INTRODUCTION
In 1936, the British School at Athens (BSA) mounted an exhibition at the Royal Academy in Burlington House in London entitled ‘British Archaeological Discoveries in Greece and Crete 1886–1936’ to celebrate the School’s fiftieth anniversary. The focus of the exhibition was on Arthur Evans’ excavations at Knossos, alongside excavations organised by the BSA at Phylakopi, Kamares Cave, Palaikastro, Mycenae, Sparta and Perachora. The exhibition also included casts of famous objects such as the Rampin Head and Macmillan vase, and a section dedicated to Greek sculpture. This material was followed by displays on Byzantine material and modern Greek culture, to show roughly a complete sequence of Greek history and material culture. In short, the exhibition was a showcase for the archaeological achievements of the BSA (Evans had ceded his interests in Knossos to the School in 1926). The exhibition was notable for its use of replicas, photographs and drawings, alongside genuine artefacts. In this paper, I focus on the replicas displayed in the Minoan Room. Galanakis (Reference Galanakis, Cappel, Günkel-Maschek and Panagiotopoulos2015a) and Harlan (Reference Harlan2022) have both studied the exhibition in publication, and Trepagnier and Shapland (Reference Trepagnier and Shapland2025) have provided a much-needed reconstruction and catalogue of the Minoan Room. Galanakis (Reference Galanakis, Cappel, Günkel-Maschek and Panagiotopoulos2015a) analyses Evans’ work as a museum curator, shedding light on the overlooked significance of this role on Evans’ archaeological work. Harlan (Reference Harlan2022) summarises the content of the whole 1936 exhibition, matching catalogue descriptions to available photographs. But no previous scholarship provides deeper analysis of the replicas and their use by Evans; this article opens up a new understudied aspect of the exhibition.
The quote in my title (‘serious, important, overcrowded’) comes from a review of the 1936 exhibition in the Architects’ Journal dated 22 October 1936, which I came across in the newspaper clippings collection of the BSA.Footnote 1 The author then declares that the exhibition was ‘rather poorly displayed’. I found this a curious observation given that this exhibition was one of Arthur Evans’ final major efforts as a museum curator.Footnote 2 Given the importance of this event, it is significant that Evans made heavy use of replicas and displayed them alongside genuine artefacts.Footnote 3 The replicas supported the intellectual work that made the Architects’ Journal deem the exhibition serious and important, but also contributed to the overcrowded-ness which did not suit the Journal’s aesthetic tastes for an exhibition. These replicas are not all alike: some are purely didactic, some representative of a Minoan canon, and others of ‘ritual’ significance. What underpins the display of these various types of replicas is a desire to represent archaeological realities and fantasies, a line which can become blurred in the act of copying (or completing) an artefact. In his final and definitive exhibition to the public, replicas punctuated Evans’ displays, completing his vision of the Minoan past. The replicas supported Evans’ aspiration to offer ‘a general survey of Minoan culture in its widest range’ (Evans Reference Evans1936, 5). By bringing together a wide range of replicas, Evans was able to fashion new ‘assemblages’ in the 1936 exhibition which did not and could not exist elsewhere. The exhibition coincided with the publication of the final volume of the Palace of Minos (Evans Reference Evans1935), and the Minoan Room can be viewed as a physical representation of the ideas proposed there. Evans needed the replicas in order to translate his written scholarship into the physical exhibition space. In particular, I pick out the following: ideas of Minoan technological and artistic achievement; relationships between the Minoans and other cultures (particularly Egypt and Mycenae); theories of Minoan religion; and the idea of the Minoans as the first ‘Europeans’.
A THEORY OF REPLICAS
In this paper, I make suggestions on how the use of replicas supported Evans’ vision of Minoan archaeology and his approach to museum curation. Through this analysis I also reflect more generally on how we think about replicas and fakes (which were included in the 1936 exhibition, as I discuss below), and their relationship to authenticity. The display of originals, replicas, fakes and even replicas of fakes alongside each other can tell us something about how these objects were used and valued. Because something is a replica or a fake does not mean that we should dismiss or ignore its influence on scholarship. The theory of object-oriented ontology forces us to imagine scenarios in which objects ‘act’ on one another, without human intervention or perception (Harman Reference Harman2018). Since the creation and interpretation of objects cannot be divorced from human work and experience, I argue that the use of replicas and fakes changes how people view original objects, especially when they are placed in the same case in dialogue with one another. Today, they confront us with uncomfortable questions about authenticity and reality; in a modern museum visitors expect to see the ‘real’ thing, not a large number of replicas. This was not the case a hundred years ago, when replicas were expensive to create and almost as sought after as originals (e.g. Foster, Blackwell and Goldberg Reference Foster, Blackwell and Goldberg2014).
At the time of the 1936 exhibition, there already existed a broad culture of replica use in Britain, which had begun at the end of the nineteenth century (e.g. Codell and Hughes Reference Codell and Hughes2018). Evans’ practice was therefore not a unique or isolated one, but deeply embedded in a longer tradition of display. Replicas were used in a range of display contexts, in world fairs, art galleries, and museums. One notable context of replica use is in displays of imperial power, such as at the British Empire Exhibition (1924–5) held just a decade before the 1936 exhibition.Footnote 4 While these exhibitions attempted to showcase imperial unity by replicating architecture and monuments from across the British Empire,Footnote 5 Evans participated in this broader logic of imperial appropriation in his own way. He used replicas to assemble a coherent vision of the Minoan civilisation, in his view the first ‘European’ civilisation, by drawing together objects which were dispersed in collections across Greece, Europe and North America (as I discuss below). From the early twentieth century, cultural institutions and thinkers began to debate whether photographs would and should supersede plaster casts,Footnote 6 a tension which anticipated the arguments discussed by Walter Benjamin, which I turn to below. It is significant, then, that Evans was making a strident case for replicas in the 1936 exhibition when the intellectual tide was beginning to turn away from them.
Replicas were an important feature of Minoan archaeology at the turn of the twentieth century; the proliferation of Minoan replicas cannot rival the reach of Classical sculpture casts around the world, but nonetheless the dispersal of replicas was essential for communicating the Minoan past to a wider network of scholars throughout Europe and North America.Footnote 7 This was because the vast majority of Minoan objects were then and are still kept in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, by deed of Cretan antiquities laws established during the Κρητική Πολιτεία (Kritiki Politeia).Footnote 8 These laws ensured that all artefacts recovered from excavation were the property of the Kritiki Politeia and must remain on the island; only artefacts which were deemed by the institutional authorities (the Syllogos) to be ‘duplicates’ were allowed to be exported abroad. The replicas, therefore, allowed the very important Minoan objects (the ‘canon’ I discuss below) to ‘travel’ abroad to various collections. Many major museums (e.g. the Ashmolean Museum and the British Museum) had large collections of Minoan replicas which were regularly displayed, at least until the Second World War. For many museum-goers, these replicas played an integral role in forming their ideas of the Minoan past. Several replicas and reproductions were commissioned specifically for the 1936 exhibition (e.g. the Charging Bull Fresco, made by Émile Gilliéron père and fils). The Danish artist Halvor Bagge also produced some of the replicas on display. Evans’ regard for the replicas is evident from his description of the fresco reproductions created by the Gilliérons: he writes of their ‘competence’ and ‘flair’ in their understanding of Minoan art (Evans Reference Evans1936, 11). This is not only praise of the Gilliérons’ work, but also an endorsement of the utility of replicas and reconstructions.
