were made of such perishable materials as mud, reed, and wickerwork. Dr. L. Pernier has discovered, under the Minoan palace at Phæstos, a bit of the floor of one of these mud huts. It consists of red clay about four inches thick. Some houses, it is true, have been found near the modern Palaikastro, built of unhewn stone, and dating from the Neolithic Age, but they are exceptional. It was only when metal tools were invented that stone could be used generally for building. At the beginning of the Bronze Age the lower walls used to be made of stone, and the upper of sunburnt brick, the latter being further strengthened by wooden stays. Lime plaster was used even then to protect the walls against the weather. Later in the Bronze Age, when the great palaces were built, it became the practice to build foundations and lower walls to a height of about two yards of strong limestone blocks, some of them three yards long and one yard wide, and of gypsum. A protective covering of plaster was then applied. The upper storeys were generally of wood. Wood was extensively used. Professor Mosso, in reference to a wall of the vestibule at the top of the great staircase at Phæstos, says that “a base of alabaster having been made, holes were made in it to fix slabs of wood all round. These were bound together, and the hollow was filled with a mixture of lime and rubble” (The Palaces of Crete, p. 47). Whole tree-trunks were sometimes used as beams, and one can still see the holes in the stone into which they were fixed.
There are many features of these palaces which are worth minute study. In the building of the great palaces it was the practice to prepare the ground with a thick mixture of lime and clay and pebbles. This mixture set so hard that it has now to be broken up with explosives before objects below can be removed. The staircase at Knossos measures nearly fifteen yards from side to side, and the steps are two and a half feet wide and hardly five inches deep. The most famous steps in Rome were not more than five and a half yards from side to side. The doors of the palace, of which there were many, were made to fit into the walls when open, so as not to interfere with corridor space. At Hagia Triada the drains of 4,000 years ago may still be seen working in wet weather. At Knossos the main drain, which had its sides coated with cement, was more than three feet high and nearly two feet broad, large enough for a man to move along it; and the smaller stone shafts that discharged into it are still in position.
The water supply entered the palace from the north. In 1904 Sir Arthur Evans discovered some pipes in position to the north-west of the palace, running alongside the paved road which leads to the Theatral Area and the Little Palace. The necks of these pipes point eastward towards the palace and they lead from the very hills on the west from which the Venetian and Turkish aqueduct still supplies Candia. They must, therefore, have been aqueducts and not drains, and probably form part of the same system as the terra-cotta pipes discovered in the earlier excavations further east, and at the time considered to be connexions in the drainage system. They are thus described by Dr. Burrows: “Each of them was about two and a half feet long, with a diameter that was about six inches at the broad end, and narrowed to less than four inches at the mouth, where it fitted into the broad end of the next pipe. Jamming was carefully prevented by a stop-ridge, that ran round the outside of each narrow end a few inches from the mouth, while the inside of the butt, or broader end, was provided with a raised collar that enabled it to bear the pressure of the next pipe’s stop-ridge, and gave an extra hold for the cement that bound the two pipes together” (Ibid., p. 9).
There were also baths at Knossos. At any rate, a good many people think they were baths. Professor Mosso thinks they were chapels—a good instance of the excitement which attaches to archæological research. There is no arrangement, says Professor Mosso, for the supply or discharge of water, a provision which, he argues, is necessary for a bath; moreover, the basin is lined with gypsum, which is soluble in water; one of them was placed in the Throne Room; and, finally, they were not private. Professor Mosso’s subtle eye even detects an enclosure, which he maintains was not put there for spectators of the bath, but for a chapel choir. These are attractive arguments, but Dr. Burrows answers quite simply that (1) the gypsum argument is ruled out because it would be covered with plaster; (2) terra-cotta tubs have been found close at hand, and the Knossians might quite well have been content with tubbing instead of plunging into a large tank that needed elaborate pipes; (3) the bath in the Throne Room was used for ceremonial ablutions, for which little water would be needed; and (4) no objects suggesting any cult (such as images or altars) have been found to show that these places were chapels.
Or take the lighting arrangements. There was a system of shafts used at Knossos, at Tylissos (a little palace a few miles west of Knossos), at Phæstos, and at Hagia Triada. The light came down vertically at the back of the room, where the roof had been left uncovered for the purpose, and the floor specially cemented to stand exposure to the weather. While Sir Arthur Evans speaks of the light “pouring in between the columns” in one place, and in another of its “stealing in in cooler tones,” Dr. Burrows was of opinion that in the latter case the cooler tones were so cool that lamps had to be used. Many lamps have, in fact, been found there. Big marble-standard lamps have also been found, which probably held two or even four wicks; one of them was found in a niche on a staircase at Tylissos.
The use of lime plaster on the outer walls gave an opportunity to the Minoan artists, who not only painted frescoes on them, but fashioned the plaster into relief. (See “Minoan Lime Plaster and Fresco Painting,” by Mr. Noel Heaton, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, vol. xviii, pp. 697-710.) “Fresco” paintings are made as soon as the initial setting of the plaster takes place, and while it is still wet. Brilliant colours were used—red ochre in the Early Minoan period (made by burning yellow clay), then yellow (from the natural clay) and black; then blue, progressing from a pale greenish tint in Middle Minoan to a dark blue in Late Minoan. The cupbearer is an example of fresco painting, and the bull’s head of high relief; the fresco painters merely attempted an outline and wash of colour in two dimensions, not indicating shades or folds of drapery. The main difference between Cretan painting on wet plaster and Egyptian painting on fine white limestone is that the Cretan gives a more vivid impression of movement, and the Egyptian more detail. (See “The Relations of Ægean with Egyptian Art,” Journal of Egyptian Archæology, vol. i, pt. 3, July, 1914, pp. 197-205.) This is partly accounted for by the fact that Minoan painting was often done when the plaster was still wet.
There are many other sites in Crete which cannot be dealt with here—Gournia on the north coast, Palaikastro and others in the east, and Vrokastro. Their main importance lies in their bearing upon Minoan town-planning. Vrokastro has been explored by Miss E. H. Hall, who published her results in 1914 (Anthropological Publications of the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia). It has a special interest because it belongs to the Iron Age, and shows the inferiority of this age to its predecessor, the Bronze Age. In general, the houses in these towns were huddled together with the object of leaving as much ground as possible free for agriculture. They are poor specimens of houses,—small two-storeyed cottages with windows on each side of the door. Several rooms have been discovered in which upright faces of rock served as walls—a device still used in Crete. An interesting point about them is that they were built on rocky eminences or spurs of mountains—a significant sidelight on the fall of Knossos and the disappearance of her fleet.