Description:
Paul Stonehill tells the story of the gold signet called the ring of Minos. In 1928 a boy, Michalis Papadakis, found it near Knossos. His father Emmanuel marked it with a knife scratch and gave it to the village priest, Nikolaos Polakis.
Arthur Evans would not pay the asking price. At Heraklion, Nikolaos Platon called the ring genuine and Spyridon Marinatos called it fake, so it was returned and then lost. In 2001 Giorgos Kazantzis found it in a jar hidden in a fireplace, still carrying that scratch. Greece confirmed it in 2002, and it is now in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum.
The engraving is about 3,500 years old. Stonehill describes a seated goddess, a tree ritual, a figure coming down from the sky, a rocky seat he ties to Mount Juktas, and a boat on the sea.
The engraving is about 3,500 years old. Stonehill describes a seated goddess, a tree ritual, a figure coming down from the sky, a rocky seat he ties to Mount Juktas, and a boat on the sea.
He says Evans attached the name of King Minos without proof the king owned it, and that later Greeks remembered only one Cretan generation, from Europa to the Minotaur. His own reading, begun with the Soviet writer Ivan Yefremov, is that Minoan sailors reached as far as Central Asia.