The collapse of one of Piet de Jong’s reconstructions of the Dolphin Fresco in the Palace of Knossos in May 2025 is an interesting example of how replicas are valued.Footnote 9 This was dismaying news for admirers of de Jong’s work as many Aegean prehistorians are, and for replica enthusiasts. Everyone is no doubt glad that the original frescoes were all removed from the Palace to the safety of the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, and some are perhaps relieved that it was ‘only a replica’ that was damaged, but this impulse to value one over the other requires a bit of unpacking. This is not to say that I propose we should value original archaeological artefacts and their replicas equally, but we should rethink how we see replicas and their function in influencing archaeological scholarship. Many visitors to the site of Knossos, for example, are perhaps unaware that the frescoes they see adorning the walls of the Palace are all replicas. They play a role in bringing the site to life, and were also part of Evans’ didactic mission at Knossos. Before he undertook the heavy reconstruction of the site, he planned to build a museum there. He built a small reference museum above the Throne Room (Evans Reference Evans1904/5, 23) which had become a gallery for the fresco reconstructions by 1932 (Galanakis Reference Galanakis, Cappel, Günkel-Maschek and Panagiotopoulos2015a, 24). We can see a similar educational motivation for Evans’ use of replicas in the 1936 exhibition.
It is useful at this juncture to introduce some theoretical framing to advocate for the utility of replicas and the value of their study. While Evans clearly saw the necessity of replicas and reproduction, this was not the only perspective at the time. Walter Benjamin published his influential essay ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ in the same year as the Burlington House exhibition (Benjamin Reference Benjamin2009 [1936]).Footnote 10 He argues that there is a fundamental difference between art made in the past, especially the ancient past, and art made in modernity, because of the susceptibility of modern artworks or artefacts to (mass) reproduction, which modern makers were aware of. Benjamin writes:
Even with the most perfect reproduction, one thing stands out: the here and now of the work of art – its unique existence in the place where it is now. But it is on that unique existence and on nothing else that the history has been played out to which during the course of its being it has been subject. That includes not only the changes it has undergone in its physical structure over the course of time; it also includes the fluctuating conditions of ownership through which it may have passed. The trace of the former will be brought to light only by chemical or physical analyses that cannot be carried out on a reproduction; that of the latter forms the object of tradition, pursuit of which has to begin from the location of the original. (Benjamin Reference Benjamin2009 [1936], 231)
Benjamin’s words have been used to think about archaeological replicas and reproduction generally, but they are typically deployed in order to make a counterargument against his contention that reproduction is not only not genuine but damages the value of the original (see e.g. Isaac Reference Isaac2011). This is especially the case with those who advocate for digital replicas of archaeological artefacts (e.g. Cardozo and Papadopoulos Reference Cardozo and Papadopoulos2021; Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco Reference Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco and Garstki2022).
Yet I propose that Benjamin’s work can actually be used to advocate for the usefulness of replicas in certain instances. I am interested in two points Benjamin makes in the passage quoted above: the first is the notion that an object has uniqueness in its given time and space. The second is what I see as Benjamin approaching an early theory of object biography (Kopytoff Reference Kopytoff and Appadurai1986). In the first case, I think we can now say that replicas too, similarly to original artefacts, have a uniqueness in their given time and space. In the case of de Jong’s dolphin fresco reproduction, it is the fact that firstly it was made by a renowned artist, and secondly over 100 years ago, that gives the reproduction a unique character today. It now has, using Benjamin’s criteria, an aura of its own and a unique historical context and significance. The second point Benjamin makes, that original artefacts undergo physical changes over time and pass through the hands of different owners, can be equally applied to replicas. He says that a replica of an object cannot reproduce evidence of these changes; this is certainly true, but a replica will acquire its own ‘signature’ of usewear and its own object biography. I propose that this applies to some of the replicas used in the 1936 exhibition, although identifying full object biographies for them can be challenging. While I will not establish object biographies for the replicas discussed in this paper (primarily for reasons of length and scope), I comment on the replicas which we know were specifically commissioned for the 1936 exhibition; were borrowed from the Ashmolean (among other museums); and, after the 1936 exhibition, were donated to museum collections.Footnote 11 The object biography lens is a generally useful one for thinking about the utility of replicas.
LAYOUT OF THE EXHIBITION
Now I turn to the layout of the exhibition and the Minoan Room (see Fig. 1). The catalogue from the exhibition is freely available online at the Royal Academy’s website (Myres Reference Myres1936). It was written for the general visitor, not necessarily the seasoned academic, but contains considerable detail for a non-academic audience. There are discrepancies between Evans’ introduction, the content of the catalogue, and what is visible in the photographs, making it difficult to determine what the visitors actually saw. It is likely that the displays were rearranged after Evans had written his introduction and sent it to print. I rely on both the photographs and the catalogue, but I have deferred to the arrangement shown in the photographs when describing the contents of the displays. Any comments that Evans and others make on the material I have drawn from the catalogue. Upon entering the galleries, the visitor would first encounter the west room showing Byzantine material. The north room displaying Minoan material was only accessible through the east room which was dedicated to excavations by the BSA at the other sites, which I discuss further below. The south room was dedicated to the Perachora excavations and the individual research of British School members, including ethnographic work.
Plan of the 1936 exhibition (Royal Academy).
Fig. 1 Long description
The top panel is a sketch map of the Aegean Sea illustrating the work of the British School at Athens from 1886 to 1936. In the Northwest, sites include Thessalonika and Samarina. Moving East along the coast are Thasos, Aenos, and Istanbul. In the central Greek mainland, labels include Rakhmani, Marmariani, Athens, and Sparta. The Aegean islands feature Lesbos, Chios, Paros, and Melos. To the East in Asia Minor are Cyzicus, Aezani, and Adalia. At the bottom of the map, the island of Crete shows Knossos, Palaikastro, and Praesos.
The bottom panel is a floor plan titled Plan of the Galleries at Burlington House. The entrance is on the left side, adjacent to a bookstall. Moving East from the entrance is the West Room Byzantine. Continuing East is the East Room Excavations. From the East Room, a doorway leads North to the North Room Minoan. Another doorway leads South to the South Room Perachora Excavations and Individual Research.
The Minoan Room was laid out so that displays of large artefacts and fresco reconstructions hugged three walls of the room, while smaller artefacts were displayed in freestanding glass cases towards the centre of the room (see Fig. 2). These cases were arranged chronologically and thematically. Evans wanted to show the evolutionary progression of Minoan society, an idea which recurs in his work, and which was established in his practice as a museum curator at the Ashmolean.Footnote 12 The cases, as described in the accompanying catalogue and as observable through the few extant photographs of the exhibitionFootnote 13 (with a new concordance established by Trepagnier and Shapland Reference Trepagnier and Shapland2025), began on the left side of the room from the entrance, beginning with the Neolithic and Early Minoan periods.
Minoan Room. BSA SPHS/1/6839.C6848 (BSA SPHS Image Collection).
Fig. 2 Long description
The gallery is a long rectangular room with a high vaulted ceiling featuring a large central skylight with arched glass panels.
