Arthur Evans began the major excavations of Knossos in 1900, the Cretan site linked with the mythical Labyrinth.
Evans was a British archaeologist who purchased the Knossos site and directed excavations there from 1900. The work uncovered a large Bronze Age palace complex, storerooms, ceremonial spaces, staircases, and evidence of an advanced society that Evans called Minoan, after the legendary King Minos.
Evans believed the complex helped inspire the Greek story of the Labyrinth and Minotaur. He also reconstructed portions of the ruins, a practice that remains controversial because some restorations went beyond what the surviving evidence securely established. Knossos is therefore both an important archaeological site and a place strongly associated with later mythology.
Knossos was not proven to be the literal mythical Labyrinth. The connection rests on its complexity, its importance in Cretan tradition, and its association with the legendary court of Minos.