Palace At Knossos

A maze of never ending passageways, a man, a monster, and a legend that has stood the test of time. The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, first told in the 8th century BC, has been passed down through generations of people fascinated by a story of greed, revenge, sacrifice, and courage (James 1999). But the true origins of this legend remain a mystery. Was Minos a real king that sacrificed children to a creature that was half man and half bull? Or is the story based on a lost civilization whose cultural practices and beliefs were misunderstood by foreigners? In this paper, the popular myth of Theseus and the Minotaur will be compared to physical evidence discovered by archaeologists. This archaeological evidence from the sites of Knossos located on Crete, Tell el-Dab’a, and Hawara located within Egypt will help shed light on the origin and evolution of this myth.

One may ask, who are the Minoans? Well they are considered by many Historians and Archeologists to be the first great European Civilization. Some people believed that this was the mythical land of Atlantis. They were located near the Aegean Sea and lands such as Greece, Troy and Asia Minor. One interesting fact is that these people never called themselves the Minoans. There wasn’t any name listed in the history books for these people but the Ancient Crete Civilization. They were known as the Crete Civilization because they lived on the island of Crete which is now part of Greece. It wasn’t until a 19th century British Archeologist, Sir Author Evans gave them the name, The Minoans. He gave them this name because he believed he had found the legendary palace of King Minos. There has been many civilization collapses over the World’s history, but most can be explained in great detail. There are some that are very mysterious and not definitively explained. The collapse of the Minoan people happens to be one of those mysterious collapses which ranks 3rd in the top ten most mysterious collapses of the world and is still to this day debated on what actually caused their demise. There are many factors that go into the collapse of a civilization, but this kind of catastrophe doesn’t just happen in a blink of an eye this is something that happens over a long period of time. This paper will touch on the climate and environment, the time period and culture, how they became

?The next historical period, known as the First Palace Period, has been so named because the Minoans began to build large palaces.? Modern excavations indicate there were palaces in Knossos, Phaestos, Malia, and Zakros, though archeologists believe there must have been others (?Minoan,? Dilos).? Excavations of these palaces have revealed several common characteristics: each contained a large public courtyard and provisions for storing large quantities of grain.? The palaces were believed to be administrative centers for large local populations; for example, recent estimates suggest Knossos had between 15,000 and 50,000 people (?The Missing Minoans?).? Palace excavations also reveal fine decorative pottery, perhaps the most decorative in the world, which was probably made at palace workshops (Koutsoupakis).? The pottery, known as Kamares ware and named after the cave where the pottery was first discovered, utilized polychrome and full movement in its designs.? Made in a variety of shapes, and

The Minotaur, meaning Minos bull, was “a monster of dire appearance, having the body of a powerful man and the head of a bull” (Seltman 98). Against his newfound father’s request, Theseus leaves Athens in hopes of returning victorious against the bull-headed beast. In a heroic fashion, Theseus leaps over the next step in Campbell’s hero journey and never refuses his call to adventure. The next step to any hero’s journey is an encounter with a super natural aid, but Theseus’ story takes a moral mentor to gather resources needed for the rest of his journey (Robertson 269). Theseus encounters his unlikely mentor upon arriving to Crete; Minos daughter, Ariadne, instructs Theseus to take a ball of linen with him into the labyrinth in order to trace back his steps after defeating the Minotaur (Martin 129). Crossing the threshold, Theseus ties one end of his ball of linen to the front door and journeys into the unconquerable maze and towards the beast (129). Theseus passes through his first trial of navigating the labyrinth inwards with ease straight into danger. Walking

The Minoan civilisation originated on the eastern Mediterranean island of Crete and was named by Sir Arthur Evans (1851-1941) after King Minos. The society saw the gradual development of a culture that was rich in artistic and technological achievement and whose influence reached far across the Mediterranean. The relationship between Thera and Minoan civilisation was shown through the similarities of their architecture, pottery, writings, frescoes, religion and

The Minotaur, half man half bull, lived in Crete. Trapped in a labyrinth, constructed by the great Daedalus, the king of Crete, King Minos, demanded a tribute of seven boys and seven girls from Athens to satisfy the Minotaur’s savage hunger. But one year, Minos was deceived, for a new hero arose, Theseus, son of Aegeus, Prince of Athens. He won over the heart of Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, and used her ball of string to venture into the labyrinth to slay the Minotaur. After a hard-fought grapple within the lair of the minotaur, the beast fell to the sword of Aegeus, which Theseus had smuggled into the maze. Using the string, he found his way back out. The Labyrinth went underground, void of life, never to be seen again.