* Far Wall: A large framed fresco reproduction sits at the center, depicting a bull charging towards a tree against a wavy pattern. To its right is another large framed landscape artwork.
* Left Wall: Features a dark wooden doorway. To the right of the door, several framed drawings and a vertical display board with numerous small photographs are mounted. A glass display case on legs stands in the foreground.
* Right Wall: Densely packed with framed artworks of various sizes, including a long horizontal piece with circular motifs. Below these are large ceramic jars (pithoi) and several tall, narrow glass display cases containing smaller artefacts.
* Floor: The floor has a light-coloured diamond-patterned tile. Two dark rectangular mats are placed in the foreground, and several free-standing glass display cases are positioned throughout the central walking space.
* Lighting: Two bowl-shaped pendant lights hang from the ceiling on long cables, positioned symmetrically in front of the far wall.
CATEGORIES OF REPLICAS WITHIN THE MINOAN ROOM
I have identified a few broad groups of replicas used in the 1936 exhibition, but at the same time I acknowledge that these replicas defy neat categorisation. The artefacts these replicas represent have multiple affordances and played a range of different roles in their original contexts. I follow Evans’ own categories, as laid out in the exhibition catalogue, but have also defined my own. As I demonstrate below, certain material was duplicated and shown in different locations around the room to suit different purposes. For clarity’s sake, I discuss the replicas at each location (e.g. wall-cases and areas of the room) in turn, then draw connections between the replicas presented in each place according to category at the end.
Evans describes one group of objects as ‘religious’ and of ritual significance. I have maintained this category in my analysis. Another group, which I have defined, includes objects which were famous for their rich imagery (such as the replica Boxer Rhyton and the fresco reproductions); we can think of this group as representing a Minoan ‘canon’. I describe the third category as more ‘scientific’ or didactic: this includes pottery and friezes, objects which are not necessarily unique or individually famous, but nonetheless objects which Evans thought it necessary to replicate in order to illustrate particular points about Minoan society (e.g. technological prowess).
One of the key points about this exhibition is that Evans was able to create new ‘assemblages’ with the replicas, which would otherwise have been impossible, all in the service of telling his particular version of the story of the Minoan past. This occurred in two ways: Evans had the ability and influence to obtain the replicas, in some cases of famous objects dispersed in far-flung museum collections, and bring them together in London; and the replicas facilitated the creation of new assemblages which superseded real archaeological contexts (e.g. the thematic displays on Minoan relations with neighbouring civilisations) or enhanced them (in the case of the Temple Repositories assemblage and the Throne Room Display discussed below). Replicas, therefore, rather than playing a secondary role to the original artefacts on display, were central in the display and afforded the exhibition much more flexibility. As is evident from the above, the variety of replicated material on display means that we cannot think of the replicas as a single monolithic category. They share one essential quality, which is that they are copies of originals (or of important fakes, as I discuss below), but the extent of their similarities stops there. Nonetheless, Evans uses all the replicas as tools to reconstruct and represent his vision of the Minoan past in tandem with his published scholarship. In the following sections, I discuss the multiple uses to which Evans put the replicas in the Minoan Room.
I cannot discuss all of the replicas in detail in this paper, so I will focus on a few demonstrative case studies (see Table 1 for an outline of the material in the Minoan Room). Because most Minoan material remained in Heraklion, Evans had to represent the most important artefacts in the 1936 exhibition through replicas. The cases were arranged generally in chronological order but also by theme; as such, some of the material (both genuine artefacts and replicas) was duplicated to fit within different contexts and thematic programmes. This is a striking museum practice, and one which modern museum audiences are generally unfamiliar with. As I discuss in detail below, this duplication of material was a didactic tool Evans employed to show the visitor the best evidence of particular strands of Minoan society (e.g. a single object as evidence both of ritual and of writing). This strategy allowed the same object to be in multiple places at once, but it was also potentially reductive as objects were metaphorically bisected and their ‘bodily’ integrity affected; the ‘sanctity’ of the unique object, as Benjamin might put it, was certainly violated here. From a modern materiality studies-informed or object-oriented perspective, too, we should be sceptical of this strategy and at the very least query it. This approach undermines the idea (commonly accepted in archaeology today) that an object should be analysed as a whole; in other words, its function cannot be divorced from its form, nor the context(s) in which it was used throughout its life and ultimately discovered. For Evans, who took a scientific approach to the material, as I argue, this bodily integrity was perhaps an obstacle to the thematic programme he wished to present to the audience.
Material in the Minoan Room. The replicas are highlighted
Table 1 Long description
The table consists of two columns: Case/location and Material.
* Wall to right of entrance: Plans of Palace of Knossos, Tomb of Double Axes, Royal Tomb of Isopata, Temple Tomb.
* Wall to left of entrance: Plan of Little Palace, Town Houses, sections of Royal Road, photos of Knossos site, section drawings of floor levels.
* Small case on left wall: Neolithic sherds and clay figurines.
* Wall-case A: Early Minoan I–II including replica liparite bowl fragment, Mochlos pyxis lid, moustache cup; replica stone vessels, figurines; replica Vasiliki ware jug.
* Wall-case B: Early Minoan III and Middle Minoan IIB including replica Mallia bee pendant.
* Standing Case C: Middle Kingdom Egypt and Middle Minoan IIA and IIB including replica statue of User.
* Standing Case D: Minoan connections with the ‘Orient’.
* Standing Case E: Fine Middle Minoan IIA pottery, eggshell ware including replica bridge-spouted jar.
* Standing Case F: Snake Goddess figurine replicas plus Temple Repositories material, Boy-Gods, Fitzwilliam Goddess, Boston Goddess replica, Spencer-Churchill figurine, replica Knossian ivory acrobat, replica worshipping figurines, drawing of ‘Our Lady of Sports’.
* Standing Case G: Ritual vessels and small reliefs including Boxer Rhyton, Harvester Vase, Bulls-Head Rhyton replicas; Mycenae replicas; Vaphio cup replicas; replica Siege Rhyton; Psychro libation table reconstruction; replica swinging goddess from Ayia Triada; replica shrine model from Gournia.
* Desk-Case L: Clay tablets, inscribed stone vessels, Phaistos Disc replica, Psychro libation table fragments.
* Desk-case K: Thisbe treasure, Archanes ring, Evans’ own collection of Minoan seals, replica of Minos ring.
* Walls: Fresco reconstructions, wooden replica throne, Atreus Frieze cast.
* Throne Room Display: Replica plaster throne, original vessels, drawings of Palace room reconstructions.
* Wall-case H: Middle Minoan III to Late Minoan I transition including replica Town Mosaic plaques, replica rosette frieze.
* Wall-case J: Late Minoan I–II including ‘Captain of the Blacks’ reproduction, replica swords, replica octopus weight.
