he wrestling ring. It may be permissible to indulge
the imagination with the thought that we can still behold the very
place where, while the grim King and his gaily-bedecked courtiers
looked on at the sports which were meant only as a prelude to a
dreadful tragedy, the actors in one of the great romances of the
world found love waiting for them before the gates of death. In
any case, the spot may well have been a most fitting one for the
birth of an immortal tale of love. For it is not improbable that,
in its religious aspect, it had a connection with a greater, a
Divine namesake of the human Ariadne. The great goddess of Knossos,
in one aspect of her nature, was the same whom the Greeks knew
later as Aphrodite, the foam-born Goddess of Love. To this goddess
there was attached in Crete the native dialect epithet of 'The
Exceeding Holy One,' 'Ariadne,' and the Theatral Area may well
have been the place where ceremonial dances were performed in her
honour.

Within the palace walls abundant remains of fine polychrome ware of
the Middle Minoan period were found as the season's work went on.
The dungeons of the preceding year's excavations were supplemented
by the discovery of four more, making six in all, and it was shown
that these pits must have belonged to a very early period in the
history of the buildings, for they have no structural connection
with the walls of the Later Palace, which, indeed, cross them in
some places. But the great discovery within the area was that of
the Temple Repositories. As the eastern side of the palace gave
evidence of having been the domestic quarter, so the west-central
part showed traces of having had a special religious significance
in the palace life. Religion, indeed, seems to have bulked very
largely in the economy of the House of Minos, which is what might
have been expected when one remembers the closeness of the relations
between Zeus and Minos as depicted in the legends, and realizes
that very probably the Kings of Knossos were Priest-Kings, and
perhaps even incarnations of the Bull-god.

Near the west-central part of the palace the Double Axe sign occurred
very frequently, and other evidences seemed to suggest that somewhere
in this vicinity there must have been a sanctuary of some sort.
This season's explorations confirmed the suggestion, for, near
the Pillar Room at the west side of the Central Court, there were
discovered two large cists, which had been used for the storag