June 21st - Day 11

The throne room at Knossos

Today was a big day - we got to go to Knossos! Knossos was a Minoan settlement most famous for its palace. It was settled during the Neolithic (New Stone Age) Period and was continuously occupied until the 5th century AD. According to legend, Knossos was the seat of the wise king Minos. It is also connected to popular myths, including the Labyrinth and the Minotaur (click for the story) and the story of Daidalos and Ikaros (click for the story).

The site was extensively excavated by Sir Arthur Evans. Much of the site has been reconstructed by Evans, which made it different from a lot of other sites that we have visited, namely because the reconstructions made it a lot easier to visualize what the structures may have looked like in the past. There are two schools of thought concerning the reconstructions done by Evans. Most people sympathize with Evans - he discovered one of the most important site in all of Crete and had to figure out a way to preserve it for posterity. Others disagree on how he handled the restorations, complaining that it is largely based on speculation and prevents others from being able to study the site...I can see both sides of the argument and don't feel like I know enough to take an educated stance.

The famous bull jumping fresco

After Knossos it was off to the Historical Museum of Crete. This was an interesting museum...it is currently under construction so there were only 2 rooms open which contained the "greatest hits." Nevertheless, it was still worth checking out. We got to see a lot of the finds from Knossos, as well as some of the other places we will be visiting later this week. When we finished at the museum we had the rest of the afternoon to ourselves, which I spent wandering around and checking out the local scene around Iraklion.