Evans designated the building at Knossos a palace and named the civilization that had built it the Minoans, after King Minos of Greek mythology. Since then the actual function of the building and of the other palaces has been questioned and new interpretations advanced. Alternative views consider the four large palaces of Minoan Crete to be temples or administrative centres or both, and in one interpretation, Knossos is seen as a necropolis -- a huge burial site to which only a small band of priests and embalmers had access. Here, following convention, the name Palace is used throughout.
Evans, like all of us, was a product of his time, and his time was Victorian England. He was an amateur archaeologist as were many archaeologists at the time. Only wealthy men of leisure could afford to carry out the kind of archaeological dig that Evans carried out at Knossos and professional archaeologists received even less government support then than they do now. We are fortunate that Evans was a rather better archaeologist than many of his generation, thanks in part to his father, himself an amateur archaeologist. No less important, he had the support of an excellent team of British archaeologists including Theodore Fyfe and Duncan Mackenzie as well as talented Greeks including the Cypriot Gregorios Antoniou and the Cretan Emmanouel Akoumianakis, known as Manolaki, who much later was killed fighting the Germans in the Battle of Crete.
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Mackenzie, in particular, was to play a crucial role in the excavations as he kept day books in which he recorded all the developments at the excavation site. He probably had the most scientific approach of any archaeologist working in the Aegean at that time. Sadly he later suffered from severe mental illness which rendered him incapable of working.
Although much criticism has been levelled at Evans in the intervening 100 years for the way in which he rebuilt parts of Knossos, matters might have been worse still if Heinrich Schliemann had succeeded in buying the site of Knossos. The story goes that if the Turk who was selling the land had not exaggerated the number of olive trees included in the sale and thereby incensed the businessman in Schliemann then he and not Evans would have been the owner of the site and Knossos might have been excavated in the same insensitive way that Schliemann excavated Troy.
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Given Evans' background in the wealthy middle class of Victorian England it is not surprising that he superimposed an image of British monarchic society onto Minoan society. Evans identified Knossos as a palace and then set about identifying the various rooms used by the Kings and Queens of the Minoans. He also rebuilt large parts of the site. In some cases this was clearly unavoidable. The great staircase, for example, would have collapsed onto the workmen on the site if action had not been taken to restore it.
It is perhaps a fruitless task to criticise from the position of today's scientific approach to archaeology what Evans did then. We should be grateful that he was willing to sink so much of his personal fortune into the excavations at Knossos and devote the rest of his long life to the study of the Minoans. We don't have to accept everything he said about that civilization -- a further 60 years of excavations have taken place since Evans' death. But Evans provided the basis on which all further study of Minoan society has been based.
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The Palace of Phaistos lies on the East end of Kastri hill at the end of the Mesara plain in Central Southern Crete. To the north lies Psiloritis, the highest mountain in Crete. On the slopes of Psiloritis is the Kamares cave, probably a religious or cult centre for Phaistos and the Mesara plain. In this cave a very fine pottery style was discovered from the Middle Minoan period, which has been named Kamares Ware after the cave in which it was found. Kamares ware has only been found at Palace sites like Phaistos and Knossos, suggesting that it was specially produced for whatever elite was based in the Palaces.
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A couple of kilometres to the west of Phaistos is the important Minoan site of Ayia Triadha. To the south of Phaistos are the Asterousia mountains beyond which lies the Libyan Sea. To the south west is Kommos, the ancient port of Phaistos and to the east, the vast Mesara plain.
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The Palace was excavated by the Italian archaeologist Halbherr at the beginning of the 20th century. The earliest settlements on the site, which lies close to the Yeropotamos, one of the few rivers in Crete to flow all year round, dates from the Neolothic Period (c.4000 BCE) . It is likely that in the Early Minoan period small settlements were scattered over the hill on which the Palace later stood. Dark on light pottery (Agios Onouphrios ware) has been found in the prepalatial levels on the hill, but no Vasiliki ware from the Early Minoan II period has been found on the site.
