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Throne
Room Suite
Entrance
to the Throne Room Suite
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There
is a clear distinction between the formal rooms
on the west side of the central court and the
magazines behind them. They were separated from
each other by the Long Corridor and access to
the latter was strictly controlled. The Throne
Room Suite itself sits at the north end of the
Central Court. There is an Antechamber, which
opens directly onto the court, the Throne Room
itself, and an Inner Sanctuary. From the way in
which the walls surrounding it have been interrupted
to accommodate it, it is clear that the suite
is a late addition. All traces of pre-existing
rooms, apart from a section of curving wall in
the north-eastern corner, were removed and the
new suite was built directly on top of sub-Neolithic
deposits. |
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Antechamber (right) is accessible
from the court by a set of four double doors. This
type of multiple opening is known as a polythyron
and is a regular feature of ceremonial rooms and
cult installations. It is essentially a set of double
doors that fit into recesses in the jambs on either
side and enable the room to be rapidly closed off
or opened to the light. Evans saw them as a rather
neat system of Minoan ‘climate control’
but some sort of ritual use seems equally possible.
The room itself was reached by a flight of four
steps that descend from the courtyard. The paved
floor was made up of a central square of irregular
ironstone slabs surround by gypsum flagstones. There
were gypsum benches up against the north and south
walls, with space for a throne up against the north
wall—Evans found a deposit of ash and carbonized
wood there. Traces of wall paintings have survived—the
foot of a bull resting on an imitation marble dado.
When he restored the antechamber, Evans placed a
large basin of purple gypsum, which he had found
in a nearby passage, in the middle of the room. |
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A
rather wide doorway led into the Throne Room.
Scuff marks on the floor and traces of a door jamb show
that originally there was a polythyron of two double
doors here. The arrangements were rather similar to
those in the antechamber—there were benches along
the walls with a gap towards the middle of the northern
wall. In this case, however, the throne was gypsum but
carved to imitate a wooden version.
Excavation
of the Throne Room
The
throne is partly embedded in the north wall and framed
by the remains of a wall-painting depicting painted
griffins against a backdrop of papyrus plants and wavy
bands. Another griffin appears to the right of the door
at the rear of the chamber. Since this mythical animal
is normally associated with the goddess and never with
a male figure, it is probably better to think in terms
of a priestess rather than a king seated on the throne.
The religious nature of the setting is reinforced by
the stylized depiction of incurved altars on either
side. Near the doorway to the antechamber, Evans found
a number of alabastra—squat, flat-bottomed vessels
used for oil, perhaps the perfumed type used to anoint.
Nearby were found the crushed fragments of a pithos,
causing him to believe that they were in the process
of being filled when the ceiling came crashing down,
the result of the earthquake that finally destroyed
the palace.
The
Throne Room (restored
by Evans)
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Opposite
the throne, behind a balustrade with three wooden
columns, was one of Evans’ lustral
basins. This was the term he used to
describe a small sunken room reached by a short
flight of steps—six, in this case. Since
this along with the other examples he investigated
at Knossos were lined with stone and apparently
waterproof, he assumed they were filled with water
to be used for ritual cleansing. However, since
Evans’ day quite a few examples have turned
up that are unlined and could never have held
water. Most scholars nowadays prefer to see these
rooms as serving some other ritual function—perhaps
having to do with the underworld.
Directly
overhead was a light-well,
an opening in the ceiling that probably continued
to the roof. Evans believed they were there to
provide fresh air and light to the interior rooms
of the palace but they are often found adjacent
to open areas, which should have rendered them
superfluous. |
Throne
Room with Lustral Basin in the foreground |
A
more likely interpretation (in instances such as this,
anyway) is that they related to whatever went on in the
lustral basin, permitting observation of the rituals from
above. When Evans cleared the basin he found quite a number
of objects, bits of crystal and gold leaf, that believed
came from the room above. Access to this ‘loggia’
was either by way of the monumental staircase adjacent
to the Throne Room or by a small winding stairway next
to the Antechamber on the northern side.
Loggia
above the Throne Room (restored by Evans)
Beyond
the Throne Room is an Inner Sanctuary,
which appears to have been used as a robing room—a
silver armlet and some gold foil was found on a raised
altar. On the north and west sides of the suite were
various service rooms including what Evans took to be
a small kitchen (although its furnishings—a stone
seat, a low gypsum table with bowl-like hollow at one
end and a bench with similar receptacle—are subject
to interpretation). The seat is a slab of limestone
about 12cm thick, contoured to accommodate a woman’s
posterior in his opinion. A nearly identical one was
found by the entrance to this particular group of rooms—for
a female porter, Evans thought. Along the south side
and connected to the Throne Room by a short passage,
was a long magazine with three large cists for the storage
of precious objects.
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