5 90. Plans for Structural Re-constitution carried to Completion.
Section of Bull-grappling Relief set up in West Portico of Northern
Entrance.

Unique conditions of Excavation on site of Knossos; Alternative of
re-supporting upper Stories or of complete ruin ; Earlier materials employed
unsatisfactory ; Problem solved by use of ferro-coucrete; Results tested by
Earthquakes of 11)26 and ipjo ; Lateral reconstruction for buttressing
important strti.clu.rcs ; Reconstruction of South- West Columnar Chamber—
Pillar Crypt below; Deposit of L. M. I a pottery—votive figure of Ox;
Sanctuary character of Columnar Chamber ; Removal of fresco remains to
Museum; Replicas ofimportant frescoes replacedin situ on walls; Comple-
tion of this work North- West and North of Central Cotirt; Reconslitutiou
of West Portico of Northern Entrance Passage; Restored plan of area ;
Painted relief compositions of the two Porticoes relating to bull-sports;
Comparisons made with Vapheio Cup and relief from ' A treus' Tomb at
Mycenae ; Restoration of upper elements of North- West Porch; West Portico
of Northern Entrance Passage as restored; Section of its painted reliefs
replaced in replica, showing charging bull and olive-tree ; Greek interpretation
of Minotaur—a Miuoiziug bead-seal; Haunted site left deserted, except by
' No use of Rhea '.

In the long work on the site of Knossos which, with some interruption Unique
caused by the Great War, has engaged my own energies for the last thirty1 ti°"s'of
years and the preliminaries of which go back a good deal further, it early Excava-

J L . . Hon on

became evident that the problem of excavation was unique in more than site of
one respect amongst monuments of the Past. The upper stories—of which
in the 'Domestic Quarter' three successive stages were encountered—
had not, as in the parallel case of other ancient buildings, been supported
by solid piers of masonry or brick-work, or by stone columns. They had
here been held up in a principal degree by a timber framework, the huge
posts and beams of which, together with the shafts of the columns, were
either supplied by the cypress forests, then existing in the neighbouring glens,
or by similar material imported from over sea. The reduction, either by
chemical processes or by actual burning of these wooden supports to mere
crumbling masses of charcoal, had thus left vast voids in the interspaces.
The upper floors and structures had indeed—in a manner that sometimes
seemed.almost miraculous—been held approximately at their levels by the
rubble formation that had insinuated itself below—due largely to the falling
in of bricks of unburnt clay, partly dissolved, from the upper walls.

IV. E