Knossos (modern history)

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.[4] This is the version adopted by Ventris and Chadwick for Documents in Mycenaean Greek. By "Spanish Consul" Heinrich must have meant a position similar to that held by Kalokairinos' brother, Lysimachos, who was the "English Consul." Neither was a consul in today's sense. Lysimachos was the Ottoman dragoman appointed by the pasha to facilitate affairs conducted by the English in Crete.

In the second version, in December 1878 Kalokairinos conducted the first excavations at Kephala Hill, which brought to light part of the storage magazines in the west wing and a section of the west facade. From his 12 trial trenches covering an area of 55 m (180 ft) by 40 m (130 ft) he removed numbers of large-sized pithoi, still containing food substances. He saw the double-axe, sign of royal authority, carved in the stone of the massive walls. In February 1879, the Cretan parliament, fearing the Ottoman Empire would remove any artefacts excavated, stopped the excavation.[5] This version is based on the 1881 letters of William James Stillman, former consul for the United States in Crete, and coincidentally a good friend of Arthur Evans from their years as correspondents in the Balkans. He tried to intervene in the closing of the excavation, but failed. He applied for a firman to excavate himself, but none were being granted to foreigners. They were all viewed as aligning themselves with insurrection, which was true.[6] Evans and Stillman had been whole-heartedly anti-Ottoman, along with most other British and American citizens.

The question could easily have been settled if some ad hoc record of the excavation had survived. Kalokairinos did make a careful record, but during the renewed Cretan insurrection in 1898, his house in Heraklion was destroyed with all the pithoi and his excavation notes. His diaries survived, but they were not very specific. According to Stillman, the "trial trenches" were not exactly that, but were numbers of irregular pits and tunnels. Only the major ones were even recorded. The question of what was at the site before he began work is of less relevance. Arthur Evans' subsequent excavations removed all trace of it and of Kalokairinos' pits.

Sign of the double axe on the walls of Knossos

After Kalokairinos, several noted archaeologists attempted to preempt the site by applying for a firman, but none was granted by the then precarious Ottoman administration in Crete. Arthur Evans, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, noted antiquarian and scion of the wealthy Evans family, arrived in Herakleion for the first time in February 1894, mending from his grief at the death of his beloved wife, Margaret, nearly one year previously. Just before her death he had purchased some signet stones engraved in a strange script, which, he was told, were from Crete. During his mourning period Federico Halbherr and Stillman had kept him posted on developments in Crete. It was there that his renewed interest focused. He could not find Halbherr, who had gone to Khania. He purchased more sealstones and an engraved gold ring from Ioannis Mitsotakis, dragoman for Russia (English "Russian vice-consul," but he was a native, not a Russian). After meeting Kalokairinos and inspecting his collection, he set out for Knossos. There he immediately jumped into a trench to examine the signs of the double-axe. The next day he met Halbherr.[7]

The two made a brief tour of Crete. Based on the script he was finding everywhere, which matched that of the stones he had purchased in Athens and the marks on the walls at Knossos, Evans made up his mind. He would excavate, but he had not a moment to lose. He solved the funds obstacle by creating The Cretan Exploration Fund in imitation of the Palestine Exploration Fund, removing the funding from any particular individual, at least in theory initially. The only contributors at first were the Evans'. He secured the services of the local Ottoman administration in purchasing 1/4 of the hill with the first option of buying the whole hill later. They would accept a down payment of £235. Then he went home to wind up his affairs at Youlbury and the Ashmolean. When he returned in 1895 he brought in David George Hogarth, director of the British School at Athens. The two pressed successfully for the purchase of the entire hill and valley adjoining it, obtaining more money through contributions. The owners would accept future payments on the installment plan. Evans selected the site for his future quarters in 1896. They still could not obtain the firman. There was nothing to do but wait for history, which by then was looming on the horizon.[8] After an exploration of Lasithi, or eastern Crete (coincidentally the Muslim half), with John Myres in 1895, the two returned to London in 1896 to write about the Bronze Age forts they had discovered there, under the very shadow of looming civil war.

Crete had never belonged to independent Greece, a cause of insurrection and continual conflict between Muslim (previously converted Greek, Turkish and Arab) and Christian (primarily Greek) populations. Of a population of about 270,000, 70,000 were Muslim. In 1897 the conflict in the chronic civil war reached a new crisis. Macedonian Christians, preparing their own insurrection, began sending arms surreptitiously to Crete. The Great Powers were for a blockade, but Britain vetoed it. In 1897, George I of Greece sent Greek troops to the island to protect the Greeks.

