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At the turn of the 20th century, Sir Arthur Evans was obsessed with Crete and Knossos. He had no good reason to believe that this obsession would lead to one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the modern era.

As a reporter for the Manchester Guardian, he had traveled to the Balkans—the peninsula in southern Europe that culminates in Greece at the tip. There was a lot of resistance to the Ottoman Empire, and Evans’s writing focused on the culture of the region, including the ancient history. Evans had long been fascinated with this area of the world and the discoveries that still laid hidden.

The intricate interplay of culture, history, and politics in the Balkans certainly added fuel to his curiosity about the ancient past, drawing him towards the enigmatic ruins of Knossos on Crete. This island, steeped in legends and archaeological potential, promised a tangible connection to the ancient world that Evans had become so captivated by through his reporting.

After being …