To mention but a few of the most remarkable facts about the palace, it was of _several storeys_, grouped around a central court and pierced by "light-wells"; it contained several staircases, one of them at least being of a very imposing character and composed of _many flights_. Moreover, it possessed a quite modern system of drainage, with _jointed underground pipes_ and with inspection manholes to the main drains. Along the west side of the basement ran a long straight gallery flanked by a series of great storage-rooms or magazines. It was near one end of this gallery that Dr. Evans discovered a store of tablets with pictographic inscriptions, in proof of his suspicion that the Phoenician script was not the original parent of European written language. Not far from this spot was the room containing the throne (or Worshipful Master's Chair, as the masonic Dr. Churchward prefers to call it) which may actually have been occupied by King Minos. A definite distinction can be recognised between state and domestic apartments and subsidiary offices and workshops. To the north-west of the palace was a "stepped theatral area" (_orchestra_), which suggests the "dancing ground" of Ariadne. From the point of view of our subject, however, the most interesting features were the frequent occurrence of the sign of the double axe, which was obviously an object of great importance in Minoan worship, and the profusion of evidence concerning the cult of the bull. On the fallen plaster of one of the walls of a corridor, too, was a repeated meander pattern, painted in red on a white ground, very suggestive of a sort of maze (Fig. 8). The significance of the axe symbol from our point of view lies in its bearing on the derivation of the word "labyrinth," a question that will be referred to in rather more detail in a later chapter. [Illustration: FIG. 8.--Knossos. Maze-pattern on Wall of Palace. (After _Evans._)] [Illustration: Fig. 11. Knossos. View of Cist, showing shape of Double Axe. (From _Archæologia_, by kind permission of the Society of Antiquaries and Sir Arthur Evans.)] One room of the palace, a stately hall about 80 ft. in length by 26 ft. in breadth, traversed by a row of square-sectioned pillars, has been named by its discoverer "the Hall of the Double Axes," from the frequent occurrence of this symbol therein. Not only does the sacred axe occur as a more or less crude engraving on the stone blocks composing certain pillars in the palace, but little models of it were found associated with an altar, and, in the Dictaean cave, some miles distant, several bronze specimens of the axe were discovered in circumstances which show that they were votive offerings. Sometimes the sacred symbol was set up on a socketed pedestal (Fig. 9). Moreover, in more recent excavations a curious "tomb" was found (Figs. 10 and 11) which was double-axe shaped in plan and was evidently the repository of a giant emblem (Fig. 12. See plate, p. 42).