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Knossos, Crete/Bridgeman Art Library

The interior of the Knossos palace, with its confusing network of rooms, has been imaginatively linked to King Minos’s legendary labyrinth—where the hero Theseus slays the monstrous Minotaur. In the 1920s, Arthur Evans rebuilt its columns and lintels using modern materials. He hoped to protect the site from the effects of weather and time, but he incited the wrath of purists extolling the romantic virtue of ruins.