Having made a huge number of archaeological discoveries, Arthur Evans denied the participation of the Greeks in the creation of the Minoan civilization and sought to ancientize the Cretan finds so as not to connect them with the Mycenaean culture. He also monopolized research into the decipherment of ancient Aegean scripts, but was not successful. Despite the errors, Evans's main discoveries and theoretical achievements (in particular, the chronology of the history of Ancient Crete) were not subsequently revised.
Arthur Evans was born on July 8, 1851, the first child of his marriage to Harriet Evans, née Dickinson. In total, the family had three sons and two daughters. Evans's father was an expert in Latin and classical antiquities, his father Arthur Evans - the grandfather of the future archaeologist - headed the grammar school in Market Bosworth. John Evans married his employer's daughter - his own cousin Harriet - and managed the family business - a paper mill, which made him a wealthy man. The paper mill required large quantities of water; in search of suitable sources, John Evans became interested in geology and archaeology, especially Stone Age monuments; From early childhood, Arthur accompanied his father. John Evans had been excavating a Roman villa adjacent to the factory since 1852 and was elected to the Society of Antiquaries of London. On January 1, 1858, Arthur's mother died from childbirth; John wrote in her diary that the children did not seem to particularly notice their mother's departure; 70 years later, Evans resolutely wrote “no!” in the margins of his notebook. . Then his father, having married another cousin a year later, Fanny Phelps, began producing stationery, which provided sufficient income and leisure for archeology and antiques. In 1859 he explored the Somme Valley (in France) with geologist Joseph Prestwich. S. Horwitz argued that John Evans “was able to lay the foundations of modern geology, paleontology, anthropology and archeology, despite the fact that he could devote only Sundays and holidays to these activities.”
Arthur Evans Jr. received his initial education at Callipers Preparatory School(in Chipperfield, Hertfordshire), where he was strongly influenced by the science teacher and school founder C. Jones. He instilled in Arthur not only a love of nature, but also an attention to the classification of plant and animal species; approximately the same thing - in relation to the works of the human world - was brought up by his father. Arthur's younger brother Lewis, born in 1853, studied at the same school. Arthur was a calm and inquisitive child; very early on he became addicted to the study of coins; However, by the age of six, he still had not mastered the Latin language, as his father had once done, and therefore his paternal grandmother expressed concern that Evans Jr. might be “dumb.”
In 1865 Arthur Evans entered Harrow Private School. He excelled in academics and sports, and in his final year even edited the school newspaper. Among his friends, the future biologist Francis Balfour stood out. At school, Arthur lost his eyesight, but did not wear glasses; At the same time, he began to use a cane, which he used for orientation in space until the end of his life. His half-sister, Joan Evans, claimed that Arthur also suffered from night blindness, and at dusk always needed “friendly accompaniment.” At the same time, he was distinguished by a caustic sense of humor and a keen sense of individualism, so he did not like team sports, and there were conflicts with school authorities: Evans in Harrow was banned from publishing his own magazine “Pen-wiper” after the first issue, the reason was caustic its satirical content. Evans' ambition was fueled by the fact that he was small in stature, barely exceeding five feet (158 cm).
In June 1870, Arthur Evans entered Oxford University. He studied modern history, but since he was more interested in antiquities and archaeology, he did not do very well, although his mentors noted his intellectual abilities. In 1871, financed by his father, he traveled to Europe and, together with his brother Lewis, participated in excavations in Hallstatt. Although less than a month had passed since the end of the Franco-Prussian War, Arthur and Lewis Evans traveled to occupied Amiens, where they searched for Stone Age monuments. At the same time, Arthur was successfully engaged in numismatics; his first scientific work, published in 1871, was devoted to this subject. Since his father was a recognized expert in numismatics, Evans began to compete with him one way or another, but for many years he received the nickname “little Evans, son of Evans the great” (eng. Little Evans, son of John Evans the Great) . According to Kathy Geer, the conflict between father and son had deep roots, including those rooted in the generational differences in Victorian society. John Evans was a product of a society in which a middle-class man finished his education at the age of 15 and then began to pursue a career among established people much older than himself. By the end of the century, the duration of childhood and adolescence - expressed, among other things, in financial dependence on parents - increased significantly. Arthur Evans was an extreme expression of this tendency: being the first-born, he resolutely refused to inherit the family business, but was dependent on his father for the rest of his life. However, he was not a “greenhouse plant”, and although he loved comfort, he was not alien to adventurism and sought to get into regions where he could be in real danger - both from nature and from people.
In 1872, Arthur Evans visited the Ottoman Empire with his brother Norman, publishing an account of the trip in Fraser's Magazine the following year. In 1873, Arthur Evans and Francis Balfour traveled to Scandinavia, visiting Lapland, Sweden and Finland. During his travels, A. Evans learned to take notes and make sketches of landscapes and objects that interested him. At the same time, in correspondence he complained about the uncleanliness of the Laplanders, claiming that he could hardly stand the smell of reindeer fur. At Christmas 1873, Arthur was invited to Harrow to catalog the numismatic collection bequeathed to the school by John Wilkinson. In 1874, A. Evans almost failed his final exams at college because he neglected preparation in his chosen specialty - modern history, and could not answer a single question on topics later than the 12th century; nevertheless, he managed to convince the examiners of his high qualifications. The position and authority of his father played a significant role in this; Arthur ended up being number one in the issue.
After graduating from college, A. Evans tried to get a scholarship to study archeology ( Archaeological Traveling Studentship), but was rejected by B. Jowitt and C. Newton, who rated his achievements extremely low. In April 1875, he entered the summer semester at the University of Göttingen, and became his supervisor; Evans was expected to continue his studies in modern history. However, along the way, Evans found himself at illegal excavations in Trier, and he sent some of the items found to his father. Evans was disappointed by Göttingen; in his letters he complained that he was not interested in modernity; Also, a significant place there was occupied by a description of the contrast between the lives of wealthy city dwellers and villagers. Finally, in August 1875, Arthur and his brother Lewis again decided to go to the Balkans.
