LINEAR ONE, TWO, THREE
by
Robert E. Buecker
Delivered to The Chicago Literary Club
May 1, 2000
Legend, scholarship, and chance helped uncover one of
Europe's most significant archaeological sites, and find the origins of
So near-sighted -- and night-blind to boot -- our hero was known to become
confused and disoriented without eyeglasses, and he usually refused to wear
them. The benefit was that he could see small details on jewelry and see
inscriptions with the naked eye without a magnifying glass or jeweler's loupe.
This talent served him admirably in his mid-life archaeological quest.
Throughout
Evans' search led him to the discovery of
His early life had prepared him well for his life s work. Heir to a sizeable
fortune -- prophetically built on investments in paper mills -- he was born on
July 8, l851, son of a well-known and well-respected member of the
Arthur Evans, "little Evans" as the son was called, on the other
hand, had been a poor student who did not impress the Oxford Dons. As an
adolescent, he accompanied his father on myriad archaeological expeditions, and
inherited his father's habit of prodigious industry and devotion to writing and
learning. The first half of Arthur's adult life was spent in traveling. He
served for a time as correspondent in the Balkans for the Manchester
Guardian. This gave him a first-class education about the Balkans and the
crumbling Turkish Empire, which included
Largely as a result of his father's eminence, in 1884 Arthur Evans was
appointed Keeper of the
Widowed in 1894, Evans wanted to revisit the Balkans, but still persona non
grata to the Austrians, he settled for a visit to
Evans' purpose in visiting
Crete, her famous King Minos and his city of
Legends both on Crete and mainland
The five-acre site was covered with gardens, vineyards, and orchards, but
sufficient artifacts were strewn around on the ground to indicate this was not
a natural hill, and that the topsoil covered large ruins. The first man to
excavate in the area in 1878 was a Herakleion merchant appropriately named
Minos Kalokairinos, but the Turkish owners of the land compelled him to cease
his explorations, and the site lay fallow for 20 years.
Heinrich Schliemann, the German discoverer of
On the day that Evans visited
A persistent and skilled bargainer, Evans succeeded in buying a quarter share
of the hill -- a particularly advantageous move that enabled him to buy the
entire site when the Cretans overthrew the Turks by 1900. Evans had now found
his life's work, but he needed scholarly authority and help in raising the
money for serious excavations. He allied himself with the
The season was to last just nine weeks, until June -- longer than most Cretan
digging seasons, but by that time the stream at the foot of the hill had
spawned such malaria, further digging was impossible.
Later one of Evans' professional staff was to call Knossos "a malaria
engine" - - and so it was to remain for the first five years of
excavation.
Only nine short weeks, but what a stupendous nine weeks it was! Within the
first two weeks the explorers had unearthed a hitherto unknown civilization.
Amazingly well preserved galleries, staircases, rooms of all sizes and
functions, terraces, corridors, complete walls, and thousands of artifacts.
On the typically successful dig, archaeologists are pleased to unearth
mysterious foundations, partial walls, tumbled blocks, and charred pits -- in
short, jumbled ruins with little interest for the layman.
Evans' dig was immediately different. Not only did his workmen unearth a
fantastic Palace, but also the remains of a civilization unbelievable in its
aesthetic luxury. Still clinging to many of the walls were vividly colored
frescoes -- and more paintings on plaster lay broken in the rubble on the
floor.
The scenes these frescoes depicted were spectacular -- processions in
miniature, colorfully clad children and youths, and ladies of the court with
wide flounced skirts, tiny waists, naked breasts with their hair in curls and
faces made up in the latest Parisian style.
Some of the pictures would be so widely publicized they are immediately
recognizable even today as coming from Knossos -- the youthful cup bearer, the
fashionable lady called "La Parisienne", and the young women and men
specially costumed acrobats performing a bull leaping ceremony using the horns
of a charging bull to somersault over its back. More on this later.
Decorated walls were no less spectacular. In one room, excavators found
paintings of water plants, palm trees, and griffins crested with peacock
feathers, several gypsum benches and a free-standing gypsum chair with a high
back, still standing on its original platform. Evans immediately labeled the
room the Throne Room -- and later was to call the chair "The first throne
of Europe". There was a nearby smaller throne which Evans concluded must
have been for the Queen for the seat of the throne was broader -- a conclusion
which would raise conflict in our day of political correctness.
