Description
Book SynopsisBefore Sir Arthur Evans, the principal object of Greek prehistoric archaeology was the reconstruction of history in relation to myth. European travellers to Greece viewed its picturesque ruins as the gateway to mythical times, while Heinrich Schliemann, at the end of the nineteenth century, allegedly uncovered at Troy and Mycenae the legendary cities of the Homeric epics. It was Evans who, in his controversial excavations at Knossos, steered Aegean archaeology away from Homer towards the broader Mediterranean world. Yet in so doing he is thought to have done his own inventing, recreating the Cretan Labyrinth via the Bronze Age myth of the Minotaur. Nanno Marinatos challenges the entrenched idea that Evans was nothing more than a flamboyant researcher who turned speculation into history. She argues that Evans was an excellent archaeologist, one who used scientific observation and classification. Evans's combination of anthropology, comparative religion and analysis of cultic artefacts enabled him to develop a bold new method which Sir James Frazer called 'mental anthropology'. It was this approach that led him to propose remarkable ideas about Minoan religion, theories that are now being vindicated as startling new evidence comes to light. Examining the frescoes from Akrotiri, on Santorini, that are gradually being restored, the author suggests that Evans's hypothesis of one unified goddess of nature is the best explanation of what they signify. Evans was in 1901 ahead of his time in viewing comparable Minoan scenes as a blend of ritual action and mythic imagination. Nanno Marinatos is a leading authority on Minoan religion. In this latest book she combines history, archaeology and myth to bold and original effect, offering a wholly new appraisal of Evans and the significance of his work.
Sir Arthur Evans and Minoan Crete will be essential reading for all students of Minoan civilization, as well as an irresistible companion for travellers to Crete.
Trade Review'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 Evans' intellectual formation in late-19th century anthropology and prehistory to his final years in the early part of WW II - this is a personal narrative in two distinct ways: first, because it links Marinatos' own quest to interpret Minoan religion to Evans'; and second, because it weaves a Greek perspective into Evans' 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 Evans' 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) This book enables us to see, at a level and detail of argument not reached in other works, the logic, reasonableness and force of Evans's 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.
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Foreword Preface Introduction 1. Tree and Pillar Cult 2. Mourning Kybele: Arthur Evans and James Frazer 3. The Whirligig of Time: The Narrative of the Palace of Ninos 4. Monotheism 5. The Ring of Nestor 6. The Ring of Minos 7. The Final Years: Evans' Restorations and his Visions of Knossos 8. Sir Arthur Evans and Spyridon Marinatos 9. The Last Visit of Evans to Crete 10. Sunt Lacrimae Rerum: The War and the Death of Evans
