The ancient city of Knossos, where archaeological excavations are being conducted, is located on a hill 3.1 miles southeast of Heraklion, the central city of Crete in the Aegean Sea. It was built during the Bronze Age by the craftsmen of the Minoan civilization, named after the legendary king of Crete - Minos. The Minoan culture existed on the island for about 1500 years: from 2600 BC. e. to 1100 BC e. Its heyday fell on the XVIII - XVI centuries. BC e. The main attraction of Knossos is the Grand Palace - a huge complex of rooms, halls and courtyards with a total area of 205,278 square feet. The palace of Knossos is closely related to the Greek myth of Theseus, Ariadne and the monster Minotaur. The legend of the Knossos labyrinth, which Daedalus built to hide the terrible half-animal, half-human,some researchers associate it with the layout of the palace complex. Some archaeological finds made in Knossos and other ancient cities of the island of Crete remotely confirm the practice of human sacrifice. They correspond to the content of the legend of the Minotaur, which says that every year 14 girls and boys were brought to the monster from Athens.
The location of Knossos was discovered in 1878 by the Cretan merchant and antiquarian Minos Kalokerinos, who excavated several sections of the western wing of the palace. However, systematic excavations were not carried out here until 1900, when the director of the Oxford Museum of Ashmolean, Sir Arthur Evans, acquired the land and began research, which continued until 1931. During work at Knossos, Evans and his team, among other things, discovered the main palace, the great Minoan city and several necropolises. Evans carried out a lot of restoration work in the palace of Minos (however, one can disagree with the name given to him by the researcher). Some archaeologists even believe that the current appearance of the palace is more the result of Evans' wild imagination, and not a monument of ancient Minoan culture. After Evans, the costs of the excavation at Knossos were borne by the British School of Archeology in Athens and the Council of Archeology of the Greek Ministry of Culture.
On the top of the hill where Knossos was located, people lived for a long time: from the Neolithic era (7000-3000 BC) to the Roman period. The name of the city of Knossos comes from the word "ko-no-so", written in Linear B, the oldest surviving form of Greek writing used in Crete and mainland Greece in the XIV-XIII centuries. Don. Samples of Linear B were found in clay tablets at Knossos, where court scribes recorded the order of work and administrative decisions, in particular in the production of perfume oils, gold and bronze vessels, chariots and textiles, as well as in the distribution of goods: wool, sheep and grains. In addition, Evans found clay tablets at Knossos, written by an earlier and still undeciphered Linear A Cretan script.
The first Minoan palace at Knossos, built around 2000 BC e., existed until 1700 BC. e. and was destroyed by a monstrous earthquake. This event completes the stage, which in archeology is usually called the period of the Late Palaces. The new palace (or rather, the palace complex) was erected on the ruins of the old one. The construction was a harbinger of the golden age of Minoan culture, or the period of the New Palaces. The Great Palace, or the Palace of Minos, became the main achievement of Minoan culture and the center of the most powerful city of Crete. The imposing complex of wood and stone, which apparently numbered at least 1,400 rooms, served as an administrative and religious center. The layout of the Palace of Knossos repeats other buildings of this type that existed in those days in Crete, in particular in Festus - a citylocated south of the central part of the island. However, the Knossos complex was undoubtedly the main one. Minoan palaces traditionally consisted of four wings around a central rectangular area - the heart of the complex. Each section of the Palace of Knossos had specific functions. In the western part, there were necropolises, a number of ceremonial rooms and narrow storerooms, filled with pithos - large-capacity jugs. An elaborately decorated throne room was also located in this part of the complex. Here, in front of a row of benches, was a stone seat built into the wall, which Arthur Evans called the royal throne. This is how the name of the premises appeared, which quickly caught on. On the outskirts of the western wing of the complex was the Western Courtyard. It was an elaborately paved outer entrance to the palace. Once the buildings were four-story,but only three floors have survived to this day. It was in this part of the complex that there was a quarter in which, apparently, the Minoan elite lived, there were workshops, necropolises and one of the most impressive achievements of Minoan architecture - a monumental staircase. In other parts of the palace there are huge apartments with water flowing through terracotta pipes, and possibly the first examples of flush toilets.
The most unexpected finds in Knossos were frescoes - luxurious paintings on plaster on the walls, and sometimes even on the floors and ceilings of buildings. The frescoes depicted princes, beautiful girls, fish, flowers and strange games in which young people jumped over huge bulls. At first, the wall paintings were presented in fragments, often without a significant part of the elements, but later Evans and the artist Pete de Jong managed to restore the frescoes and assemble the fragments into a single whole. Subsequently, there was a lot of controversy about the thoroughness of the reconstruction work, but today there is no doubt that many of the frescoes have a religious and ritual purpose.
During the heyday of the Minoan civilization - in 1700-1450. BC e. in Knossos and adjacent settlements, according to researchers, at least 100,000 people lived. During this time, the centers of the Minoan civilization experienced two large earthquakes, the most destructive of which occurred, probably in the middle of the 17th century. BC e. (although some researchers give dates no later than 1450 BC). The most powerful volcanic eruption on the island of Thira (modern Santorini) of the Cyclades archipelago, 62 miles from Crete, exceeding the atomic explosion in Hiroshima in strength, split the island of Thira into three parts. In the middle of the XV century. BC e. due to the weakening of the network of trade routes and the destruction that caused frequent earthquakes in mainland Greece, the Minoan civilization began to decline.
