Minoan chronology refers to the relative dating scheme developed by Sir
Arthur Evans for the
Bronze Age in
Crete based on the excavations initiated and managed by him at the site of the ancient city of
Knossos. He called the civilization that he discovered there
Minoan. The same scheme was later applied to the
Greek mainland and the
Cyclades Islands to form a general plan for dating events of the prehistoric and early historic
Aegean. The relative chronology is based on the shapes and decorative styles of
pottery found at many sites on
Crete and elsewhere.
Meanwhile the citizens of the area were turning up coins and seals inscribed with a mysterious script. These came to Evans' attention as the curator of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, which he was from 1884 to 1908. The place was rumored to have been the site of the ancient city of Knossos.
Evans examined the site on March 19, 1894. Nothing further could be done at that time, but in 1898 Crete became an independent republic. In 1899 Evans purchased the land with his own funds (his family had been factory owners in industrial Britain) and decided to set up an excavation. In the first two weeks he discovered the Linear A tablets, a streak of luck exceeded only by Carl Blegen's legendary first day's dig at Pylos, when he uncovered the Pylos tablets, written in Linear B, a script also found at Kephala and named by Evans.
Attacking the site with crews of hundreds of diggers, Evans uncovered most of the site's 6 acres within 6 seasons. By 1905 he had named the civilization whose traces he found there Minoan, after the legendary king Minos, and had created a detailed chronology of the serial phases of the pottery styles in Minoan Crete, based on what he found at Knossos. Subsequently he concerned himself mainly with restoration, an activity that is frowned upon by archaeologists of today. He continued to excavate there and elsewhere and to restore until 1935.
