![]() In popular fashion to our archaic desire for idyllic scenarios, she fell in love at first sight with the handsome and valiant Theseus on his arrival to Crete. ![]() The Princess Ariadne, the beautiful daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, and therefore a half sister to the Minotaur, held the keys as the keeper of the Labyrinth. Statue of the Minotaur found near the Acropolis, Athens ![]() It was at one of these cycles that Theseus, an Athenian Prince was selected to make the journey to Crete with the other youths, vowing to his father, King Aegeus to slay the Minotaur. Minos, an offspring of the God Zeus then asked that every seven or nine years, the Athenians provide seven young men and seven maidens from noble families to be sent to Knossos to be sacrificed to the Minotaur. I must note that the name Minoan was the invention of the colorful archaeologist Arthur Evans who led the excavations at Knossos, and that much of what we consider to be historical fact is the highly interpreted vision of this man and other modern scholars.Ī bull sculpted in stucco relief excavated from the palace at Knossosĭuring a time of drought in Athens that was said to have been brought on by the murder of King Minos son in an act of jealousy due to his supremacy in the Panhellenic Games, the Athenians to the north asked the Oracle at Delphi for consul, and were told to pay homage to King Minos on Crete. Double Ax symbols have been found in excavations of other ancient cultures that would have had influence on the Minoans. The suffix -nth insinuates a palace, therefore, the word Labyrinth can mean the Palace of the Double Ax. Depictions of double edged axes were found in the excavations at various Minoan palaces in different parts of Crete, but it is assumed that Knossos was the main center for the civilization, from which the great King Minos once reigned. The word Labyrinth is derived from the word Labrys, which was a Minoan word for a double edged ax, a royal symbol associated with creation, and a Goddess that was the protectress of the palace. So it is possible that a labyrinthine pattern may have decorated a spacious courtyard in the palace where it is hypothesized that these events took place, but there is no physical evidence of this today.Ī Minoan woman depicted in a fresco from the palace at Knossos The Labyrinth insinuated in frescos was a kind of 'dancing ground' where rituals probably took place. There is however no actual known remnant of any kind of labyrinth on the island of Crete other than depictions on coins and ceramics. The elaborate layout of the buildings may have inspired the idea of the labyrinthine concept due to a seemingly endless number of rooms and corridors at a time when the rest of Europe still resided in simple dwellings.Īn artist's rendering of what the palace at Knossos may have looked like The palace at Knossos went through many incarnations over several centuries and developed in to a great citadel with spacious courtyards and a complex arrangement of rooms on several levels. Minoan culture dates from the Bronze age and is the oldest known advanced civilization in Europe. ![]() This was the mythical site of the famed Labyrinth of the Minotaur. One of the main reasons I came to the island of Crete this winter was to visit Knossos, the ancient Minoan Citadel near the island's capitol city of Heraklion. Labyrinth patterns were stamped in to the coins of Knossos, from the Archaeology Museum, Heraklion, Crete
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