Concept

Knossos (modern history)

Résumé
Knossos (Κνωσός, Knōsós, knoˈsos), also romanized Cnossus, Gnossus, and Knossus, is the main Bronze Age archaeological site at Heraklion, a modern port city on the north central coast of Crete. The site was excavated and the palace complex found there partially restored under the direction of Arthur Evans in the earliest years of the 20th century. The palace complex is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete. It was undoubtedly the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. Quite apart from its value as the center of the ancient Minoan civilization, Knossos has a place in modern history as well. It witnessed the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the enosis, or "unification," of Crete with Greece. It has been a center of Aegean art and archaeology even before its initial excavation. Currently a branch of the British School at Athens is located on its grounds. The mansion Evans had built on its grounds, Villa Ariadne, for the use of the archaeologists, was briefly the home of the Greek government in exile during the Battle of Crete in World War II. Subsequently, it was the headquarters for three years of the Nazi Germany's military governorship of Crete. Turned over to the Greek government in the 1950s, it has been maintained and improved as a major site of antiquities. Studies conducted there are ongoing. The ruins at Knossos were discovered in either 1877 or 1878 by Minos Kalokairinos, a Cretan merchant and antiquarian. There are basically two accounts of the tale, one deriving from a letter written by Heinrich Schliemann in 1889, to the effect that in 1877 the "Spanish Consul," Minos K., excavated "in five places." Schliemann's observations were made in 1886, when he visited the site with the intent of purchasing it for further excavation. At that time, several years after the event, Kalokairinos related to him what he could remember of the excavations. This is the version adopted by Ventris and Chadwick for Documents in Mycenaean Greek.
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