Some of the Knossian plaques show houses of three and four
storeys, with windows filled in with a red material which, as Dr.
Evans suggests, may have been oiled and tinted parchment. In such
houses, as distinguished from the palaces, there was no separation
between the apartments of men and women. The fabric of the houses
was generally of sun-dried brick, reared upon lower walls of stone;
some of the Knossian villas, however, were plastered and timbered,
the round beam-ends showing in the frontage. Oblong windows took
the place of the light-wells which give indirect illumination to
the palace rooms. The accommodation must have been fairly extensive.
The smaller houses have six to eight rooms, the larger ones twice
that number; while one of the houses in Palaikastro has no fewer
than twenty-three rooms.
Within doors the walls were finished with smooth plaster, and probably
decorated with painting, though, of course, on a humbler scale than
in the palaces. The floors were of flagstones and cement, even
in the upper storeys, and in some cases of cobbles or of earth
rammed hard. The furniture of the rooms has perished, except in
the case of such articles as were of stone or plaster; but the
evidence we possess of the comfort and even the luxury of the life
of these times in other respects suggests that the townsfolk of
Gournia and the other Cretan towns were not lacking in any of the
essentials of a comfortable home life.
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