When was knossos built

Dedalos, who was a great inventor, built two sets of wings so he and his son Ikaros could fly off the island, and so they did. On their way out, Dedalos warned his son not to fly too close to the sun because the wax that held the wings together would melt.

In a tragic turn of events, during their escape Ikaros, young and impulsive as he was, flew higher and higher until the sun rays dismantled his wings and the young boy fell to his death in the Aegean sea. The Labyrinth was the dwelling of the Minotaur in Greek mythology, and many associate the palace of Knossos with the legend of Theseus killing the Minotaur. The Greek myth associated with the palace about Theseus and the Minotaur is fascinating, but walking around the ruins of Knossos today it is hard to imagine it to be a place of torment and death.

Instead, the palace radiates with joyous exuberance through the elaborate architectural planes and volumes that were clustered around the central courtyard over time.

The elegant wall frescoes which decorated the walls speak of a people who approached the subtleties of life and the splendor of nature with a joyous disposition. 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. When the palace was first constructed "it must have been a remarkable sight, quite unlike anything seen on Crete before," writes J. She notes that although other settlements on Crete around this time built palaces of their own, none was as large as Knossos.

Despite the fact that the palace was excavated a century ago there are still many questions that researchers have about the palace and the people who lived in it.

For instance, the chronology of the palace is a matter of scholarly debate. Construction of the palace appears to have begun around B. This "first palace" as it is sometimes called was damaged likely by earthquakes around B. The papers published in their book raise the possibility that rather than a "first" and "second" palace, there were several phases of renovation and change that occurred over a period of centuries.

The actual name of the people who lived in the palace is unknown. The Minoan writing system is undeciphered and the name "Minoans" comes from Arthur Evans, who believed that he had found the palace of "King Minos," a mythical Cretan king who supposedly constructed a great labyrinth on Crete.

Today, archaeologists know that King Minos likely did not build this palace. Researchers do know that the palace suffered from several disasters throughout its history. The palace likely suffered disruption around B. The palace was hit with another catastrophe of some form around B. The final destruction of the palace probably took place sometime before B.

Although the remains of the "first palace" mostly lie under later palace renovations, archaeologists have been able to put together a rough picture of what it looked like in antiquity. The first palace was built around a central court and contained numerous storage areas, including magazines to the west and northeast.

On the northwest side of the central court was a room that researchers refer to as the "early keep" and near that another section referred to as the "initiatory area. The initiatory area contains a "lustral basin," which consists of a square tank, sunk into the ground, with a staircase descending on two sides, writes Arnold Lawrence and Richard Tomlinson in their book " Greek Architecture " Yale University Press, They note that several of these basins were built in the palace.

The walls of the first palace were bulkier than those built later on. He notes that the column bases and pavement were made of stones of different colors. The development of the palace coincided with the appearance of the still undeciphered Minoan writing system. Also in this early period the different regions of Crete maintained their own distinct style of pottery and material culture, an indication that the island was not unified.

The "first palace" likely suffered some level of damage, probably from earthquakes, around B. Again, a good portion of the palace was used for storage, including a western section dedicated to weapons.

It is believed that it was mainly used as a concentrator of Minos and the priesthood. There, they used to decide on matters of law. As we have already mentioned, the Knossos Palace has been associated with two of the most well-known tales of Greek Mythology. One of them is the tale of the Labirynth and the Minotaur. According to mythology, Minos was the child of the Phoenician princess of Europe, who was kidnapped by Zeus in the form of a bull.

He had been given the right to be king and to make all the laws by his divine father, whom he consulted every nine years. Zeus was strongly associated with Crete, having been born and raised here in Psiloritis , and is sometimes believed to have been the first ruler of the island. The Cretans even have his tomb here. Minos was married to Pasiphae. When the people of Crete once defied their right to the throne, Minos had replied that it was the decision of the gods to be this King.

As a sign of this, Poseidon sent a bull to sacrifice the king, but he was so handsome that Minos decided to keep him, sacrificing one of his own bulls. This infuriated the god of the sea and made Pasiphae fall in love with the divine bull, the result of this bond gave birth to a child, the Minotaur.

The famous architect and inventor Daedalus, who worked for Minos, built a labyrinth for the king, for which he would close the Minotaur who was half human and half bull. Minos' son Androgeos had gone to Athens to compete in the games there.

He won, but the king of Athens sent the young man to kill a bull in Marathon. However, the bull killed Androgeos and when Minos found out, he declared war on Athens. Zeus destroyed the city, and its king was forced to do whatever Minos would ask him to escape the wrath of the god. Minos asked the king of Athens to send seven young girls and seven young boys to Crete to be sacrificed to the Minotaur every nine years. This continued until the hero Theseus stood as one of the young men to be sacrificed.

Minos' daughter Ariadne fell in love with him and together with Daedalus they helped him defeat and kill the Minotaur. After that, Theseus took Ariadne with him on the return journey to Athens but left her in Naxos. Minos punished Daedalus and his son Icarus by locking them in the labyrinth where they later escaped with the wings that Daedalus had made.

Daedalus' escape from Crete is one of the most famous stories of Greek mythology. He made wings for himself and his son with candle and bird wings and so they flew to freedom.

However, despite his father's warnings, Icarus flew very close to the sun, and the candle with which his wings were stuck melted, and Icarus fell and drowned in the sea, which has since been named after the Icarus Sea.

Daedalus arrived in Sicily and found refuge in the court of King Kokalos. Minos set out to hunt down Daedalus, but when he arrived in Sicily, he was killed by the daughters of King Kokalos.

After his death, Minos became one of the lords of Hades. The other popular tale related to Knossos is one of 'Daedalus and Icaros'. Minos was terribly angry when he learned that Daedalus made it easy for Pasiphae his wife to satisfy her insane love affair with the bull of Poseidon from this paradoxical union the Minotaur was born. Enraged, Minos definitively forbade the departure of Daedalus and his young son Icarus from Crete.

Icarus had been acquired by Daedalus with Nafsikrates, one of the slaves of Minos. Daedalus began devising ways to escape them. Escape from the sea was impossible. Armored ships patrolled the Cretan coast. Only from the air would their escape be possible.

But how;. Daedalus' inventive mind did not take long to find the solution. He made giant feathers from wicker twigs and cloth and glued them with wax. He advised his son how to fly, waxed his wings on his shoulders and they flew together over the high mountains of Crete for freedom. The spectacle they witnessed was unique and the trip to the ethers was unrepeatable.

For the first time, the man tore the blue horizon and conquered the celestial roads. They left slavery behind and traveled to distant and dreamy places. Like a newly hatched bird, flooded with happiness, Icarus sometimes flew high, greeting the bright Sun and sometimes low, cooling its wings in the blue waters of the sea.

In vain his father shouted at him not to approach the bright disk of the Sun. Evil came quickly. The hot rays of the Sun softened the candle and melted the bindings of the wings. The unfortunate young man fell into the sea near an island and drowned.

Fate stood hard for the mindless and reckless young man. Daedalus, in agony, came down and looked around the dead body. The island that was buried was named Ikaria and the sea that Icarus drowned in was named 'Ikario'.

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