[4] These go back to the original excavation under Sir Arthur Evans in 1901, as he first thought the fragments belonged to at least two figures, a possibility that remains under discussion.

The uncertainty surrounding the fragments may be summarized by the title of a paper published in 2004: "The Priest-King Fresco from Knossos: Man, Woman, Priest, King, or Someone Else?

[5] The fragments making up the reconstruction at the AMH are, as is usual with these displayed pieces, embedded in plaster of Paris on a backing, and framed.

When the fragments were excavated under Arthur Evans (not by him personally) in 1901, his first thought was that they belonged to different personages and "the torso may suggest a boxer".

[7] Anatomical observation of this torso shows a contracted powerful musculature and the left disappeared arm was surely in ascendant position because the pectoral muscle is raised.

[8]Evans later changed his mind, and the reconstruction reflects his later idea of the figure as a "Priest-King"; he used the image on the cover of all volumes of his main publication on the Knossos excavations, despite the cost of gold-embossing the crown.

In the view of Nanno Marinatos, in Minoan art "the plumed crown" is only worn by deities, griffins and the queen, who is, by definition, also the chief priestess.

[15] Sinclair Hood, a later excavator at Knossos, says that "the fragments were found close below the surface in the much eroded southern region of the palace, and were therefore virtually unstratified".

She suggests that athleticism and "royalty" in a Minoan context may have gone together, with the victors in athletic contests given a special status, even an enduring political one.