These Throne Rooms convinced Evans that he had discovered the Palace of Minos,
King of Crete, and beneath this earth was the Labyrinth where dwelt the fearful
Minotaur.
This was a legend and myth known by most every English schoolboy: how the
Palace and Labyrinth had been designed by Daedalus for Minos -- a descendent of
Zeus, who had been born in a cave on Mt. Ida, not many miles south of Knossos.
The Labyrinth was the home of the Minotaur, half man, half bull -- who existed
by devouring men. In some long ago conflict, Minos had conquered Athens and
exacted an annual tribute of seven maidens and seven youths to be brought to
Crete and released in the Labyrinth to their fate. After several years one of
these youths, Theseus, volunteered to go to defeat the Minotaur. That he did,
but not before connecting with Ariadne -- Minos' daughter -- who gave him a
ball of twine to help him find his way out of the Labyrinth. Ariadne was
hopelessly in love with Theseus and they escaped from Crete together. On the
voyage back to Athens, Theseus abandoned Ariadne on one of the many Aegean
islands -- but that's a whole different tale which has spawned hundreds of
classic stories, poems, paintings, sculptures, and even an opera or two.
When Evans started the dig in March he had employed 50 workmen. Visitors to the
site in April reported 140 men digging the Palace and by June second when the
dig ended, Evans had 180 men working at the excavation. Despite the speed at
which his men uncovered these wonders, thanks to a first rate staff of
archaeologists and other professionals the dig was conducted in a thorough,
scientific manner -- in fact, many modern archaeological techniques were
developed and used for the first time on the Knossos dig. Thorough records were
kept of the day-to-day activities, descriptions of the finds, drawings and
photographs of the dig -- all this material consisting of millions of pages of
text and renderings is available even today in the Ashmolean Museum archives,
much of it in Evans' nearly indecipherable handwriting.
When the dig began, Evans referred to the occupants of the Palace as
Mycenaeans, believing them to be part of the Trojan War Greeks whose
civilization Heinrich Schliemann had unearthed a few decades earlier. But by
the second week of the dig, it was apparent that these people had far surpassed
the development of the mainland Greeks and Evans christened them the
"Minoans".
Among the rooms uncovered in those early weeks was what Evans termed the Palace
Archives containing a thousand or more clay tablets with those strange scripts.
With his sharp near-sighted eyes, Evans could make out the faint horizontal
lines used by the scribes to write both Linear A and B. Most of the script was
the near-cursive Linear B, which seemed more sophisticated than the picture
writing. While translation of the script resisted all efforts, Evans thought he
recognized certain repeated characters as numbers. Evans conjectured that the
clay tablets recorded inventories and memoranda of primitive commercial
activities. Just as with other earliest written languages throughout the Mid
East and Mesopotamia -- the writing of human speech was first developed to
record the daily acquisition, storing, and trading of goods and land -- not to
transmit thoughts and activities of a finer nature -- that would come much
later in the development of writing. It was particularly ironic that the
development of writing followed this same mean path even in this high
civilization of incomparable aesthetic achievement.
After the first season of digging, Evans determined that despite his
collaboration with the British School of Archaeology at Athens, Knossos was to
be an Evans family project. He wrote to his father:
"The Palace of Knossos was my idea and my work,
and it turns out to be such a find as one could not hope for in a lifetime or
in many lifetimes...we may as well keep some of Knossos in the family".
John Evans agreed and released some of the family
fortune to underwrite the excavation and rebuilding of Knossos. For the next 40
years Arthur Evans nearly alone funded most of the work on the excavation, and
consequently -- in the words of the pop song -- "He did it his way".
By the end of the second season, more than two acres of the Palace had been
uncovered, and the plan of the Palace was plain. Knossos comprised nearly 1500
rooms on 6 or more levels grouped around a central plaza. On the West Side of
the plaza were the royal and function rooms -- the Throne Rooms were located
here -- on the East Side were dwellings of what Evans termed the domestic
living quarters. The Palace was honeycombed with open light-wells descending to
all levels, providing light and cooling air throughout the Palace. Commoners
lived in multistoried apartment buildings surrounding the Palace.
Also during the second season, Evans unearthed what he called the Grand
Staircase, a broad and semi-open staircase serving four levels of the Palace.
It was on this part of the dig that Evans' men unearthed evidence of the unique
Minoan tapered wooden columns rising from a modest base in an ever-increasing
diameter to a broad capital. Pliny, the Roman writer, had said that Crete was
the home of cypress trees and archaeologists speculate that green tree trunks
were used for the columns and set top down in the base sockets to prevent their
sprouting -- just as is still done in Crete today.
