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TV history star excited about unique Oxford show on mysterious civilization

Dr Janina Ramirez at the Ashmolean Museum for the launch of Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth & Reality. Picture: Tim Hughes
Dr Janina Ramirez at the Ashmolean Museum for the launch of Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth & Reality. Picture: Tim Hughes

DR JANINA Ramirez gazes at a glass case and smiles, her eyes sparkling as she grins with unrestrained delight.

“Look at this!” she says reverentially, as if admiring a sacred relic. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

The Oxford University academic, an expert in art history, is taking in the splendours of the Ashmolean Museum’s latest show on the treasures of Knossos – the palace at the heart of the Minoan civilization which emerged on the island of Crete an incredible 5,000 years ago.

The show dazzles with statues, jewellery, figurines and frescos and explores the culture through the myth of the iconic Minotaur in his maze. But Janina has honed in on a relatively modest depiction of a crowd at a sporting event, which most of us would probably breeze straight past with barely a glance.

“All those people...” she says, admiring the elegantly painted figures, “...they are women – and that tells you a lot about what was happening there.”

A rock star historian, Janina’s television shows and books have made the Research Fellow in History of Art at Harris Manchester College a household name with a huge fanbase. With her engaging style, striking appearance and contagious enthusiasm, she is succeeding in doing what might otherwise seem impossible – making art history cool. And in an era of TikTok, reality dating shows and brief attention spans, that is no mean feat.

Oxford Mail: Janina Ramirez at the Ashmolean Museum’s Knossos exhibition. Picture: Tim Hughes
Oxford Mail: Janina Ramirez at the Ashmolean Museum’s Knossos exhibition. Picture: Tim Hughes

But it is not just the past that enthuses her, it is the role of women in shaping civilization. The ladies may have been written out of the history books, but, she says, we cannot hope to comprehend our past – and present – without understanding the part played by women.

Her work, such as her latest children’s book Goddess – which tells the tales of powerful female figures who have shaped belief around the world – is helping to set the record straight. And that is why she is enthralled by Knossos, where the women not only held prominent positions, but largely ran the place.

“It was a fully fledged civilization long before Greece,” she says. “And it was a sophisticated society of their own making.”

“Crete is a long skinny island and looked to Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. It was a multicultural melting pot surrounded by water which didn’t feel the need to be a militarised society. They had ships, and could defend themselves, but were not aggressive. And that saw women given so much more control in politics, economics and education.”

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That enlightened state of affairs came to an explosive end, however, with the eruption of the Santorini volcano in 1600 BC – unleashing earthquakes and tsunamis.

“The explosion devastated Minoan civilization and changed everything,” Janina says with genuine sorrow.

The flourishing early culture has left a unique legacy, though, and it’s one which continues to enthuse Janina, who shared her passion for Minoan civilization in her hit TV series Raiders of the Lost Past. The BBC programmes, in which she retraced the footsteps of some of the world’s greatest explorer-archaeologists, took her from Viking Norway to Olmec Mexico, but it was Crete that made the deepest impression – so much so that she returned to Crete with her family from their home in West Oxfordshire to explore it further.

“I’m a medievalist not a classicist,” she smiles. “But if one period could tease me away from that it would be the Minoan civilization; I fell head-over-heels in love with it.”

Oxford Mail: Evans Fresco Drawing
Oxford Mail: Evans Fresco Drawing

Evans Fresco Drawing from Knossos. Picture courtesy of Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

The Ashmolean show, Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth & Reality, looks at Minoan culture through the prism of its defining story – the myth of the Minotaur.

The creature – part man, part bull – was said to have stalked a huge labyrinth in the palace of King Minos at Knossos, snacking on human sacrifices. Its fate is well known – slaughtered by a plucky young Athenian prince called Theseus who navigated the maze by unravelling a ball of thread.

The unique exhibition features more than 200 objects – half of them on loan from Athens and Crete – reunited for the first time in more than a century. These sit alongside the Ashmolean’s own Cretan collection.

Those treasures are the most important outside Greece, having been excavated by a team under the direction of a former keeper of the Ashmolean Sir Arthur Evans, who was instrumental in revealing the secrets of Knossos, being granted permission, in 1900, to dig at the site.

Oxford Mail: Labyrinth at the Ashmolean 
12/02/2023
Picture by Ed Nix
Oxford Mail: Labyrinth at the Ashmolean 12/02/2023 Picture by Ed Nix

Labyrinth: Picture by Ed Nix

Laid out as a twisting journey of discovery along its own labyrinth; treasures from the palace sit beside maps documenting the hunt for the site culminating in Sir Arthur’s momentous dig.

“The discovery of Knossos is the stuff of archaeological fantasy,” Janina says. “It is real life Indiana Jones stuff with beautiful art going back five millennia.

“It is up there with Troy or the tomb of Tutankhamun as one of the most important archaeological discoveries – and the story of the half-man, half-bull in a maze is irresistable.

“To be able to see these treasures in Oxford is incredible. It is almost as if you are retracing Arthur Evans’s steps in discovering it. There are things here I never thought the Heraklion Museum would loan. It’s like seeing old friends in your back garden.

Oxford Mail: Labyrinth at the Ashmolean 
12/02/2023
Picture by Ed Nix
Oxford Mail: Labyrinth at the Ashmolean 12/02/2023 Picture by Ed Nix

Labyrinth: Picture by Ed Nix

“The show is an amazing achievement and the team are rightly proud of it.

“The pottery is particularly beautiful,” she says. "The painting technique is perfect. The artists glory in the natural world. And alongside the pictures of octopus and seashells is the recurring image of the bull – the culture’s reverence for the animals and its rituals of bull ‘leaping’ and fighting no doubt fuelling the myth of the Minotaur – perpetuating the fascination.

“There was no Minotaur at Knossos but they have leaned into it. History became legend and legend became myth.

“It’s a culture deeply associated with bulls and labyrinths. I’d have loved to have seen it with my own eyes and see the scale of the complex and all its treasures in one place.”

While that is impossible, of course, this captivating, unique show provides us with the next best thing.

  • Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth & Reality is at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, until July 30. Tickets from ashmolean.org

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Oxford Mail:

Ceramics from Knossos in Labyrinth at the Ashmolean Museum. Picture by Tim Hughes