Sir Arthur John Evans (Born
July 8 1851 in
Nash Mills,
England and died
July 11 1941) was a British
archaeologist most famous for unearthing the palace of
Knossos on the
Greek island of
Crete. Evans attended
Harrow School and
Brasenose College (The University of Oxford and University of Göttingen). Before Evans began work in Crete, archaeologist Minos Kalokairinos unearthed two of the palace’s storerooms in 1894, but the Turkish government interrupted his work before he could complete excavations. Evans had been deciphering script on seal stones on Crete in 1894 and when the island was declared an independent state in 1900, he purchased the site and began his excavations of the palace ruins. Arthur Evans found 3,000 clay tablets during excavations and worked to transcribe them. From the transcriptions it was clear that the tablets bore traces of more than one script. On the basis of the ceramic evidence and stratigraphy, Evans concluded that there was a civilization on Crete before the civilizations recently brought to light by the adventurer-archaeologist Heinrich
Schliemann at
Mycenae and
Tiryns. The huge ruin of Knossos spanned five acres and had a maze-like quality to it that reminded Evans of the labyrinth described in
Greek myth as having been built by
King Minos to hide his
monstrous child. Thus, Evans dubbed the civilization once inhabiting this great palace the
Minoans. By 1903, most of the palace was excavated, bringing to light an advanced city containing with artwork and many examples of writing. Painted on the walls of the palace were numerous scenes depicting bulls, leading Evans to conclude that the Minoans did indeed worship the bull.
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