KNOSSOS

Παρουσίαση

Knossos, as both a myth and reality, seems to have been linked for centuries with two names, one mythical and one real, namely Minos and Arthur Evans. Despite the detection of the site of the Minoan palace as early as 1878 by a Cretan Minos, Minos Kalokairinos, and the fact that Kalokairinos donated a Minoan pithos (large storage jar) to certain Royal Courts of Europe, the political circumstances on Crete were not favourable for such an early Greek excavation on the Great Island. Furthermore, there were many rivals for the excavation of mythical Knossos, and not only representatives of the Great Powers of that time but also important personalities such as the American Stillman, the Frenchman Joubin as well as the, by then famous, German Heinrich Schliemann. However, political fate favoured Arthur Evans, a representative of the then strong, Victorian Great Britain whose sphere of influence had been maintained on Crete among other things because of the political rivalry of Britain and Germany. Even today, the old spheres of influence remain. Despite great enterprise on the part of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens, there is not a single German archaeological excavation on Crete, let alone at Knossos, due to harsh actions there of the Germans during the World War II. [...] (From the publisher)