Fourteen thousand square metres of palace on a hill outside Heraklion, occupied from around 7000 BC, first built as a palace about 1900 BC, rebuilt after a destruction around 1700 and finally burned about 1350 BC. It runs off a big central court through staircases, corridors, light wells, magazines, workshops and shrines on several levels, and that plan is very likely where the Greeks got the idea of the Labyrinth, with Minos and Theseus and the Minotaur attached later. Be ready for what you actually see: Arthur Evans rebuilt large parts in reinforced concrete with painted reconstruction, which is why the place is legible to a visitor and why archaeologists have argued about it ever since. One of the most visited sites in Greece, UNESCO listed in 2025.
Heraklion, Crete, Greece
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