18 
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 
A BATHROOM IN THE PALACE OE KNOSSOS 
Knossian villas, however, were plastered 
and timbered, the round beam - ends 
showing in the frontage. Oblong win- 
dows 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 23 rooms. 
Within doors the walls were finished 
with smooth plaster and probably deco- 
rated with painting, though of course on 
an humbler scale than in the palaces. 
The floors were of flagstones and ce- 
ment, even in the upper stories, and 
in some cases of cobbles or of earth 
rammed hard. 
The furniture of the rooms has per- 
ished, except in the case of such articles 
as were of stone or plaster ; but the evi- 
dence 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. 
The ryreat chest at Knossos, which was 
once decorated with the faience plaques, 
was of course part of the furnishing of 
a royal home, and we are not to suppose 
that such magnificent pieces of 
furniture were common ; but in 
their own fashion the ordinary 
Minoan houses were doubtless 
quite adequately appointed, and 
the great variety of domestic 
utensils which has survived 
shows that life in the Bronze 
Age homes of Crete was by no 
means a thing of primitive and 
rough-and-ready simplicity, but 
was well and carefully organized 
in its details. 
It has been remarked that 
"cooking in Homer is monoto- 
nous, because no one eats any- 
thing but roast meat" ; but this 
accusation could not be brought 
against the Minoans, who had 
evidently attained to a consider- 
able skill and variety in the way 
in which they prepared their 
viands for the table. The three- 
legged copper pot, which was the most 
common vessel for cooking purposes, was 
supplemented by stew-pans with con- 
densing lids and a variety of other forms 
of sauce-pans, while the number of dif- 
ferent types of perforated vessels for 
straining and other purposes shows the 
care with which the art of cooking 
was attended to. Probably the Minoan 
kitchen, though we are still much in the 
dark as to its form, was almost as well 
equipped for its special functions as the 
kitchen of the present day. 
Even at this exceedingly early stage 
of human progress the various branches 
of industry had become fairly separated 
and specialized — more so, perhaps, than 
in the Homeric period — and a consider- 
able variety of tools was employed in 
the various crafts. The carpenter was 
evidently a highly skilled craftsman, and 
the tools which have survived show the 
variety of work which he undertook. 
A whole carpenter's kit lay concealed 
in a cranny of a Gournia house, left be- 
hind in the owner's hurried flight when 
the town was attacked and burned. He 
used saws long and short ; heavy chisels 
for stone and light for wood ; awls, nails, 
files, and axes much battered by use; 
and, what is very important to note, they 
resemble in shape the tools of today so 
