"Knossus Palace", © Elroy Christenson 1985.

The island of Crete was at one time the center of the Minoan civilization. The highly sophisticated culture that developed here attained a good deal of notoriety and mythology that has passed down to us. King Minos, the king who had the curse of turning anything that he touched into gold lived here. The myth of the Minotaur also comes from the Labyrinth that was in the palace of Knossus.

The palace ruins were discovered by archaeologist at the end of the 19th century. They rebuilt some sections to create an idea of what it may have looked like with all its color. Some the major frescoes have been removed to the museum nearby.  More recent archeology has proposed that the palace and a good deal of the island was devastated by the tidal wave from the eruption and collapse of the volcano at Santorini.