Editing Arthur Evans (section)

==Archaeologist==
===Excavations at Aylesford===
A cemetery of the [[British Iron Age]] discovered in 1886 at [[Aylesford]] in Kent was excavated under the leadership of Evans, and published in 1890.<ref>Archaeologia 52, 1891</ref> With the later excavation by others at [[Swarling]] not far away (discovery to publication was 1921–1925) this is the [[type site]] for [[Aylesford-Swarling pottery]] or the Aylesford-Swarling culture, which included the first wheel-made pottery in Britain.  Evans's conclusion that the site belonged to a culture closely related to the continental [[Belgae]], remains the modern view, though the dating has been refined to the period after about 75 BC. His analysis of the site was still regarded as "an outstanding contribution to Iron Age studies" with "a masterly consideration of the metalwork" by Sir [[Barry Cunliffe]] in 2012.<ref>Cunliffe, Barry W., ''Iron Age Communities in Britain, Fourth Edition: An Account of England, Scotland and Wales from the Seventh Century BC, Until the Roman Conquest'', near Figure 1.4, 2012 (4th edition), Routledge, [https://books.google.com/books?id=v1Zkio7jluAC&dq=Britons+Iron+Age&pg=PT676 google preview, with no page numbers]</ref>

===End and beginning===
In 1893, Evans's way of life as a married, middling archaeologist, puttering around the Ashmolean, and travelling extensively and perpetually on holiday with his beloved Margaret, came to an abrupt end, leaving emotional devastation in its wake and changing the course of his life. Freeman died in March 1892. Always of precarious health, he had heard that Spain had a salubrious climate. Travelling there to test the hypothesis and perhaps improve his physical condition, he contracted smallpox and was gone in a few days. His oldest daughter did not survive him long. Always of precarious health herself – she is said to have had tuberculosis – she was too weak to prepare her father's papers for publication, so she delegated the task to a family friend, Reverend William Stephens.

In October of that year Evans took her to visit [[Boar's Hill]], near Oxford. He wanted to buy 60 acres to build a home for Margaret on the hill. She approved the location, so he convinced his father to put up the money. Then he had the tops of the pines cut, eight feet from the ground, on which he had built a platform and a log cabin to serve as a temporary quarters while the mansion was being built. His intent was to keep her from the cold, damp ground.<ref>{{harvnb|MacGillivray|2000|p=101}}</ref> Apparently she never lived there. They were away again for the winter, Margaret to winter with her sister in [[Bordighera]], Evans to Sicily to complete the last volume of the history he and Freeman had begun together.

In February, Evans met [[John Myres]], a student at the [[British School at Athens|British School, in Athens]]. The two shopped the flea markets looking for antiquities. Evans purchased some [[Minoan seals|seal stones]] inscribed with a mysterious writing, said to have come from Crete. Then he met Margaret in Bordighera. The two started back to Athens, but en route, in [[Alassio]], Italy she was overtaken by a severe attack. On 11 March 1893, after experiencing painful spasms for two hours,<ref name=cot97>{{harvnb|Cottrell|1958|p=97}}</ref> she died with Evans holding her hand, of an unknown disease, perhaps tuberculosis, although the symptoms fit a heart attack also. He was 42; she, 45.

Margaret was buried in the English cemetery at Alassio. Her epitaph says,<ref>{{harvnb|MacGillivray|2000|p=106}}.</ref> in part, "Her bright, energetic spirit, undaunted by suffering to the last, and ever working for the welfare of those around her, made a short life long." Evans placed on the grave a wreath he wove himself of [[Leucanthemum vulgare|ox-eye daisies (also known as marguerites)]] and wild [[Broom (shrub)|broom]], expressive of their innermost feelings, commemorating the event with a private poem, ''To Margaret my beloved wife'', not published until after his death decades later:

{{blockquote|
:"Of Margarites and mountain heath
:And scented broom so white –
:Such as herself she plucked, – a wreath
:I wreathe for her tonight.
:...
:For she was open as the air
:Pure as the blue of heaven
:And truer love – or pearl so rare
:To man was never given."
}}

To his father he wrote:<ref name=cot97/> "I do not think anyone can ever know what Margaret has been to me." He never married again. For the rest of his life he wrote on black-bordered stationery.<ref>{{harvnb|MacGillivray|2000|p=107}}.</ref> He went ahead with the mansion he had planned to build for Margaret on [[Boars Hill]] in [[Berkshire]] (now [[Oxfordshire]]), against the advice of his father, who regarded it as wasteful and useless. He called it [[Youlbury House|Youlbury]], after the name of the locality.