The Minoans had used four types of materials to construct their Palace -- great
quantities of wood, a soft limestone, sandstone, and an almost equally soft
gypsum, all most often covered with plaster. These materials presented Evans
and his professionals with a special problem -- and ultimately lead to the
major controversy about the Knossos excavation among both archaeologists and
informed laymen.
These building materials were subject to severe damage from weathering and
rain. To unearth them was to destroy them. Evans had constructed a roof over
the Throne Rooms after the first season to protect them from Crete's strong
winds and heavy winter rains. It was not successful.
By the second season of digging in 1901, Evans and his experts had settled on a
way to preserve the Palace. Not only conserve what had been unearthed -- but
reconstruct huge parts of it using modern materials -- steel and reinforced
concrete. Using the many frescoes and artifacts as guides, Evans' archaeological
architects reinforced and reconstructed stairways, walls, roofs, terraces and
floors -- giving the Palace what they thought would be another millennium of
life. Even the frescoes were copied and replaced in their original sites.
But this wholesale reconstruction was too much for many archaeological purists
to tolerate. They took up verbal arms against Evans, charging that what he had
done was to construct Evans Minoan Palace that bore little resemblance to the
historical Minoan Palace.
But because Evans had the majority of experts on his side --besides, it was his
land and his money -- he continued with his reconstruction. Perhaps he had a
hidden agenda to his reconstruction. It would make the Palace of Minos more
easily accessible and understandable to the layman, both educated and partially
educated. Even most of his critics conceded that Knossos provided a better
picture of what a Minoan Palace looked like than the jumbled ruins of the other
three major palaces in Crete.
Also, perhaps Evans' experience as a newspaper correspondent reinforced his
belief in reconstructing large parts of Knossos. Evans took notice of Heinrich
Schliemann's excavations of Troy and later Mycenae. Schliemann -- probably the
best known archaeologist of the time -- had courted the press shamelessly for
coverage of his discoveries. He tied his work to Homer's Troy, to the Iliad and
the Odyssey -- subjects that had been emphasized in every Victorian gentlemen's
education. When these gentlemen opened their morning London Times to discover
that Professor Schliemann had unearthed Troy's massive walls, or Agamemnon's
golden mask -- which incidentally may have been crafted at Schliemann's
direction -- they could identify with these historic objects immediately.
So, too, did Evans tap into schoolboy recollections. The Theseus, Minos,
Labyrinth, Minotaur and Ariadne legends and myths were well known to every
educated Englishman. Evans, too, courted the press -- and all England awaited
reports of his latest finds. "Spin doctor" Evans missed no
opportunity to identify all of his major finds with the Minos legends. Even
when he built his private home on the site in 1905 he named it "The Villa
Ariadne".
But in his defense, the excavation did unearth evidence that Evans' dig was,
indeed, the Palace of Minos and contained the Labyrinth. His workmen had found
myriad frescoes, sculptures, and bronze casts of a double axe, the most
pervasive of all the symbols in the Palace. It was obviously an object of great
importance and veneration -- perhaps even the symbol of the city. Evans
concluded that the fabled Labyrinth got its name from the Greek word
"labrys", meaning Double Axe. Those 14 Athenians, who each year were
sent to the Labyrinth were sent to the city of the double axe.
The Minotaur myth is a little harder to unravel. The bull had the same dominant
role in Knossos as it had in many Eastern Mediterranean civilizations from
Sumer to ancient Egypt. Bulls' horns were found on all Minoan altars. Frescoes
and artifacts of bulls, wild, charging, being captured, destroying fields and
walls were found throughout the Palace. The bull was obviously a powerful and
revered creature. And what of the fresco of the bull somersaulting acrobats? A
fantasy? Western American steer wrestlers, as the English called them, we call
them cowboys, were asked if such somersaults were possible. "No way,"
was their response. "You could never lift yourself over the head of a
charging bull by grabbing its horns."
Some experts suggested this was some sacred rite in which youths were
sacrificed in bullfights -- perhaps this was the Athenian annual tribute. This
interpretation lives on in the modern Spanish bullfight. Evans made a special
visit to Madrid to investigate this concept, but rejected it. Perhaps this was
too grizzly for his beloved Minoans.
But let's forget Evans for a while and concentrate on the Palace itself.
