Arthur Evans, the first archaeologist to excavate Minoan Knossos, hired the Swiss artist Emile Gilliéron and his son, Emile, as the chief fresco restorers at Knossos. The restorations have been often criticised subsequently; and are now viewed with a "healthy skepticism" as "overconfident" by specialists. In one important case a figure of a monkey was turned into a boy; in fact human figures do not usually appear in "landscape" fresco scenes. Spyridon Marinatos unearthed the ancient site at Akrotiri, then capital of Santorini, which included the Wall Paintings of Thera, frescoes which make it the second-most famous Minoan site. Although the paintings are rather less refined, and its political relationship with Crete is uncertain, the town was covered in volcanic ash in the Minoan eruption around 1600 BC, and many of them have survived far more completely than those from Crete. Unusually, they include life-size female figures, one apparently a priestess.