n work and that of the
great road-makers of later days. The Roman road came out rather
badly from the comparison, the earlier construction being superior
in every respect. The central part of the Minoan road consisted
of a well-paved causeway, rather more than 4-1/2 feet wide, while
on either side of this there extended to a breadth of more than
3-1/2 feet a strip of pebbles, clay, and pounded potsherds rammed
hard, making the whole breadth of the road almost 12 feet. Close
by this first European example of scientific road-making ran the
remains of water conduits, which may have led from a spring on Mount
Juktas, and near the road also were found magazines of clay tablets,
giving details of numbers of chariots, bows, and arrows, while in
the immediate neighbourhood of these were two actual deposits of
bronze-headed shafts.

As the Minoan road was followed up in 1905, it led the explorers
towards an important building in the face of the hill to the north-west.
Its exploration was rendered extremely difficult by the fact that
its masonry ran right back into the side of the hill, which was
covered by an olive wood, beneath whose roots lay a stratum made
up of the remains of Graeco-Roman houses. But the building, when
explored, proved to be well worth the labour, for the Little Palace,
as it is called, was an important structure with a frontage of
over 114 feet, and its pillared hall was worthy of comparison even
with the fine rooms of its great neighbour. In Late Minoan times
part of this fine hall had been used as a shrine, and in it were
found, along with the usual 'horns of consecration,' three fetish
idols, grotesque natural concretions of quasi-human type. Of these,
the largest had some resemblance to a woman of ample contours, while
a smaller nodule suggested the figure of an infant, and near it
was a rude representation of a Cretan wild-goat. The third nodule
was of apelike aspect. In view of all the religious associations
of Crete, it can scarcely be doubted that these grotesque images,
'not made with hands,' represent Mother Rhea, the infant Zeus, and
the goat Amaltheia. The cult of stones, meteorites and concretions
such as these of the Little Palace, has been widespread in all
ages; one has only to remember the black stone which forms the
most sacred treasure of Mecca, the black stone which stood in the
Temple of the Great Mother at Rome, and the image of the great
goddess Diana at Ephesus, 'which fell down fr