Category Archives: Minotaur

Labyrinths, part 2

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Is there a kernel of truth to the legend of the Minotaur? We already know there are many theories regarding the location of a labyrinth as described in the Greek myth. One theory mentioned previously is the complicated floor plan of the Knossos palace complex. Many of the Achaeans, the early mainland Greeks, would have come from halls with much fewer rooms so it is possible they saw the complicated and many roomed palace and were overwhelmed.

. A fragment of a floor with a labyrinth has been found during the excavation at Knossos. Was it decoration? Or something more? No one knows.

Or perhaps the maze as described in the myth hasn’t been found. Pieces of tablets from Knossos, talk about a place with a labyrinth. So far, no one knows where that might be. Or even if it was a different location.

What about the minotaur, a bull-headed man? Considering the number of ancient cultures who used masks to represent animals and/or Gods, it doesn’t take much imagination to guess a man wearing a mask played the part of the Minotaur in religious rites. Bulls were very important; sacred in fact in this Bronze Age culture.

Finally, we come to the core of the Theseus and Minotaur myth. The tribute of young men and women were chased through the labyrinth and consumed. The Minoans have the reputation for being a peaceful society. It is probably true that, because they were an island with an excellent Navy, they were well defended from outside invaders. But certain finds have suggested this society was not as peaceful as it appears to us now. Bones of children mixed in with the bones of bovines and sheep, and bearing the same cut marks, suggest they were eaten as the animals were. Were these ancient Cretans cannibals? Was eating human flesh part of their religious rites?

Another finding suggests human sacrifice. Three bodies, crushed by falling debris during an earthquake, seem to indicate the sacrifice of a young man by a priest. Many cultures sacrificed to appease the Gods. However, if they were sacrificing this young man to prevent an earthquake, they left it to late.

Labyrinths

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The word labyrinth is from Bronze Age Crete. Labrys refers to the double-headed axe used in religious rituals. It definitely was not a tool. Labyrinth did not refer to a maze. (Perhaps to a place of labors?)

The labyrinth in Knossos was made famous in the Theseus and Minotaur myth. To recap, Athens was required to send fourteen kids (seven girls and seven boys) to Crete to be consumed by the bull-headed monster the Minotaur. The monster is confined to a maze underneath the city so that neither he, nor the tributes, can escape. Theseus, the son of the Athens’ King, is included in one of the tributes. Ariadne, King Minos’ daughter, falls in love with Theseus and gives him a ball of string and a sword. Theseus successfully kills the Minotaur and uses the string to find his, and the other captives, out of the maze.

Was there a maze under Knossos? It is true that Crete is a nation of mountains and caves. Perhaps there was, exactly as the myth describes, and through the years the earthquakes and of course the volcanic explosion of Thera on Santorini has erased it.

Another theory posits that the interlocking rooms of the palace in Knossos, which comprised workshops, storage rooms, meeting rooms as well as apartments, was the original labyrinth.

Current excavations, however, have turned up a floor mosaic of a maze, as well as a fragment of pottery decorated with a maze. So, mazes were important to this society.

This is not unlikely, Mazes have been found in other long ago societies. A maze carved into rock has been found near Tintagel, Cornwall and spirals carved into rock at Newgrange. One author makes the claim that Glastonbury Tor is a maze.

Why Mazes? Were they a metaphor for birth and renewal? A quest to reach the center as a symbol of finding enlightenment? Or did the mazes in Ancient Crete have some religious purpose we don’t yet know?

On thing we can be sure of: a Minotaur did not sit at the center to eat the tributes for Athens.

Theseus

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Bull leaping is probably one of the most well-known -if not the most well-known – image of the Minoan civilization. Most people believe the account written in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. It is important to remember the Greeks (the Mycenae and forward) borrowed a lot from other cultures. The civilization on Crete was very important. With that said, the Minoan civilization was Goddess centered while the Mycenae were patriarchal and that made a huge difference in how the invaders viewed the rites and rituals they saw.

In the Theseus myth, Minos exacts a tribute from Athens of 7 young men and 7 maidens to face the bull and perform bull-leaping. Minos’s daughter Ariadne falls in love with Theseus and gives him a ball of string to find his way through the labyrinth under the city and kill the Minotaur, (The creation of this beast is another story). Theseus does so, thereby freeing himself and the other tributes from Crete. He takes Ariadne with him but abandons her on another island. Great guy. She lands on her feet, though. Dionysus finds her there and marries her.

While tributes may have been pressed into service as bull-leapers, the bull-leaping was an integral part of the religious ceremonies. The bull was a sacred animal and the Cretan youth performed. Secondly, although there are caves, there are no labyrinths underneath Knossos and it is thought the pattern of building residences – all interlinked and connecting rooms – gave rise to the myth of a labyrinth.

And although labyrinth now means maze, the labys (the root of the word) was the iconic Cretan double axe. It had nothing to do with mazes.

Since the Classical Greeks seem to have been a dour lot, the ending of Theseus’ journey home has a sad ending. He’d told his father if he succeeded, and still lived, he would change the ship’s sails to white. But Theseus forgot so his father, seeing the black sails, thought his son had died. King Aegeus committed suicide

Ancient Crete and the Minotaur

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While researching Bronze Age Crete and Greece for my mystery series: First book – In the Shadow of the Bull – I spent a lot of time reading the Greek myths.

Most of us have at least a passing knowledge of the Greek myths. These are from the Classical period, a millennia at least from the heyday of Bonze Age Crete. That does not mean, however, that Crete was not hugely influential in these myths.

Take the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, for example. Here’s the backstory. The Greeks revered Zeus. Poseidon wanted to be honored too so he sent a white bull to Minos, the King of Crete. Minos’s wife Parsiphae fell in love with the bull. She tasked Daedalus (yes, the inventor with the wax wings whose son was Icarus) to build a special wooden box in the shape of a cow. Once inside the box, she had intercourse with the bull. Nine months later she bore a half-man, half-bull. The Minotaur.

The myth reeks of patriarchy and a desire to, in modern parlance, throw shade on Cretan beliefs.

First, in Crete Zeus was not the primary God. He was an upstart, more akin to a harvest God, who died and was reborn.

We also don’t know if Crete had a King. Certainly it was a goddess centered, matrilineal culture. Many archeologists have assumed Crete had kings, but for decades these archeologists were men. Men, moreover, who lived with a strongly patriarchal structure. It is possible the Priestess’s consort acted as a wanax, or governor. Kingships came with the Mycenaeans, i.e. the mainland Greeks who finally occupied Crete.

Several ancient cultures revered the bull or, in Indo-Europe (the steppes) the horse. One of the rites was mock intercourse with this symbol of fertility by the Queen/Priestess. This act was supposed to guarantee good crops, lots of livestock and of course healthy children for the coming year.

But what about the Minotaur?

Well, many many ancient and not so ancient cultures employ masks in religious rites. Animals are a frequently the subject.  Is it so far a stretch to believe that the Minotaur is a masked man involved in a religious rite? I theorize that a rite performed in ancient Crete involved intercourse between the High Priestess’s consort who wore a bull mask.

Besides painting Theseus as a hero (which I dispute but more about that later), this myth spins Crete as decadent and deserving of conquest. By the Myceneans, naturally.