THE REPLICAS
My analysis proceeds from case to case in the order they were presented in the exhibition. These case studies (as it were) address different aspects of my overall argument concerning Evans’ use of replicas. They reflect Evans’ didactic approach to museum curation (see e.g. Galanakis and Sherratt Reference Galanakis and Sherrattforthcoming), his aspirations to completeness (i.e. showing as full a spectrum of Minoan material culture as possible), and the replicas (along with other objects) as ambassadors for his ideas in the Palace of Minos. In the discussion of individual cases below, I examine how Evans used the different types of replicas outlined above to support his intellectual project. One prominent thematic example is how he portrays relationships between Minoan Crete and its neighbours, including Egypt, the Near East, and Mycenae (Wall-case A, Wall-case B, Standing Case E, Wall-case H, and Standing Case G). I unpack the complex issues surrounding the replication of fake material and attendant problems around authenticity and restoration (Standing Case F). I demonstrate the close relationship between Evans’ publications and the design of the display. Evans’ ideas of Minoan high artistic and cultural achievement and the origin of European culture (made manifest in part by forged and replicated material) are also communicated through replicas. Evans deploys the replicas to support his ideas of race and soft imperial power. I investigate certain display strategies he deployed, most notably his use of replicas to show material in two places at once (Wall-case H, the Throne Room Display, Standing Case G, and Desk-case L).
Wall-case A
The earliest replicated material in the exhibition comes from the Early Minoan (EM) period, which was housed in Wall-case A. This first case displayed stone vessels imported from Egypt, as well as local Minoan imitations of Egyptian forms, and examples of Vasiliki ware (including a replica jug). Among these were a handful of replicas of stone vessels. One of these was a replica of a ‘mottled marble toilet vessel’ which Evans writes imitates diorite and matches a similar specimen from an EM II tomb at Mochlos (Evans Reference Evans1936, 13). There is not much to add to a description of this replica, apart from its parallelism (so argues Evans) with an inscribed Egyptian vessel from the Old Kingdom. This replica does not seem a particularly unique object, especially given the abundance of genuine stone vessels in the case, but it illustrates the scientific category of replica laid out above. Connections between Minoan Crete and Egypt were an important part of Evans’ work, but he often stressed the ‘ingenuity’ of Minoan forms, independent from Egyptian models.Footnote 15 This idea is evidenced by the inclusion in Wall-case A of a carved pyxis lid from Mochlos showing a couchant dog (Evans Reference Evans1921, 93–4).
Wall-case B
Wall-case B displayed EM II to Middle Minoan (MM) IIB material. In this case, a replica of the Mallia bee pendant shared space with original examples of light-on-dark pottery, examples of polychrome pottery from Knossos, and barbotine pottery. The replica of the bee pendant appears to have been the same one that was part of the Ashmolean Museum’s collections. It was replicated for the Museum very shortly after Pierre Demargne’s discovery of it in 1930, as it was on display in the Ashmolean as early as 1931 (Leeds and Harden Reference Leeds and Harden1931, 66; Demargne Reference Demargne1930, 404–21). The pendant is undoubtedly one of the most famous objects from the MM period, and indeed all of Minoan Crete, but it differs quite a bit from the other objects on display in the same case. Evident here is Evans’ commitment to representing chronological periods and a range of finds typical to those periods. The Mallia bee pendant, then, is presented as it is one of the most important artefacts from the Protopalatial period, demonstrating Minoan technological achievement. I consider this example to belong to two of my defined categories: the scientific and the Minoan ‘canon’. Evans describes it in the catalogue as ‘a unique example of skill attained by Minoan jewellers’ and points out the granulation technique to the visitor (Evans Reference Evans1936, 14).
Standing Case E
Standing Case E was dedicated to the ‘finest’ MM IIA pottery (Evans Reference Evans1936, 16). Evans makes a special note of the examples of genuine eggshell ware in the catalogue, drawing the reader’s and viewer’s attention to this achievement of aesthetic and technological prowess. The previous two cases displayed material demonstrating MM II relations with Egypt and ‘Oriental’ relations with Minoan Crete, respectively, but neither case held replicas. A replica of an elaborate bridge-spouted jar decorated with a lily motif dominated the top shelf of Standing Case E. The necessity of displaying a replica of the Mallia bee pendant seems obvious; there is no particular prestige attached to this specific bridge-spouted jar, apart from its complex decoration. This is an example of what I consider the ‘scientific’ or didactic category of replicas: those which are created and displayed to illustrate a particular style of material culture. The individuality of the original object is a secondary concern; we might consider these types of replicas as examples of type-fossils. Evans, in the first volume of the Palace of Minos, describes this jar as ‘in company with characteristic vessels’ (Evans Reference Evans1921, 247), demonstrating that he considered this a representative of its type. Evans seems to have expected visitors to the 1936 exhibition, as to the Ashmolean, to consult the displays and learn from them, rather than simply take in the majesty of Minoan material culture as if through osmosis, or in a disorganised, impressionistic manner. The criticism that the display was too ‘serious’, as expressed in the quote discussed above, is perhaps evidence of this lofty aim.
Standing Case F
In the next case, the individuality of original objects was foremost in Evans’ motivations for replicating them. Standing Case F displayed ‘religious figurines and reliefs’ of ‘exceptional value’ both artistically and ritually (Evans Reference Evans1936, 8). The highlightsFootnote 16 of this case included Halvor Bagge’s replicas of the Snake Goddess figurines (which were created between 1903 and 1906 for the Ashmolean),Footnote 17 the Fitzwilliam Goddess which was on loan from the Fitzwilliam Museum,Footnote 18 a replica of the Boston Goddess,Footnote 19 and two ivory Boy-Gods (one now housed in the Seattle Art Museum and one still in the Ashmolean)Footnote 20 which were at the time of the 1936 exhibition part of Evans’ personal collection. An illustration of ‘Our Lady of Sports’ from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto completed this display of Minoan ‘deities’.Footnote 21 The discovery of the Snake Goddess figurines in 1903 prompted Evans to develop a theory of the Minoan Mother Goddess (see Morris Reference Morris, Budin and Tully2024), the deity who was at the centre of a religious network of which all of the figurines listed above were a part.
Five of the figurines represented in Standing Case F are now considered by most academics to be fakes: the Boston Goddess (Lapatin Reference Lapatin2002), the Fitzwilliam Goddess (Butcher and Gill Reference Butcher and Gill1993), the two Boy-God figurines (Lapatin Reference Lapatin2000), and ‘Our Lady of Sports’ (Lapatin Reference Lapatin2000).Footnote 22 Here I want to highlight the relationship between fakes and replicas, not to imply that they are equivalent, but to draw attention to how they might be compared. The fact that the Boston Goddess, a fake as we now know from Kenneth Lapatin’s work, was replicated and displayed in the 1936 exhibition reveals this uneasy relationship. What fidelity can there be in a copy of a fake? Replicas can be ‘faithful’ to a fake because a replica reproduces exactly what is there. Replication of fake material produces a copy of something that never existed, yet could have existed, in the sense that the fakes themselves conformed to Evans’ expectations. The method for producing a replica of a genuine artefact is surely no different from producing a replica of a fake. This technical skill and dedication to craft is perhaps what made the Gilliérons (for example) both such gifted restorers and effective forgers.
