Knossos

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For the ferry, see MS Knossos.

A portion of Arthur Evans' reconstruction of the Minoan palace at Knossos. This is

Bastion A at the North Entrance, noted for the Bull Fresco above it.
Knossos (alternative spellings Knossus, Cnossus, Greek pronounced [knosos]),
also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological
site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization
and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms
close to a central square. Detailed images of Cretan life in the late Bronze Age are
provided by images on the walls of this palace. It is also a tourist destination today, as it
is near the main city of Heraklion and has been substantially restored by archaeologist
Arthur Evans.
The city of Knossos remained important through the Classical and Roman periods, but its
population shifted to the new town of Handaq (modern Heraklion) during the 9th century
AD. By the 13th century, it was called Makryteikhos 'Long Wall'; the bishops of Gortyn
continued to call themselves Bishops of Knossos until the 19th century. [1] Today, the
name is used only for the archaeological site situated in the suburbs of Heraklion.

Contents
[hide]

1 Discovery and excavation

2 Legend
3 Art and architecture
o 3.1 Description of Palace
o 3.2 Liquid management
o 3.3 Ventilation
o 3.4 Minoan Columns
o 3.5 Frescoes
o 3.6 Throne Room
4 Society
5 Notable residents
6 Commemoration
7 See also
8 References
9 Bibliography

10 External links

[edit] Discovery and excavation

"Prince of lilies" or "Priest-king Relief", plaster relief at the end of the Corridor of
Processions, restored by Gilliron, believed by Arthur Evans to be a priest-king, wearing
a crown with peacock feathers and a necklace with lilies on it, leading an unseen animal
to sacrifice.
The ruins at Knossos were discovered in 1878 by Minos Kalokairinos, a Cretan merchant
and antiquarian. He conducted the first excavations at Kephala Hill, which brought to
light part of the storage magazines in the west wing and a section of the west facade.
After Kalokairinos, several people attempted to continue the work (and Heinrich
Schliemann had previously showed an interest), but it was not until March 16, 1900 that
archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans, an English gentleman of independent means, was able to
purchase the entire site and conduct massive excavations. The excavation and restoration

of Knossos, and the discovery of the culture he labeled Minoan, is inseparable from the
individual Evans. Nowadays archaeology is a field of academic teamwork and scientific
prestige, but a century ago a project could be driven by one wealthy and self-taught
person. Assisted by Dr. Duncan Mackenzie, who had already distinguished himself by his
excavations on the island of Melos, and Mr. Fyfe, the British School at Athens architect,
Evans employed a large staff of local labourers as excavators and within a few months
had uncovered a substantial portion of what he named the Palace of Minos. The term
'palace' may be misleading: in modern English, it usually refers to an elegant building
used to house a head of state or similar. Knossos was an intricate collection of over 1000
interlocking rooms, some of which served as artisans' workrooms and food processing
centres (e.g. wine presses). It served as a central storage point, and a religious and
administrative centre. The throne room was repainted by a father-and-son team of artists,
both named mile Gillron, at Arthur Evans' command. While Evans claimed to be
basing the recreations on archaeological evidence, many of the most best-known frescoes
from the throne room are almost complete inventions of the Gillrons.[2]
The site has had a very long history of human habitation, beginning with the founding of
the first Neolithic settlement circa 7000 BC. Over time and during several different
phases that had their own social dynamic, Knossos grew until, by the 19th to 16th
centuries BC (during the 'Old Palace' and the succeeding 'Neo-palatial' periods), the
settlement possessed not only a monumental administrative and religious center (i.e., the
Palace), but also a surrounding population of 5000-8000 people.

[edit] Legend

A labrys from Messara.

