Editing Knossos (section)

==Legends==
{{main|Labyrinth}}
[[File:Bronze Ax Messara Crete.jpg|thumb|left| A [[labrys]] from [[Messara Plain]] ]]
In Greek mythology, King [[Minos]] dwelt in a palace at Knossos. He had [[Daedalus]] construct a [[labyrinth]], a very large maze in which to retain his son, the [[Minotaur]]. Daedalus also built a dancing floor for Queen [[Ariadne]].<ref>[[Homer]], ''[[Iliad]]'' 18.590-2.</ref> The name "Knossos" was subsequently adopted by Arthur Evans.

As far as is currently known, it was William Stillman, the American consul who published Kalokairinos' discoveries, who, seeing the sign of the double axe (''[[labrys]]'') on the massive walls partly uncovered by Kalokairinos, first associated the complex with the labyrinth of legend, calling the ruins "labyrinthine."<ref>{{harvnb|Evans|1894|p=281}}.</ref> Evans agreed with Stillman. The myth of the Minotaur tells that [[Theseus]], a prince from Athens, whose father was an ancient Greek king named [[Aegeus]], the basis for the name of the Greek sea (the Aegean Sea), sailed to Crete, where he was forced to fight a terrible creature called the Minotaur. The Minotaur was a half man, half bull, and was kept in the Labyrinth – a building like a maze – by King Minos, the ruler of Crete. The king's daughter, Ariadne, fell in love with Theseus. Before he entered the Labyrinth to fight the Minotaur, Ariadne gave him a ball of thread which he unwound as he went into the Labyrinth so that he could find his way back by following it. Theseus killed the Minotaur, and then he and Ariadne fled from Crete, escaping her angry father.

As it turns out, there probably was an association of the word ''labyrinth'', whatever its etymology, with ancient Crete. The sign of the double axe was used throughout the [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean]] world as an [[apotropaic mark]]: its presence on an object would prevent it from being "killed". Axes were scratched on many of the stones of the palace. It appears in pottery decoration and is a motif of the Shrine of the Double Axes at the palace, as well as of many shrines throughout Crete and the [[Aegean Sea|Aegean]]. And finally, it appears in [[Linear B]] on Knossos Tablet Gg702 as da-pu<sub>2</sub>-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja, which probably represents the Mycenaean Greek, ''Daburinthoio potniai'', "to the mistress of the Labyrinth," recording the distribution of one jar of honey.<ref>{{cite book | first1=Michael | last1=Ventris | first2=John | last2=Chadwick | title=Documents in Mycenaean Greek | location=Cambridge | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=1973 | edition=2nd | pages=310, 538, 574}}</ref> A credible theory uniting all the evidence has yet to be formulated.

Knossos appears in other later legends and literature. [[Herodotus]] wrote that [[Minos]], the legendary king of Knossos, established a [[thalassocracy]] (sea empire). [[Thucydides]] accepted the tradition and added that Minos cleared the sea of pirates, increased the flow of trade and colonised many Aegean islands.<ref name="BM12"/> Other literature describes [[Rhadamanthus]] as the mythological lawgiver of Crete. [[Cleinias of Crete]] attributes to him the tradition of Cretan [[Gymnasium (ancient Greece)|gymnasia]] and common meals in Book I of [[Plato's Laws]], and describes the logic of the custom as enabling a constant state of war readiness.