What Is Crete Known For?

Crete holds ruins that some archaeologists consider Europe's oldest organized city, and the palace built on that site gave rise to one of Greek mythology's most enduring stories.

Crete is known first for the Palace of Knossos, center of the Minoan civilization, the earliest advanced culture in the Aegean. Humans occupied the site as far back as 7000 BC, and the first palace complex rose there around 1900 BC, later destroyed by an earthquake around 1700 BC and rebuilt on an even larger scale, before Minoan civilization collapsed for good sometime between 1375 and 1450 BC, likely from a combination of earthquakes and invasion. British archaeologist Arthur Evans began excavating and partially restoring the site in 1900, and Knossos now ranks as the second most visited archaeological site in Greece, behind only the Acropolis.

The palace's sprawling, maze-like layout, spread across multiple stories and thousands of square meters, gave rise to the myth of the Labyrinth. According to legend, King Minos angered Poseidon after failing to sacrifice a bull the god had given him, and Poseidon retaliated by causing Minos's wife to fall in love with the animal, resulting in the birth of the Minotaur, a creature part man and part bull. Minos had the architect Daedalus construct the Labyrinth beneath Knossos to contain it, and the Athenian hero Theseus later entered and killed the Minotaur with help from Minos's daughter Ariadne, who gave him a thread to trace his way back out. Some modern scholars question whether Knossos itself matches the myth precisely, since the bull imagery found throughout the site appears elsewhere in Minoan art too, but the association has stuck for well over a century.

Crete connects easily by ferry or flight to Athens for anyone extending a trip through the island's layered ancient history.