General

Arthur Evans

Sir Arthur John Evans
Arthur Evans discovered the Palace of Knossos in Crete
8 July 1851

Sir Arthur John Evans was born in Nash Mills, England.  He was educated at the University of Oxford, and the University of Göttingen and became  the curator of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford from 1884 to 1908.  He spent almost 35 years excavating at Knossos, beginning in 1900.

Uncovering the palace of Knossos on Crete, led to Sir Arthur John Evans being regarded as one of Britain’s most revered archaeologists.

He also created the concept of Minoan civilization from the forms and objects he found at Knossos and other travels he made arcross Crete and the Mediterranean area.

He was the first to define the Cretan scripts and the earlier pictographic writing.

He and Heinrich Schliemann are widely  considered to be the foremost pioneers of archaelogical study of the Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age.