In August 1875, the Evans brothers received permission to enter Bosnia from the Turkish military governor. While crossing the border at Slavonski Brod, they were suspected by the Austrian authorities of spying for Russia and spent the night in a prison cell. After their release, the Evanses received a passport and an escort from the Turkish authorities and traveled to Sarajevo, then on to Dubrovnik. As the Bosnian Uprising began, the Evans brothers stayed with the British consul, who convinced them to leave the country. Arthur Evans published his travel impressions in a book Through Bosnia and Herzegovina gained him a reputation as an expert on Balkan affairs and he received an invitation from The Manchester Guardian to become a regular correspondent. At the expense of the editors, in 1877 he again went to the Balkans, covering the massacre of the Christian population and other details. The result was immediate suspicion of intelligence activities, although in Dubrovnik Evans gained a reputation as an eccentric, cane-wielding Englishman who was only interested in antiquities. Evans's notes received the approval of the famous traveler Richard Burton, who had a reputation as a lover of risky situations and adventures.
Having barely settled in Dubrovnik at the beginning of July 1877, A. Evans immediately organized excavations of a Bronze Age mound in Kanali, but they were interrupted after three days due to the escalation of the Montenegrin-Turkish war. Evans went to Cetinje to cover its events; after he considered his correspondent duties completed, the archaeologist returned to the excavations; Among the finds were silver bracelets in the shape of snakes, which caused a stir in the local press. One of his first acquaintances in Dubrovnik was Frane Bulić, but in the spring of 1878 Bulić went to Vienna to study epigraphy. Evans also planned to write a detailed history of Dubrovnik from the earliest times, but these plans never came to fruition. Kathy Geer has noted that the study of the past and contemporary politics are closely intertwined in Evans' scientific legacy; in his correspondence, he consistently contrasted the prosperity of the Balkan countries during the Roman Empire with their pitiful situation under the Ottomans.
Evans' excavations near Dubrovnik were interrupted by a meeting with Oxford University professor E. Freeman, a historian known for his anti-Ottoman stance; that year he traveled around Montenegro with his two daughters. At the same time, Evans began an affair with Margaret, the daughter of E. Freeman, who was three years older than him. They married in the Welsh village of Wookey in September 1878, and settled in the Villa San Lazaro in Dubrovnik, where they lived intermittently until 1882. Evans' father was concerned that his son had paid the house's rent for 20 years in advance. Arthur Evans continued to make a living as a journalist. The Evans couple did not have children, although Margaret underwent a course of treatment, for which she traveled to England for a long time in 1881.
Due to consistent support of the Bosnian rebels (the couple paid for the education of a Bosnian orphan and supported a blind woman), collaboration with the national heroine of Bosnia - an Englishwoman, statements that the Austro-Hungarian regime was no better than the Turkish one, on March 2, 1882, Evans was accused by the Austrian authorities of espionage and preparations for the uprising, and spent seven weeks in prison in solitary confinement. After the trial, Evans was deported; the villa in Dubrovnik remained in his possession, but was turned into a hotel because the Englishman was declared persona non grata. However, Evans gained a significant reputation among the Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks. And later he participated in the political life of the peninsula; after the outbreak of the First Balkan War, he actively participated in the negotiation process and worked at the peace conference of 1913. In 1914 he also sheltered several refugees from Dubrovnik on his estate near Oxford, and in 1915 he sent a special message to Prime Minister Asquith about the post-war fate of the South Slavic peoples. During the Versailles Conference, Evans was informally invited to develop a blueprint for a Yugoslav state. After his death in 1941, the Yugoslav government sent an official delegation to the funeral.
Against this background, a remarkable circumstance was that A. Evans remained, in his views, an aristocrat of the Victorian era. In a book about his travels through Bosnia and Herzegovina, he wrote that he was extremely annoyed when Bosnian peasants called him their “brother.” Evans called Bosnians untutored savages(“simple-minded barbarians”), and noted that among the Balkan Slavs who converted to Islam, “one can find manners and innate dignity,” the reasons for which he saw in the influence of the great tradition of the East. On the contrary, among Christians, even the upper classes, “the lack of politeness and its vicious consequence - ingratitude - is simply amazing.” Being a sincere and consistent defender of the oppressed, Evans fully shared island chauvinism and frankly stated:
I prefer not to hear from every barbarian I meet the maxim that he is a man and a brother. I believe in the existence of inferior races and would like their extermination.
The Evans returned to Oxford in January 1883. Evans was actively involved in scientific work, publishing several articles on Roman roads and cities in the Balkans, as well as numismatics. Apparently, he intended to participate in the competition for the position of professor of classical archeology at the university, but abandoned the idea because Jowitt and Newton were on the board of trustees. Being in a difficult mental state, he even wrote to his father-in-law that his dream of studying classical archeology was “sheer nonsense.” Having recovered somewhat, Evans, accompanied by Margaret, left for Greece, visiting excavations in Mycenae and Tiryns; in Athens he met with Heinrich Schliemann, was warmly received by him and became interested in the Mycenaean civilization.
At the same time, the trustees of the declining Ashmolean Museum attempted to reform it and add departments of art and archaeology. In November 1883, A. Evans received an offer from Charles Fortnum to head the archaeological department of the museum and accepted it. At the age of 34, Evans became a learned curator of the Ashmolean Museum and published a program of his activities. He negotiated the transfer of his father's collections to the museum and persuaded Fortnum to provide £10,000 for the establishment of an archaeological department and the construction of new premises; Fortnum donated his own collection to the museum, which included a large number of antiques, majolica and Renaissance art. Evans' other acquisitions included the Flinders Petrie collection of ancient Egyptians. Evans's own salary was £500 a year. In 1886 Evans led the excavation of Iron Age burials in Kent; the excavation report was published in 1891. In 1893, Evans met John Myers, who was then a trainee at the School of Archaeology in Athens. Together they purchased several ancient signets at the market, covered with unknown written characters; antiquities originated from Crete.
In the early 1890s, Evans' life experienced a series of losses: his father-in-law died in March 1892, and his wife Margaret died a year later. She was in poor health and suffered from tuberculosis towards the end of her life. Arthur planned to build a manor at Boars Hill, near Oxford, and purchased a 60-acre site for the family home (the land cost £3,500), but did not have time. At 42, A. Evans remained a childless widower; his wife was buried in Alassio, where Arthur took her for treatment. Evans never married again; in the future he always kept correspondence on notepaper with a mourning border; diaries were kept on similar sheets and even the most unimportant notes were made.
