tation, on a diminutive scale, of the Knossian
Theatral Area, its magazines, and its West Court, where palace and
town met, as at Knossos, for business purposes. But the main interest
of the little town centred in its shrine and in the houses of the
burghers, with their evidences of a wonderfully even standard of
comfortable and peaceful life, by no means untinged with artistic
elegance.

The shrine, discovered in 1901, stood in the very heart of the
town, and was reached by a much-worn paved way. The sacred enclosure
was only some 12 feet square, and Mrs. Hawes is inclined to believe
that its rough walls never stood more than 18 inches high, forming
merely a little _temenos_, in which stood a sacred tree, and the
small group of cult objects which were still huddled together in
a corner of the shrine. 'It is true that they are very crude, made
in coarse terra-cotta, with no artistic skill; nevertheless, they
are eloquent, for they tell us that the Great Goddess was worshipped
in the town-shrine of Gournia, as in the Palace of Knossos. Here
were her images twined with snakes, her doves, the "horns of
consecration," the low, three-legged altar-table, and cultus vases.
To complete the list, a potsherd was found with the Double Axe
moulded upon it, an indication, perhaps, that some who claimed kin
with the masters of Crete paid their devotions at this unpretentious
shrine.'[*] The smallness of the shrine at Gournia may be compared
with the smallness of the sacred rooms at Knossos, and seems to
have been characteristic of the Minoan worship.

[Footnote *: 'Crete the Forerunner of Greece,' p. 98.]

The 5-feet-broad roadways of the town, neatly paved, are conclusive
evidence of the infrequent use of wheeled vehicles. Flush with their
borders stand the fronts of the houses. Two-storey houses were
common, some of them with a basement storey beneath the ground-floor
when the slope of the hill admitted of such an arrangement. In all
likelihood the general appearance of the homes was much like that
of the comfortable-looking houses depicted on the faience plaques
of Knossos, already referred to. Even ordinary craftsmen's houses
have six to eight rooms, while those of the wealthier burghers
have perhaps twice as many. Here and there evidences of the former
occupations of the inhabitants came to light--a complete set of
carpenter's tools in one house, a set of loom weights in another,
the block-mould in which a smith had cast his