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The Old Palace was built on the site at the beginning of the Second Millenium, known as the Protopalatial Period (c.1900-1700 BCE). Twice it was severely damaged by earthquakes and rebuilt so three distinct phases are visible to archaeologists. Levi, who excavated here from 1950 to 1971 believed that the first two phases of the Old Palace of Phaistos constitute the oldest Palatial buildings in Crete. Other finds at the site include thousands of seal impressions and some tablets containing the Linear A script from Middle Minoan II. Linear A has so far defied all attempts to decipher it.
When the Old Palace was finally destroyed, almost certainly by an earthquake, a new palace was built on the site. Fortunately for us, the builders of the new palace did not destroy all traces of the old. In fact much of the old palace was covered over at the time of the building of the new palace in order to level the ground. Some of the old palace can still be seen by visitors, especially in the north-east corner, but much of the Old Palace remains are accessible only to the experts.
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The Palace of Malia is situated on the North coast of Crete, East of Heraklion. To the south lie the Lasithi mountains. At 7,500 square metres, it is the third largest of the Minoan palaces. The Minoan name for the Palace is not known and it takes its name from a local town. The first habitation in the area probably dates from EM II and there is evidence to be found all over the palace site and in the town to the north. The town itself probably was not founded until EM III or MM IA.
The first palace to be constructed on the site was built around 1900 BCE. Little is known of this palace though some finds from the Old Palace period attest to the wealth of the Old Palace at Malia. This palace was later destroyed, probably by an earthquake.
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The second palace, the ruins of which we see today, was built about 1650 BCE and is similar to the old one. The second palace was destroyed around 1450 BCE, along with the other Minoan sites in Crete. The various functions of a palace -- religious, political, economic -- are all in evidence here.
The first attempt to excavate the site was made in 1915 by Joseph Hadzidakis but the full excavation of the Palace and much of the surrounding town was conducted by the French Archaeological School under F. Chapouthier and are still continuing today. Like the other palaces Malia has a west court. The west wing of the Palace, which probably had two storeys, contained magazines, cult rooms and official apartments.
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To the east is the Central Court, which existed at the time of the Old Palace. This central court is oriented north-south and the main entrance to the court would have been from the north. The central court measures 48 metres by 23 metres. The north and west sides of the Central Court were lined by porticoes, a common feature in Minoan Palace architecture. Often the pillars would be alternately wood and stone, a feature also to be seen at the Knossos palace.
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In the middle of the central court there is an unusual altar which was built in the New Palace period. Inside the sunken area are four supports. Although altars are common enough features of the Palaces and even of palace-like buildings such as the country house at Makriyialos on the south coast, this particular feature is unique to the Malia palace.
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To the east of the Central Court are the East Magazines, well-preserved and covered for protection. The six magazines each consist of a raised area where the pithoi would have been placed, and in the middle of each magazine there is a channel which ends with a hole in the ground. It has been argued that these channels and holes were for collecting any liquids -- wine, olive oil or whatever -- that got spilled.
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Opposite the magazines on the north side of the wing was a large building, in the middle of which was the "Loggia". This building was entered from the Central Court up four steps. It is assumed that religious rites took place here which would have been visible from the central court. Behind the Loggia, and linked to it by a stairway, was the Treasure Room. Other rooms in this part of the Palace included a lustral basin and an assembly room.
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To the south of the Loggia is the grand staircase. which originally led to a first floor room. To the left of the grand staircase, steps led south into the corridor which led to the Main Hall, an area used for religious purposes, which stood exactly opposite the Central Court altar. Again the Malia palace follows the traditional design of the palaces, since at Knossos the west side of the central court contained buildings with a religious function, including a tripartite shrine.
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The pillar crypt is entered from the Main Hall, and two large pillars can still be seen in the rooom, one of which has the engraving of a double axe on it. Pillar crypts exist in other palaces and in other buildings as well and their use is assumed to be religious. This view has been challenged but in many of the pillar crypts the room is far too small to need a central pillar to support the roof. An alternative explanation therefore has to be sought for the existence of these pillars in so many Minoan buildings. To the west of this area ran a long corridor, onto which opened a large number of magazines or storerooms. Once again the traditional design of the Minoan Palace is maintained.
