16 
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 
de-lis, wrought, no doubt, in precious 
metal. 
The Minoan women are depicted with 
a perfectly white skin, which contrasts 
strongly with the bronzed hue of the 
men. The deep copperly tint of the 
men and the dead white skin of the 
women is, of course, to be accepted only 
as a convention, similar to that adopted 
by Egyptian artists, meant to express a 
difiference of complexion caused by 
greater or less exposure to the weather ; 
and we need not imagine that there was 
so great a contrast between the coloring 
of men and women in actual life as 
would appear from the paintings. 
If the dress of the male portion of the 
populace was simple, that of the female 
was the reverse. An elaborate and tight- 
fitting bodice, cut excessively low at the 
neck, covered, or affected to cover, the 
upper part of the body, which is so 
wasp-waisted as to suggest universal 
tight-lacing. From the broad belt hung 
down bell-shaped skirts, sometimes 
flounced throughout their whole length, 
sometimes richly embroidered, as in the 
case of a votive skirt represented in 
faience among the belongings of the 
Snake Goddess found in the Temple 
Repositories. 
In some cases — e. g., that of the 
votaress of the Snake Goddess — the 
skirt, below a small panier or apron, is 
composed of different colored materials 
combined in a chequer pattern distantly 
resembling tartan. A fresco from Hagia 
Triada represents a curious and elab- 
orate form of dress, consisting appar- 
ently of wide trousers of blue material 
dotted with red crosses on a light 
ground and most wonderfully frilled 
and vandyked. Diaphanous material was 
sometimes used for part of the covering 
of the upper part of the body, as in the 
case of some of the figures from the 
Knossos frescoes. 
Hairdressing, as already noticed, was 
very elaborate, and above the wonderful 
erections of curls and ringlets which 
crowned their heads the Minoan ladies, 
if one may judge from the Petsofa fig- 
urines, wore hats of quite modern type, 
and fairly comparable in size even with 
those of the present day (see pp. 13-14). 
A seal from Mycenae, representing 
three ladies adorned with accordeon- 
plaited skirts, shov/s that heels of a fair 
height were sometimes worn on the 
shoes. 
Necklaces, bracelets, and other articles 
of adornment were in general use, and 
the workmanship of some of the sur- 
viving specimens is astonishingly fine. 
Altogether, so far as can be estimated 
from the representations which have 
come down to us, the appearance of a 
Minoan assembly would, to a modern 
eye, seem curiously mixed. The men 
would fit in with our ideas of their 
period, but the women would remind us 
more of a European gathering of the 
mid-nineteenth century. 
THE HOUSKS WERE ALSO MODERN IN 
APPEARANCE 
The houses which were occupied by 
these modern-looking ladies and their 
mates were unexpectedly unlike any- 
thing in the house-building of the classi- 
cal period. There is little of the uni- 
formity of style and arrangement which 
characterizes the ordinary Greek house. 
The Minoan burgher built his home as 
the requirements of his site and of his 
household suggested, and was not the 
slave of any fixed convention in the mat- 
ter of plan. 
The houses at Gournia, Palaikastro, 
and Zakro, which may be taken as 
typical specimens of ordinary Minoan 
domestic architecture, must have been 
much more like modern houses than any- 
thing that we know of in Greek towns 
of the classical period ; and the eleva- 
tions of Minoan villas preserved in the 
faience plaques from the chest at Knos- 
sos suggest the frontages of a suburban 
avenue. 
Some of the Knossian plaques show 
houses of three and four stories, 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 
