Marinatos - Sir Arthur Evans and Minoan Crete: creating the vision of Knossos

Nanno Marinatos is Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Her publications include Minoan Kingship and the Solar Goddess: A Near Eastern Koine; Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image, and Symbol; and The Goddess and the Warrior: The Naked Goddess and Mistress of Animals in Early Greek Religion.

This book enables us to see, at a level and detail of argument not reached in other works, the logic, reasonableness and force of Evanss interpretations Nanno Marinatos offers not simply a new but also a unique contribution.

Peter Warren, FBA, Emeritus Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology, University of Bristol

Nanno Marinatos has pulled off a very difficult task in writing a stimulating intellectual biography of Sir Arthur Evans excavator of the site of Knossos and creator of the Minoan civilisation that combines a laudatory, but critical, approach with the introduction of new information about an already well-documented life. Following a broadly chronological structure from Evanss intellectual formation in late-nineteenth-century anthropology and prehistory to his final years in the early part of World War II this is a personal narrative in two distinct ways: first, because it links Marinatoss own quest to interpret Minoan religion to Evanss; and second, because it weaves a Greek perspective into Evanss story, drawing on personal correspondence, some never before published, of her father Spyridon Marinatos, himself famous as the excavator of the spectacularly well-preserved site of Akrotiri on Thera. Throughout, Marinatos situates her narrative effectively and readably within contemporary developments both scholarly and historical producing a genuinely novel picture of Evanss life, his intellectual contribution and his involvement in the world of Cretan archaeology, particularly in later life.

John Bennet, Professor of Aegean Archaeology, University of Sheffield, author of A Short History of the Minoans (I.B.Tauris, 2015)

SIR ARTHUR
EVANS AND
MINOAN CRETE

Creating the Vision of Knossos

N ANNO M ARINATOS

Published in 2015 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

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Copyright 2015 Nanno Marinatos

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Any omissions will be rectified in future editions.

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Library of Classical Studies 6

ISBN: 978 1 78076 811 3

eISBN: 978 0 85773 883 7

ePDF: 978 0 85772 516 5

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

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This book is dedicated to the memory of those intellectuals, like Arthur Evans, Georg Karo, Erich Bessel Hagen and Thomas Mann, who were conscious of the end of civilization and who witnessed the collapse of what Thomas Mann called middle class humanism (brgerlicher Humanismus), just before World War II.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Evans at Knossos with the nomarch, Emmanuel Lydakis, in April 1935. (Photo: Sp. Marinatos.)

On a ring found near Knossos, a female has a vision of a god arriving at his tree-sanctuary. Ring now in Oxford: CMS VI, 2, 281.

Minoan and Mycenaean gems showing pillars and gods flanked by lions. (a) CMS VI, 2, 312; (b) CMS VI, 2, 315; (c) CMS VI, 2, 384.

Gold ring from Mycenae found in H. Schliemann's excavations. CMS I, 17.

Mycenae ring (abstracted). N. Marinatos based on CMS I, 17.

A goddess flanked by two lions salutes a young male (ring impression, Knossos). CMS II, 8, 256.

Two gold rings (a) from Mycenae and (b) from Vapheio show a dancing female in the centre. (a) CMS I, 126; (b) CMS I, 219.

A gold ring from Sellopoulo, South Crete, unknown to Evans, supporting his theory of ecstatic cult. CMS, II, 3, 114.

A man leans over a baetyl; another man shakes a tree while a female is engaged in ecstatic dance. Gold ring from
Archanes, Crete. CMS II, 3, 989.

Wounded goddess from Xeste 3, room 3, ground floor at Akrotiri, Thera. (Courtesy Archives of Thera Excavation. Digital reconstruction: N. Marinatos, Markos Toufeklis.)

Reconstruction of the adyton or Lustral Basin, a type of Minoan sacred space, from Xeste 3, Akrotiri, Thera. After N. Marinatos 1993, Fig. 214.

Sanctuary faade on mural of the east wall of adyton, Xeste 3, Thera. (Photo courtesy Prof. Doumas, Akrotiri Excavation Archives. Digital reconstruction: N. Marinatos, Markos Toufeklis.)

Town under siege engraved on a silver vessel from Mycenae and named Silver Siege Rhyton. After Evans, PM III, 93, Fig. 52.

Comparison between Minoan and Egyptian cows made by Evans. (a) Evans PM I, 511, Fig. 367. (b) Evans PM I, 513, Fig. 370.

Seated goddess faces young person whom Evans identified as her son. Electrum ring from Mycenae. CMS I, 101.

Goddess statue from Khannia near Gortyn. After Marinatos and Hirmer 1976, pl. 133.

(a) Georg Karo, German archaeologist, University of Halle c.1928. (b) Spyridon Marinatos c.1928 (at that time Karo's student in Halle).

Ring of Nestor. Evans's drawing from his Knossos notebook, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 42, pp. 823 (Box 10).

Ring of Nestor. CMS VI, 277.

Ring of Nestor. Watercolour painting made by E. Gilliron fils. Evans, PM III, pl. XX A.

Comparison of the dancing goddesses on Vapheio and Nestor rings. (Design: Briana Jackson.)

Arrival at the court of judgement. Comparison of the Egyptian Papyrus of Ani and the Nestor Ring. (Design: Briana Jackson and N. Marinatos.)

Evans's notes about Ring of Minos, 1930. Knossos notebook 41, p. 10a, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Sketch of Ring of Minos by Evans. Knossos notebook 41, p. 9a, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Ring of Minos. (a) Drawing by E. Gilliron fils, based on imprint. After PM IV, 950, Fig. 917. (b) By unknown, found in Sp. Marinatos's archives. Based on the original.

A figure with a tall hat (a god?) rows a dragon boat facing the tail of the animal. Ring imprint from Hagia Triada. CMS II, 6, 20.

The ring from Mochlos (now lost). CMS II, 3, 252.

Chieftain's cup, sketch made by the German artist F. Krischen in Ein Festtag am Hofe de Minos (1921).

Contrasting visions of Minoan civilization: (a) Krischen's sensual view of Minoan women. F. Krischen, Ein Festtag am Hofe de Minos (1921). (b) Evans's version of Minoan women as civilized court-ladies in the Queen's Hall. Evans PM III, frontispiece. (c) Rainbow Portrait of Elizabeth I, Hatfield House. (Courtesy Bridgeman Art Library Ltd.)

Spyridon Marinatos, 1932, in front of the freshly painted shields of the East Hall.

Spyridon Marinatos in front of the Temple Tomb, 1934. (Archives of Sp. Marinatos.)

Manolis Akoumianakis and his wife (19345). (Photo: Sp. Marinatos.)