How old is knossos

The east wing contained the residential quarters and large reception rooms, the most important being the Hall of the Double Axes and the Queen''s Hall. These rooms are approached by the imposing Grand Staircase. From the North Entrance, a road led to the harbour of Knossos. The North Entrance is flanked by elevated stoas, the one at the west being decorated with the Bull Hunt fresco. A large, stone-paved processional way, the Royal Road, led from the Small Palace and the city to the Norh-west conrner of the palace, where there was an open-air theatral area.

Around the palace extended the Minoan settlement, with the cemeteries on the hills. AD is an important building of the Roman period. The numerous finds from the palace, all of exceptionally high quality art, pottery, vessels, figurines, the archive of Linear B tablets, and the original wall-paintings, are all housed in Herakleion Museum.

Visit the page of Knossos at a city through the ages. Site heraklion. Uncomforted, Daedalus arrived in Kymi, where he built a temple in honor of the god Apollo, to whom he dedicated the wings that gave him freedom.

Once you have finished your tour of the ruins of this great civilization, it will be time to visit the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion and get an even better taste of Minoan grandeur. The Archaeological Museum of Heraklion is ranked second in terms of traffic for this month, nationwide after the Acropolis Museum. 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. For the visitor today, the area around the ramp which leads to the main palace, immediately exposes the rich strata of ruins that span millennia. To the left of the entrance ramp three large kouloures in the shape of large round pits reveal in their deep bottom the remains of Prepalatial building ruins.

The palace of Knossos was the center of administration of the entire island during Minoan times, and its position as such allowed for unprecedented growth and prosperity as witnessed by the plethora of storage magazines, workshops, and wall paintings.

The Throne room with its gypsum throne and benches to accommodate sixteen persons, the central courtyard, and the theater, along with the royal chambers paint a portrait of Knossos as a forum of elaborate rituals and extraordinary historical occurrences. The restorations performed by Evans have been criticized as inaccurate, and there is a feeling that many of the details were reconstituted to use Evans' term utilizing at best "educated guesses".

For the visitor however, the restorations render the incomprehensible strata of ruins along with their past grandeur a bit more obvious, and bring the majesty of Minoan life at the palace a little closer. Links: Knossos at GreekLandscapes. Knossos Knossos was undeniably the capital of Minoan Crete. The ruins of a prepalatial building at the bottom of one the Koulouras.

Picture of Knossos Palace. The Knossos Grand Staircase leading to the royal chambers. Ethel Dilouambaka. Give us feedback. Read Next View. Kyria Boutique House. Nerida Beachfront Villas. Viaggio Elegant Rooms. Litore Luxury Living. Villa Cleopatra sunset view. Ventu Luxury Suites. Pleiades Boutique Villas.