n a staircase near the east bastion, on the
lower part of the slope, a stone runnel for carrying off the surface
water follows the line of the steps. Lest the steepness of the
gradient should allow the water to descend too rapidly and flood
the pavement below, the runnel is so constructed that the water
follows a series of parabolic curves, and the rapidity of its fall
is thus checked by friction. The main drains are duly provided
with manholes for inspection, and 'are so roomy,' says Dr. Evans,
'that two of my Cretan workmen spent days within them clearing out
the accumulated earth and rubble without physical inconvenience.'
Those who remember the many extant descriptions of the sanitary
arrangements, or rather the want of sanitary arrangements, in such
a town as the Edinburgh of the end of the eighteenth century, will
best appreciate the care and forethought with which the Minoan
architects, more than 3,000 years earlier, had provided for the
sanitation of the great Palace of Minos (Plates XVI. 2 and XX. 1).

Turning from the material to the spiritual, evidence as to the
religious conceptions of the inhabitants of the palace was forthcoming
in two instances. In one early chamber there was found a little
painted terra-cotta object consisting of a group of three columns
standing on an oblong platform. The square capitals of the columns
each carried two round beams, their ends showing, exactly as in
the case of the pillar on the Lion Gate at Mycenae; and on the top
of the beams doves were perched. Here is the evidence of a cult in
which a Dove Goddess--a Goddess of the Air--was worshipped under
the form of a trinity of pillars; and confirmation of the existence
of such a form of belief was afforded by the discovery, in the
south-east corner of the palace, of a little shrine, in which,
along with the usual 'horns of consecration' and sacred Double
Axes, were found three figures of a goddess, of very archaic form,
on the head of one of which there was also perched a dove. The Double
Axes in the shrine again emphasized the importance in the palace
worship of the Labrys, and underlined the suggestion that the Palace
of Knossos is nothing more nor less than the legendary Labyrinth of
Minos. 'That the _Labrys_ symbol should be the distinguishing cult
sign of the Minoan Palace makes it more and more probable that
we must in fact recognize in this vast building, with its maze of
corridors and chambers and its network of subterr