Τhe Hieroglyphic Archive
At the west part of the palace, and fallen from the upper floor, the best preserved to date hieroghlyphic archive of Minoan Crete was excavated. The room which contained the archive was situated above the gate, at the end of a staircase. During the Middle Minoan II B destruction of the palace, probably caused by an earthquake, there was an intense fire, and the whole room with its contents fell into the area of the gate. During the Neopalatial reconstruction of the palace, the gate was not cleared from the earlier remains, but was blocked instead, and went out of use. As a result, the archive was sealed and it was preserved virtually intact.
The finds were clay tablets of various types, used by the scribes to take notes of the contents of the storerooms, and also sealings, i.e. seal impressions from the seals of the palace officials on soft clay, used to seal either the rolls made of perishable material (parchment or papyrus), which constituted the permanent archive, or the small wooden boxes. There are also interesting marks of rope on the back side of the seals. The seal impressions belong to more than 40 different seals, offering evidence for the complex bureaucratic system of the palace. A unique find was a bronze stylus, which possibly had a wooden handle. The study of the material of the archive showed that there were two scribes at work at the time of the catastrophe, since several tablets were incomplete.
The pottery found in the archive deposit consisted of bowls and cups of various types, used by the personnel to take snacks during their working hours, as well as by visitors.
