Were the Minoans a peaceful people?
Sir Arthur Evans claimed that there weren’t any fortifications on the island and very few weapons were found in the Minoan cemeteries, so, they must be a peaceful society. This is not true. In the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE the Minoans conquered the Cycladic islands, and Greek myths talk about fierce rivalry between them and the Mycenaeans. And there were fortifications on the island, unearthed by Sir Arthur Evans!
Evans was a skilled archaeologist, applied pioneer methods, and did remarkable, monumental work on Crete and was the single most influential person to have shaped modern understanding of the Minoan civilization. Why did he disguise the truth? The explanation has a political origin. The discovery of the warlike Mycenaean world by an amateur archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann, launched the prehistoric Aegean to take center stage.