Despite the disapproval of his father, who considered the construction of the estate to be wasteful, Arthur Evans completed the job; the estate was named Yulbury after the nearby grove. The style of the house was so heavy that M. Fox called it a “Victorian behemoth.” Friends used the terms "amazing" and "fantastic" for the Evans estate. The house acquired gigantic dimensions - about twenty bedrooms, a huge marble lobby, Turkish baths decorated in the style of Roman baths, and so on. Evans later installed two replicas of the throne from the Palace of Knossos in the house; they were made of mahogany. Due to repeated reconstructions, friends jokingly distinguished layers of "early", "middle" and "late" periods in Yulbury - by analogy with the periodization of the history of Crete proposed by Evans. He lived in this house until his death; Evans, who had no children, adopted Margaret's nephew, Lancelot Freeman, as well as the son of a local farmer, James Candy, who resembled Margaret in appearance. Thanks to his stepchildren, Evans was sympathetic to the Boy Scout movement and provided it with support. For organizing an estate from four countries, he received a rare award - the Silver Wolf.
Table from Evans' book Scripta Minoa(1909), illustrating the connection between Phoenician and Cretan writing
After Margaret's death, Arthur fell into depression, abandoned his work at the museum, quarreled with Fortnum and even his own father, who married for the third time and had a daughter, Joan. To recover, Evans went to Liguria to study the Terramar culture, and from there traveled to Zagreb. At the same time, Evans' attention was attracted by events in Crete, and he became more and more interested in unknown written characters from this island. His enthusiasm was also supported by the fact that Schliemann considered Crete the ancestor of the Mycenaean civilization and planned to conduct excavations on the island, but due to the excessive price assigned for the hill of Knossos, he abandoned his idea. Having overcome his mental crisis and returned to work, Evans discovered several artifacts from Crete in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, and also received casts of similar finds from the Berlin Museum. On November 27, 1893, at a meeting of the Society for the Promotion of the Study of Greco-Roman Antiquities, Evans announced the discovery of ancient hieroglyphic writing and the identification of 60 characters. During this period, Evans associated Cretan writing with the Proto-Phoenician system. He wrote to Fortnum that he must definitely get to Crete.
Portrait of Evans painted by William Richmond in 1907. Ashmolean Museum
After the collapse of the Ottoman regime, Evans' activities were not constrained by the Turkish firman, and until his death he became a virtual monopolist of Cretan archaeology. The research foundation received generous donations, with which Evans bought the entire hill of Knossos. The transaction amount was 675 pounds sterling. The new Cretan government quickly adopted a package of laws regulating excavation activities, as well as rules for handling finds; It was clear that archaeological excavations were potentially important for the island's economy, raising funds and providing employment to the local population. Archaeological sites were divided between Britain, France and Italy, roughly according to zones of military presence; Knossos and Evans' possessions fell within the British zone of responsibility in Candia. The Cretan government pledged its authority to requisition the lands needed by archaeologists from their owners, but the researchers had to compensate for the financial damage. The discovered antiquities legally belonged to the “Cretan nation,” but objects and duplicates of little importance from an artistic point of view could be allowed for export.
In March 1900, having hired two specialists - the Scottish archaeologist Duncan Mackenzie and the architect Fife - and 32 excavators, Arthur Evans began work. He was not going to break with his usual way of life. The list of equipment included, among other things, a supply of nail brushes, 2 dozen cans of tinned beef tongue, 20 cans of sardines, 12 plum puddings, stomach remedies, a set of metal wheelbarrows and a Union Jack. By the end of the season, the number of workers was increased to 180, and the Englishman hired both Greeks and Turks, as well as workers of both sexes: men dug and carried the earth, and women sifted it so as not to miss even the smallest objects. Within a few months, a grandiose complex was excavated, which Evans designated as the “palace of Minos.” The British were amazed that it was larger than Buckingham Palace. The father, Sir John Evans, was so impressed that he immediately sent his son 500 pounds. In general, the palace complex was excavated by 1905, but private work continued until 1931. Evans quickly realized that he had discovered a civilization older than Schliemann's Mycenaean discoveries; the discoverer called it “Minoan”. One of the most spectacular finds was an alabaster throne, excavated on April 13, 1900; Evans told visitors that they were contemplating “the throne of Ariadne.” Kathy Geer noted that Evans' logic here was the same as that of Schliemann, who discovered the "Mask of Agamemnon" at Mycenae. The bulk of the work on the excavations and their description - including keeping a daily journal - was carried out by D. Mackenzie; Evans's annual reports, published in 1900-1905 by the British Archaeological School in Athens, were based on his materials. A considerable amount of Mackenzie's material was used in Evans' fundamental work, The Palace of Knossos.
Evans' sensational discoveries were quickly appreciated by the public: in 1901 he was awarded membership of the Royal Society, the University of Dublin awarded him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa, and later the University of Edinburgh awarded the same degree to the archaeologist; he also received honorary membership in many foreign learned societies. Evans also received recognition from his father: in the winter of 1901, 77-year-old John Evans arrived in Crete, and together the archaeologists traveled around the entire island, visiting the excavations of Festus, which was carried out by Italian scientists under the leadership of Federico Halberra, with whom Evans had an excellent relationship. . However, the excavations of the 1902 season were marred by financial problems (before this, Evans had worked with his father’s money and his own; approximately half of the expenses were borne by the Crete Exploration Fund), as well as a conflict with the director of the Athens Archaeological School, Hogarth. The latter criticized Evans' methods, as well as the excessive costs of restoring buildings; Arthur also managed finances. These works were carried out on a large scale in the 1920s; The restoration of the Grand Staircase and other buildings cost Evans a quarter of a million pounds, but led to great conflict with fellow archaeologists and architects. Puritan Duncan Mackenzie was shocked that in the ruins in 1910, Isadora Duncan tried to revive ancient paganism and even declared that she was a participant in the battle in which Apollo, Dionysus, Christ, Nietzsche and Wagner fought.
From 1903 Evans developed a rhythm that allowed him to live between two houses in Crete and Oxford. Excavations were carried out in autumn and winter; during the hot season, the archaeologist returned to Great Britain, where he could organize exhibitions, raise funds for excavations and process the materials obtained. In 1906, he built for himself the “Ariadne Villa” in Heraklion, which became his winter residence; fellow archaeologists who worked in Knossos also lived here, and there was also a hostel for family scientists, the so-called “Tavern”. At the villa, Evans led the usual life of a Victorian aristocrat. He was prim: even in extreme heat, he never allowed himself to appear at the excavations without a jacket. The Englishman did not like Greek wines, and his cellar was replenished with products from the vineyards of France. Evans entertained distinguished guests at the villa, including J. P. Morgan and the writer Edith Wharton.
