Make Minoans Great Again? Towards the elaboration of an assessment tool for a tentative revival of their past

Although highly criticized by many, the pioneering restoration work conducted at Knossos in the early 20th century continues to attract large crowds of tourists and shape public perception about the Minoans, the civilization which blossomed between circa 3000 and 1200 BC on the island of Crete. This iconic example raises crucial questions about the balance between conservation and presentation strategies and the way to assess their relevance scientifically. Proceeding from these questions and the acknowledged gap in research-based preservation policies of Bronze Age sites in Crete, the goal of this paper is twofold. It explores new trends in conservation planning methodologies to provide decision makers with a methodological tool applicable to Minoan sites while investigating the current conservation state of sites at present overshadowed by the Knossian example. The peculiarity of the challenges faced by Minoan heritage preservation legitimizes the targeting of Minoan sites in this research. To achieve its ambitions, this paper adopts an original and evolutive methodology in three steps and it advocates a cross-source approach combining a review of existing literature and new fieldwork