The Sultan appealed to the Great Powers, a coalition of European nations that had taken an interest in the Greek revolution. When the Moslems destroyed the Christian quarter of Khania, the capital of Crete, a city of 23,000, British and French marines secured the city, setting up a neutral zone. Shortly after, they secured other cities in the same way. King George sent a fleet containing an occupation force under Prince George. He was warned that a blockade of Athens might ensue, but he sent a reply refusing all measures of the powers, stating that he would not "abandon the Cretan people," and subsequently attacking Khania with the Cretan Christians. The attacking force was driven off with naval gunfire. The Greek army was given six days to leave the island, which they did. The Ottoman army was then ordered to concentrate in "fortified places which are at present occupied by the European detachments" so that they could be guarded and kept in protective custody. For the time being all parties complied. Greece and Turkey, however, resolved the Balkans issue in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, an Ottoman victory. The Great Powers: England, France, Italy, and Russia, however, did not allow the Ottomans to exploit their victory in the Cretan conflict. Crete would remain in the Ottoman Empire, but it would be governed autonomously under their protectorate. A new Constitution was drawn up.[9]

On Crete the Moslems rioted in Candia. In addition to native Christians, 17 British nationals and Lysimachos Kalokairinos were slaughtered. The excavation journal from Knossos was lost. Coalition troops moved swiftly. Turkish troops were ferried off the island by the British fleet. The forces of the Great Powers summarily executed anyone they caught participating in the conflict. The death rate was highest in 1897. While Evans was exploring in Libya, from which he was expelled by the Ottomans, Hogarth returned to Crete, reporting that, from the ship in which he was returning, he saw a village burn and battle raging on the hillside. Prince George of Greece and Denmark was now appointed high commissioner of the protectorate. Evans came back on the scene in 1898, again the foreign correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. He was instrumental and tireless in trying to bring about the rule of reason in Crete, taking the side of the oppressed Moslems finally, as did Hogarth. He ended by assisting the relief effort to stricken villages.[10]

The Cretan Republic was born in 1899 when a combined Christian and Muslim government was elected in accordance with the new constitution. It lasted until 1913. For the time being Evans was not needed in politics. As a firman was no longer necessary, he turned his full attention to the excavation of Knosses, eager to push ahead with it before some other event should remove it from him.

The major excavations at Knossos were performed 1900–1905, at the end of which the wealthy Evans was insolvent. Much later, when he inherited his father's considerable estate, his wealth would be restored, and then some, but in 1905 he had to cancel the excavation of 1906 and return to England to find ways to generate income from Youlbury. The palace, however, had been uncovered, and Evans' concepts of Minoan civilization were known extensively to the public. The term 'palace' may be misleading: in modern English, it usually refers to an elegant building used to house a high-ranking individual, such as a head of state. Knossos was an intricate conglomeration of over 1,000 interlocking rooms, some of which served as artisans' workrooms and food-processing centers (e.g. wine presses). It served as a central storage point, and a religious and administrative center, as well as a factory. No doubt a monarch did reside there, but so also did the better part of his administration. In the age of Linear B, the "palaces" came to be thought of as administrative centers.

In 1906 Arthur Evans was financially insolvent and deeply in debt. He was selling items from his personal art collection to help pay the cost of restoration. This condition did not dampen his enthusiasm for the site. He knew that he was making a contribution to the history of man, which he effused in his lectures and writings. When he returned to Britain each year, honors never failed to accrue to him, not, however money.

He still had an allowance from his father. He decided to use it to build a residence near Knossos. It was never intended to be modest, nor was it for Evans alone, even though he would own it personally, as he did the site. Doll drew up plans in 1906. They ordered the material, the steel from Britain, struggling with the government of Crete for the licenses to import it. Foreigners by then were no longer popular. The Great Powers were viewed as impeding enosis, which, in fact, they were. They had made an agreement with the Ottoman Empire, which they did not intend to break. Commissioners came to Crete, formulated a set of recommendations to the Great Powers, and left. They were further in the direction of enosis than Prince George, the High Commissioner, wished to go; for example, they provided for the departure of all foreign troops and their replacement with a native Cretan defense force. The Prince resigned as High Commissioner in 1906, to be replaced by Alexandros Zaimis. He did everything in his power to support enosis.

International troops began to withdraw in 1908, starting with the French garrison. The British remained until enosis was an accepted fact in 1913. By then it was clear that the Ottoman Empire was no longer an ally of Britain. Meanwhile, Evans had Doll construct his grand house in 1906 and 1907, with his usual disregard for thrift. The house was at first called Palazzo Evans, but then he changed it to Villa Ariadne in honor of the work done at Knossos. The term, "palazzo," is the key to its style. It was constructed of reinforced concrete, in vogue at the time, faced with limestone. The bedrooms were semi-subterranean for coolness. The villa was two-story, today surrounded by trees, then placed on the open hillside. Evans took an upper room where he could observe the sea. By implication, the sea must have been visible from the upper stories of the ancient palace complex as well. Every possible view had an alcove, and every alcove had a window seat. There were walks through an Edwardian garden planted with Cretan flowering shrubs and perennials. The rooms were placed in no special order, but were joined by long corridors. The villa had a bathroom, unusual for those times. The villa is located behind the Little Palace, an easy walk from the hill of the palace complex, and also within walking distance of Heraklion. Today it is near to being swallowed by the suburbs, except for some open land left around it.