Evans remained the learned curator of the Ashmolean Museum until 1908; It was believed that he carried out excavations during vacations or business trips. Having reached the age of 57, in one year he inherited most of his father's fortune (John Evans died at the age of 85) and the Dickinson fortune - after the death of his cousin, which allowed the archaeologist to resign and begin processing the materials of his excavations, after which he spent almost all his time spent in Crete. On retiring, he retained the title of honorary keeper and was awarded the title of Extraordinary Professor of Prehistoric Archeology at the University of Oxford. In 1911, based on the totality of his merits, Evans was awarded the title of Knight Bachelor by King George V. During this period, Evans took part in the reform of the British School of Archaeology in Athens, the reorganization of the British School of Archeology in Rome, and also tried to start an excavation project at Leptis Magna, but it was not carried out due to the Tripolitan War and the capture of Libya by Italy.
After his father's death he refused to take over as head of the Society of Antiquaries of London, but became head of it in 1914 because the Royal Air Force wanted to requisition the British Museum building for its headquarters; Moreover, in just three weeks the building was cleared of collections that had been collected for a century and a half. Evans (who by that time had become a member of the museum's board of trustees) managed, at the cost of a conflict with the generals, to reach the Cabinet of Ministers and cancel the order. In 1916, in protest against Germany's use of chemical weapons and the start of unrestricted submarine warfare, Evans resigned from the German Society of Antiquities and returned German decorations. Ironically, after Evans’ death, Ariadne’s villa was requisitioned by the German military command during the occupation of Crete, but was virtually undamaged.
After the First World War, Evans switched to research into Cretan writing, since in the first years of excavations about 3,000 clay tablets were found - an entire Cretan archive. The tablets were cataloged. Each box with signs was sealed and provided with an indication of its contents; the seals were already known to Evans; from the pictograms printed on them, one could roughly understand the contents of the tax lists. Evans identified three forms of ancient writing - hieroglyphics and Linear A and . From 1909 Evans published Scripta Minoa, many of the materials, transcriptions and reproductions placed there have the value of a primary source, since the original finds have been lost. At the same time, Evans prevented research in this direction and kept Cretan written monuments at home, hoping to decipher them, but he failed. The main problem was that the archaeologist a priori believed that the found inscriptions could not record the Greek language, although Linear B was used specifically for the archaic form of the ancient Greek language, but this was discovered only in the 1950s. However, A. Evans was able to uncover ancient Cretan numerical notations, which made it possible to work with business documents.
In 1921, Evans began publishing his monumental work, The Palace of Minos. The Palace of Minos at Knossos) - a total of 7 books were published (the second and fourth volumes were divided into two parts), containing more than 2,400 illustrations and diagrams. His last volume, published in 1936, was a detailed description of all aspects of the life of the Minoan civilization. It is noteworthy that Evans wrote with a quill pen as a matter of principle. This work was carried out in parallel with the restoration of the Knossos Palace, which was carried out at the expense of the archaeologist; he was actively assisted by the architect Piet de Jong, who had previously worked successfully in Mycenae. In 1926 Evans placed the Palace of Knossos and Ariadne's Villa under the management of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, with Duncan Mackenzie as the first curator, but due to mental illness in 1929 Arthur Evans replaced him with John Pendlebury; from 1952 the antiquities were transferred to the Greek government.
During the 1930s Evans remained active in the conservation of monuments in Crete, including those from the medieval and Venetian periods, and in 1932, after a long interval, visited Yugoslavia. Evans, 81, arrived in Yugoslavia with his late wife's sister, Helen Freeman; they took a road trip to Zagreb, Jajce, Sarajevo, Dubrovnik, Split, Sibenik and Zadar. This trip was covered by the Yugoslav press. He then stayed in Dubrovnik for two days - June 18 and 19 - 50 years after his deportation; he also met with Frane Bulich; together they visited Diocletian's Palace.
In 1935, Evans visited Crete for the last time, which was accompanied by great celebrations, widely covered in the press. The archaeologist received honorary citizenship of Heraklion, with a large crowd of people he was crowned with laurels, and his sculptural bust was unveiled at the entrance to the Palace of Knossos. Evans addressed the crowd in Greek; the meaning of his speech was that it was possible to revive the memory of a civilization twice as old as the Hellenic one. The archaeologist said about the ruins that their order and organization were inspired by the spirit of Minos and the great art of Daedalus. In other words, Evans voiced all his favorite themes: the ruins of Knossos confirmed the historicity of the myth, and the order and organization that followed from the finds served to substantiate the fact that the spirit of democracy and the rule of law from ancient times opposed the cruelty and despotism of the East. About himself, Evans modestly said that his personal merits are insignificant in front of discovered antiquities; he was driven by some supernatural force. Based on Joan Evans' testimony, her brother was not a Christian; Kathy Geer suggested that Arthur Evans was referring to the spirit of the Minoans themselves.
From the mid-1930s, Arthur Evans spent more and more time in his homeland; in particular, in 1938 he was engaged in research on the Roman road that passed through his estate of Youlbury and then crossed the center of Oxford. Evans' health allowed him to fly to Geneva back in 1939 and inspect the Rhine Limes from the air. However, not all of his activities were related to antiquities: in 1937 he made a trip to the Netherlands regarding the organization of the Boy Scout movement in this country. Evans' physical and mental condition gradually deteriorated; in 1938 and 1941, he successfully underwent two operations, but was never able to fully recover. The archaeologist's morale was aggravated by news from the fronts of World War II: the curator of the Heraklion Museum, John Pendlebury, was killed in May 1941 by the Nazis as a member of the Greek resistance; Evans was dealt a severe blow by the bombing of the British Museum by German aircraft. However, in July 1941, the archaeologist’s 90th birthday was solemnly celebrated in Youlbury, and a congratulatory address from the Royal Society and the Ashmolean Museum was read out. Three days later, Arthur Evans died.