===Waiting for the future===
[[File:KnossosSemune.jpg|thumb|A portion of Evans's reconstruction of the Minoan palace at Knossos. This is Bastion A at the North Entrance, noted for the Bull Fresco above it.]]
After Margaret's death Evans wandered aimlessly around [[Liguria]] ostensibly looking at [[Terramare Culture]] sites and for Neolithic remains in Ligurian caves. Then he revisited the locations of his youthful explorations in [[Zagreb]]. Finally he returned to live a hermit-like existence in the cabin he had built for her. The Ashmolean no longer interested him. He complained to Fortnum in a late, childish display of sibling rivalry, that his father had had another child, his half-sister [[Joan Evans (art historian)|Joan]].<ref>{{harvnb|MacGillivray|2000|pp=107–108}}.</ref> After a year of grief the mounting tension in Crete began to attract his interest. [[Knossos]] was now known to be a major site, thanks to Evans's old friend and fellow journalist in Bosnia, [[William James Stillman]]. Another old friend, [[Federico Halbherr]], the Italian archaeologist and future excavator of [[Phaistos]], was keeping him posted on developments at Knossos by mail.

Archaeologists from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States were in attendance at the site watching the progress, so to speak, of the "[[sick man of Europe]]", a metaphor of the dying Ottoman Empire. The various [[pasha]]s, eager not to offend the native Cretan parliament, were encouraging foreigners to apply for a [[firman]] to excavate, and then not granting any. The Cretans were afraid of the Ottomans' removing any artefacts to [[Istanbul]]. The Ottoman method of stalling was to require any would-be excavators to buy the site from its native owners first. The owners in turn were coached to charge so much money that none would think it worthwhile to apply in such uncertain circumstances. Even the wealthy Schliemann had given up on the price in 1890 and had gone home to die in that year.<ref>{{harvnb|MacGillivray|2000|pp=91–100}}.</ref>

In 1894, Evans became intrigued by the idea that the script engraved on the [[Minoan seals|seal stones]] he had purchased before Margaret's death might be Cretan, and steamed off to Heraklion to join the circle of watchers. During his year of tending to the details of Youlbury, administering the Ashmolean, and writing some minor papers, he had also discovered the script on some other jewellery that came to the museum from Myres in Crete. He announced that he had concluded to a Mycenaean hieroglyphic script of about 60 characters. Shortly he wrote to his friend and patron at the Ashmolean, Charles Fortnum, that he was "very restless" and must go to Crete.<ref>{{harvnb|MacGillivray|2000|p=116}}.</ref>

Arriving in Heraklion he did not join his friends immediately, but took the opportunity to examine the excavations at Knossos. Seeing the sign of the double axe almost immediately he knew that he was at the home of the script. He used the Cretan Exploration Fund, devised on the model of the [[Palestine Exploration Fund]], to acquire the site. The owners would not sell to individuals, who could not afford it, but they would sell to a fund. Apparently Evans did not bother to explain that he was the only contributor. He bought 1/4 of the site with first option to buy the rest later. The firman was still in deficit. Politics in Crete were taking a violent turn however. Anything might happen. Evans returned to London to wind up his affairs there and make sure the Ashmolean had suitable direction in the event of his further absence.

===Religious violence in Crete===
{{More citations needed section|date=March 2019}}
In 1898, he became one of the first reporters of the ethnic cleansing of [[Turkish Cretans]]<ref name=mccarthy>{{cite book|last=McCarthy|first=Justin|title=Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims|year=1995|publisher=Darwin Press|isbn=9780878500949}}</ref> by Greek forces.<ref name=cathy/> In September 1898, the last of the Turkish troops withdrew from Crete. Their withdrawal did not however presage peace, and religious violence against the Muslim minority ensued. The British Army forbade travel for any reason with checkpoints set up to enforce this. Despite this Evans, Myres and Hogarth returned to Crete together, Evans in his capacity as a journalist for the ''Manchester Guardian''. He took a combative stance in his journalism, criticising the Ottoman Empire for its 'corruption' and the British empire for 'collaborating with the Ottomans.' Many officials of that empire had been Greek. Now they were working with the British to build a Cretan government. Evans accused these officials of being part of "the Turco-British regime". He deplored religiously motivated violence, be it from Muslims or Christians. His critical journalism caused friction with the local administration, and he was forced to call on friends higher up in the government to avoid problems.

