With evidence of human occupation for the past one hundred and fifty thousand years and settled some five millennia past in the early neolithic period, we visited the archaeological site and partial, creative reconstruction of King Minos’ palace compound at Knossos, considered the oldest city in Europe and with the Minoan culture the origin of the first intelligible writing system with Linear B.
We drove through Souda Bay along the Northern Cretan highway to the central coastal city of Heraklion. Abandoned for unknown reasons during the late Bronze Age, the site was unearthed in the early 1890s by one Sir John Arthur Evens, whose father excavated Hallstadt, and whose career included prior turns as war correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, a spy in the Balkans and the caretaker of the Ashmolean Museum, who secured digging rights from the Ottomans around the same time the up-until-then legendary Troy was rediscovered by Heinrich Schliemann (the pair somewhat in correspondence and competition with another) in another part of the Empire.
The term palace turned out to be possibly misleading, rather than interpreting the over thousand connected chambers of workshops of this administrative centre the maze that held the dread Minotaur. Moreover labyrs (๐)—whence ultimately labyrinth was Cretan for a double-biting axe head, a glyph inscribed at corners, sort of like an evil eye, to protect what’s inside the walls, and could be interpreted as guide marks to find one’s way back out.
We found parking in an olive grove near a traditional tavern near the entrance to the site. The host said we were welcome to park in the shade at his establishment, and just might consider dining there afterwards—not a bad business model.