Evans worked on a site that had already been previously surveyed in 1878 by the Greek amateur archaeologist, the Cretan merchant Minos Kalokerinos. Having dug 12 trenches on the Knossos Hill, Kalokerinos came across a massive building, dug up a warehouse with pithos and found the first of the Linear B tablets. However, the Cretan Society of Antiquities, fearing that the Turks would take all the finds to the Ottoman Museum, refused permission for further excavations. Kalokerinos introduced his findings to famous experts of the time, including Schliemann, Dörpfeld and Evans. Evans, having familiarized himself with the results of the Cretan's excavations and having visited Heraklion, drew up a plan for his own research and began the fight to purchase the hill. Kalokerinos's collections and materials were lost in 1898, when his house was burned down during the battles with the Turks.
M. Wood, in his study of the Trojan War, characterized Evans as an excellent field researcher who in some respects resembled Schliemann in his persistence and dogmatism. However, he had an excellent understanding of antiquities and archaeological methods, and was also noted for his attention to small details. However, his methods were little different from Schliemann's - while making his way to the main goal, he neglected the little things, for example, almost all the ceramics found in the first four seasons were thrown away. Those preserved as samples ultimately accounted for no more than 1% of all finds.
During the first season of excavations, Evans shared the opinion of Schliemann and Dörpfeld that a palace of the 13th century BC had been found. e., belonging to the Minoan culture, which at the late stage of its existence was conquered by the mainland Mycenaeans, which is consistent with the Homeric legend. However, already in 1901 Evans radically changed his views, which he did not correct until the completion of the excavations in 1930. In its final form, the theory was presented in the four-volume book “The Palace of Minos”. Abandoning his original views on the art of Mycenae and Tiryns, he declared that the cultures discovered by Schliemann were only a side branch, a barbaric colony of the civilized Minoans. He radically denied the Greek origin of both the Mycenaean and Minoan cultures, and considered the Homeric poems to be distorted echoes of the Minoan epic. Likewise, Evans denied the existence of archaeological evidence for the Mycenaean conquest of Crete and believed that such a thing could theoretically only have happened in the Neolithic era. Already in the 1930s, these views were criticized by contemporaries. W. Leaf back in 1915 challenged Evans' opinion about the absolute continuity of Minoan culture from its very origins in the Stone Age. The periodization of the Minoan civilization was built by Evans by analogy with the three-part division of ancient Egyptian history into the Ancient, Bachofen, based on the testimony of Herodotus that the Lycians allegedly descended from the Cretans, and the names were passed down through the maternal line, not the paternal line. Federico Halbherr in 1884 discovered an ancient code of laws of the polis of Gortyn from the 5th century BC. e., from which it followed that the status of women in Crete of the classical era was higher than in Athens of the same time. In particular, women had protection and guarantees that they would retain their personal property after divorce - in Britain, such a right did not appear until the passage of the Women's Property Act 1882. For Evans, this was evidence of the vestiges of a prehistoric matriarchy that flourished into the Bronze Age. Evans interpreted the myth of Ariadne in this terminology: the Cretan princess was the Great Mother Goddess, and the myths of the Labyrinth were a distant memory of orgiastic rituals to which only women were originally allowed. Evans even claimed that rudiments of these rituals - in the form of collective dances - survived in Cretan villages until his time. Evans polemicized with Nietzsche (“The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music”): Dionysus was not an eastern deity; on the contrary, he was revered as the husband of the Cretan Mother Ariadne, and until about the 6th century BC. e. Greek rituals preserved a significant part of the ancient Cretan religion.
Evans considered the ancient Cretan religion to be monotheistic and even compared it with Christianity. His views were significantly influenced by the research of J. Breasted in the 1910s on Egyptian material; in any religion he sought first of all an ethical basis, which he found in both ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek mythology. According to Kathy Geer, Evans was significantly influenced by The Golden Bough by Frazer, a contemporary of Evans. At the same time, Evans did not hesitate to discard those views that did not suit him for moral or religious reasons. According to Frazer, the dying and resurrecting harvest deity lies at the heart of most Neolithic religious systems, and underlies the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist. However, Evans was categorically unhappy that in Frazer's scheme the resurrected god was both the son and consort of the Great Goddess, and he sought to rid the Cretan pantheon of incest. Developing the theme of the “purity” of the Cretan religion, Evans wrote about the cave sanctuary of the mortal Zeus on Mount Yuktas, on the site of which a pilgrimage church was built. In this regard, Evans’ interpretation of the so-called “Boston Goddess” (based on the place where it was kept) stood out. This is an ivory figurine about 12 cm high, whose long arms are entwined with gold snakes, and the skirt is also trimmed with gold. It is noteworthy that several similar figurines (depicting both men and women) were acquired by Evans in Paris. Nowadays they are interpreted as fakes (faces began to be depicted anatomically correctly only in the art of the classical period), and Evans, even if he suspected something, stubbornly insisted on the authenticity of the figurines, since they corresponded to his ideas about androgynous deities of ancient times.
Evans shared the views of 19th-century theorists—most notably Tylor and Lubbock—about phases in the development of society that find expression in art. Therefore, considering Linear B as the highest stage of intellectual achievements of Cretan culture, Evans was forced in the 1920s to revise his own dating, change the circumstances of the finds of the tablets in order to make them more ancient and attribute them to the 15th century BC. BC, and not XIII, since this meant recognizing them as belonging to the Mycenaeans. These views were explained by Evans' racial ideas. He outlined his theory in the introduction to the second volume of The Palace of Minos. According to Evans, the Cretan civilization emerged from the "inert Aegean mass" originating from Egypt and Libya. Having discovered a fresco that depicted a Minoan commanding black warriors, Evans saw in it confirmation of his theory; however, he believed that the ancient population of North Africa was closer to modern Berbers, that is, they were of the general Mediterranean type. In 1923, Evans even specifically surveyed the southern coast of Crete in search of traces of contact with Africa during the Bronze Age.