Crucially, Evans did not believe the Boston Goddess (or the others mentioned here) to be fake. I consider Evans’ motivations for believing in this and other fakes below, but I will first try to answer the above question.Footnote 23 We must take for granted that Evans believed in the authenticity of these objects and took them for important articles of Minoan material culture. The Boston Goddess in particular, while it had many contemporary detractors, was taken by Evans to be an expression of expert Minoan craftsmanship in gold (Evans Reference Evans1930, 436). The chryselephantine material (which the Goddess shared with the Boy-God figurines and ‘Our Lady of Sports’) was prized because of its connection with later Classical Greek statuary (Lapatin Reference Lapatin2000, 18). The use of this material fit within Evans’ evolutionary model of Minoan society (Hamilakis Reference Hamilakis and Hamilakis2002, 5–7; McEnroe Reference McEnroe1995, 3–5; Schoep Reference Schoep2018, 7; Harlan Reference Harlan2011), i.e. that a chryselephantine depiction of the Minoan Mother Goddess followed on from the earlier faience depictions as the society advanced. Had the Palaikastro Kouros been discovered in Evans’ lifetime, I am sure that this would have bolstered his claims that the Boston Goddess is genuine. To return to the point: the act of copying is dependent on there being an original, but the copies also lend the fakes legitimacy, creating a situation of mutual dependence. When the validity of the original is called into question, the necessity of the copy appears to vanish; but I argue that such replicas (i.e. replicas of fakes) are still valuable. These objects were at one time important, and they reflect the trajectory of thought in the field of Minoan archaeology.
In Standing Case F, the Snake Goddess replicas were displayed together on the top shelf, beside the Fitzwilliam Goddess, as seen in Fig. 3 (the exhibition catalogue gives a slightly different arrangement). I suggest that this was because Evans considered all three figurines to be representations of the same, or a similar, deity: the Great Mother Goddess, of which the Snake Goddess was one manifestation.Footnote 24 We know that Evans publicly defended the Fitzwilliam Goddess’ authenticity when she was first purchased by the Fitzwilliam Museum (Evans Reference Evans1928, 235–7; Butcher and Gill Reference Butcher and Gill1993), perhaps motivated by his own desire to add to what he believed to be a corpus of representations of the Great Mother Goddess. Arranging the Snake Goddess figurine replicas with the Fitzwilliam Goddess gave the impression of the goddesses ‘in conversation’ with one another.
Detail of Standing Case F (upper shelf). BSA SPHS/1/6839.C6848 (BSA SPHS Image Collection).
Fig. 3 Long description
At the top left, a sign reads CASE F and below it, AND RELIEFS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS. To the right, a separate card displays a large letter F. Below these signs is a curved glass display case.
Inside the left section of the case, two tall female figurines stand in profile facing left. They wear tiered skirts and elaborate headdresses. Small white labels are placed at their bases.
In the right section of the case, two similar figurines are visible. One is seen from the front, showing a bare torso and a bell-shaped tiered skirt. The other is positioned slightly behind it. A larger rectangular label at the base of the front-facing figure contains several lines of small text, including the heading Figure of a Goddess.
In the background of the case, various illustrations and drawings are mounted on the rear wall, including a depiction of a floral or plant-like motif on the far left and a cylindrical object in the centre.
Questions of authenticity deserve careful consideration here. The Snake Goddess figurines have both been heavily reconstructed (Bonney Reference Bonney2011; Simandiraki-Grimshaw and Stevens Reference Simandiraki-Grimshaw, Stevens and Driessen2013; Jones Reference Jones and Koehl2016; Reference Jones, Günkel-Maschek, Murphy, Blakolmer and Panagiotopoulos2024). The smaller figurine, or Votary, in particular was reconstructed with parts from multiple figurines. Evans commissioned reconstructions of both figurines by Halvor Bagge, who then also replicated his completed work for the Ashmolean. We should, therefore, approach any replicas of the Snake Goddess figurines as representations of uncertain creations, not faithful reproductions of complete material. Evans viewed the Fitzwilliam Goddess as an incarnation of the same deity as the Snake Goddess figurines, which he believed lent the Fitzwilliam Goddess more credibility, but this comparison was based on a necessarily imprecise model given the heavy reconstruction of the Snake Goddesses.
On the shelf below, the replica of the Boston Goddess was paired with the Seattle Boy-God so that they were facing each other (Fig. 4). This arrangement resembles how they were posed in an illustration from the third volume of the Palace of Minos (Evans Reference Evans1930, fig. 318; Fig. 5). This is notable as Evans had the exhibition space reflect his published work, artfully placing the two in dialogue with one another. This suggests a conscious effort on Evans’ part to present his published findings (for an audience, for the most part, of his peers) in exhibition form to a wider audience. This has implications beyond the 1936 exhibition for how we understand the relationship between Evans’ publications and his work as a museum curator. Perhaps the physical format was more persuasive to a broad viewership than his published work. Evans writes in the catalogue, ‘the figure [the Seattle Boy-God] is practically the same height as the Boston Goddess, and both probably belong to the same group’ (Evans Reference Evans1936, 17). He is here referring to his belief that these figurines came from the same chryselephantine assemblage (Evans Reference Evans1930, 444–5). As alluded to above, the fact that these figurines shared a material reinforced the alleged authenticity of the other. It is worth noting here that Evans believed that the genuine Ivory Acrobat from Knossos (which was represented by a replica in Standing Case F) also came from the same assemblage as the Boston Goddess (Evans Reference Evans1921, 507).
Detail of Standing Case F (lower shelves). BSA SPHS/1/6839.C6848 (BSA SPHS Image Collection).
Fig. 4 Long description
The photo shows two shelves within a curved glass display case.
On the upper shelf, a small figurine of a woman in a tiered dress stands on the left. In the center, a dark bronze sculpture of a bull is positioned behind a small white label. A larger informational card at the top right reads Figure of a Goddess in mottled marble, probably Cretan, the earliest known carved stone statue in the world for a likeness - 1600 B C.
On the lower shelf, two large informational placards are propped up.
The top placard features five illustrations of a female figure in various poses and views, including a profile view on the left and back views on the right.
The bottom placard contains technical drawings of pottery. At the top left of this card is a three-legged bowl with a geometric pattern. To its right are two drawings of a tall, ornate vase with a single handle and intricate surface decoration. A small fragment of text or a separate small label is visible between the two placards.
In the background, blurred shapes of larger vessels and museum furniture are visible outside the glass case.
Boy-God and Boston Goddess (Evans Reference Evans1930, fig. 318).
The Boston Goddess and Seattle Boy-God shared a shelf with a bronze bull-leaping figurine lent by Captain E.G. Spencer-Churchill from his personal collection (although in the catalogue Evans describes it as being shown in Case K, in the photograph shown in Fig. 4 it is in Standing Case F), which would later be acquired by the British Museum in 1966 (BM 1966,0328.1). From Evans’ perspective, this figurine perhaps provided another example of elite Minoan craftsmanship and representation of the human form and served as a comparison for the ‘religious’ figurines.
