Meet the people who invented the labyrinth
Palaces, frescoes, bulls, and a lot of open sea. Everything we know about the Minoans, everything the archaeologists are still fighting over, and all of it written the way you would actually explain it to a friend.
Where to begin
Four ways into the story
Pick whichever one you are curious about. Every door opens onto a real guide, not a two paragraph stub.
The Palaces
Knossos, Phaistos, Malia and Zakros. What went on inside them, and why they fell.
Explore → 02Myth & Religion
The labyrinth, the bull, the snake goddess. Where the story stops and the evidence starts.
Explore → 03Art & Writing
Frescoes, octopus pottery, and a script that nobody has ever managed to read.
Explore → 04Visiting Crete
Which sites are worth the drive, which are not, and when to go so you can hear yourself think.
Explore →The short version
Two thousand years in five dates
3100 BC
First settlements across Crete
1900 BC
The first palaces rise
1700 BC
Destruction, then a grander rebuild
1600 BC
Thera erupts, ninety miles north
1450 BC
Mycenaeans take Knossos
Then and now
Four thousand years ago, and this morning
The Minoans are easier to like once you see how close some of their life was to yours, and how strange the rest of it was.
They had running water before Rome existed
Clay pipes, sealed drains and a flushing toilet in the palace at Knossos, around 1800 BC. Most of Europe was still carrying buckets three thousand years later.
Bronze Age plumbing vs yoursTheir extreme sport was a live bull
Young men and women vaulting over the horns of a charging animal, painted on the palace walls like a national pastime. Specialists still argue about whether anyone survived it.
Bull leaping vs the X GamesNobody bothered to build a wall
Not one Minoan palace has proper fortifications. Every neighbour they traded with was busy stacking stone. Whatever made them feel safe, we still cannot fully explain it.
An island with no armyWe still cannot read their handwriting
Linear A has been sitting in plain sight for over a century. We can sound the signs out loud. We have no idea what a single sentence means.
A language with no Rosetta StoneFresh off the press
Latest articles
- They had running water before Rome existed
- Knossos explained: what every part of the palace actually did
1900 BC
Older than the Parthenon by 1,400 years
1300
Rooms in the palace at Knossos
0
Defensive walls found at any palace
87
Linear A signs still undeciphered
Plan the trip
Go and stand in it
Knossos is a forty minute bus ride from Heraklion, and most people do it wrong. Our guides cover which sites are worth the drive, what time of day to turn up, and what the ticket actually gets you.