Knossos - The palace of Minos
The ruins of the ancient Knossos constitute the most significant evidence of the process of urban, architectural and artistic maturation of the first European civilization: the one that, from the name of the legendary king Minos, AJ Evans called "Minoan".
The origins of this city are confused with the legend of Minasse, son of Zeus, who according to the literary tradition civilized the inhabitants of Crete, over which he reigned with justice and consideration, instituting laws and creating the conditions for Cretan thalassocracy through the construction of the first naval fleet.
The legend of the Mintoauro is linked to the same character, a monster born from the unnatural love of his wife Pasiphae. Ashamed of this being with a human body and a bull's head, the king commissioned Daedalus to build an immense palace (the famous Labyrinth) in which he locked up the frightening creature. Every year (or perhaps every three or nine) seven young men and seven maidens from Athens, a city held responsible for the death of one of Minos' sons, were sacrificed as tribute to the Mintoaur. It was Theseus who marked the end of this macabre custom, killing the Mintoauro and managing to escape from the tangle of rooms and corridors with the help of Arianne.
The presence of men on the island has been attested since 6500 B.C., but only in the Late Neolithic (4750 –3000 B.C.) the territory was occupied in a uniform manner from both a settlement and a cultural point of view. The peoples in which scholars recognize the Minoans must however be identified with groups of populations that at the beginning of the Bronze Age (2800 B.C.) reached Crete from the coasts of north-western Anatolia, merging with the autochthonous Neolithic civilization. The arrival of the new immigrants brought with it important transformations which significantly modified the social, cultural and economic order of the new centers of power. The development of agriculture was such as to far exceed local needs.
The immediate consequence was the need to export the products in exchange for raw materials, lacking on the island, with the inhabitants of the Syrian-Palestinian and Egyptian coasts. At the basis of the phenomenon is the emergence of charismatic characters, descendants of those who had first ventured into commercial enterprises. Wealth gives them a higher social 'status'; the new masters now had the means to manifest and materialize their power in imposing palatial structures.
Thus in Knossos, from the end of the third millennium B.C., large architectural units with different purposes (residential and representative districts, warehouses, areas of worship) were merged into a single structure, mainly intended to perform economic, political, administrative functions and religious, under the supervision of the prince.
Between 2000 and 1750 B.C., at the beginning of the Bronze Age, the first "palaces - cities" arise in Mallia, Festo, Knossos, vast royal residences that combine housing functions for hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, cultural, administrative spaces, service areas such as warehouses and artisan and merchant shops: they seem to be an expression of the power and prestige of absolute sovereigns, endowed, according to some scholars, with prerogatives not unlike those of the Egyptian pharaohs.
And there are those who have hypothesized that the name "Minos" can be recognized as a term –minos – designating this type of ruler, rather than a character on the borderline between history and legend: the hypothesis seems more than acceptable. Many believe that this type of kingship can be credited with impetus for the transformation of Crete.
The layout of the first palace is little known: only a few structures and a couple of rooms refer to it with certainty, as well as the current western facade, built in the 20th century B.C.
However, a building project that dates back to the protopalatial age envisaged the creation of initially separate architectural nuclei, then merged into a single complex around a large central courtyard. The reconstruction of the first building was then made difficult by the numerous interventions and renovations carried out over three centuries, until the 1700 B.C., when a violent earthquake razed the entire building to the ground.
The cataclysm was followed by the immediate reconstruction of the collapsed buildings. There is therefore no solution of continuity between the end of the proto-palatial and neo-palatial ages, but an evolution that exploits the technical innovations and commercial experiences previously acquired. The Egyptian conquest of the Syrian coast then consolidated even more the Minoans in the role of primary interlocutors between Egypt and the Syro-Palestinian coastal strip. The consequent enrichment in this phase allowed Knossos to build an immense palace, the imposing ruins of which emerged from the excavations conducted, starting in 1900, by the English archaeologist Arthur J. Evans.
Erected on a low hill, whose unevenness was exploited to divide the building into several floors (at least two in the western wing and four along the eastern one), the building was built around a large central courtyard almost perfectly oriented towards north – south.
The complexity of its floor plan seems to echo the legend of the Labyrinth. The building had several entrances, all converging towards the central courtyard through monumental paths. The west entrance still has an access corridor frescoed with offerers on two superimposed rows (the so-called processional corridor). The northern entrance, on the other hand, gave onto a road which, a little further west, intersected a terraced complex perhaps used for theatrical performances. Although the destination of many rooms is not yet clear, it seems possible to broadly define the function of some sectors of the building.
The western wing, in particular, is characterized by the presence of rooms for representation (the throne room, the large corridors or the monumental stairways that led to the noble floors that are no longer preserved) and for worship (the set of small rooms called “pillar crypts” where the goddess of snakes was venerated). A clear public and religious function emerges in this sector.
Also in this wing, along a north-south oriented corridor, were the warehouses, also present in the north-eastern part of the building, together with a large artisan district. A productive and hoarding function is attributed to these two sectors (due to the presence of large jars for foodstuffs). The residential quarters occupied the southeastern wing of the palace. An imposing stairway, flanked by a well of light, led to the private sector, in which the rooms of the double axes (perhaps a room for private worship) and the queen's megaton (equipped with a water drainage system in which the bathrooms must be recognized).
The remains of the urban sector are scarce and little known, so much so that it is still doubtful whether there was a real city or a group of small residential agglomerations. Most of the houses identified belong to the neo-palatial phase.
Of different dimensions, they suggest a complex social stratification: the simpler ones must have belonged to the small and middle class; others instead, large and articulated, are interpreted as dependencies of the palace (probably seats of court officials). It is estimated that, in its most flourishing period, the city with the port and the prince's residence had as many as 100,000 inhabitants.
In the 1450 B.C. some Greek-speaking people of the Peloponnese, in a moment of crisis of the Minoan people, conquered Crete and destroyed its palaces.
However, the role of the island remained unchanged, even under Mycenaean rule. Knossos became the seat of the new monarch, but was later destroyed in 1370 by the same Mycenaeans from the continent. This date marks the definitive disappearance of the legendary city of Minos from the Mediterranean scene.
