Minoan civilization civilization has been described as the earliest of its kind in Europe, with historian Will Durant calling the Minoans "the first link in the European chain". The Minoan civilization is particularly notable for its large and elaborate palaces, some of which were up to four stories high, featured elaborate plumbing systems and were decorated with frescoes. The most notable Minoan palace is that of Knossos, followed by that of Phaistos. The Minoan period saw extensive trade between Crete, Aegean and Mediterranean settlements, particularly the Near East. Through their traders and artists, the Minoans' cultural influence reached beyond Crete to the
Indus Valley Civilisation the Indus Valley, where the first remains were found. The Indus Valley Civilisation was also named as the "Harappan civilisation" after Harappa, the first of its sites to be excavated in the 1920s, in what was then the Punjab province of British India. The Indus Valley Civilisation has also been called by some the "Sarasvati culture", the "Sarasvati Civilisation", the "Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation" or the "Sindhu-Saraswati Civilisation", as the Ghaggar-Hakra river is identified by some with the mythological Sarasvati River, suggesting that the Indus Valley Civilisation was the Vedic civilisation as perceived by traditional Hindu beliefs. The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC)