"There is a land called Crete, in the
middle of the Wine-dark sea, beautiful and fertile, surrounded by water,
and in it there are many people, countless, and ninety cities and among
them is Knossos, the great city where Minos was king."
The
Odyssey
Knossos was excavated by Arthur Evans who called the
civilization that he found "Minoan" after King Minos.
Early in the eighth century B.C.E., the Greek poet Homer recorded
the four hundred year old oral legend recounting the deeds of Trojan
War heroes. It was claimed that King Minos sent ships to fight
the mighty city of Troy.
According to Homer, King Minos lived three generations before the
Trojan War. Minos seemed to have held hegemony over
other great island palaces. Along with Knossos, other large palaces or administrative centers
were Phaestos, Mallia and
Zakro. The major palaces were first constructed around 2,000, destroyed by an
earthquake about 1,700 and soon rebuilt on a grander scale. The
palaces were destroyed by unknown causes sometime around 1,450 B.C.E, |
