A Late Minoan Shrine at Knossos

Abstract

The pair of Horns of Consecration at Fig. 1 (A) and plate 46a was found at Knossos in 1969 when an area in front of the Stratigraphical Museum was being levelled for the extension of that building. It lay more or less on the surface, but had been covered and protected by the bole of an olive tree; and it was the removal of this tree which brought the object to light.At first the author suspected that it had been hidden under the tree some years ago by a villager who had chanced to find it elsewhere. But this suspicion was disproved when further clearance revealed a patch of pebble floor on which were two broken ‘incense-burners’ of Late Minoan type. The area had unfortunately been badly disturbed by later pits and building activity; but enough remained both to trace a strip c. 1·50 m. long of the floor, which had been relaid several times, and to indicate that a line of stones bordering it to the west were the remains of one wall of a room contemporary with the floor, Fig. 2. Clearly, therefore, we had found the ruins of a Minoan shrine.