Nicole Field’s Reviews > How to Fit All of Ancient Greece in an Elevator > Status Update

At the time, scribes used to write on unbaked clay shaped either like a leave or a page. The tablets were then classified by subject in wicker or wooden boxes, and archived. When the season ended and a new cycle of accounts, etc., began, they would take the pieces of clay - the tablets, as we call them - and use water to soften and reuse them.

We found streets and squares, entire neighbourhoods of well-built, two-storey houses with every imaginable comfort inside and decorated with incredible wall paintings. [...]These houses attested to a truly enviable standard of living, with their elegant carved furniture and beautiful vases.

Knossos, amongst the earliest and largest of the various Minoan palaces, was unparalleled in size, extravagance, and magnificence, not only for the duration of prehistory but for many subsequent centuries. It contained monumental staircases and central courtyards, enormous storage rooms, reception spaces, baths, paved roadways, a water management and sewer system, even a water-flushing latrine!

Apollo, who grabbed a golden sword, slashed through the cloth, rose on his two feet, and instantaneously grew to adulthood. Then, the entire Aegean was bathed in light. A herd of swans, come from the distant lands of the far north, circled seven times around the now sacred palm tree, and all the Olympians gathered to marvel at the new god of light.