Excavations and careful study showed that there had actually been three palaces
built over approximately 600 years.
The first Palace, or multiple dwelling city -- had been built about 2000 BC --
in the middle of the Bronze Age, and a few hundred years after the building of
the Great Pyramids at Giza. This Palace had been destroyed by fire and probably
earthquake about 1700 BC along with other Cretan structures.
The Minoans at once rebuilt the Palace -- larger, more ornate than its
predecessor -- this was the high point of Knossos and the Palace Evans chose to
reconstruct. This Palace, too, was destroyed by fire and earthquake about 1450
BC. This destruction coincides with the volcanic explosion of the island of
Thera -- now Santorini -- in mid-Aegean. This eruption was so powerful and
devastating, it created tidal waves throughout the eastern Aegean and threw
volcanic debris to the coast of Turkey. It's no stretch of the imagination to
see Crete experiencing massive tidal waves along its North coast -- or to see
fire and brimstone falling from a heavy, gray sky.
The Palace was not totally destroyed, but never did really recover. After 1450
BC, the Palace was partially reconstructed on a much less lavish scale -- and
the reconstruction was done by mainland Greeks.
Experts are still arguing about whether the Palace had been conquered by these
Greeks and whether they were Mycenaeans. If so, it was an easy victory because
through its 600-year life the Palace had no walls -- certainly no local enemies
who could threaten the Minoans.
The third, less grand Palace continued to be inhabited for 300 years -- in the
end by refugees from other parts of Crete. But by 1100 B.C. it ceased to exist
-- as Crete, mainland Greece, and a good part of the eastern Aegean were washed
over by the tide of the Dorians -- the sea peoples of unknown origin -- and the
Greek Dark Ages began.
So the Palace lay largely undisturbed for 3,000 years when Evans unearthed
Europe's first and most glorious Bronze Age civilization. By 1903, the entire
Palace had been unearthed, but excavations of outlying areas, and the study of
artifacts continue even to this day.
Over the years Evans depended on the British School of Archaeology at Athens to
provide professional help and care for the site. A local taverna on the grounds
was remodeled and enlarged for the group of young British student
archaeologists who worked at Knossos and other Cretan sites. Many learned the
language and customs of the Cretan people as they traveled the island's
primitive roads.
These young men -- and Knossos -- were to make a major contribution to modern
Cretan history.
When World War II started in Europe in 1939, the British War Office, with
amazing foresight, chose a number of these archaeologists to organize the
Cretan people into an effective partisan force. The British continued to supply
leadership and direction, but very few supplies, after the Nazi parachute invasion
of Crete in May 1941.
The battle of Crete was over in about two weeks. But the guerillas under
British leadership fought on. Their most successful operation began on the
night of April 26, 1944.
On that moonlit night, British and Cretan guerillas successfully kidnapped Nazi
General Karl Kriepe, commander of German forces on Crete, on the road from his
staff headquarters to the Villa Ariadne, Evans' private villa at Knossos, where
the General was living. After 18 days of dodging across the central mountains
of Crete, the General was taken off the island to Cairo -- and eventually to
the United States, where he sat out the rest of the war.
Arthur Evans was not witness to these exploits. On July 11, 1941, at the age of
90, he died in his home in Oxford. But his contribution and his legacy live on,
although probably not in the way he ever visualized.
His mysterious Minoan Linear A and B scripts, which the Minoans started using
some time after 1900 BC -- the first Europeans to use a written script -- remained
undeciphered until 1952. It was then that a young English architect named
Michael Ventris deciphered Linear B, and determined that it was an early form
of Greek. But that merely deepened the mystery.
In 1939, an American archaeologist, Carl Blegen, from the University of
Cincinnati had been digging on the west coast of mainland Greece and had
unearthed the remains of a palace, which evidence marked as Nestor's Palace.
Along with other artifacts, Blegen uncovered hundreds of clay tablets, which comparison
proved were exactly like the Linear B clay tablets at Knossos.
The discovery of these mainland tablets ignited a controversy among experts.
The fight was postponed by World War II, but then they had at one another in a
Donnybrook that continues to this day.
The Minoan society was a sea-faring civilization -- hundred of artifacts in the
Palace pointed to that. When Evans unearthed hundreds of Linear tablets, he and
most experts concluded that the Minoans were dominant and had conquered --
either by arms or by trade -- mainland Greece. The Mycenaeans had been
"poor relatives" of the Minoans, who had developed at a later date
and largely through contact with the Minoans.