The large-scale discoveries made by Evans led the archaeologist to the desire to restore architectural complexes and paintings. Fateful for his work was his acquaintance with Swiss artists -. Emile Gilleron moved to Greece in 1876, and his skills as an illustrator were widely used by Heinrich Schliemann: the artist recorded finds from excavations in Mycenae, and also illustrated works on Mycenae and Tiryns. Having a good artist was vital for archaeologists until the research discipline mastered photography. Gilleron's reputation was evidenced by his being hired as an art teacher to the Greek royal family and commissioned to design stamps for the first Olympic Games in 1896. From April 1900, Evans began to collaborate with Father Gilleron; their first joint work was collecting fragments of the painting of the throne room. Gilleron Jr. (1885-1939), born in Athens but retaining Swiss citizenship, assisted his father and Evans from the age of 15. It was the Gillerons who recreated the visual image of the Aegean civilization, and their contribution to the excavations of Knossos was ambivalent. Firstly, they collected wall paintings and other works of art (vases and figurines) in accordance with the ideas and instructions of Evans, and, secondly, they recreated their original appearance in watercolors, many of which illustrated the works of the archaeologist. The authors of the catalog "Recreating the Minoans" argued that the most famous creation of the Gillerons was a fresco depicting ritual dances with bulls, the so-called "Tauromachy", the original of which is kept in Heraklion. According to modern ideas, the restoration with water paints, carried out by the father and son Gillerons based on Evans' research, was quite modernized. Only the central part of the scene - the bull and human figures - has been preserved on fragments of the original plaster. Their reconstruction reflected Evans' research into Minoan bull rituals and was supported by similar scenes on goblets, sarcophagi, and the like. However, the friezes that frame the stage on four sides were the own addition of Emile Gilleron the father, and do not reflect the original.
Kathy Geer, in her 2009 study, was extremely skeptical about the restoration work carried out by Evans at Knossos. She argued that the combination of modernist "restorations" of painting, combined with ancient ruins and the bright colors of the columns, which have a flared top rather than a lower one, creates an "almost postmodern mood". K. Geer wrote that in the 1920s Evans did not use the term “restoration”: he carried out “recreation” or “revival”, even “resurrection” (respectively, "reconstitution", "resurgence", "resurrection"). Apparently, a long fascination with Minoan symbols of rebirth led Evans to realize his life's mission as an “agent of resurrection” of the ancient Cretans. In 1926, Evans gave a keynote address to the Society of Antiquaries of London on the restoration of the Palace of Knossos, which began by acknowledging that a champion of the traditional approach to restoration might be shocked upon entering Knossos. Initially, the palace was built on the basis of elastic wooden structures, that is, an anti-seismic frame, which was destroyed by fire or rotted. Recreating the upper floors of Cretan buildings, Evans began to use reinforced concrete structures to preserve his work; This decision was also prompted by the earthquake of 1926, which threatened to completely destroy the ruins of the palace. The restoration of the throne room was very difficult, the alabaster throne in which was discovered back in the very first season of excavations in 1900. Since it was fragile and could not be moved (being integral with the wall structures), until 1930 the throne was covered with a metal roof and protected with wooden shields. It was completely impossible to recreate exactly the ancient design of the room, and in the 1920s Evans undertook the same work that he had carried out with the Gillerons earlier. In architecture, the archaeologist's main assistant was Piet de Jong, whose father emigrated to Britain back in the 1880s. Sent to Greece as part of a program of urban reconstruction, due to the post-war crisis he was left without work, and was engaged in illustrating excavations in Mycenae conducted by A. Weiss. Since 1922, Evans became Yong's main employer. The throne room was made entirely of reinforced concrete in 1930, and the design of the frescoes and the fact that the hall consisted of two rooms separated by a colonnade was entirely Evans's hypothesis: judging by the photographs of 1900-1901, such conclusions could not be drawn. L. S. Klein came to approximately the same conclusions: Evans’ legacy is extremely difficult to classify. In general, he belonged to the cultural-historical school; from a methodology standpoint, he is closest to Flinders Petrie.
Throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st century, there was a continuous rethinking of Evans' legacy. D. Rubin's 1993 dissertation emphasized that many of Evans's conclusions, hypotheses and theories, especially in the sphere of society and religion, reflected not objective reality, but the humanistic tradition and theories of the 19th century. Actually, Evans’ archaeological qualifications were completely insufficient to interpret the finds he made, but, on the other hand, he had no predecessors, and there was nothing to compare his finds with. In addition, Evans lived in the era of the emergence of archeology as a science, earlier excavations were carried out primarily to find works of art, treasures, and the like. According to D. Rubin, Evans's main contribution, which has not been seriously revised, was the actual discovery of the Bronze Age civilization on Crete and its periodization. The original three-part periodization was complicated towards the end of his life.
A voluminous modern biography of A. Evans was published in 2000 by Alexander MacGiliray. Reviewer P. Warren, noting the fundamental nature of the work, the coverage of the Balkan period of the activities of its hero, the presence of a voluminous bibliography and a list of Evans’ publications, wrote that the author tried to avoid questions about how historically reliable the archaeologist’s calculations were. Warren also criticized Evans' overemphasis on racism and believed that it was incorrect to say that he fully shared the views of his father-in-law, Freeman. These motives were developed in subsequent publications. In 2009, Kathy Geer's book Knossos and the Prophecies of Modernism was published. The main issue was the impact of the discovery of Minoan culture on the intellectual and artistic life of Europe. According to Nanno Marinatos, K. Geer consistently undermined the scientific credibility of Evans' work, based on psychoanalytic premises on
EVANS, ARTHUR JOHN(Evans, Arthur John) (1851–1941), English archaeologist. Born in Nash Mills, Hertfordshire, on July 8, 1951, he was educated at Harrow, Oxford and Gottingen. In the summers of 1871 and 1872 he traveled through the Balkans, and in 1873 through Finland and Lapland. Arriving in the Balkans in 1875 as a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, Evans remained there until 1882, when Austrian authorities arrested him for his involvement in the Dalmatian uprising; After his release he returned to England. In 1884 he was elected curator of the Oxford Ashmolean Museum. After 1909 Evans became honorary curator of the museum.
Evans drew attention to Cretan antiquities in 1893, studying jewelry related to the prehistoric Mycenaean civilization, which had recently been discovered by G. Schliemann during excavations of Mycenae and Orchomenus. In 1894, he explored Crete in search of seals, which were often found on the island, and local women used them as amulets (the so-called “milk stones”); decided to excavate ancient Knossos and began negotiations on work on a site near Candia, where walls and Mycenaean pottery were discovered in 1878. In March 1900 Evans was able to begin excavations. In the very first week, I discovered walls decorated with frescoes, Dominik ceramics and clay tablets with inscriptions; by the end of the season, a quarter of the Knossos Palace complex was cleared from the ground, which reminded the scientist of the ancient Greek stories about the labyrinth of King Minos and gave him the idea to call the palace the Palace of Minos, and the civilization Minoan.
