The English archeologist Sir Arthur John Evans (1851-1941) discovered and excavated the most important sites of Minoan civilization in Crete and thus made the greatest single contribution to the knowledge of European and Mediterranean prehistory.

Arthur Evans, the eldest son of archeologist Sir John Evans, was born on July 8, 1851, at Nash Mills, Hertfordshire. He received his education at Harrow and at the universities of Oxford and Göttingen and was appointed a fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. In 1884 he became curator of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, a post he held until 1908, when he was appointed extraordinary professor of prehistoric archeology at the university.

Evans was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1901, was knighted in 1911, and served as president of the Society of Antiquities (1914-1919) and president of the British Association (1916-1919). His important publications date from his early years of excavations in Crete. He died...