I propose that Evans took pride in being able to show these objects all in one place physically (and not just in publication as he had been doing up until this point), as they were significant for his theories of Minoan religion. I do not wish to be overly critical of Evans for being drawn in by the fakes, but rather to argue that the ideological necessity of deeming these figurines as genuine overtook any natural naivety. For example, the Ashmolean Boy-God, which Evans (Reference Evans1936, 9) describes in the catalogue as ‘worthy of the Italian Renaissance’, has also ‘… offered up his “childhood’s lock”’. There are two points to investigate here. The first is that reference to the ‘Italian Renaissance’ situates this alleged Minoan masterpiece at the beginning of a long line of European high artistic achievement, and it frames Evans’ ideas about progress and decline as part of a longer repeated pattern. This was an important part of Evans’ overall Minoan project; he often refers to the Minoans as ‘the cradle of civilisation’ or the first ‘European’ culture (e.g. Evans Reference Evans1936, 6). The second, the ‘childhood’s lock’ is a reference to Evans’ beliefs about Minoan religion, as further elaborated in the Palace of Minos (Evans Reference Evans1935, 475–7).Footnote 25 Evans likens the tonsure of the Boy-God to the Delphic custom of young boys offering their hair; he considers the cult at Delphi to be connected with Minoan religion (Evans Reference Evans1935, 476). Evans’ Boy-Gods fit into a wider system of religion, the worship of the Great Mother Goddess. Evans believed that the female deity was attended by a younger male deity or ‘consort’, the Boy-God (e.g. Evans Reference Evans1921, 161; Reference Evans1928, 842; Reference Evans1935, 550).
On the middle shelf of Case F, Evans displayed Bagge’s replicas of the faience model dresses, skirts, and marine creatures from the Temple Repositories assemblage. Evans chose to keep this faience assemblage together in the same case, while spatially and thematically distancing the Snake Goddess figurines from them. The model dresses and marine animals occupied the same shelf as illustrations of ‘ritual’ or ‘religious’ images. This approach to display seems to me more didactic, while positioning the figurines against each other appears grander and more ceremonial. The artful creation of a group in dialogue is powerful and prepares the viewer to be drawn into Evans’ interpretation of the material. This nicely illustrates how Evans deployed two types of replicas of objects within the same assemblage.
Wall-case H
Curiously (at least according to the catalogue, as it is not visible from the available photographs), there seems to have been another set of replicas of the Temple Repositories material, on the middle shelves of Wall-case H, which was dedicated to material from MM IIIB to Late Minoan (LM) I. These replicas included the miniature votive vessels from the Temple Repositories, as well as replicas of the flying fish, cockles, and argonauts, but not the Snake Goddess figurines, which as discussed above were in Standing Case F. The bottom of the case included original ceramic vessels from the Temple Repositories; this mixing of genuine and replicated material from the same assemblage is intriguing. Clearly Evans wanted to show as much of the complete assemblage as possible but considered that showing the Snake Goddess figurines and other religious figurines together took priority over contextual unity of display (the Temple Repositories).
I attribute this to Evans’ need for the material to serve different purposes: when the Temple Repositories material was shown in Standing Case F, the aim was to show ‘religious’ symbols; that same material was displayed in Wall-case H to show the transition from MM III to LM I. The rest of Wall-case H showed an array of seemingly disparate materials, including the following: original and replica stone vessels; original ceramic vessels (including one from the Temple Repositories); a drawing of the Jewel Fresco from Knossos; both replicas and an original of the faience Town Mosaic plaques; and both a replica and a reconstructed piece of a rosette band from the South Propylaeum at Knossos (MM IIIB). The overall scheme of this case is scientific or didactic, focusing on a particular period and representative artefacts, and not thematic. We can understand the intermingling of original and replica Town Mosaic plaques as a result of Evans’ desire to show the viewer a fuller set of the artefacts, as the most important examples remained in Heraklion. In a similar way, Evans felt the Jewel Fresco was significant enough to be represented in a drawing, but given its poor preservation, did not warrant a plaster reproduction. The replica of the rosette band is the most interesting among this group.
Evans uses this replica to demonstrate his idea that the Mycenaean civilisation was merely a ‘mainland outgrowth’ of the Minoan, an idea he maintained long after the majority of his colleagues advocated for a distinct Mycenaean culture (Vogeikoff-Brogan, Davis and Florou Reference Vogeikoff-Brogan, Davis, Florou and Blegen2015; Fappas Reference Fappas, Carl W., Alan, Vogeikoff-Brogan, Davis, Florou and Blegen2015; Galanakis Reference Galanakis, Vogeikoff-Brogan, Davis, Florou and Blegen2015b; Momigliano Reference Momigliano2020, 88). He compares this replica with the Treasury of Atreus frieze from Mycenae (a cast of which was displayed in the Minoan Room on the floor near the fresco reproductions) thusly: ‘Special attention should be given to these parallels, in view of the fact that these fine architectural features have been brought down to an age of decadence, over three centuries later’ (Evans Reference Evans1936, 24). Both these architectural fragments (the Knossos frieze and Atreus frieze) are made from a similar reddish-brown stone, and the carved decorations are not dissimilar. This demonstrates how replicas could be deployed, just as original artefacts could be, to support important points. Of course, Evans was disproven on this point, but his persistence is notable, nearly two decades after Blegen and Wace (Reference Blegen and Wace1918) initially proposed a distinct Mycenaean culture which was not dependent on Minoan origins (as Evans maintained). These ideas correspond with a chapter from the fourth volume of the Palace of Minos in which Evans discusses architecture as evidence of the Mycenaean civilisation as an offshoot from the Minoan (Evans Reference Evans1935, 221–9; see also Evans Reference Evans1928, 694–6).
Throne Room Display
The Throne Room Display followed Wall-case H. The area was sectioned off by two glass cases on either side (Wall-case H to the left and Wall-case J to the right), and a plaster replica throne was positioned in the middle (Fig. 6). On the wall behind the throne and the vessels, there were several framed drawings, plans, and fresco reconstructions. These included Theodore Fyfe’s section drawings which recorded fresco fragments in situ, which Evans chose to ignore both in the Palace of Minos and in the 1936 exhibition (Galanakis, Tsita and Günkel-Maschek Reference Galanakis, Tsita and Günkel-Maschek2017). In front of the throne was a collection of genuine vessels, including a squat alabastron from the Throne Room. To the left of the throne, there was a drawn reconstruction of the Griffin Fresco in the Throne Room. Above the throne hung three drawings of reconstructions of rooms in the Palace: the Queen’s MegaronFootnote 26 (by Gilliéron fils, 1924–31), the Throne RoomFootnote 27 (by E.J. Lambert, 1917), and the Hall of the Double Axes (by Gilliéron fils, 1924–31). Above this scene was a detail drawing of two seated female figures from the ‘Camp-Stool’ fresco.Footnote 28 The framing of the ‘scene’ like this gives the impression of a reconstructed part of the Palace. Of course, the main aim was to give the viewer an impression of the Throne Room, but Evans also uses the reconstruction drawings of other rooms to pull in other spaces within the Palace. The replica throne, then, plays the role of didactic tool, but also belongs to the Minoan canon type. A wooden replica of the throneFootnote 29 was also on display in the Minoan Room, in front of the Charging Bull Fresco (see Fig. 7). Evans displayed both replicas because they served slightly different purposes: the plaster replica was a faithful imitation of what he discovered in the Throne Room. The wooden replica was a representation of what he considered to be the original model for the stone throne (Evans Reference Evans1935, 918).Footnote 30 This is an example of an unusual museum practice Evans employed in the 1936 exhibition: he displayed multiple copies of objects (replicas and originals) in different places around the space in order to fulfil different purposes, as I discuss further below.
Throne Room Display. BSA SPHS/1/6823.C6832 (BSA SPHS Image Collection).
