The Pottery of Knossos

In the first provisional reports of the Excavations in the Palace at Knossos, published by Mr. Evans after each season's work, the general accounts of the distribution and stratification of the pottery play a part in accordance with the importance of this kind of evidence in its bearing on the history of the site. From these accounts it will be seen that there exist on the Palace Site of Knossos and its neighbourhood three distinct strata of deposit.I. A prehistoric, neolithic stratum, first of all verified in the preliminary pits on the E. slope of the Knossos Hill and successively afterwards in the W. and N.E. regions of the site, then in test-pits sunk within the palace boundaries in the region N. of the S. Propylaea in the Central Court, in the Third Magazine and in the West Court. These test-pits all reached a depth of from seven to eight metres before virgin soil was reached. This gives a thickness of neolithic deposit starting from the virgin soil and extending upwards to the beginnings of the painted series averaging about six metres. This formidable depth of pure neolithic deposit is very much greater than any yet verified in the Aegean region, and in its gradual formation is in itself evidence both of the extreme longevity and of the unbroken continuity of development of the civilization represented by it.