What do Queen Nefertari’s silver earrings , King Tutankhamun’s olive leaf collar, and an exquisite blue glass mixing vessel from Egypt have in common? They were all either a direct product of trade...
Before 1900, the general knowledge about an ancient civilization on Crete was limited to the Greek mythology of King Minos and the heroic Theseus, prince of Athens, who slayed the minotaur in the...
The year 1185 BC heralded a diaspora of the so-called Sea Peoples to the south-western coast of the Levantine. From the west they came in ships via the Mediterranean Sea and from the north they...
One of the most intriguing myths of ancient Greece is that of the Minotaur on the island of Crete, the bull-headed human-animal hybrid of Greek mythology. The story of the bestial Minotaur trapped in...
Over the last two centuries, since archaeologists have been actively digging in the ground searching for evidence of lost civilizations , there have been countless discoveries of ancient cities,...
Knossos palace is a spectacular archaeological site which was once the center of the Minoan civilization on the Greek island of Crete . The site contains a number of ruins from the Minoan period, the...
The Ladies in Blue is the name given to a fresco from the Palace of Knossos on the island of Crete. This fresco (or rather, fragments of it) was discovered during the excavation of the site by the...
On Orkney, the archipelago of the north coast of Scotland, ancient temple sites such as the Ness of Brodgar and Barnhouse Settlement, stone circles like Ring of Brodgar and Standing Stones of Stennes...
"A gentleman and a scholar." There are few such men who fit this description from the "archaeological" community of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There were certainly gentlemen and scholars...
If bull-leaping was a genuine practice in Bronze Age Minoan courts (estimated c.3200 BC-1100 BC), it was likely not nearly as fun as it appears in frescoes. Modern day professional matadors have...
Linear A and Linear B are the names given to two sets of scripts from ancient Greece. A third known writing form of the time is Cretan Hieroglyphic. The Linear A script was used by the Minoan...
Current research on the ancient Greek city of Knossos in Crete suggests that it not only recovered from the Bronze Age collapse that brought down many of the Aegean palaces, but actually flourished...
The Minoan people of Crete—Europe’s first high civilization—present a mystery that has long perplexed scholars and inspired much speculation: Where did these people, whose culture and artifacts...
In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was a structure built by the famed craftsman Daedalus in order to hold a creature known as the Minotaur. The Minotaur was said to be a creature that was half-man and...
The griffin is a legendary creature with the head and wings of an eagle, and the body, tail, and hind legs of a lion. As the eagle was considered the ‘king of the birds’, and the lion the ‘king of...