The Bronze Age began the foundation for classical Greece. It was a period of learning and innovation and impacted hugely upon future cultures, traditions and civilisations. Knossos was a palace both built and destroyed during this period, on the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea. What was found at this site by archaeologists explored and provided an understanding of the Minoan civilisation, revealing a peaceful culture thriving through trade, providing an insight into the connections between it and of surrounding cultures of the era and exposing technology thousands of years ahead of its time, questioning everything that historians believed to be true about the past. Without archaeology, humankind would not have any knowledge of the existence of Knossos, a mythical palace, much less have gained the comprehension they did of Minoan civilisation and those of the Mediterranean.
The palace of Knossos was discovered and excavated by Sir Arthur Evans in 1900. The beginning of World War I forced excavations to pause from 1914 to 1922, but they continued never-the-less. Evans was born in 1851 in Hemel Hempstead, England. His father, John Evans, was a paper manufacturer who collected antiquities and had a strong interest in ancient history, encouraging the same passions in his son. Arthur Evans graduated from Oxford University with first-class honours, having completed a term of his studies in Gottingen, Germany. His love for Slavic people led him to the Balkans area numerous times after his graduation and to live in Ragusa (Dubrovnik), where he studied topography and ancient sites and stood up for Slavic rights against the Austro-Hungarians. In 1882 he was imprisoned for some months under accusations of espionage from the Austrians and was subsequently banned from entering Ragusa. Unable to return to his home he travelled to Greece and met Heinrich Schliemann, the archaeologist responsible for the discoveries of both Troy and Mycenae. Schliemann’s work inspired Evans to conduct his own investigations in the area of his interest; the legendary King Minos and tales of the Minotaur on Crete, which led to the discovery and therefore confirmation of the existence of the palace of Knossos.
The excavations at Knossos were financed primarily by Evans, as his father was a wealthy man and agreed to help fund the operations at Knossos. The Cretan Exploration Fund also donated money to the diggings. This was one of the reasons for the tension between Evans and his colleague, David George Hogarth, director of the British School of Athens. They differed in opinion over the salary of an archaeologist; Evans considered it ‘making money out of religion’, and Hogarth thought that Evans did not understand that for most archaeologists, finance for the excavations of a site was an issue (Cottrell, 1953, p. 148). He strongly disagreed with Evans’ controversial and expensive decision to reconstruct the palace, however he was not the only learned scholar who offered their opinion on the matter. Evans also enlisted the help of Duncan Mackenzie (archaeologist), Theodore Fyfe (architect), John Pendlebury (archaeologist) and many others. On the first day of excavations, Evans had only thirty men helping with excavations, however this number rapidly increased to over one hundred as the diggings revealed more fascinating discoveries. In the early twentieth century, it was still difficult for archaeologists to accurately date findings if there were no written documents or positively dated monuments, so Evans developed a new system to help him to date his findings, combining the method of stratigraphy and comparative dating which ultimately led to the system of relative dating. In the palace there were artefacts from Egypt, where the Egyptian Dynasties and the years during which they existed had already been established. With the help of Egyptologists, Evans compared Egyptian relics and the layers of the diggings that they were found in with what was known of the Egyptian Dynasties to establish approximate dates for the findings at Knossos. Although some of his methods were debated by the academic community, ultimately Evans improved archaeological dating techniques and saved the palace of Knossos and uncovered the life of the Minoans.
The art and architecture uncovered at Knossos gave historians a thorough understanding of daily life and culture of the people living on Crete. Minoan art is noted for its non-militaristic content (Bahn, 2002, p. 292). This was considered unusual as the Bronze Age was a violent era, with power and dominance between Empires and individuals within those Empires being the primary focus, which made the fact that the frescoes found in the palace were so tame unexpected. Instead of images depicting war, the frescoes found at the palace were that of dolphins, fish and terracotta painted with watery reeds (refer Appendix 1). This suggested a culture that was orientated around the sea – unsurprising to archaeologists considering the geographical location of the island. Other frescoes found at the palace illustrated the focus on politics and religion at Knossos, such as the well-known bull-leaping fresco (refer Appendix 2) and the portable wealth suggested that Crete had been a prosperous civilisation to be able to afford small luxuries. However, it was not only the archaeological evidence found that contributed to the understanding of Minoan culture – what was not found was also of vital significance. The fact that there was no indication at all of fortifying walls suggested that Knossos must have been either a relatively peaceful society of extremely confident in their man power (Wright, 1979, p. 108), and when combined with the conclusions drawn with the help of other finds at the site, the former is more likely, and that instead of confidence in their man power they held confidence in their control of the sea. The fact that Knossos itself was ever even built, combined with the physical art and decorations, indicates a centralisation of political power by aristocratic families on the island. However archaeologists revealed more ground-breaking information about Knossos than simply its nature.