Probably, the layout of the palace of Minos with many rooms resembled a labyrinth, so some researchers believe that this was the impetus for the creation of the legend of the Minotaur and Theseus. The essence of the myth is that in Athens Theseus heard about the bloody tribute demanded by the king of Crete Minos for the fact that the Athenians killed his son. It consisted in the fact that seven young men and seven innocent girls were delivered from Athens to Crete every year to be eaten by the Minotaur - a terrible half-bull, half-man, a monster locked in a labyrinth designed by the great architect Daedalus. Shocked, Theseus voluntarily becomes "part" of the annual donation and kills the Minotaur. But before, along with the rest of the victims, go to Crete on a ship with black sails, Theseus makes his father Aegeus a promise: if he succeeds in killing the Minotaur,on the way back, he will change the black sails to white - this will mean that Theseus remained safe and sound. The daughter of King Minos Ariadne fell in love with Theseus as soon as he stepped ashore and agreed to help him kill the Minotaur.
Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of silk threads, with which the hero was able to find his way out of the labyrinth after he killed the monster. Together they went back to Athens, but, having made a stop on the island of Naxos, Theseus, by order of the god Dionysus, left Ariadne there. Heartbroken, he forgot his promise to his father and did not replace the black sails. King Aegeus, thinking that his son was dead, threw himself off a cliff into the sea.
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Knossos was associated with Theseus and the Minotaur, and much later, when the Minoan culture ceased to exist. This version is confirmed by money, in particular a silver coin from Knossos, dating from 500-413. BC e. It depicts a running Minotaur on one side, and a labyrinth on the back. On another coin we meet the head of Ariadne against the background of the labyrinth. Images of the Minotaur and the labyrinth were especially popular in the Roman period. The Knossos labyrinth is depicted in many mosaic drawings of that time. Undoubtedly the most impressive of these is a 5th-century drawing found in a Roman villa near present-day Salzburg (in western Austria). However, some researchers believe that the legend of the Minotaur has nothing to do with the architecture of the Palace of Knossos. They pay attention to the differences in the maze, consisting of one passage from the center,and a maze with many moves. Probably, we are talking about a labyrinth with one passage, which is a symbol of the mysteries of life and death. This version is associated with a religious ritual in which the Minotaur, waiting in the center of the labyrinth, personifies a certain secret stored in the heart of each of us.
The story of Athenian boys and girls who were sent to Knossos to sacrifice to the Minotaur has always been considered just a myth. However, archaeological finds partly confirm this eerie legend. In 1979, 337 human bones were found in the foundations of the northern wing of the Knossos palace complex. It has been established that these are the bones of at least four people, moreover, children. Upon further examination, terrifying details were revealed: 79 of them remained marks made by a sharp blade. Bone specialist Lewis Binford claims that the marks were left when the flesh was separated. Guided by the assumption that the removal of meat from bones was part of the funeral ceremony (not all the flesh was removed, but only large pieces), professor of classical archeology at the University of Bristol, Peter Warren, who participated in the excavation,concluded that the children appeared to have been sacrificed and even eaten.
Just 4.3 miles south of Knossos, in the four-hall sanctuary of Anemospilia (first excavated here by J. Sakellaricas in 1979), another find was found of human sacrifice. When examining the western hall of the palace, archaeologists found three skeletons. The first belonged to an 18-year-old boy lying on his right side on an altar in the center of the room with his legs bound and a bronze dagger in his chest. There was once a column near the altar, around the base of which there was a drain, apparently designed to drain the victim's blood into it. An examination of the bones of a deceased young man showed that he died of blood loss. In the southwest corner of the room, the remains of a 28-year-old woman were found sprawled on the floor, and a 5-foot-9-inch skeleton was found near the altar.owned by a man under the age of 40. The man's arms were raised as if he were trying to defend himself, and his legs were broken by the fallen masonry. Another skeleton was found in the building, so damaged that it is impossible to identify it. The temple was destroyed by fire around 1600 BC. e., which arose, probably as a result of an earthquake. Obviously, these three people died under the rubble of the roof and the masonry of the outer walls, and the young man was most likely dead by that time.these three people died under the debris of the roof and the masonry of the outer walls, and the young man by that time was most likely dead.these three people died under the debris of the roof and the masonry of the outer walls, and the young man by that time was most likely dead.
Archaeological evidence confirms that human casualties were not widespread in Minoan Crete. The examples given were rather exceptions and were explained by desperate attempts to please the gods in difficult times, probably during seismic activity. And the fact that children, boys and girls were sacrificed both in the northern wing in Knossos and in the temple of Anemospilia, again reminds of the seven guys and seven girls who were allegedly sacrificed from Athens to the Minotaur. Perhaps the legend of the Knossos labyrinth arose due to the fact that they had to resort to the practice of human sacrifice during periods of instability, when the safety of an entire community was threatened.
B. Houghton. "Great secrets and mysteries of history"