The palace is about 130 meters on a side and since the Roman period has been suggested
as the source of the myth of the Labyrinth, an elaborate mazelike structure constructed
for King Minos of Crete and designed by the legendary artificer Daedalus to hold the
Minotaur, a creature that was half man and half bull and was eventually killed by the
Athenian hero Theseus.
Labyrinth may have come from labrys, a Lydian word referring to a double, or twobladed, axe. Its representation had religious and probably magical significance. It was
used throughout the Mycenaean world as an apotropaic symbol, that is, the presence of
the symbol on an object would prevent it from being "killed". Axes were scratched on
many of the stones of the palace. It appears in pottery decoration and is a motif of the
Shrine of the Double Axes at the palace, as well as of many shrines throughout Crete and

the Aegean. The first written attestation of the word 'labyrinth' is believed by many
linguists to feature on a Linear B tablet as da-pu2-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja, 'lady of the
Labyrinth', which makes the etymology connecting it to labrys less likely. Whatever the
word's ultimate origin, it must have been borrowed into Greek, as the suffix labyr-inthos
uses a suffix generally considered to be pre-Greek.
The location of the labyrinth of legend has long been a question for Minoan studies. It
might have been the name of the palace or of some portion of the palace. Throughout
most of the 20th century the intimations of human sacrifice in the myth puzzled Bronze
Age scholars, because evidence for human sacrifice on Crete had never been discovered
and so it was vigorously denied. The practice was finally confirmed archaeologically (see
under Minoan civilization). It is possible that the palace was a great sacrificial center and
could have been named the Labyrinth. Its layout certainly is labyrinthine, in the sense of
intricate and confusing.
Many other possibilities have been suggested. The modern meaning of labyrinth as a
twisting maze is based on the myth.
Several out-of-epoch advances in the construction of the palace are thought to have
originated the myth of Atlantis.

[edit] Art and architecture

[edit] Description of Palace

Magazine 4 with giant pithoi. The compartments in the floor were for grain and produce.
An alternative explanation for these compartments is that they were catch basins for the
contents of the pithoi if one should break or leak. It would be very hazardous to store
grain or produce in the floor of a magazine, the main purpose of which was to hold giant
vases of liquids.
The great palace was built gradually between 1700 and 1400 BC, with periodic
rebuildings after destruction. Structures preceded it on Kephala hill. The features
currently most visible date mainly to the last period of habitation, which Evans termed
Late Minoan. The palace has an interesting layout[3] - the original plan can no longer be
seen because of the subsequent modifications. The 1300 rooms are connected with

corridors of varying sizes and direction, which is different than other palaces of the time
period which connected the rooms via several main hallways. The 6 acres (24,000 m2) of
the palace included a theatre, a main entrance on each of its four cardinal faces, and
extensive storerooms (also called magazines). The storerooms contained pithoi (large
clay vases) that held oil, grains, dried fish, beans, and olives. Many of the items were
created at the palace itself, which had grain mills, oil presses, and wine presses. Beneath
the pithoi were stone holes used to store more valuable objects, such as gold. The palace
used advanced architectural techniques: for example, part of it was built up to five storeys
high.

[edit] Liquid management

The palace had at least three separate liquid management systems, one for supply, one for
drainage of runoff, and one for drainage of waste water.
Aqueducts brought fresh water to Kephala hill from springs at Archanes, about 10 km
away. Springs there are the source of the Kairatos river, in the valley of which Kephala is
located. The aqueduct branched to the palace and to the town. Water was distributed at
the palace by gravity feed through terracotta pipes to fountains and spigots. The pipes
were tapered at one end to make a pressure fit, with rope for sealing. The water supply
system would have been manifestly easy to attack. [citation needed] No hidden springs have
been discovered as at Mycenae.
Sanitation drainage was through a closed system leading to a sewer apart from the hill.
The Queen's Megaron contained an example of the first water flushing system toilet
adjoining the bathroom. This toilet was a seat over a drain flushed by pouring water from
a jug. The bathtub located in the adjoining bathroom similarly had to be filled by
someone heating, carrying, and pouring water, and must have been drained by
overturning into a floor drain or by bailing. This toilet and bathtub were exceptional
structures within the 1300-room complex.
As the hill was periodically drenched by torrential rains, a runoff system was a necessity.
It began with channels in the flat surfaces, which were zig-zag and contained catchment
basins to control the water velocity. Probably the upper system was open. Manholes
provided access to parts that were covered.
Some links to photographs of parts of the water collection management system follow.

Runoff system. Sloped channels lead from a catchment basin.

Runoff system. Note the zig-zags and the catchment basin.

[edit] Ventilation
Due to its placement on the hill, the palace received sea breezes during the summer. It
had porticoes and air shafts.

