Arthur Evans
''For the American university administrator, see
A. Grant Evans.
|
Bronze statue of Sir Arthur Evans in The Palace of Knossos, Crete, Greece |
Sir
Arthur John Evans (
July 8,
1851 –
July 11,
1941) was a
British archaeologist. He is best remembered for uncovering the civilization he dubbed "
Minoan", which had been a dim mythic memory.
Evans was the son of Sir
John Evans, a paper manufacturer and amateur archaeologist of
Welsh descent. Educated at
Harrow, at
Brasenose College,
Oxford, and at the
University of Göttingen, and having inherited his father's interest in
archaeology, Arthur was
curator of the
Ashmolean Museum in
Oxford from
1884 to
1908.
Evans' special interest was the
Greek island of
Crete, and he was largely responsible for the
excavations of the palace-city of
Knossos, chief centre of the
Minoan civilization, which uncovered the site that is open to visitors today. Not only did he discover these remains and publish them in four volumes
The Palace of Minos at Knossos (1921–1935), a classic of archaeology, but he substantially restored and partially reconstructed them, using some foreign materials like concrete that are offensive to purists but help the average visitor "read" the site. While many of his contemporaries were interested in removing items of interest from the sites they uncovered, Evans wanted to turn Knossos into a museum where Minoan culture could become tangible, as he was far more interested in building a whole vision of the past than simply displaying its riches.
Though deciphering and translating the scripts found on the site always eluded him, Evans recognized that they were in two scripts, which he dubbed "
Linear A" and "
Linear B". He – correctly, as it turned out – suggested that Linear B was written in a language that used
inflection.
Evans, however, should also be remembered for his own irrationally obstinate Creto-centrism, which led to unfriendly debate between himself and the mainland archaeologists
Carl Blegen and
Alan Wace. Evans' insistence upon a single timeline of development, climax, and decay for
Bronze-Age Greek civilization based upon his dating of Knossos and other Minoan palaces ran contrary to Wace's dating of
Mycenae, which saw its heyday in the midst of Knossos' decline, as well as Blegen's discovery of Linear B tablets at
Pylos, which he (correctly) speculated were, in fact, Greek. Nevertheless, Evans generated strange and convoluted explanations for these findings, and in enmity, he actually used his influence to have Wace removed from his tenured position at the
British School of Archaeology in
Athens.
Evans was
knighted in
1911 for his services to archaeology, and is commemorated both at Knossos and at the
Ashmolean Museum. The excavation at the site of Knossos (which he purchased in order to preserve it), has been continued to the present day by the
British School of Archaeology,
Athens.
*
Lewis Evans, his brother, a scientific instrument collector and businessman
*
Duncan Mackenzie, a fellow archaeologist, Evans' right-hand man at Knossos
