The early work in the second year led to a further disclosure of
the large area of the Western Court of the palace, which seems
to have formed the meeting-place between the citizens of Knossos
and their royal masters. Here probably all the business between
the town and the palace-folk was transacted; stores were brought
up, received and paid for by the palace stewards, and passed into
the great magazines; and here, perhaps, the ancients of the Knossian
Assembly gathered in council to discuss affairs, as the men of the
Greek host gathered in the Iliad, while the King sat in state in
the Western Portico, presiding over their deliberations. The Portico
itself, with its wooden central pillar, 16 feet in height, must have
been a sufficiently imposing structure, while the great court on
which it opened, more than 160 feet in length, must have formed a
stately meeting-place for the citizens. Whether as market-place or
open-air council-room, this West Court must have presented a gay
and animated spectacle when the prosperity of the Minoan Empire
was at its height. Along the outer wall of the palace fronting the
court ran a projecting base, which served as a seat where merchants
or suppliants might wait, sheltered from the sun by the shadow of
the vast building at their backs, till their business fell to be
disposed of (Plate XV.
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