Evans travelled widely in his reporting. He saw that the Muslim population was now on the decline, some being massacred, and some abandoning the island. One of the episodes he reported on was a massacre at Eteà. The Muslim villagers had been attacked by Christians in the night. They sought refuge in a mosque. The next day they were promised clemency if they would disarm themselves. Handing over their weapons, they were lined up, having been told they were to be re-settled. Instead, they were shot, the only survivor being a small girl who had a cape thrown over her to conceal her. In his report to ''The Manchester Guardian'' in 1898, he described this ethnic cleansing of [[Cretan Muslim]] civilians by saying:{{blockquote|But the most deliberate act of extermination was that perpetrated at Eteà. In this small village, too, the Moslem inhabitants, including the women and children, had taken refuge in the mosque, which the men defended for a while. The building itself is a solid structure, but the door of the small walled enclosure ... was finally blown in, and the defenders laid down their arms, understanding, it would appear, that their lives were to be spared. Men, women and children, they were all led forth to the church of St. Sophia, which lies on a hill about half an hour above the village, and then and there dispatched—the men cut to pieces, the women and children shot. A young girl who had fainted, and was left for dead, alone lived to tell the tale.<ref name=cathy>{{cite book|last=Gere|first=Cathy|title=Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism|year=2010|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=9780226289557|pages=71 72}}</ref>}}

Prince George was keen to avoid such massacres, and establish a functioning government on the island. In 1899 a cross-confessional government was established as part of a republican Crete.

===Excavations of Knossos===
{{Main|Knossos (modern history)}}
Now that the restriction of the Ottoman firman was removed, there was a great rush on the part of all the other archaeologists to obtain first permission to dig from the new Cretan government. They soon found that Evans had a monopoly. Using the Cretan Exploration Fund, now being swollen by contributions from others, he paid off the debt for the land. Then he ordered stores from Britain. He hired two foremen, and they in turn hired 32 diggers. He started work on the flower-covered hill in March 1900.

Assisted by [[Duncan Mackenzie]], who had already distinguished himself by his excavations on the island of [[Melos]], and Mr Fyfe, an architect from the [[British School at Athens]], Evans employed a large staff of local labourers as excavators, and began work in 1900. Within a few months they had uncovered a substantial portion of what he called the Palace of Minos. The term "[[palace]]" may be misleading; Knossos was an intricate collection of over 1,000 interlocking rooms, some of which served as artisans' workrooms and food processing centres (e.g., wine presses). It served as a central storage point, and a religious and administrative centre.

On the basis of the ceramic evidence and [[stratigraphy]], Evans concluded that there was another civilisation on Crete that had existed before those brought to light by the adventurer-archaeologist [[Heinrich Schliemann]] at [[Mycenae]] and [[Tiryns]]. The small ruin of Knossos spanned {{convert|5|acre|ha}} and the palace had a maze-like quality that reminded Evans of the labyrinth described in [[Greek mythology]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Salomon|first=Marilyn J.|title=Great Cities of the World 3: Next Stop... Athens|publisher=The Symphonette Press|year=1974|page=14}}</ref> In the myth, the labyrinth had been built by [[King Minos]] to hide the [[Minotaur]], a half-man half-bull creature that was the offspring of Minos's wife, Pasiphae, and a bull. Evans dubbed the civilisation once inhabiting this great palace the Minoan civilisation.

By 1903, most of the palace was excavated, bringing to light an advanced city containing artwork and many examples of writing. Painted on the walls of the palace were numerous scenes depicting bulls, leading Evans to conclude that the Minoans did indeed worship the bull. In 1905 he finished excavations. He then proceeded to have the room called the [[Throne Room, Knossos|throne room]] (due to the throne-like stone chair fixed in the room) repainted by a father-son team of Swiss artists, [[Émile Gilliéron]] Junior and Senior. While Evans based the recreations on archaeological evidence, some of the best-known frescoes from the throne room were almost complete inventions of the Gilliérons, according to his critics.<ref>Gere, Cathy ''Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism'' (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 111.</ref>