The extraordinary multiplication of such
scenes, in painting, in the round, on gems and seal impressions,
helps one to realize the hold which the passion of bull-fighting,
or, rather, bull-grappling, had upon the Cretan mind, a hold no
doubt connected with the important part which the bull appears
to have played in the Minoan religion (Plate XIX.).
[Illustration XII: MINOAN PAVED ROAD (_p_. 110)
NORTH ENTRANCE, KNOSSOS (_p_. 75)]
One of the season's finds was peculiarly useful and interesting, as
having yielded a considerable mass of material for reconstructing
the appearance of a Minoan town. A great chest of cypress wood--in
which perhaps some Knossian Nausicaa once kept her store of linen--had
been decorated with a series of enamelled plaques, depicting a
Minoan town, with its towers and houses, its fields and cattle
and orchards. The chest itself had perished in the conflagration
of the palace, leaving only a charred mass of woodwork; but the
plaques survived. Some of them represent houses, evidently of wood
and plaster fabric, for the round ends of the beams show in the
frontage. On the ground-floor are the doors, in some cases double;
above are second and third storeys, with rows of windows fitted with
some red material, which may have been oiled and tinted parchment,
while some of the houses have an attic storey with windows above the
third floor.
Pages:
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117