and in some cases of cobbles or of earth
rammed hard. The furniture of the rooms has perished, except in
the case of such articles as were of stone or plaster; but the
evidence we possess of the comfort and even the luxury of the life
of these times in other respects suggests that the townsfolk of
Gournia and the other Cretan towns were not lacking in any of the
essentials of a comfortable home life. The great chest at Knossos
which was once decorated with the faience plaques was, of course,
part of the furnishing of a royal home, and we are not to suppose
that such magnificent pieces of furniture were common; but in their
own fashion the ordinary Minoan houses were doubtless quite adequately
appointed, and the great variety of domestic utensils which has
survived shows that life in the Bronze Age homes of Crete was by no
means a thing of primitive and rough-and-ready simplicity, but was
well and carefully organized in its details. It has been remarked
that 'cooking in Homer is monotonous, because no one eats anything
but roast meat'; but this accusation could not be brought against
the Minoans, who had evidently attained to a considerable skill
and variety in the way in which they prepared their viands for
the table. The three-legged copper pot which was the most common
vessel for cooking purposes was supplemented by stewpans with
condensing-lids, and a variety of other forms of saucepan, while
the number of different types of perforated vessels for straining
and other purposes shows the care with which the art of cooking
was attended to. Probably the Minoan kitchen, though we are still
much in the dark as to its form, was almost as well equipped for
its special functions as the kitchen of the present day.

We are, unfortunately, without any evidence as to the appearance
of the great palaces in their finished state. The inner plan can
be traced, but it is difficult to arrive at any idea of what these
huge buildings must have looked like from the outside. It is fairly
evident, however, that there cannot have been any symmetrical balancing
of the different architectural features. The palaces were more
like small towns than simple residences, and the impression made
upon the eye must have been due more to the great mass and extent
of the building than to any symmetry of plan. Probably we must
conceive of them as great complex blocks of solid building, rising
in terrace above terrace, the flat roofs giving an appearance