The first volume of Evans' major work Palace of Minos at Knossos (The Palace of Minos at Knossos) was published in 1921, the fourth and last - in 1936. It contains not only data about the palace excavated by Evans, but there is an encyclopedic collection of information about the Minoan civilization of Crete with sketches of antiquities from Mallia, Phaistos and many other monuments discovered on the island. The work is based on the chronological scheme of the Minoan civilization developed by Evans, divided into early, middle and late. The chronology proposed by the scientist, as well as its relationship with the chronology of Egypt and mainland Greece, was criticized even before the completion of Evans' work and is still the subject of controversy.
Evans' study of Minoan hieroglyphic writing began in 1894 and found its fullest expression in his work Scripta Minoa I(1909), containing a catalog and study of stone seals and other finds. A complete publication of the texts of clay tablets with inscriptions in Linear B from the Palace of Knossos did not appear during Evans' lifetime, although in volume 4 Palace of Minos he gave a description of the main categories of documents.
EVANS Arthur John
(Evans, Arthur John)
(1851-1941), English archaeologist, best known for his excavations and studies of the ancient Minoan civilization on Crete. The son of Sir John Evans, the renowned antiquities collector, Arthur was born in Nash Mills, Hertfordshire, near London, on July 8, 1951, and was educated at Harrow, Oxford and Göttingen, graduating with an honors degree in modern history. In the summers of 1871 and 1872 he traveled through the Balkans, and in 1873 through Finland and Lapland. Arriving again in the Balkans in 1875 as a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, Evans remained there until 1882, when Austrian authorities arrested him for his involvement in the Dalmatian uprising; upon release he returned to England. In 1884 he was elected curator of the Oxford Ashmolean Museum, which, mainly through his efforts, gained fame as an archaeological museum. After 1909 Evans was an honorary curator of the museum. Evans drew attention to Cretan antiquities in 1893, studying jewelry related to the prehistoric Mycenaean civilization, recently discovered by Heinrich Schliemann during excavations of Mycenae and Orchomenus. Evans began collecting carved stone seals, primarily those with symbols that he considered to be writing. In 1894, he explored Crete in search of new seals, which were often found on the island, and local women used them as amulets (so-called “milk stones”); At the same time, he decided to excavate ancient Knossos and began negotiations on work on a site near Candia, where walls and Mycenaean pottery were discovered in 1878. The Turkish authorities prevented archaeological excavations, but in 1898 Crete received autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, and in March 1900 Evans was able to begin excavations. In the first week, he discovered frescoed walls, Domican pottery, and clay tablets with inscriptions; by the end of the season, a quarter of the Knossos Palace complex was cleared from the ground, which reminded the scientist of the ancient Greek stories about the labyrinth of King Minos and gave him the idea to call the palace the Palace of Minos, and the entire civilization - Minoan. Reports of these and subsequent archaeological excavations (Evans continued them until 1930) were immediately published and provided instant recognition for the discovery. Simultaneously with the excavations, Evans managed to carry out the reconstruction of the palace with the aim of preserving it. The first volume of Evans's main work, The Palace of Minos at Knossos, was published in 1921, the last, fourth - in 1936. It contains not only data about the palace excavated by Evans, but there is an encyclopedic collection of information about all aspects of the Minoan civilization of Crete with sketches of antiquities from Mallia, Festus, and many other monuments discovered on the island. The work is based on the chronological scheme of the Minoan civilization developed by Evans, divided into early, middle and late. At the same time, he tried to take into account the development of Minoan architecture, painting, ceramics, and methods of processing stone and metal. The chronology proposed by the scientist, as well as its relationship with the chronology of Egypt and mainland Greece, was criticized even before the completion of Evans' work and is still the subject of controversy. Evans' study of the Minoan hieroglyphic script, which initially attracted his attention to Crete, began in 1894 and found its fullest expression in his work Scripta Minoa, I (1909), containing a catalog and study of stone seals and other documents. A complete publication of the Linear B clay tablets from the Palace of Knossos did not appear during Evans's lifetime, although in Volume 4 of the Palace of Minos he gave a description of the main categories of documents. The publication of Scripta Minoa, II (1952) by John Myres was soon followed by Michael Ventris's successful decipherment of Linear B as an ancient Mycenaean dialect of Greek. Evans was knighted in 1911.
Evans died at Boars Hill (near Oxford) on July 11, 1941.
Collier's Encyclopedia. - Open Society. 2000 .
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Evans Arthur John (8/7/1851, Our Mills, Hertfordshire, ‒ 11/7/1941, Yulbury, near Oxford), English archaeologist. In 1899‒1930 (with interruptions) he conducted excavations on the island. Crete, where he discovered the remains of the palace at Knossos and studied in detail the culture of the Bronze Age... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
- (Evans) (1851 1941), English archaeologist. Discovered and explored Minoan culture on the island of Crete... encyclopedic Dictionary
Evans, Arthur John (Evans)- (1851 1941) English archaeologist who discovered in Knossos on the island. Crete remains of a large palace, known in myth as the “labyrinth”. The objects found gave E. the opportunity to explore the most ancient Cretan culture in Europe; he deciphered most of... ... Ancient world. Dictionary-reference book.
Arthur John Evans Arthur John Evans ... Wikipedia
EVANS (Evans) Arthur (full name Arthur John) (July 8, 1851, Nash Mills, Hertfordshire July 11, 1941, Iolburi, near Oxford), English archaeologist, discoverer of the Cretan civilization, director of the excavations of Knossos (see KNOSSOS) on the island. Crete. Son… … encyclopedic Dictionary
- (1851 1941) English archaeologist. Discovered and explored the Minoan culture on the island. Crete... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
Statue of Sir Arthur Evans in the Palace of Knossos, Crete, Greece Sir Arthur John Evans (eng. Sir Arthur John Evans, 1851 1941) British archaeologist, discoverer of the Minoan civilization. Contents 1 Biography ... Wikipedia
- (English Evans) is an English surname, derived from the Welsh name Ifan and widespread in Wales. Famous carriers Evans, Alex fashion model. Evans, Arthur (1851 1941) British archaeologist, discoverer of the Minoan... ... Wikipedia
Statue of Sir Arthur Evans in the Palace of Knossos, Crete, Greece Sir Arthur John Evans (eng. Sir Arthur John Evans, 1851 1941) British archaeologist, discoverer of the Minoan civilization. Contents 1 Biography ... Wikipedia
Books
- Archeology of Crete, Pendlebury J., John Pendlebury (1904 1941), English archaeologist, student and continuer of A. Evans’ research at Knossos on the island of Crete. Initially he studied Egyptian archaeology, in particular the monuments... Category:
Plan:
- Introduction
- 1 Biography
- 2 Essays
- 3 Bibliography Notes
Introduction
Statue of Sir Arthur Evans in Knossos Palace, Crete, Greece
Sir Arthur John Evans(English) Sir Arthur John Evans, 1851-1941) - British archaeologist, discoverer of the Minoan civilization.
