The throne room
Minos' gypsum seat with its griffins.
Bernard Gagnon โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Jebulon โ CC0 ยท Le plombier du dรฉsert โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Mustang Joe โ CC0
The labyrinth is most likely the palace's own memory: a thousand interlocked rooms that stunned mainland visitors into the tale โ the labrys double-axe symbol probably fathering the word. No monster's tunnel below โ a civilisation too complex to grasp, so mythed into a beast.
Both: scientifically it froze 1900's interpretations in concrete โ touristically it is why you understand the place at all. The fair rule: read the tinted parts as Evans' opinion and the original stone as fact โ a good guide sorts the two for you corridor by corridor.
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Knossos is the throne of Europe's first civilisation: the palace of legendary King Minos โ the Minotaur's labyrinth of the tale โ and centre of the Minoan world that preceded Athens by a millennium: a complex of thirteen hundred rooms (~1900 BC) with storeys, baths, conduits and frescoes while the rest of Europe kept huts. You see the throne room with its actual gypsum seat and the princess jars, the stair of red inverted columns (narrowing downward โ the Minoan signature), and the famous frescoes' replicas in place: the bull-leaper, the Parisienne, the dolphins โ every original in Heraklion's museum: the pair is one obligation. Arthur Evans rebuilt parts in tinted concrete (1900s) โ a restoration science argues to this day, yet it grants what no ruin can: seeing the palace stand. Book online and come early: shade is scarce and the groups swallow the walkways by mid-morning.
Minos' gypsum seat with its griffins.
Narrowing downward โ the inverted Minoan signature.
Minotaur and Ariadne's thread born of these corridors.
Knossos, 71409 Heraklion