Knossos

Knossos is one of the most important sites in the ancient Mediterranean. It remained amongst the largest settlements on the island of Crete from the Neolithic until the late Roman times, but aside from its size it held a place of particular significance in the mythological imagination of Greece and Rome as the seat of King Minos, the location of the Labyrinth and the home of the Minotaur. Sir Arthur Evans’ discovery of ‘the Palace of Minos’ has indelibly associated Knossos in the modern mind with the ‘lost’ civilisation of Bronze Age Crete. The allure of this ‘lost civilisation’, together with the considerable achievements of ‘Minoan’ artists and craftspeople, remain a major attraction both to scholars and to others outside the academic world as a bastion of a romantic approach to the past. In this volume, James Whitley provides an up-to-date guide to the site and its function from the Neolithic until the present day. This study includes a re-appraisal Bronze Age palatial society, as well as an exploration of the history of Knossos in the archaeological imagination. In doing so he takes a critical look at the guiding assumptions of Evans and others, reconstructing how and why the received view of this ancient settlement has evolved from the Iron Age up to the modern era. Knossos had a particular place in the mythological imagination of Greece and Rome as the seat of King Minos, the location of the Labyrinth and the home of the Minotaur. Through the investigations of Minos Kalokairinos, Sir Arthur Evans and others it is now indelibly associated in the modern mind with the lost civilisation of Bronze Age Crete. Evans’ discovery of ‘the Palace of Minos’ led to its association with the ‘lost race’ of theMinoans’ has profoundly affected the way in which Aegean Bronze Age archaeology has developed. This view however only relates to a relatively brief period of the site’s occupation For Knossos is one of the most important cities in the ancient Mediterranean. It remained amongst the largest settlements in the island of Crete from the Neolithic until the Late Roman times, for most of which time it seemed to have been some kind of self-governing political community. This book takes the story of Knossos from its origins in mythology through the discovery of its history through successive generations of antiquarians, travellers scholars, historians and archaeologists. It provides a period-by-period description of its development from its origins at the very beginning of the Neolithic through the glory days of the ‘palace’, its flourishing as an independent polis (or citizen-state) down to its abandonment in the early Middle Ages – and after.