Fig. 6 Long description
The display is organised with large physical artefacts in the foreground and framed visual aids on the wall.
At the center of the floor is a stone throne with a high, scalloped backrest and a shallow, carved seat. To the left of the throne are two large ceramic jars (pithoi). The leftmost jar features horizontal bands and circular motifs, while the jar next to it is decorated with a large, swirling octopus design. To the right of the throne are two more jars. The first is a smaller, rounded vessel with floral or papyrus patterns, and the second is a very tall, slender pithos decorated with vertical plant-like motifs and circular patterns near the rim.
The wall behind the artefacts is covered in framed items. Directly behind the throne is a large horizontal illustration of the Griffin Fresco from the Throne Room at Knossos. Above this are several smaller photographs and drawings showing architectural reconstructions of the palace interiors. To the right of the throne, a framed architectural plan or map is visible. On the far left and far right edges of the frame, glass display cases contain smaller artefacts and fragments. The entire scene is captured in a historical black and white photographic style.
Standing Case G (BSA SPHS Image Collection).
Fig. 7 Long description
The central subject is a tall, cylindrical glass display case with three internal shelves. A white card with the letter G is mounted at the top center.
Inside the case, the contents are arranged as follows:
* Top shelf: A large bull-headed rhyton with prominent horns and a tall dark vessel behind it.
* Middle shelf: Several small ceramic vessels and a framed photograph or illustration of a vase.
* Bottom shelf: A large, light-coloured architectural model resembling a circular tower or fortification with crenellations.
The background features large decorative wall panels with stylized nature motifs, including trees, rolling hills, and wavy patterns. To the right of the case is a high-backed wooden chair with a scalloped edge and a circular cutout in the base. On the far right, a portion of another glass display case is visible, containing small figurines. The floor is a neutral, flat surface.
Standing Case G
The case furthest to the back on the right side, Standing Case G, which Evans (Reference Evans1936, 18) dedicated to ‘Ritual Vessels and Illustrations, with Small Reliefs’, displayed replicas of famous ‘ritual’ objects. This is firmly a thematic case, as Evans brings together objects from different periods in Minoan (and Mycenaean) history. The top shelf displayed replicas of the Boxer Rhyton, the Chieftain Cup, the Bull’s Head Rhyton from Knossos, and an original and a replica of a lioness-head rhyton from Knossos (Fig. 7). On the shelf below, there were electrotypes of gold lion heads from Schliemann’s excavations at Mycenae, replicas of the Vaphio cups, and a replica of a fragment of the Siege Rhyton from Mycenae. On the same shelf was a replica of the Harvester Vase with a photo of the detail. The inclusion of these replicas almost does not need an explanation; the stone vessels from Ayia Triada (the Boxer Rhyton, Chieftain Cup, and Harvester Vase) are among the most famous objects from Minoan Crete.Footnote 31 The thematic unity of this case is obvious (the ritual pouring and consumption of liquids), but it also conforms to the Minoan canon type introduced above. Many of these objects show elaborate iconographic scenes, either in stone relief carving or metalwork, and have been used as evidence for scenes of Minoan culture and activity. It also seems that Evans is more subtly advancing his position on Mycenae as a ‘decadent’ outgrowth of Minoan culture by including the electrotypes of Mycenaean gold lion heads near to the lion-headed Knossian rhyta; Evans notes their similarity in the catalogue (Evans Reference Evans1936, 18).
The bottom shelf of Standing Case G held Evans’ reconstruction of the Psychro libation table in plaster, alongside a double axe (not listed in the catalogue), and a replica of a circular shrine or house model from Gournia (Evans Reference Evans1928, 133–4). The Psychro libation table is significant for many reasons. The original libation table is made of steatite, was inscribed with Linear A text, and was ritually broken into several pieces before being deposited in the Psychro Cave during the Minoan period. Fragments of this libation table were recovered from the cave over the course of three decades. The first piece of the table was discovered by local children and sold to Evans in 1896 (Evans Reference Evans1897, 351), and the third piece he purchased in 1923.Footnote 32 Evans immediately recognised the importance of the Linear A inscription, as scripts were what first brought him to Crete (Evans Reference Evans1897). Yet the libation table was not only significant for Evans because of the writing it bore. When he published the finds from his excavations at the cave, he interpreted the sanctuary as dedicated to Zeus, but also and more significantly to the Great Mother Goddess, whom he identifies with Rhea (Evans Reference Evans1897, 374). Evans discusses in detail the cultic function of the libation table in his Reference Evans1901 publication Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult. He incorrectly reconstructed the libation table as standing on four legs because he believed it to be standing over the baetyl or pillar of Zeus (Evans Reference Evans1901, 113–15; Reference Evans1921, 625–9; Fig. 8).Footnote 33 Here Evans is picking up on resonances with Near Eastern religion, particularly ritual equipment dedicated to the Libyan god Zeus Amun. As comparable Minoan stone libation tables came to light, it became obvious that Evans had reconstructed the form of the Psychro libation table incorrectly, but there do not appear to have been contemporary challenges to his reconstruction at the time of the 1936 exhibition.
Reconstruction of Psychro libation table (Evans Reference Evans1921, 627, fig. 465).
Desk-case L
Two of the original fragments of the Psychro libation table were on display in Desk-case L (Fig. 9), which showed examples of Aegean scripts – what Evans refers to in the catalogue as ‘specimens of Linear scripts’ (Evans Reference Evans1936, 27). Scripts and writing are central for Minoan archaeology and were one of Evans’ main research interests. Evans was first brought to Crete by his interest in the seals he had begun collecting in the late nineteenth century, many of which bore signs (Brown Reference Brown1993, 37; Reference Brown and Huxley2000, 10; Galanakis Reference Galanakis, Cappel, Günkel-Maschek and Panagiotopoulos2015a, 20). The material on display in Desk-case L included a replica of the Phaistos Disc, replicas of several Linear B tablets from Knossos, some Linear A examples, an original broken and inscribed marble bowl from Knossos,Footnote 34 and a fragment of a ladle shown beside a photograph of an inscribed ladle from Troullos.Footnote 35 Similarly to the Temple Repositories material, the Psychro libation table was displayed twice in two different contexts to suit different purposes. The libation table is a piece of important evidence for interrogating Minoan ritual practice but is here displayed for its significant Linear A inscription. Rather than presenting individual objects and foregrounding their range of affordances and significances, Evans chose to segment them and used replicas as a way of breaking objects into their constituent parts to show the visitor the variety of ways in which we can interpret them. In Fig. 9, the two original fragments of the Psychro libation table are shown in a disjointed arrangement. The leftmost fragment is shown on the right-hand side, the rightmost on the left, with the Knossian marble bowl in the middle. This is an odd arrangement and it is not clear why the material was shown this way, as it disrupts the inscription on the libation table. Perhaps it was a simple error, but I draw attention to this as a very literal example of the challenge to the bodily integrity of objects I discussed above.
Desk-case L. BSA SPHS/1/6825.C6834 (BSA SPHS Image Collection).
Fig. 9 Long description
The display case is divided into four rectangular sections by a metal frame.
* Top-left quadrant: Contains a large circular flat stone, a small triangular fragment, and a heart-shaped vessel
Top-right quadrant: Features three rows of elongated, flat stone slabs or tablets arranged horizontally.
