Sir Arthur John Evans  (8 July 1851 - 11 July 1941) was an English archaeologist and pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. He is most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete. Evans continued Heinrich Schliemann's concept of a Mycenaean civilization, but found that he needed to distinguish another civilization, the Minoan, from the structures and artifacts found there and throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Evans was also the first to define Cretan scripts Linear A and Linear B, as well as an earlier pictographic writing.

Arthur matriculated on 9 Jun 1870 and attended Brasenose College, Oxford. His housemaster at Harrow, F. Rendall, had eased the way to his acceptance with the recommendation that he was "a boy of powerful original mind." At Brasenose he chose to read modern history, a new curriculum, which was nearly a disaster, as his main interests were in archaeology and classical studies.  His summertime activities with his brothers and friends were perhaps more important to his subsequent career. Having been given an ample allowance by his father, he went looking for adventure on the continent, deliberately seeking out circumstances that might be considered dangerous by some. In June 1871, he and Lewis visited Hallstatt, where his father had excavated in 1866, adding some of the artifacts to his collection. Arthur had made himself familiar with these.  Subsequently, they went on to Paris and then to Amiens. The Franco-Prussian War had just concluded the month before. Arthur had been told at the French border to remove the dark cape he was wearing so that he would not be shot for a spy. Amiens was occupied by the Prussian army. Arthur found them prosaic and preoccupied with souvenir-hunting. He and Lewis hunted for stone-age artifacts in the gravel quarries, Arthur remarking that he was glad the Prussians were not interested in flint artifacts.  In 1872 he and Norman adventured into Ottoman territory in the Carpathians, already in a state of political tension. They crossed borders illegally at high altitudes, "revolvers at the ready." This was Arthur's first encounter with Turkish people and customs. He bought a complete set of clothes of a wealthy Turkish man, complete with red fez, baggy trousers and embroidered, short-sleeved tunic. His detailed, enthusiastic account was published in Fraser's Magazine for May 1873.  In 1873 he and Balfour tramped over Lapland, Finland, and Sweden. Everywhere he went he took copious anthropological notes and made numerous drawings of the people, places and artifacts. During the Christmas holidays of 1873, Evans cataloged a coin collection being bequeathed to Harrow by John Gardner Wilkinson, the father of British Egyptology, who was too ill to work on it himself. The headmaster had suggested "my old pupil, Arthur John Evans - a remarkably able young man."

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