Evans, Sir Arthur John (1851-1941), a British archaeologist, is known for his excavations at Knossos on the island of Crete. Beginning in 1900, he uncovered the Palace of Minos at Knossos, on which most knowledge of pre-Greek Minoan civilization is based. He also found clay tablets bearing the earliest form of Greek writing. This form preceded the writing of the Phoenicians.
Evans was born July 8, 1851, in Hertfordshire, England. He graduated from Oxford and Göttingen (Germany) universities. Evans’s discoveries were published in the multiple volume Palace of Minos (1922-1935). He was knighted in 1911. He died on July 11, 1941.
See also Knossos.
