There would be accommodation on the steps for
some four or five hundred spectators.
It must be confessed that the place leaves much to be desired as
a theatre. The shallow steps must have made somewhat uncomfortable
sitting-places, though one must remember that the Minoan ladies
often, apparently, adopted a sitting posture which was more like
squatting than sitting, and that a seat found in 1901, evidently
designed for a woman's use, was only a trifle over 5 inches in
height. But male dignity required more lofty sitting accommodation;
the seat of the throne of Minos is nearly 23 inches high, and the
spectators of the Knossian theatre cannot have been all women.
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 entitled 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.
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