Image Details

Erich Lessing

The English archaeologist Arthur Evans began excavating the 5-acre site of Knossos in 1900. He uncovered the ruins of a 4-story, 1,000-room palace filled with naturalistic frescoes, some with scenes of cavorting dolphins (shown here, compare with photo of Arthur Evans). Although many scholars believe that Evans’s restorations were largely fanciful re-creations of the Minoan works, his team nonetheless discovered abundant evidence of a European Bronze Age civilization at Knossos—including the stone rhyton in the form of a bull’s head in the photo above. This libation vessel has eyes made of rock crystal and jasper and horns made of gilded wood.