Evans was the star resident when he was present, but he never intended the building as his private retreat. All the archaeologists lived there, MacKenzie and Doll included. All important guests stayed there, such as visiting scholars and archaeologists, and yet, it was not a hotel. Like the Cretan palaces, it served also as an administrative center. Every week the workmen would form a queue in the garden to receive their wages. For staff Evans hired Manolaki Akoumianakis as groundskeeper, and Kostis Chronakis as butler and handyman, with his wife, Maria, as cook and housekeeper. This staff were to become known internationally.[21] Evans's house in town also was fully staffed with servants.

In June 1907, after the departure of Evans's friend and supporter, the Prince, Minos Kalokairinos sued Evans on the grounds that the latter had taken a field of his without payment, had excavated without permission, and had illegally removed antiquities found there from the country. The charges as made were undoubtedly true. Evans had excavated a grave there. The antiquities were in the Ashmolean. Kalokairinos was now a lawyer, having attended the university of Athens. The Prince was no longer able to facilitate civil matters for Evans. Ultimately the case was dismissed, due to the death of Kalokairinos by natural causes. He had continued to be interested in local antiquities, publishing an archaeological newsletter, which never mentioned the British excavations.

Evans responded to the increasing unrest and isolation from the Cretans by associating all the more with the British. Until the palazzo was done, he continued to live next to the British garrison in Heraklion. He was a regular guest at the officer's mess there. When not at the garrison, he was hosting dinners for the officers in his own house. The Palace of Minos was now open to a select public. Evans held tea parties in the Throne Room and the Hall of the Double Axes, both subsequently rebuilt. On pleasant days officers and their wives strolled from the garrison to the palace, where they were shown around by whoever happened to be there. Scholarly visitors from all over Europe and the Mediterranean visited often. It became part of the new social life that developed around the last British military outpost in Crete.[22]

In May 1908, Evans's run of tragedies culminated with the death of his father. He inherited a considerable part of the Evans fortune, however. In October by coincidence he inherited the Dickinson fortune from his mother's side. Financial problems at Knossos were over for the time being; however, the place has always been expensive to maintain for whoever owned it. The excavation was in the main done. It remained to Evans to publish it. Having the time and the means, he produced documentation that remains a standard in the field, even today, a privilege not available to most archaeologists.

As soon as war broke out in 1914, Arthur Evans stopped all work and returned home, to work on Palace of Minos and other documentation for the previous excavations, as well as to formulate future plans. During the war Crete was not on the front lines, but archaeological work did not resume until 1922.

The archaeologists did not return to Knossos until 1922, when the question of Ottoman influence had been settled once and for all (more or less) by the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the defeat of Greek and British forces occupying Turkey after the First World War, and treaties that established the borders of the Republic of Turkey under Mustafa Kemal, founder and first Prime Minister. By then the wood used in the reconstruction work done before 1913 was rotten and many parts of the palace were on the verge of collapse. Evans thus decided to "reconstitute" the palace using reinforced concrete.

To oversee reconstruction, Evans hired Piet de Jong, an English artist and architect who had previously worked both as an archaeological illustrator and in the Greek Reconstruction Service after World War One. Reconstruction work began with the Stepped Portico. In 1926, Fyfe returned for a month to rebuild the South Propylaeum.

Evans's reconstructions are controversial. They included reconstructions of features not attested in the archaeological record, such as ceilings, stairways, and upper stories. Moreover, his choice of concrete made his work irreversible, meaning that his reconstructions cannot be corrected as new evidence comes to light.

In 1926, Evans donated the palace, the grounds, and Villa Ariadne to the British School at Athens. In essence the school was to take over the excavation and operate it as a means of training students, though transfer had no immediate effect on the direction or the living arrangements. Rather, the decision was a financial one for Evans, who was struggling to pay for upkeep and improvement of the site. The Greek and British governments approved the transfer, waiving taxes.[23]

In 1929, Evans fired his assistant, Duncan MacKenzie. Despite his previous invaluable contributions, MacKenzie had grown unreliable due to chronic illness including alcoholism, depression, and malaria. Evans planned to retire him at the end of the year, but an incident of drunkenness on the job caused Evans to move the date up to June of that year. MacKenzie was unable to find another position in archaeology, and died in an institution for the mentally ill in 1934.

