British School at Athens

The British School at Athens was founded in 1886 as a British research institute for classical archaeology and anthropology, one of 17 foreign schools in Athens. Its most famous mark on the world: Arthur Evans directed the excavations of the Minoan palace at Knossos on Crete from here from 1900 onward, revolutionising the understanding of Aegean prehistory. The main building on the south slope of Lycabettus in Kolonaki houses a specialised archaeology library of over 100,000 volumes, a hostel for visiting scholars and, since 1985, the Fitch Laboratory for scientific archaeology. General access only on lecture evenings or open days - but visitors who book in get to see one of the quietest research oases in central Athens.