THE PALACE OF MINOS. 431 



la?um with double columns, the walls of which were originally decorated 

 with figures in the same style Along- nearly the whole length of the 

 building- ran a spacious paved corridor, lined by a long row of tine stone 

 doorways, giving access to a succession of magazines. On the floor of 

 these magazines huge store jars were still standing, large enough to 

 have contained the ""forty thieves" (tig. 2). One of these jars, con- 

 tained in a small separate chamber, was nearly ."> feet in height (tig. 3). 



Here occurred one of the most curious discoveries of the whole 

 excavation. Under the closely compacted pavement of one of these 

 magazines, upon which the huge jars stood, there were built in between 

 solid piles of masonry double tiers of stone cists lined with lead. 

 Only a few were opened and they proved to be empty, but there can 

 be little doubt that they were constructed for the deposit of treasure. 

 Whoever destroyed and plundered the palace had failed to discover 

 these receptacles, so that when more come to be explored there is some 

 real hope of finding buried hoards. 



On the east side of the palace opened a still larger paved court, 

 approached by broad steps from another principal entrance to the north. 

 From this court access was given by an anteroom (tig. 4) to what was 

 certainly the most interesting chamber of the whole building, almost 

 as perfectly preserved — though some twelve centuries older — as any- 

 thing found beneath the volcanic ash of Pompeii or the lava of Hercu- 

 laneum. Already a few inches below the surface freshly preserved 

 fresco began to appear. Walls were shortly uncovered decorated with 

 flowering plants and running water, while on each side of the doorway 

 of a small inner room stood guardian griffins with peacocks' plumes in 

 the same flowery landscape. Round the walls ran low stone benches, 

 and between these on the north side, separated by a small interval and 

 raised on a stone base, rose a gypsum throne with a high back, and 

 originally colored with decorative designs. Its lower part was adorned 

 with a curiously carved arch, with crocketed moldings, showing an 

 extraordinary anticipation of some most characteristic features of 

 Gothic architecture. Opposite the throne was a finely wrought tank of 

 gypsum slabs — a feature borrowed perhaps from an Egyptian palace — 

 approached by a descending flight of steps, and originally surmounted 

 by Cyprus- wood columns supporting a kind of impluvium. Here truly 

 was the council chamber of a Mycenaean king or sovereign lady. It 

 may be said to-day that the youngest of European rulers has in his 

 dominions the oldest throne in Europe (tig. 5). 



The frescoes discovered on the palace site constitute a new epoch in 

 the history of painting. Little, indeed, of the kind even of classical 

 Greek antiquity has been hitherto known earlier at least than the 

 Pompeian series. The first find of this kind marks a red-letter day in 

 the story of the excavation. In carefully uncovering (he earth and 

 debris in a passage at the back of the southern Propyheum there came 



