Palace of Knossos

The Palace of Knossos occupies the Kephala hill in the Kairatos river valley on Crete, roughly five kilometers south of modern Heraklion, and stood as the largest and best-known center of Minoan civilization. Archaeologists date the first palace on the site to around 1900 BC, followed by a major reconstruction after a destruction around 1700 BC that produced most of the complex visible today, before a final destruction in the Late Bronze Age, usually placed around 1350 BC, ended the site's role as a functioning palace. The British archaeologist Arthur Evans began large-scale excavation there in 1900 on behalf of the British School at Athens, uncovering a complex built around a central court, with storage magazines holding massive ceramic jars, an advanced drainage and water-management system, distinctively tapered columns, light wells that carried daylight into interior rooms, and painted frescoes depicting ceremonial processions and marine life. The palace's labyrinthine, multi-level plan is widely thought to have contributed to the later Greek legend of the Labyrinth, and the site carries a deep mythological association with King Minos, the Minotaur, and the story of Theseus and Ariadne.