Crete has been called “the birthplace of Western civilization,” because the Minoan civilization flourished here 4,000 years ago. More mythology than fact is known about the Minoans' onetime ruler, King Minos. Because he failed to sacrifice a white bull to Poseidon, this god of the sea got even by causing Minos' wife to lust after the bull. So strong was her desire that she asked the inventor Daedalus to contrive a device by which she could consummate her craving. (According to Robert Graves in The Greek Myths: 1, this was a hollow wooden cow, upholstered with a cow's hide, set on wheels concealed in its hooves). The disguise was a success, but the offspring of that strange union was a ferocious beast, half man and half bull, called the minotaur. Daedalus was summoned again, to construct a labyrinth from which the beast could never escape.

Compared to the other ancient ruins I have visited—those of the Anasazi at Mesa Verde, the Incas at Machu Picchu, the Maya at Chichén Itzá—the “palaces” left by the Minoans at Phaistós and Knossós are the first I have seen that were intended as dwellings and looked livable. Phaistós, on a sun-baked hill near the south coast, is a site that has been excavated and only minimally restored. But even the ground-level remains and partial walls reveal an aesthetically pleasing variety of levels and placement of passages. Stair steps cut a right angle around a bar-like counter and descend to a sunken “lustral basin,” where the Minoans presumably anointed their bodies with oil. Another stairway ascends from the back of the “Queen's megaron” (chamber) to an upper level courtyard. Paths and stairways were lined with pure white slabs of gypsum, of which only a few original pieces remain, heavily eroded by millennia of weathering. The bottom parts of walls were faced with alabaster slabs, and the upper parts were decorated with colorful frescoes. Grooves in the floor of the “King's megaron” provide evidence that sets of doors could pivot open on the east wall to let in morning sunlight or might open up the north wall on a hot afternoon to let in a breeze or to provide a panoramic view of fertile farmland on the Mesará Plain and of snow-capped Mt. Ida. Throughout the site, the labyrin­thine arrangement of passages, staircases, and doorways (some of these with neighboring guard­houses) would have made it difficult for an intruder to find his way around. There is probably a connection between the layout of Minoan palaces and the legend of the inescap­able Labyrinth associated with the Minoans.

The Palace of Knossós, just 6 km from the modern capital of Heráklion, was destroyed by fire in an unknown catastrophic event around 1300 B.C. Perhaps an invasion. Perhaps an unpopular jury verdict. (Due to the date, we can rule out the involvement of a Christian cult.)  Modern paleontologist Charles Pellegrino advances the theory, not universally accepted, that the Minoan cities and civilization were dealt a death blow by the volcanic eruption on the island of Thera (Santorini) in 1628 B.C., which reduced the island to a crescent around a sunken crater and spewed enough ash into the atmosphere to cause a midsummer freeze worldwide, evident on the growth rings of bristlecone pines in California (hence the precise dating).

Some three thousand two hundred years later, archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans excavated the site and rebuilt many rooms, in concrete, as he envisioned they might have looked. Although many other archaeologists disapproved, his work does help you picture what it was like to be inside a Minoan palace. A restored courtyard reveals the pleasing effect of a Minoan peristyle: square pillars alternating with round wooden columns that taper downward, painted in earthy reds. From the courtyard you descend two flights of stairs to a lower-level hall that stays cool but bright, using sunlight “pumped in” from an adjoining light well. The walls of Evans' palace are decorated with modern reproductions of Minoan frescoes.

Fragments of the original frescoes were recovered from the crumbled, charred remains and painstakingly pieced together into recognizable sections: maybe a foot, a flower, or a fish. The sections were juxtaposed, using some thematic judgment. Missing patches were artistically interpolated in the style of the original. The restored results are on exhibit at the Museum of Archaeology in Heráklion: naturalistic renderings of lilies and irises, blue dolphins and fish, a procession of red-skinned men and white-skinned women carrying large vessels.