Here the slope of the ground had been
such that storey had been piled above storey, even before the level
of the Central Court had been reached, so that on this side it was
not only the basement of the building that had been preserved, but
a whole complex of rooms going down from the central area to different
levels, and connected with one another by a great staircase, which,
in the course of this and subsequent seasons' excavations, was found
to have had no fewer than five flights of steps. Of this staircase,
thirty-eight steps are still preserved, and good fortune had so
brought it about that at the destruction of the palace some of
the upper chambers had fallen in such a manner that their debris
actually propped up the staircase and some of the upper floorings,
and kept them in place; and thus it has been possible to reconstruct
a large part of the arrangement of the various rooms and floors in
this quarter of the building (Plate XVI. 1). Far down below the
level of the Central Court lay a fine Colonnaded Hall about 26 feet
square, from which the great staircase, with pillars and balustrades,
led to the upper quarter (Plate XVII. 2), while adjoining it was
a stately and finely-proportioned hall--the Hall of the Double
Axes--about 80 feet in length by 26 feet in breadth, and divided
transversely by a row of square-sided pillars (Plate XVII.
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