Evans replaced Mackenzie with John Pendlebury, a 25-year-old archaeologist just getting a start through the British School of Archaeology at Athens. Pendlebury had many qualities remarked by his contemporaries. He was an outstanding athlete, swimming often and running wherever he went to work or for adventure, exceeded in this regard only by some of his female graduate students. He walked all over Crete in his first year. He spoke fluent Cretan, sang the native songs, danced the native dances, and was the accepted natural leader wherever he went. He wore a glass eye and delighted in carrying a sword-cane, which parallels to Evans's short-sightedness and cane, Prodger, may well have been influential in the development of a rapport. He was joined by his wife, Hilda, in 1930. He and Evans conducted the last excavation in the palace, the Temple Tomb.

Subsequently, Evans went home, leaving the site in Pendlebury's able hands. He would return rarely before 1935, when he was at hand for the dedication of his memorial, and received an honorary citizenship of Heraklion. Then he returned no more. Pendlebury was by no means alone. He was the leader of a "new generation" at Knossos.[24] Humfry Payne was the Director of the British School at age 28. He was assisted by Dilys Powell, his wife. Together with Pendlebury they brought in a set of graduate students of exceptional talent, who could be sent over Crete and Greece and trusted to conduct excavations. Among them were five women. Many would not get many years older, and all would be tested to the utmost of their ability. Ignored in World War I, Knossos was at the center of Mediterranean operations in World War II.

Now that the excavation was finally over, Evans was concerned with organizing and dating material that had been placed in the Stratigraphical Museum, which he had kept from the beginning. It consisted of thousands of shards of pottery, which had to be organized and dated. Pendlebury inherited this task. He had the assistance of his wife, Hilda, and of Manoli Akoumianos, a foreman under Evans, now an archaeologist.

In addition they were joined by Mercy Money-Coutts, Lord Latymer's only daughter. She had a degree in modern history, and later became expert in Minoan pottery.[25][26] She also spoke French from childhood, was an artist, a good horsewoman and an expert marksman. She enjoyed hunting foxes and stalking deer. She was the only graduate student who could outrun Pendlebury.[24]

Museum work was not John Pendlebury's preference. Even while working at Knossos, he developed commitments to the Egyptian Exploration Society, assuming directorship of the excavation at Amarna on an occasional basis. Resigning as Knossos Curator in 1934, he excavated Lasithi, Crete, 1936–1939, with Hilda and Mercy. Like Evans, Pendlebury did not ask for character references. His diggers included two murderers, a sheep-stealer and a leper. Meanwhile, Evans replaced him with Richard W. Hutchinson, who was Knossos Curator in absentia during the three-year occupation of Crete by the Germany. Both Pendlebury and Hutchinson wrote works that, next to Evans's Palace of Minos, have become standard on the archaeology of Crete.

In 1938 the British War Office interviewed the Knossos archaeologists for possible service in MI(R), Military Intelligence (Research), which was incorporated into Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1940. They were interested in recruiting persons with special knowledge and languages of the Mediterranean area in case war should break out. The archaeologists were to wait to be contacted. After war broke out in 1939 most British citizens abroad returned home to volunteer their services in any capacity. The urgency was less in Crete because, at least for some months, Greece remained neutral. In 1939 archaeological operations everywhere in Crete were closing. The archaeologists there also were returning to Britain. Among them was Pendlebury, who, despairing of MI(R), enlisted in a cavalry regiment. In 1940, in the shadow of the invasion of Greece, MI(R) contacted Pendlebury. He was given a course in explosives. His assignment was travel to Crete, contact the Cretans he had known, and organize bands of partisans. He was the only British citizen to be allowed into Crete by the Greek government. The other recruits went on to Cairo, where they were given various assignments. As a cover Pendlebury, posing as a cavalry officer, was made a military attaché, a Vice Consul, at Heraklion, in charge of liaison between the Greek and British militaries. At the time there were no significant British forces in Crete, but this cover gave him an excuse to be in the countryside.[27]

After the Battle of Crete, the area was occupied by Nazi Germany. After the Germans left in 1944, Evans's Villa Ariadne became the headquarters of the British Area Command. The newly founded UNRRA took up residence there and began to bring relief to the Cretans. Relief workers included the archaeologist Mercy Seiradaki who had previously worked with Evans at the site. The German surrender in 1945 was signed at Villa Ariadne.[24]

In 1945, Hutchinson resumed the curatorship of Knossos, which was passed to Piet de Jong in 1947, and then to the Greek Archaeological Service in 1951. Since then, the area around the site has urbanized with growth of Heraklion, and the site itself has become a major tourist attraction. In 1966 Sinclair Hood built a new Stratigraphical Museum.

• Cretan Gendarmerie
• Heraklion