1. Biography
Arthur Evans was born on July 8, 1851 in the town of Nash Mills (Hertfordshire), in the family of John Evans, an industrialist and amateur archaeologist. He studied at the private school Harrow School, then at Oxford and Göttingen universities. Served as curator of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Having inherited an interest in antiquity from his father, he was actively engaged in historical research.
In 1889, Evans, who worked as curator of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, came across a carnelian seal donated to the museum, along with other antiquities, by the traveler Greville Chester. The seal contained hieroglyphic characters, and the seal itself was supposedly from Sparta. Evans found similarities between the characters on this seal and Hittite hieroglyphs. Four years later, in 1893, while in Athens, Evans came across several seals similar to the first. Having learned that they were brought from Crete, he requested the Berlin Museum, from where he received casts of a number of similar inscriptions. In the same year, Evans reported to the London Society of Hellenic Antiquities about the discovery of about 60 hieroglyphs, and the following year he left for Crete.
In 1900 he organized large-scale excavations of the Knossos Palace in Crete. From the sources found, he identified several types of Cretan writing, which he gave the names “Cretan hieroglyphs,” “Linear A,” and “Linear B.” Hoping to independently decipher the Cretan script, he delayed the publication of the Cretan inscriptions for a long time. He adhered to the incorrect (as it turned out later) hypothesis that none of these writing systems could serve to transmit the Greek language.
Evans was knighted in 1911 for his services to archeology.
2. Essays
- The Palace of Minos at Knossos (1921-1935).
3. Bibliography
- Sylvia L. Horwitz: Knossos. Sir Arthur Evans auf den Spuren des Königs Minos, Lübbe Verlag, Bergisch-Gladbach 1983. ISBN 3-7857-0342-2
- Joseph A. MacGillivray: Minotaur. Sir Arthur Evans and the Archeology of the Minoan Myth, Hill&Wang, New York 2000. ISBN 0-8090-3035-7
Notes
- Doblhofer, Ernst Signs and Miracles. - M.: Veche, 2004.
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In 1900, the English archaeologist Arthur Evans (1851-1941), curator of the Oxford Museum, son of John Evans, a famous archaeologist and geologist who once supported Boucher de Perth with his authority, began his research on the island of Crete. The results of the excavations were unexpected and brilliant.
Before Evans' discoveries, they knew less about Crete than they knew about Troy, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. From the fragmentary evidence of Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and from several legends and myths, it was known that Crete once had a strong state, headed by King Minos, the most just of kings. But when this happened, who the Cretans were, what their culture was and what language they spoke remained a mystery. After Schliemann's discovery, Crete was considered a Mycenaean province.
At the end of the 70s of the XIX century. on the site of ancient Knossos, the supposed capital of the legendary Minos, another Minos, not the legendary one - the Cretan merchant Minos Kalokerinos discovered the ruins of some structure and several vessels. There was an assumption that these were the remains of the Labyrinth, where the Minotaur lived, killed by Theseus. Schliemann visited the site of the find and wanted to carry out excavations there, but the owner of the site charged such an exorbitant price that even Schliemann refused to buy it.
Evans bought the site and began excavations on March 24, 1900. Already on the third day, Evans wrote in his diary: “An exceptional phenomenon - nothing Greek, nothing Roman...”. Indeed, the culture of Crete turned out to be very unique and original.
The ruins, discovered by a Cretan merchant, turned out to be the remains of a huge palace, which Evans called the Palace of Minos. The palace occupied an area of more than 20 thousand square meters. meters, had several floors, underground passages and numerous rooms: palace halls, painted with frescoes, living rooms, corridors, sanctuaries, workshops, baths, storerooms. Huge clay vessels (pithos) with remains of grain, oil, etc. were preserved in the storerooms. The palace was equipped with a complex water supply and sewerage system. In addition to a large number of various things - weapons, tools, utensils, jewelry, etc. - clay tablets with writing in an unknown language were found. For over fifty years, scientists from all countries tried unsuccessfully to decipher the Cretan alphabet. This was accomplished only in 1953 by English researchers M. Ventris and D. Chadwick. Thus Evans had to read the history of Crete without texts. However, he read it. Analyzing and comparing all the data that could be extracted from material sources, Evans established the periods of rise and decline of the Cretan state, dated these periods with an accuracy of 50 years, found out what the political system was, religious beliefs and rituals, what connections Crete had with other countries, what the Cretans produced, what they imported and what they exported.
Archaeologists in the first half of the 19th century could not have done anything like this. This became possible only in the second half of the 19th century, when scientific research methods were developed. Evans not only excavated surviving structures and individual items, he studied every layer of earth, picked up every shard of pottery, every piece of fallen plaster, determining its original place from where it fell off, i.e., he used a method called stratigraphic. Evans dated the finds by comparing them with similar things from Egypt, a country whose writings had already been read, i.e., he used the synchronization method. Evans was by no means the sole creator of this method; it was developed by many archaeologists.
At the same time, an Italian archaeological expedition was working with Evans, exploring the ancient city of Festus. They also dug in other places in Crete. Based on the study of material obtained from Crete, mainland Greece and the islands, Evans established that Crete, with its culture, called Minoan by Evans, was the cultural and political center of the Aegean world, which influenced Mycenaean culture. The general culture of the Aegean world was called Aegean or Cretan-Mycenaean. The Cretan-Mycenaean culture belongs to the Chalcolithic and Bronze archaeological eras, in absolute dates - to 3400-1100. BC e. (Other researchers date the beginning of the Cretan-Mycenaean culture to 3100 or 2700). It arises on the basis of the Neolithic cultures of Crete and mainland Greece (Sesklo culture), and on its basis the Hellenic culture of the early Iron Age appears.
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