It is considered one of the most important museums in Europe. It is located in the heart of the city of Heraklion. During the Venetian occupation, the catholic monastery of St. Francis was located here. It was destroyed by the earthquake of It was the most important and richest monastery in Crete, decorated with exceptional Byzantine frescoes. Construction of the museum began in the early 20th century and was completed in On the ground floor of the museum, there are 13 rooms open to the public, while on the first floor there are pieces from the original murals from the Palace of Knossos.
All the exhibits of the Museum of Heraklion come exclusively from the archeological sites of Crete, and their exhibition has been done over chronological periods. Unique in its kind is the famous Disk of Phaistos, with hieroglyphic writing points and ideograms. The contents of our album are unknown. Remarkable are the gold jewelry found in Minoan necropolises, the mirrors with ivory handles, the eyebrow tweezers, the ivory combs, as well as the swords with the golden handles.
Excavations have shown that there was a settlement here in the 8th millennium BC, perhaps even before and that a palace existed as early as the 4th millennium BC. The foundations of many palaces have been found and most of what we see today belong to the period between the 16th - 14th century BC.
It has later constructions after the end of the Minoan civilization, but this does not mean the end of the inhabitants here. Knossos palace was to become an important settlement during the Mycenaean period, as well as during the Hellenistic and Roman eras and was not abandoned until the Middle Ages.
The first major excavation was carried out in by the wealthy art lover from Heraklion Minos Kalokairinos, while Crete was still under Turkish occupation.
Minos Kalokairinos excavated part of the western warehouses and brought to light many large 'pithos'. The excavation lasts until , while the palace complex was excavated in 5 years, a time that is considered minimal with current methods and techniques. Evans proceeded with the restoration of the palace with cement, a technique that is today criticized as arbitrary and aggravating for the Minoan edifice.
Since then, archaeological research has been ongoing and a program has been launched to maintain the palace from damage. From the findings of the excavations, we find that a female deity was worshiped in Knossos. The figures with a topless woman holding snakes in her hands are believed to have been the goddess of the ancient Cretans.
Another was the sacred symbol of the double ax and the bull that was also worshiped here. There were toys, the bullfights, where young men and women jumped over the bulls while many works of art with horns and bullheads have been found in Knossos. Also, the variety of building materials, the colored mortars, the orthomarbling, and the murals that adorn rooms and corridors made an impression. The high technical knowledge of the Minoans is confirmed by original architectural and construction inventions, such as skylights and multi-doors, the use of beams to strengthen the masonry, as well as the complex sewerage and water supply network.
It is not certain what peoples lived here from the depths of prehistory. The Achaeans invaded in the 15th century BC. They spoke Greek, had Greek gods, and used Knossos as a center. They were also the ones who used the so-called Linear B script, which has been found on clay tablets. The end of the Minoan civilization was probably caused by natural disasters. The earthquake that sank half of Santorini in BC seems to have destroyed most of the buildings in Crete. The archaeological site of Knossos is extremely easy to access, adding one more reason why it is so popular among the crowds.
It is very easy to get to Knossos from Heraklion. Simply take bus number 2 and stay on it until it reaches its final stop: Knossos. Be careful, there are 2 bus-stations in Iraklio. The bus to Knossos leaves from Bus-Station A. All buses to the East of Crete also leave from this station. The buses to the Knossos Palace ran daily in the high-season summer months every 20 minutes from 8 am to 7 pm.
During winter the routes are fewer run only until 5 pm. If you want to experience the grandeur of Knossos and the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, look no further. By joining one of our tours you will enjoy guided tours across the famous archaeological site.
There is no denying that visiting Knossos Palace and the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Now you have all the information you need to upgrade your experience in Crete. The roots of the Western culture lie here. Despite the questionable restoration work by archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans, the palace still manages to convey to visitors a sense of its former glory.
But you are not dead: you live and abide forever, For in you we live and move and have our being. The palace of Knossos was erected on the ruins of an older building constructed around BC and likely destroyed by the earthquake caused by the gigantic ca.
Arthur Evans was the archaeologist who, in , began to excavate Knossos. He was also in charge of restoring the ruins of the palace. He tried to recreate the original appearance of the building by rebuilding the missing parts with modern materials like reinforced concrete. For this reason, he was later much criticized. But he was certainly not the only archaeologist to work this way during his era. Also to know is, what happened to Knossos? The city of Knossos , and almost every other community centre on Crete, was destroyed by a combination of earthquake and the invading Mycenaeans c.
The eruption of the volcano on the nearby island of Thera Santorini in c. Furthermore, what is Knossos known for? Knossos was an ancient Minoan palace on the island of Crete an island in the Mediterranean Sea. King Minos, famous in mythology for his wisdom and as a judge of the underworld, named the Minoan Kingdom after himself. Volcanic explosion. Three and a half thousand years ago, the tiny Aegean island of Thera was devastated by one of the worst natural disasters since the Ice Age - a huge volcanic eruption.
This cataclysm happened km from the island of Crete, the home of the thriving Minoan civilisation. Who killed the Minotaur? Its features include a possible bath, storage areas and toilet. While there may have been some disruption at Knossos associated with the eruption of Thera around B. Around B. Fitton notes that all the palaces on the island, with the exception of Knossos, were destroyed. What exactly happened is a matter of debate. One idea is that a series of natural calamities, such as earthquakes, hit the island.
Another idea is that Crete was invaded by a people called the Mycenaeans, whom researchers know came to occupy Knossos. The Mycenaeans were a Greek-speaking people who apparently moved to Crete from the mainland. They wrote in a language we call "linear B," and thousands of inscribed clay tablets bearing the script, and baked from fire, have been found at Knossos.
Recent research into these tablets provide clues into the lives of women who lived in Mycenaean-controlled Knossos. For instance the tablets show that "Knossian women were attested to as owning their own land, and were recorded in ways completely analogous [comparable] with male land holders," writes Barbara Olsen, a professor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, in her book " Women in Mycenaean Greece, the Linear B tablets from Pylos and Knossos " Routledge, Various women were also attested as having massive amounts of food-stuffs, slaves, raw and finished textile products, and luxury goods such as gold and bronze vessels," wrote Olsen in her book.
McEnroe also notes that the Mycenaeans embarked on a program to rebuild parts of the palace and create new frescoes. Compared to the earlier frescoes the range of motifs "is remarkably narrow," he writes. Instead the fresco program was stripped down to a few bare essentials.
Bulls, tribute-bearing processions, heraldic devices and decorative friezes form of the bulk [of the decorations]," he writes. Knossos appears to have been destroyed sometime before B. The Mycenaeans would see their civilization collapse around B. In the period after this collapse the people of Crete took to the hills, living in elevated settlements in hopes of surviving the calamity that had befallen the ancient world.
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