[edit] Minoan Columns

The palace also includes the Minoan Column, a structure notably different from other
Greek columns. Unlike the stone columns characteristic of other Greek architecture, the
Minoan column was constructed from the trunk of a cypress tree, common to the
Mediterranean. While most Greek columns are smaller at the top and wider at the bottom
to create the illusion of greater height, the Minoan columns are smaller at the bottom and
wider at the top, a result of inverting the cypress trunk to prevent sprouting once in place.
[4]
The columns at the Palace of Minos were painted red and mounted on stone bases with
round, pillow-like capitals.

[edit] Frescoes

Bull-leaping Fresco, Court of the Stone Spout

Frescoes decorated the walls.[5] As the remains were only fragments, fresco reconstruction
and placement by the artist Piet de Jong is not without controversy. These sophisticated,
colorful paintings portray a society which, in comparison to the roughly
contemporaneous art of Middle and New Kingdom Egypt, was either conspicuously nonmilitaristic or did not choose to portray military themes anywhere in their art. (See
Minoan civilisation) One remarkable feature of their art is the colour-coding of the sexes:
the men are depicted with ruddy skin, the women as milky white. Almost all their
pictures are of young or ageless adults, with few children or elders depicted. In addition
to scenes of men and women linked to activities such as fishing and flower gathering, the
murals also portray athletic feats. The most notable of these is bull-leaping, in which an
athlete grasps the bull's horns and vaults over the animal's back. The question remains as
to whether this activity was a religious ritual, possibly a sacrificial activity, or a sport,
perhaps a form of bullfighting. Many people have questioned if this activity is even
possible; the fresco might represent a mythological dance with the Great Bull. The most
famous example is the Toreador Fresco, painted around 1550-1450 BC, in which a young
man, flanked by two women, apparently leaps onto and over a charging bull's back. It is
now located in the Archaeological Museum of Herakleion in Crete.

[edit] Throne Room

Throne from which the Throne Room was named

The centerpiece of the "Mycenaean" palace was the so-called Throne Room or Little
Throne Room[6], dated to LM II. This chamber has an alabaster seat identified by Evans
as a "throne" built into the north wall. On three sides of the room are gypsum benches. A
sort of tub area is opposite the throne, behind the benches, termed a lustral basin,
meaning that Evans and his team saw it as a place for ceremonial purification.
The room was accessed from an anteroom through two double doors. The anteroom in
turn connected to the central court, which was four broad steps up through four doors.
The anteroom had gypsum benches also, with carbonized remains between two of them
thought to be a possible wooden throne. Both rooms are located in the ceremonial
complex on the west of the central court.

Griffin couchant facing throne.

The throne is flanked by the Griffin Fresco, with two griffins couchant (lying down)
facing the throne, one on either side. Griffins were important mythological creatures, also
appearing on seal rings, which were used to stamp the identity of the bearer into pliable
material, such as clay or wax.
The actual use of the room and the throne is unclear. The two main theories are:

The seat of a priest-king or his consort, the queen. This is the older theory,
originating with Evans. In that regard Matz speaks of the "heraldic arrangement"
of the griffins, meaning that they are more formal and monumental than previous
Minoan decorative styles. In this theory, the Mycenaean Greeks would have held
court in this room, as they came to power in Knossos at about 1450. The "lustral

basin" and the location of the room in a sanctuary complex cannot be ignored;
hence, "priest-king."
A room reserved for the epiphany of a goddess[7], who would have sat in the
throne, either in effigy, or in the person of a priestess, or in imagination only. In
that case the griffins would have been purely a symbol of divinity rather than a
heraldic motif.

The lustral basin was originally thought to have had a ritual washing use, but the lack of
drainage has more recently brought some scholars to doubt this theory. It is now
speculated that the tank was used as an aquarium.

[edit] Society
A long-standing debate between archaeologists concerns the main function of the palace,
whether it acted primarily as an administrative center, a religious centeror both, in a
theocratic manner. Other important debates consider the role of Knossos in the
administration of Bronze Age Crete, and whether Knossos acted as the primary center, or
was on equal footing with the several other contemporary palaces that have been
discovered on Crete. Many of these palaces were destroyed and abandoned in the early
part of the 15th century BC, possibly by the Mycenaeans, although Knossos remained in
use until destroyed by fire about one hundred years later. It is worth noting that Knossos
showed no signs of being a military site; no fortifications or stores of weapons, for
example.