This area, for whatever purpose it may have been designed, was evidently an integral portion of the Later Palace structure, for no fewer than five causeways converge upon it from different directions; but it was in no sense a thoroughfare, and the rows of steps around it do not lead, and can never have led, anywhere. What can have been the purpose of its existence? Dr. Evans's view, which is generally accepted, is that it was some sort of a primitive theatre, where the inhabitants of the palace gathered to witness sports and shows of some kind, the tiers of steps affording sitting accommodation for them, while the bastion at the south-east angle may have been a kind of Royal Box, from which Minoan majesty and its Court circle surveyed the games. There would be accommodation on the steps for some four or five hundred spectators. It must be confessed that the place leaves much to be desired as a theatre. The shallow steps must have made somewhat uncomfortable sitting-places, though one must remember that the Minoan ladies often, apparently, adopted a sitting posture which was more like squatting than sitting, and that a seat found in 1901, evidently designed for a woman's use, was only a trifle over 5 inches in height. But male dignity required more lofty sitting accommodation; the seat of the throne of Minos is nearly 23 inches high, and the spectators of the Knossian theatre cannot have been all women. Neither does the shape of the area appear to be particularly well adapted to the purpose suggested; and, on the whole, if it were really designed for a theatre, we must admit that the Minoan architects were less happily inspired in its erection than in most of their other works. At the same time, however, the obstinate fact remains that we can suggest no other conceivable purpose which the place can have served; and so, until some more likely use can be suggested, we are scarcely entitled to demur to Dr. Evans's theory.