When Blegen unearthed still more Linear B tablets in 1952 -- and later that
year another archaeologist found a few Linear B tablets at Mycenae itself --
the spark ignited in 1939 soon became an inferno.
The archaeology profession was split into two opposing camps. One group remains
true to Evans position, that early Greece was an extension of Minoan
civilization. The other group maintains that the Mycenaens were dominant -- and
probably conquered, occupied, and even ruled in Knossos for several hundred
years in the decades following 1400 BC. Evans' dating of the final days of the
Palace was questioned, and the whole concept of the development of earliest
Greece was turned on its head.
But this heated controversy seems to have impressed laymen very little. Evans
had convinced them that the Minoans were the first great European civilization
with aesthetic accomplishments that made mainland Greece a barbaric, flawed
copy of its elegance.
Perhaps, the decipherment of Linear A at some future time will throw more light
on the controversy, but for now the dominant Mycenaean camp seems to be ascendant
among most professionals.
In the meantime, how has the Palace fared since its discovery? Evans deeded the
site to the British School in 1928. The site was turned over to the Greek
Archaeological Service by the British School in 1952. For the first time in
nearly 1400 years Cretans were once more the owners of their crown jewel. And
what of Knossos' popularity with the public? Following early visits by
professionals in 1900, the site has grown continuously popular as a tourist
attraction. Before the World Wars, Knossos had been visited by citizens and
crowned heads of every European nation -- including several visits by the King
of Greece.
In the 1960s Knossos was discovered by the international tourist industry.
Mediterranean cruise ships made Herakleion/Knossos a regular featured stop on
nearly every mid-length cruise of the eastern Mediterranean. By the 90s, more
than a million visitors trudged through the Palace each year, making it
Europe's second most popular tourist attraction -- only the Acropolis in Athens
hosts more visitors annually.
But just as unearthing the Palace threatened its destruction, so popularity may
be an even greater threat. Knossos tourism has made many Cretans rich and
turned their attention from farming, vineyards and sheep herding to development
with a capital D. Hotels, restaurants, tavernas, gift shops, and other elements
have taken priority. All this building is encroaching ever closer to the
Knossos site.
Two million feet every year have taken their toll on the gypsum-concrete
walkways and corridors throughout the Palace. Reinforced stairs are wearing
away at an alarming rate. What may be worse, long-term weathering and rain are
destroying Arthur Evans' reconstructions. Concrete has fallen away exposing
rusting steel in many places.
Greek authorities are doing their best to preserve the site and repair some of
the damage. Tourists are forced to stay on reinforced pathways. Many stairways,
including the Grand Staircase, have been closed because of advanced deterioration.
Lack of money is the basis of most of their problems. Cretans say most of the
money spent on conservation of archaeological sites in Greece is spent on the
mainland. The tour operators, whose mega ships can now disgorge up to 5,000
visitors at one time to the Palace, pay nothing but modest entry fees toward
the upkeep of the site. Authorities are hesitant to raise entrance fees because
the tour operators have said they will cut Knossos from their itineraries if it
becomes too expensive. In the meantime, the wear and tear continues. Some
modern techniques have been developed to halt the deterioration; others are in
the experimental stage! Nevertheless, two million feet, strong south winds, and
winter rains are destroying yet another World Heritage treasure, a hundred
years after its discovery.
Compared to solving the problems that we moderns have brought to this 4000-
year-old site, somersaulting over the back of a charging bull is a snap.
Robert E. Buecker
May 1, 2000
Bibliography
Alexandrakis & Mantzoufa. Crete Rhodes and
Delos. Alexman Editions, Athens, 1959.
Harrington, Spencer P. M. . "Saving Knossos," Archaeology, Vol
52 No. l; January/February 1999.
Honour, Alan. Secrets of Minos, Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill, New York,
1961
Horwitz, Sylvia L. The Find of a Lifetime: Sir Arthur Evans and the
Discovery of Knossos. The Viking Press, New York, 1981.
Logiadou - Platonos, Sossos. Knossos: The Palace at Minos. Mathioulakis
& Gouvoussis, Athens, 1978.
Moss, W. Stanley. Ill Met by Moonlight. Burford Books, London, 1950.
Powell, Dilys. The Villa Ariadne. The Akadine Press, Pleasantville, N.Y.
1999.Originally RR & C Ltd. London
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