Trip to Knossos

The site of Knossos is like an ancient version of Disneyland--it probably tells us more about the man who excavated it than about the ancient civilization who lived there.

Sir Arthur Evans had some very definite ideas about these people--he named them the "Minoans" after the legendary King Minos who ruled the island and the surrounding sea. The story of the Minotaur--half-bull, half-man--was reflected for Evans in the bull-leaping frescoes and the objects Evans calls the "Horns of Consecration," which may or may not be stylized bull-horns.

Marshall next to the "Horns of Consecration"

Anyway, Evans gets lots of flak for his elaborate reconstruction and imaginative naming--for example, a room in which he found a fresco of dolphins gets labeled "The Queen's Megaron" (a megaron is a large room) because for him, dolphins evoked the feminine. The main problem besides the tenuous connection of dolphin = female is that the fresco apparently was originally located on the floor of the room above and fell into the "Queen's Megaron," where it was later discovered by Evans. Oh, well...

So we walked around the site for hours, me taking lots of photos and Marshall taking careful notes so that when we get back it won't just look like bunches of rocks. I was disappointed because the Queen's Megaron was off limits due to conservation, but by lying on the ground and contorting my body I was able to get a partial shot of the fresco. Here it is:
When you go to Knossos try to get there as early as possible (it opens at 8) and make sure you hit the "Throne Room" first, because later on when the huge buses crammed with tourists arrive, there is a long line waiting to enter--even though it's still fairly early in the scheme of things touristical, the site was packed by late morning.

Throne Room: the woman in the yellow shirt is calling out, "Keep moving! Keep moving!"

At first I was surprised because Marshall and I seemed to be the only tourists on the city bus from Irakleo to Knossos, but it's because virtually all of the visitors at Knossos had been delivered in said huge buses. They bus 'em in, give them a half-hour or so at the site, tightly regimented by the ubiquitous middle-aged female tour guide holding up the umbrella, then bus 'em out to the next site, pausing just long enough to purchase tacky souvenirs at the emporia across the street.

We had time to sit and eat our picnic lunch in the shade, playing my favorite game of "guess the nationality of the tourists." Then after some more roaming the site we returned to Irakleo to hit the Museum.