There are more ways than ever to listen to history daily ad-free.

Listen with Wondry Plus in the Wondari app,

or you can get all of history daily plus other fantastic history podcasts at intohistory.com.

It's March 30th 1900 on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean.

A few miles in shore on a flower covered hill overlooking the sea,

a dig is underway. Arthur Evans, a 48-year-old English archaeologist,

leans on his stick and lowers himself into a long trench carved out of the earth.

A local digger stops his shoveling and looks on as Arthur in a spotless white suit

kneels to examine what the man has found. The wind gusting in from the coast blows dust off

the shattered remnants of an ancient vase. Arthur appears closely at the half-barried

shard to pottery. He is severely short-sighted but refuses to wear glasses

making everyday life difficult, but Arthur finds it invaluable for excavations

when close detailed examination is paramount. As he looks over the pottery,

exposed to the air for the first time in thousands of years, there's an excited shout

from the other side of the site. Arthur looks up as other diggers abandon their work to rush across

the mound in the direction of the shouting. Arthur climbs up out of the trench and hurries to follow

them. As he approaches the crowd, the Englishman finds a young digger, his face shining with

sweat and excitement. He's holding a long, narrow bar of clay that he's just pulled from the earth.

He passes it gently to Arthur, and even with his poor eyesight, the archaeologist can see at once

that there's something special about it. The dull rectangle of clay is inscribed with strange

symbols, a mixture of lines, pictures, and circles. It's clearly writing, but when the young

digger asks Arthur what it is exactly, all Arthur can honestly say is, I don't know.

...