PREFACE

Although this work follows a more or less linear chronology (beginning in 1901 with Evans's ‘Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult’ and ending with his death in 1941), its aim is not to recount Evans's life, which has been successfully accomplished by other biographies. It focuses instead on his mental world and the historical and intellectual backdrop against which he conceived his boldest ideas. It is not an accident that he undertook the second phase of restorations at Knossos in the period between the two great European wars (1917–39) when many innovations were taking place in the arts, music, cinema and sciences. And yet, modernity did not influence him except in one sense: he defied its aesthetic starkness and sought to leave behind the softer beauty of another age. Consequently, the restorations at Knossos are not as much the result of his Victorian heritage as of the melancholy realization that it was nearing its end.

The ideas that Evans inherited from Charles Darwin and Edward B. Tylor have helped me greatly to construct a frame that explains the former's attitudes on time, chance and civilization. Equally, I have been much helped by letters of the interwar period derived from the archives of my father, Spyridon Marinatos (Appendices). Some of them have been donated to the Gennadius Library, Athens, others to the Archaeological Society at Athens, while some remain in my possession.

Based on these letters, the narrative presented here could have been different, however. It could have centred on the ‘love and hate’ relationship between the British School at Knossos, on the one hand, and the Greek Ephor of Crete on the other. Such an approach would have been in tune with the general postcolonial trend of our age but would not have done justice to the personality and ideas of a man such as Evans, who valued the brotherhood of science above all else.

The correspondence between Sir Arthur Evans and Spyridon Marinatos reveals that the former was respectful to younger scholars and not at all a nuisance to them as has been claimed in some biographies.¹ Nor does it support the theory that he was a subjective and flamboyant researcher, as one man put it (the latter statement was fortunately not made by a specialist).² Indeed, Evans has been subjected to extreme criticism of late – some of it based on inadequate study of his writings and notes. This negativity will no doubt eventually provoke a counter-movement.³

I have received generous help during my research from the Institute of Aegean Prehistory, Philadelphia. It provided a grant to organize the archives of Spyridon Marinatos (1901–74) which have formed one of the bases of the present work. Ordering and classifying the material was a task that I could not have accomplished without the assistance of Giorgos Tzorakis, Herakleion, Crete and Sebastian Anderson, Urbana, Illinois. I also thank Theodoros Eliopoulos, Athens, for providing me with evidence he had collected about British–Greek relations.

I thank the archivist of the British School at Athens, Amalia G. Kakissis, and the archivist of the American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Natalia Vogeikoff. Many thanks go also to Metaxia Tsipopoulou, ex-Director of the Archives of the Ministry of Culture, Athens. I am grateful to Nicoletta Momigliano for sharing with me documents about Sir Arthur Evans. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford has very kindly provided me with material from Evans's notebooks. Ioannis Galanakis at the Ashmolean (now lecturer in Greek Prehistory, University of Cambridge) has helped with questions about the Ring of Minos. Diamantis Panagiotopoulos and Maria Anastasiadou, University of Heidelberg, have sent me images from the archives of The Corpus of Minoan and Mycenaean Seals. I thank the twenty-third Ephoreia, Herakleion for making the correspondence of the museum available to me and the Bridgeman Art Library Ltd for supplying me with an image of Elizabeth I wearing a costume that Evans would have described as Minoan-like.

Deepest gratitude for the conceptualization of this project is owed to the late Professor Stylianos Alexiou, Herakleion. He was a scholar of Cretan civilization from its Minoan beginnings to its twentieth-century development and understood all the nuances of the island's history. He personally knew many of the people who feature in this book. As I was writing the preface, news reached me from Greece that he had passed away. Just a few months back, sitting at our favourite restaurant in Herakleion, I had asked him to write the foreword to this book. Alas it was not to be! His death widens the gap between us and the age of Evans, as he was one of the last persons alive to have met him in person, in April of 1935. I doubt that I could have written the present work without the vivid impressions of Herakleion of the late 1930s that he conveyed to me during our many conversations over the years.

To Vasilios Petrakos I am indebted for advice about how to introduce the subject. Peter Warren has provided a most thorough commentary of the manuscript and has precluded errors. The University of Illinois, Chicago has provided me with funds for the copy-editing costs and for other kinds of support. I am most grateful to Sebastian Anderson for proofreading of the manuscript and encouragement throughout.

All the translations from Greek, German and French to English (and all the consequent errors) are mine.

Nanno Marinatos, Chicago, USA, 12 November 2013