Knossos

Knossos or Cnossus, city in Crete that, from c. 3000 to c. 1100 bc, was the main economic and political centre of Minoan civilization and that today constitutes one of the foremost surviving Minoan sites. It was first methodically excavated (and controversially reconstructed) by Sir Arthur Evans at the beginning of the 20th century. Knossos was known in Greek mythology as the palace of the legendary king Minos, ruler of a large naval empire, and as the site of the labyrinth that was supposed to have been constructed by Minos’s architect Daedalus to house the Minotaur.

Knossos is situated in the approximate centre of the island of Crete, just inland from the northern coast, and some 5 km (3 mi) from the centre of modern Iráklion. At its greatest extent, Knossos covered 7.5 sq km (5 sq mi), an area only a little smaller than medieval Iráklion. Conservative modern estimates put the town’s population at around 12,000. There were apparently no defensive walls at any time; unlike most later Greek city states, the town merged into the surrounding countryside.

The site was first occupied around 7000 bc, in Neolithic times. Around 2000 bc, the first palace, a relatively small building and the forerunner of the great palaces of the Minoan Bronze Age, was built. This was succeeded by the so-called Old Palace, built c. 1900 bc and destroyed by an earthquake c. 1700 bc. The New Palace that was immediately built to replace it stands at the heart of the surviving remains of Knossos. It contains state apartments and reception halls equipped with efficient drainage and plumbing systems, and decorated with naturalistic frescoes depicting sporting scenes, state processions, and animals, real and mythical, such as dolphins and griffins. The bull, the snake, and a female deity appear to have had a particularly strong religious significance. There are also workshops and administrative quarters, as well as substantial storerooms for agricultural produce, suggesting a high degree of economic prosperity and of organization. This prosperity, the abundance of imported materials (notably copper and tin), and evidence of substantial influence over the Aegean (and of economic contacts further afield) during this period suggest that some historical reality lies behind the legends of Minos.

Substantial restoration was undertaken at the New Palace c. 1600-1580 bc, probably after damage wreaked by a second earthquake. At the same time a series of great villas, also decorated with frescoes, sprang up around the New Palace; one is now known as the Little Palace, and another was named the Unexplored Mansion by Evans (though it has since been excavated).

Around 1450 bc, Minoan sites in Crete, with the partial exception of Knossos, were destroyed by fire. This disruption may either have been prompted by volcanic activity on Thera (modern Santorini), the site of a major Minoan colony, or may have been the result of internal warfare. The most likely explanation, and the one most commonly held, is that the destruction was caused by outside conquest by Mycenaeans from the Greek mainland. This view is based on two findings in the archaeological record: one that, after about 1450 bc, styles of pottery decoration at Knossos change from the naturalistic designs of Minoan culture to the formalized idiom seen on contemporary pottery of mainland Greece; the other is that, at the same period, the language of administrative records at Knossos shifts from Linear A (the Minoan script) to Linear B, an early form of Greek that strongly resembles that found on similar tablets discovered at Pílos and Mycenae, on the Greek mainland. Though a substantial hiatus in the life of the town is evident c.1450 bc, damage was relatively limited and some new building even took place before it was destroyed by fire c. 1380 bc. The survival of Knossos up until this point, and the presence of the Linear B tablets, suggest that it may have served as the administrative capital of Mycenaean Crete.

Parts of Knossos were reoccupied from c. 1200 bc. After the end of the Bronze Age (c. 1100 bc) settlement was concentrated to the north and west of the site; a reputation of sacredness, probably fostered by the myths of the Minotaur and the labyrinth, seems to have caused the site of the New Palace to be used only for the purpose of religious cult. In the Graeco-Roman period (1st century bc), Knossos, with Gortyn and Lyttos, became one of the leading urban centres in Crete.