Sir Arthur (John) Evans

Archaeologist, born in Nash Mills, Hertfordshire, SE England, UK. He was curator of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (1884–1908), where he developed an interest in the ancient coins and seals of Crete. Between 1899 and 1935 he excavated the city of Knossos, discovering the remains of the civilization which in 1904 he named Minoan after Minos, the Cretan king of Greek legend. He was knighted in 1911.

Sir Arthur John Evans (July 8, 1851, Nash Mills, Hemel Hempstead, England–July 11, 1941, Youlbury, Oxford, England) was a British archaeologist.

Evans was the son of Sir John Evans, a paper manufacturer and amateur archaeologist of Welsh descent.

Evans' special interest was the Greek island of Crete, and he was largely responsible for the excavations of the palace-city of Knossos, chief centre of the Minoan civilization, which uncovered the site that is open to visitors today. While many of his contemporaries were interested in removing items of interest from the sites they uncovered, Evans wanted to turn Knossos into a museum where Minoan culture could become tangible, as he was far more interested in building a whole vision of the past than simply displaying its riches.

Though deciphering and translating the scripts found on the site always eluded him, Evans recognized that they were in two scripts, which he dubbed "Linear A" and "Linear B".

Evans, however, should also be remembered for his own irrationally obstinate Creto-centrism, which led to unfriendly debate between himself and the mainland archaeologists Carl Blegen and Alan Wace. Evans's insistence upon a single timeline of development, climax, and decay for Bronze-Age Greek civilization based upon his dating of Knossos and other Minoan palaces ran contrary to Wace's dating of Mycenae, which saw its heyday in the midst of Knossos' decline, as well as Blegen's discovery of Linear B tablets at Pylos, which he (correctly) speculated were, in fact, Greek. Nevertheless, Evans generated strange and convoluted explanations for these findings, and in enmity, he actually used his influence to have Wace removed from his tenured position at the British School of Archaeology in Athens.

Evans was knighted in 1911 for his services to archaeology, and is commemorated both at Knossos and at the Ashmolean Museum.

The excavation at the site of Knossos (which he purchased in order to preserve it), has been continued to the present day by the British School of Archaeology, Athens.