* Bottom-left quadrant: Displays three large, heavy stone fragments. The leftmost is a rectangular block with two circular depressions, followed by two irregular, rough-textured stones.
* Bottom-right quadrant: Contains several more flat stone slabs. A central artefact is highlighted inside a dark, square frame, surrounded by smaller rectangular fragments.
In the background, above the case, a dark void is visible with a handwritten archival reference C dot 6 8 3 4 in the top-left corner. To the far left and right, blurred museum shelving and other objects are partially visible.
Fresco reproductions
I will not discuss the fresco reproductions in detail here, but will pick out a few ideas for consideration. These reproductions are perhaps most similar to the replicated Snake Goddess figurines as the original frescoes are all very fragmented and heavily reconstructed; the reproductions, therefore, are copies of an uncertain reality. There were reproductions of many famous frescoes: for example, the Ladies in Blue, the Sacred Grove and Dance, the Grandstand Fresco, the Charging Bull Fresco, the Priest-King, the Procession Fresco, and the Cup-Bearer Fresco. Each of these fresco reproductions falls under the Minoan canon type; these images are iconic of the visual culture of Minoan Crete, and they contributed (perhaps the most of any of the material culture) to the spread of the Minoans’ popularity in the public imagination. The Charging Bull fresco was positioned directly opposite the entrance to the Minoan Room, under a frame designed to look like a pediment, giving it a Classical flavour. There was also a photograph of the reconstructed Dolphin Fresco, but not a physical reproduction. We should consider photography as another kind of replication, but I argue that because the Dolphin Fresco was not represented by a full-scale reproduction, the value of the fresco reproductions which were there increases. Fresco reproductions have depth and scale, things which photographs lack. They (and other replicas) are more affective than photographs or drawings and can transport the viewer, which their three-dimensional physicality affords.
Wall-case J
I want to focus on one fresco reproduction in particular, in Wall-case J, which is just barely visible in the photographs. This case showed LM I and II material, including elaborately decorated ceramic vessels (both originals and replicas); several replica swords from Mycenae, and originals from Zafer Papoura; and a replica of the octopus weight from Knossos. This case appears to fall into the didactic category in terms of its use of replicas (evidenced by the replica weight and weaponry). There was also a reproduction of the ‘Captain of the Blacks’ Fresco from the House of the Frescoes at Knossos, excavated in 1923. The fresco was reconstructed into something which could be interpreted as depicting a white leader of black soldiers.Footnote 36 Evans provides rather extensive comment in the catalogue: the fresco depicts
an officer, with two spears, at the head of a column of negro mercenaries. It looks as if the last rulers of Knossos had made use of black troops to maintain their dominion. As this seems to have extended to the Argolid, it looks as if Ibrahim Pasha’s employment of black troops in the Morea may have been anticipated by over thirty-two centuries. (Evans Reference Evans1936, 26)
Evans connects the ancient past with the Greek War of Independence with dubious results.Footnote 37 This fresco is one of the few artefacts in the catalogue to receive such a lengthy description, especially one which is historical. Three years prior to the 1936 exhibition, Pendlebury (Reference Pendlebury1933, 38–9) wrote the following about this fresco: ‘South of the door is first a charming little work from the House of the Frescoes known as the “Captain of the Blacks”, the smart young Minoan subaltern leading his black Sudani troops at the double.’ His words echo Evans’ own, from the second volume of the Palace of Minos. Evans (Reference Evans1928, 755) describes the figures in the back as ‘Soudanese mercenaries who may have formed part of the Palace Guard’. He goes on to write: ‘The actual enlistment of black troops may be regarded as a symptom of conquest and colonial expansion on the African side, and their employment on European soil is closely paralleled by “Turcos” and Senegalese troops in more recent warfare’ (Evans Reference Evans1928, 756). That Evans chose to include a reproduction of this fresco shows how important ideas of race were to his idea of the Minoan world, at least in the background or underpinning a wider set of convictions about the function of Minoan society, which is here clearly modelled on the British Empire. This choice perhaps demonstrates the expectation that the exhibition would advance British imperial soft power, which the use of replicas supported. The threads I have drawn together, specifically around Evans’ ideas of progress and decline and Minoan relations with neighbouring civilisations, echo this imperial theme.
CONCLUSION
The 1936 exhibition was not technically Evans’ final museum exhibition (as I noted above, he modelled his final iteration of the Minoan collection in the Ashmolean on the 1936 Minoan Room), but I propose that we should think of the Minoan Room as his ultimate statement as a curator. Study of the replicas of the 1936 exhibition reveals several important features of Evans’ museum practice and wider scholarly convictions. He was embedded in a culture of replica use which was falling out of fashion; this tradition carried colonial associations in which Evans also participated, even though in different ways. The ‘completeness’ Evans was able to achieve with the assemblages he created mimicked the ‘completeness’ of the imperial exhibitions popular at the time.
The replicas were vehicles for him to promote his vision of the Minoan past, as presented in the Palace of Minos, which focused on themes of Minoan artistic and cultural achievement, Minoan Crete as the first European culture, and Minoan relations with its neighbours. Evans used the replicas to fashion new assemblages to demonstrate these themes. The replicas, then, were Evans’ most effective tool in persuading a broad audience of his ideas. Rather than thinking of the museum displays as supplements to Evans’ scholarship, we should consider them as an equally important part of Evans’ intellectual work.
Benjamin and Evans differed less over the legitimacy of replicas than over the value of their transformative potential. Evans’ use of replicas nevertheless produced effects that Benjamin’s analysis helps to explain: it detached objects from their existing locations and contexts, allowed the same material to appear in more than one interpretive sequence and incorporated ancient forms into a modern display scheme that would have been unrecognisable to their makers. While Evans clearly did not think his originals were diminished by the inclusion of replicas, his use of them to create assemblages of material that would be impossible to produce otherwise and to show objects in a different light shows an awareness of their transformative potential (as discussed by Benjamin).
One of the major questions to emerge from this article concerns how we should assess replicas of fakes. Minoan archaeology appears to have produced many famous fakes, in part, as I note above, because of the skill of restorers and forgers such as the Gilliérons, who were able to anticipate the needs of Evans’ theories. Although fundamentally inauthentic, these fakes transformed Minoan scholarship and are entangled with the history of the discipline. It is impossible to imagine Minoan archaeology today without the hefty ‘contributions’, especially to the field of ritual studies, made by these fakes. Standing Case F synthesised many of the themes Evans wished to communicate by depending on replicated fakes. In the 1936 exhibition, the fakes and replicas of fakes acquired a legitimacy by association with genuine objects, both replicas and originals. But likewise, the act of replication gave the fakes a certain credibility. All of these objects acted on each other to create a cohesive narrative of the Minoan past.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their generous comments and suggestions which much improved this article. I thank Yannis Galanakis, who shared unpublished work with me. I gratefully acknowledge the Many Lives of a Snake Goddess project and my collaborators: Nicoletta Momigliano, Christine Morris and Ellen Adams, who sparked my interest in replicas. My thanks also to Amalia Kakissis for her help in the archives at the BSA, and for showing me the clippings and panels from the 1936 exhibition, and to Andrew Shapland and the staff at the Ashmolean for giving me access to the material used in the exhibition.
Open access
