Half–bull, half-truth… How English archaeologist claimed credit for discovering home of the minotaur Oxford museum aims to ‘set the record straight’ about the discovery of Knossos Palace in Crete.
Sir Arthur Evans, the renowned English archaeologist, stands guilty of pouring concrete into what he claimed was the lost palace of Knossos on Crete, of spinning the story of the Labyrinth, and of cutting out the local man who first discovered the famous site.

Yet today he is widely admired in Greece, by contrast with Lord Elgin, the Scottish nobleman whose seizure of part of the Parthenon’s marble frieze has long branded him an enemy of Greek culture.
Knossos locator map

Now the full history of Knossos, reputed home of the minotaur – the half-man, half-bull monster of legend – is to be displayed for the first time in a major British exhibition. While it will acknowledge Evans’s positive legacy, it belatedly gives full recognition to Minos Kalokairinos, the Cretan businessman and scholar who originally found the famous ruins. (read On)