The Palace of Zakros is located on the east coast of Crete, south of Palaikastro. Its position shelters it from the dangerously strong north winds that pass Cape Sidero on the northeast tip of Crete. It was the last of the major palaces to be discovered and is smaller than the other three at Knossos, Malia and Phaistos. The original excavations were begun by D.G. Howarth of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, and 12 houses in the town surrounding the Palace, whose existence remained unknown, were unearthed before the excavation was abandoned. Nikolaos Platon resumed the excavation in 1961 and was able to unearth a palace which had not been looted at the time of its destruction. The excavations have continued until the present day. The excavation represents one of the most important for Minoan archaeology since the Second World War, and the lateness of its discovery allowed it to be excavated using more modern and more scientific methods than those adopted in the excavation of the other Palaces some 60 years earlier.
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The Palace of Zakros probably acted as the Minoan gateway to the east and this view is supported by various movable finds on the site which had come from the Middle East. Like the other palaces, Zakros was rebuilt after the earthquake destruction of the old palaces. The second palace was built around 1600 BCE and finally destroyed around 1450 BCE, along with other centres of Minoan civilisation in Crete. Fortunately many artefacts were left in situ, probably due to the suddenness of the destruction. The palace covered 8,000 square metres, contained 150 rooms and had a Central Court measuring about 30 metres by 12 metres, smaller than that of Knossos..
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The harbour was connected to the Palace by a road and the complex was entered by the north-east entrance which led to the central court, where the base of an altar can still be seen. To the north west of the central court were the magazines (store rooms) and to the south the Hall of Ceremonies. Fresco remains were found here, together with cult objects which had presumably fallen from the floor above, as has been noticed so often at Minoan palaces. Among the finds were two rhytons. The first was the famous bull's head rhyton and the second showed a tripartite peak sanctuary.
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The shrine in the west wing included a lustral basin. The role of these lustral basins has been disputed amongst scholars. Some believe that they were domestic bathrooms, especially when located adjacent to rooms which are considered to be some kind of royal apartment. On the other hand, many scholars argue that they have a purely religious function and that they were probably used for ritual cleansing. Certainly the presence of gypsum in many lustral basins would rule out large quantities of water being used in them as the gypsum would dissolve over time. Those who believe that the lustral basins were purely for ritual purposes argue that any ritual cleansing would have been done using water from jugs rather than filling the bottom of the basin with water.
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The west wing shrine itself was a small room with two benches, and here various libation vases were found. The Treasury contained a large number of important vessels, including one of rock crystal and many of stone. In the Archive Room boxes with tablets inscribed with Linear A were stored.
Platon, basing himself on Evans's view of Knossos, argued that the royal apartments were located in the East Wing of the Palace. A portico runs the whole length of the court on the east side and behind the portico Platon identified the "Queen's Megaron" and, to the south, the larger "King's Megaron". In Platon's view, the royal bedrooms would have been on an upper floor.
East of the royal apartments is the "Cistern Room", with its seven steps that descend to the floor of the cistern. Although the cistern was part of the palace complex the cistern was not covered with a roof. Nobody is certain what its purpose was and suggestions have included a swimming pool and an aquarium.
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The South wing of the palace contained workshops and it is believed that this wing included a faience workshop. This is a pottery technique which gives a glazed effect. The North Wing contained the kitchens at its west end, and a very large room which may have been a dining room for servants or even a banqueting hall. The buildings at the north-east corner of the court contain a lustral basin, now roofed over for protection, in which remains of frescos showing sacred objects like double axes and horns of consecration were found.
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The Palace was surrounded by the town, of which only a part has so far been excavated. The houses were often quite large, containing up to 30 rooms, with small storage rooms built around a large room with a bench and a central support. The houses were arranged in blocks and both olive oil and wine presses were found in the town. It is almost certain that some of the buildings were not houses, however, but buildings belonging to the palace.
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In one such building Hogarth discovered 500 clay sealings with images of imaginary creatures. South of the harbour road a furnace was discovered which, judging by its size, must have been one of the most important in this part of the Mediterranean.
The site is very remote, and involves a long drive across fairly barren countryside, but the final drive down to the seashore and the setting of Zakros itself is spectacular.
