Arthur John Evans English archaeologist Date of Birth: 08.07.1851 Country: Great Britain

1. Biography of Arthur John Evans
2. Early Career and Travels
3. Discovery of Minoan Civilizations
4. Contributions and Works

Biography of Arthur John Evans

Arthur John Evans was an English archaeologist best known for his excavations and research on the ancient Minoan civilization in Crete. He was born on July 8, 1851, in Nash Mills, Hertfordshire, near London. He received his education at Harrow, Oxford, and Göttingen, earning a distinction in Modern History.

Early Career and Travels

In the summers of 1871 and 1872, Evans traveled through the Balkans, and in 1873, he explored Finland and Lapland. Returning to the Balkans in 1875 as a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, Evans remained there until 1882 when he was arrested by Austrian authorities for his involvement in an uprising in Dalmatia. After his release, he returned to England.

In 1884, Evans was elected as the Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, which gained recognition as an archaeological museum primarily through his efforts. From 1909 onwards, Evans held an honorary position at the museum.

Discovery of Minoan Civilizations

Evans became interested in Cretan antiquities in 1893 while studying jewelry related to the prehistoric Mycenaean civilization, recently discovered by Heinrich Schliemann at Mycenae and Orchomenos. He began collecting carved stone seals, focusing on those with symbols he believed to be a form of writing. In 1894, he conducted a survey of Crete, searching for new seals, which were often used by local women as amulets. During this time, he also initiated negotiations to excavate the ancient site of Knossos, near the city of Candia, where walls and Mycenaean pottery had been discovered in 1878. Turkish authorities initially hindered archaeological excavations, but in 1898, Crete gained autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, allowing Evans to start his excavations in March 1900.

In the first week, Evans uncovered frescoed walls, Early Minoan pottery, and clay tablets with inscriptions. By the end of the season, a quarter of the Knossos palace complex had been uncovered. The palace reminded Evans of the ancient Greek myths about King Minos and the labyrinth, leading him to name the palace the "Palace of Minos" and the entire civilization the "Minoan" civilization. Reports of these and subsequent archaeological excavations, which Evans continued until 1930, were immediately published and gained instant recognition.

Contributions and Works

Alongside the excavations, Evans managed to reconstruct parts of the palace for preservation purposes. The first volume of his major work, "The Palace of Minos at Knossos," was published in 1921, while the final volume was completed in 1936. The work not only documented Evans' findings at the Knossos palace but also provided an encyclopedic compilation of information about all aspects of Minoan civilization on Crete, including artifacts from Mallia, Festos, and other sites on the island. Evans developed a chronological scheme for the Minoan civilization, dividing it into Early, Middle, and Late periods, while considering the development of Minoan architecture, painting, pottery, and metalwork. His proposed chronology and its relationship to Egyptian and mainland Greek chronologies have been subject to criticism and ongoing debates.

Evans' study of the Minoan hieroglyphic script, which initially drew his attention to Crete, began in 1894 and culminated in his work "Scripta Minoa, I" in 1909. This publication included a catalog and analysis of stone seals and other documents. However, a complete publication of the clay tablets with Linear Script B from the Knossos palace did not materialize during Evans' lifetime, although he provided descriptions of the main categories of these documents in the fourth volume of "The Palace of Minos." Following the publication of "Scripta Minoa, II" in 1952 by John Myres, Michael Ventris successfully deciphered Linear Script B as a form of ancient Mycenaean Greek dialect.

Arthur John Evans was knighted in 1911. He passed away on July 11, 1941, in Boars Hill, near Oxford.