The great Minoan civilization of Crete formed around palaces such as those at Knossos, Phaestus, Ayia Triada, and Tyliossos. The extremely important Palace of Minos at Knossos gives us crucial evidence of a continuous architectural brilliance and highly developed artistic sense, bringing together all aspects of architectural style, art, and innovation during the Minoan period between 1700 BCE and 1580 BCE and continuing until the invasion of the Achaeans in the 12th century BCE (Britannica Encyclopedia). The most famous palace is the palace of Minos of Knossos which demonstrates a specific arrangement of blocks:

Mycenaean civilization is characterized by the large palace-like buildings that they created. These huge structures contained dozens of rooms used for a variety of purposes.

Because Minos was ungrateful to the gods, Poseidon, the god of the sea, punished the king by making his wife fall in love with a bull. “At the request of the queen, Daedalus built a lifelike model of a cow in which she could conceal herself and spend time with her beloved bull” ("Daedalus." UXL Encyclopedia of World Mythology.). As a result, the queen gave birth to the Minotaur, a monstrous creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull. King Minos ordered Daedalus to design a prison for the Minotaur, so Daedalus built one of the most famous structures of Greek mythology, the Labyrinth. “The labyrinth was so skillfully designed that no one could escape from the maze” ("Daedalus." Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia (2014)). King Minos forced the city of Athens to annually send 7 boys and 7 girls as tributes to Crete, so they could be given to the Minotaur as food. The king’s daughter, Ariadne, fell in love with one of these doomed tributes, named Theseus. In order to help them, Daedalus gave Theseus a ball of string so that he could tie the string to the entrance of the maze, kill the Minotaur, and follow the string back out. King Minos knew that Daedalus was behind the scheme, so he imprisoned both Daedalus and his son, Icarus, in the Labyrinth. Daedalus was too clever for the king, however, and he fashioned two pairs of wings out of feathers and wax for him and his son to fly out of

of Theseus and more specifically the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in the labyrinth. The

Since the rediscovery of the site of Knossos by Sir Arthur Evans in 1900, the cause of the fall of the Minoan Civilization has been largely debated throughout the years. Scientists and archaeologists have proposed various hypotheses to the mystery, mainly regarding to environmental factors such as the eruption of Thera Volcano and subsequent tsunamis, earthquakes and climate change; or social and political factors like societal conflicts and invasion of the Mycenaeans. This paper examines the relationship between the demise of the Minoan Civilization and the natural disasters it encountered which severely weakened and eventually led to the downfall of the civilization, and opened the way for Mycenaean domination of Aegean (Middleton, G.D., 2012).

The architecture on the buildings, such as the decorative details, what it is made out of, the components, and the features on the building, palace, or temple shows the history. A final key aspect of the Minoan and Mycenaean culture that lived on among the Greeks later knowledge passed down from the gods and goddesses, heroes and kings, and myths and legends (Matthews et al, 2014). The knowledge from their adventures, experiences, and explorations showed the Greeks they were original and ordinary, influential and

Beginning from the migrating of the first Indo-European to the Aegean regions, the advantages of this land developed a prosperity civilization, the Minoans. It was one of the wealthiest territories of the Ancient Greece. Locating on the largest islands – Crete of the Mediterranean Sea, Minoan civilization was “heyday” from 2000 to 1500 BCE. It allowed they built the most largest and magnificent palace, Knossos. Minoans was named from the mistake of Sir Arthur Evans at the 19th century. The opening seas helped them just only to focus on maritime trade and sea logistics. They became as a bridge trading in regions, create a vast amounts of trading and commercial. It helped the Minoans having a strong economy and widespread wealth. It attracted

knossos is one of the major archaeological sites in Greece in terms of its importance and interest to the visitor. This is because the mighty city of Minos and Ariadne, of Pasiphae, the Minotaur and Idomeneus, was one of the first cities on European soil, a centre which radiated the light of one of the most brilliant civilizations of Greek and European prehistory —the Minoan civilization, named after the great god-king Minos. The Knossos Labyrinth is both the key and the stumbling-block to our understanding of Minoan

The Deir el-Bahri and the Mortuary temples of Queen Hatshepsut are influenced by nature, since the temples lay adjacent to the Nile River. The Deir el-Bahri was located further to avoid flooding, local materials also influenced how architecture was made in all non-trading civilizations. In the Roman Empire, politics were the reason architecture was being made; emperors commissioned the structures. An example of architecture influence by culture are Minoan and Mycenaean architecture. Architecture in Knossos symbolized the lenient and easy going culture in the Minoan civilization. In contrast, Architecture in Mycenae symbolized the militaristic and war-centered culture of the Mycenaean culture. Even though environment, politics, and culture had a significant role in Ancient and Medieval Architecture, religion was the most influential factor in Ancient and Medieval architecture.