On the hill of Isopata, between Knossos and the sea, Dr. Evans
also discovered a stately sepulchre, whose occupant had evidently
been some Minoan King of the Third Middle period. The tomb consisted
of a rectangular chamber measuring about 8 by 6 metres, and built of
courses of limestone blocks, which projected one beyond the other
until they met in a high gable, forming a false arch similar to
those of the beehive tombs at Mycenae. The back wall of the chamber
had a central cell opposite to its blocked entrance, and the portal,
also false-arched, led into a lofty entrance-hall, in the side
walls of which, facing one another, were two cells, which had been
used for interments. The whole was approached by an imposing avenue
cut in the solid rock. The tomb had been rifled in ancient days,
but there still remained a golden hair-pin, parts of two silver
vessels, and a large bronze mirror; while among the stone vessels
found a diorite bowl again recalled the hard stone vessels of the
Early Egyptian dynasties.
The Dictaean Cave has already been mentioned as being peculiarly
associated with the legends about the birth of Zeus and his relationship
with Minos. Hesiod states that Rhea carried the new-born Zeus to
Lyttos, and thence to a cavern in Mount Aigaios, the north-west
peak of Dicte. Lucretius, Virgil, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus
all knew of a story in which the whole childhood of Zeus had been
passed in a cave on Dicte, and Dionysius assigns to the Dictaean
Cave that finding of the law by Minos which presents so curious a
parallel to the giving of the tables of the law to Moses on Mount
Sinai.
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