What was found during excavations by Evans and his team revealed that there were strong relations between the Minoan civilisation and other cultures of the Mediterranean and the Aegean, proving a centre of not only political power but also trading dominance.
“…[the finds] not only provide a catalogue of Minoan art, but are also an open history book which records the rise and fall of the Minoans and their contacts with the other great Bronze Age civilisations on the eastern Mediterranean” (Wright, 1979, p. 110)
Several ‘snake goddess’ statuettes, were found buried in cists beneath the ground, labelled the ‘Temple Repositories’ by Evans. These statuettes were an important find because they did not seem to represent any goddesses of Grecian religion, but instead bore strong resemblance to similar statuettes found in Egypt (refer Appendix 3 & 4). They were believed to represent a female ‘sau’; a type of Egyptian magician associated with ideas of magical protection. This suggested that the Minoans had been trading with the Egyptians on the other side of the Mediterranean. In fact these statuettes were not the only finds that did not align with the style of the Greeks of the Bronze Age. Clay tablets found at the site that held a scripture christened Linear B show that Minoan writing held many resemblances to writings from the Phoenicians, and the architecture imitated that of the Babylonian palaces rather than the Greek temples. Kamares, a type of vase first found in Mt Ida, Crete, were found not only at Knossos but also in Egypt and Syria and testify to the Minoan influence in trade during the Bronze Age (Michailidou, 1995, pg. 29). The great author Homer confirms the conclusions archaeologists drew with the finds concerning the importance of Knossos and its links to many cultures in his writing, ‘Odyssey’.
“There is a land called Crete … ringed by the wine-dark sea with rolling whitecaps—handsome country, fertile, thronged with people well past counting—boasting ninety cities, language mixing with language side-by-side. First come the Achaeans, then the native Cretans, hardy, gallant in action, then Cydonian clansmen, Dorians living in three tribes, and proud Pelasgians last. Central to all their cities is magnificent Cnossos, the site where Minos ruled and each ninth year conferred with almighty Zeus himself” (Homer, Odyssey)
The expanse of territory in which Minoan influence has been found and also the origin of findings at Knossos proposes that Minoan Crete had been extremely influential in its time, a powerful Empire with much sway during the Bronze Age. Knossos’ history is central to that of the Bronze Age civilisation and exposed its culture to other civilisations of the era, from as far at Cyprus to the East and the coast of Asia Minor and north to the mainland of Greece. Without the archaeological finds at Knossos historians would not know the extent of Minoan power and knowledge of the palace and its reach in the ancient world would be extremely limited.
Discoveries during the excavations at Knossos also revealed that Minoan culture had been far more advanced than any other of the Bronze Age – in fact, excavations showed that the palace of Knossos had ideals and systems thousands of years ahead of its time. Over eleven and a half thousand rooms were found in the palace, the most interesting of which being the Queen’s chambers. In these rooms Evans and his team uncovered the first signs of a hot water plumbing and drainage system in the palace. This defied the consensus that hypocaust heating, an ancient heating system, comprising a hollow space under the floor of a building into which hot air was directed, had been first developed by the Romans (Campbell-Dunn, 2006, p.207). Terracotta pipes found in the walls and floors suggested that this system had also been used as indoor heating as well, and provided evidence of flushing toilets. The steep slope of the land had been used as a natural draining system, aided by handmade conduits at up to eleven feet underground. Before this shocking discovery historians had believed that the Romans had first created this system in c. 800BC, and the archaeology conducted at Knossos proved that the system had actually been established over 2000 years earlier. In addition to their advanced plumbing system, archaeology has provided evidence that the Minoans had an egalitarian society, a notion that struggled to be established until the late twentieth century. Frescoes showed that women were able to compete and participate in all the same sports and roles that were available to men (refer Appendix 2). These findings challenged the chronology of the past and without the archaeology conducted at Knossos, the world would not be aware of arguably the earliest and most advanced civilisation of Europe and therefore influenced many future cultures.
The archaeological discovery of the palace of Knossos was revolutionary in the understanding of not only Minoan civilisation, but also the neighbouring civilisations in the Mediterranean and the Aegean, and the cultures that followed it. Sir Arthur Evans and his team made many important archaeological finds that provided details about the people who lived at Knossos and also that it had been the first advanced civilisation in history, and influenced many other civilisations such as Egypt, Mycenae and the classical Greece that came after the Minoans. The findings at Knossos held invaluable knowledge concerning Minoan culture and all those surrounding it, and without these discoveries, Knossos would have forever remained a myth and the true roots of modern society and human civilisations would not be known by historians.
S O U R C E S R E F E R E N C E D
Unfortunately, this is an old essay from 4 or 5 years ago and I no longer have my bibliography. I was lucky to recover the content. However, my in-text references still exist so it is possible for the reader to find these sources if they are so inclined.
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