Una mirada retrospectiva a les restauracions antigues II. El palau de Cnossos

Resumen

In 1900 Arthur Evans excavated the Palace of Knossos of the isle of Crete and discovered an unknown civilization, older than the Mycenaean revealed by Schliemann, which he named Minoan after the mythical king of the isle, Minos. The palace was a construction built around a central courtyard, with plenty of rooms connected by hallways, corners and stairs, giving an impression of being without any exut. Evans thought he found the famous Labyrinth and decided it was necessary to rebuild it for the public to understand the complexity of the building. Unfortunately the materials he used -iron, cement and concrete- did not persist in time and endangered the entire building, On the other hand, the aesthetic criteria he followed by restoring the public image of the palace, responds rather to the ideal of the moment - Modernism-, than to the archeological reality. Thus, Evans's intervention has historically speaking, also resulted in negative consequences, creating a new reality -the reconstructed palace- which has its own existence and imposes the original, remodeling the perception of the Minoan culture through a fictitious entity.