Was there a thread of Ariadne, or How the myths about the Cretan labyrinth of the Minotaur were debunked

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The story of the hero Theseus, who defeated the monster of the Minotaur, and the beautiful Ariadne, who gave her beloved a ball of thread to exit the Labyrinth, is so beautiful that it does not need explanations and proofs, promising to live in world culture forever. Nevertheless, the scene of the events of this ancient myth is quite real - it really looked like a labyrinth and was directly related to bulls.

The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur

Minotaur, "the bull of Minos", was the name of the son of Pasiphae, the wife of the king of Crete. This creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull was allegedly hidden by Minos in the labyrinth built by Daedalus, where it fed on human sacrifices. He was given to be eaten by criminals, and once every nine years seven young men and seven girls were sent from Athens as a tribute, who wandered along the corridors of the labyrinth, unable to get out of it, and as a result fell right into the mouth of the Minotaur.

The son of the Athenian king Aegeus Theseus, who went among these fourteen to the island of Crete, was able to defeat the Minotaur, and a ball of thread donated by Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, helped him get out: starting to unwind it at the entrance to the labyrinth, Theseus and his companions were then able to return.

The conqueror of the monster and his beloved set off on a ship to Athens, but during a stop on the island of Naxos, Ariadne was kidnapped by Dionysus in love with her, and theseus returned to Athens alone, saddened. Forgetting that in the event of a happy outcome, the black sail on the ship had to be replaced with a white one, he unwittingly became the cause of his father's death: Aegeus, who saw the mourning sign, could not bear the news of his son's death and threw himself off the rocks into the sea, which has since became known as the Aegean.

Minoan civilization

The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur refers to the Minoan culture - a civilization that existed in Crete during the Bronze Age, from about the XXVIII to the XV centuries. BC. Records about the legend can be found among the ancient Greek historians of the classical and Roman periods, when the versions of the interpretation of the myth were already different. According to one of them, Taurus, the cruel commander of Minos, loved to arrange competitions in which teenage slaves were the prize. This version was voiced by Plutarch with reference to ancient Greek historians.

Be that as it may, the legend, in which one of the main characters will be the bull, could not but arise during the existence of the Minoan culture or when getting acquainted with its heritage. The bull among the Cretans was a particularly revered, sacred animal involved in various rituals and cults. The finds made by archaeologists made it possible to establish that tavrokatapsy, or dancing with bulls, ritual jumping over an animal, were popular on the island.

It can be assumed that during these "dances" there were sacrifices - isn't this the origin of the legend about the regular tribute to the Minotaur? The Cretans themselves probably borrowed the image of a man with a bull's head from other religions - in particular, the Phoenicians, who worshiped Moloch who devoured children, or the Egyptians, whose custom was to worship gods with the heads of various animals.

As for the place where the labyrinth of the Minotaur was probably located and where King Minos lived - it was found in 1878 by the Greek Minos Kalokerinos, an antique dealer who discovered ancient ruins under the earth and began to dig them up. Among the finds of Kalokerinos, before the authorities forbade him to continue excavating, were artifacts of the Minoan civilization, including tablets with records, which, unfortunately, died in a fire along with the Greek's house a few years later. Excavations continued only in 1900, when Englishman Arthur Evans bought a plot of land where the labyrinth was supposedly located.

Heinrich Schliemann, who owns the laurels of the discoverer of Troy, suggested that this is a labyrinth, but Schliemann, despite all his efforts, did not manage to get to the excavation site in Crete. Evans, on the other hand, set to work on a large scale, inviting many local workers and several assistants from England. The find was named a palace and was recognized as the capital of the Minoan civilization by Knossos.

Strictly speaking, the discovered ruins were not a palace in the usual European sense of the word - they were rather the remains of a complex building that contained about one and a half thousand rooms and occupied an area of about twenty thousand square meters.

Unfortunately, since Evans set out to unearth traces of the Minoan civilization, all later layers turned out to be unexplored and lost, and therefore it was not possible to restore the history of Knossos after its decline based on the results of excavations. In addition, the Englishman began a partial reconstruction of the palace, having recreated a number of buildings and premises in accordance with his ideas about the way of life of the ancient Cretans - and sometimes it is almost impossible to distinguish between the product of his activity and the real ancient artifacts.

Palace or labyrinth?

Be that as it may, the Knossos palace is a unique structure that has no analogues in the ancient world. Built on a hill, it was designed in such a way that it allowed all rooms to remain as illuminated as possible: large windows and courtyards were provided, and in addition, this building was multi-storey - reaching four floors in different parts. The rooms were connected by corridors of different sizes.

Obviously, most of the population of this city lived in the Palace of Knossos - there were pantries filled with oil, cereals, dried fish, rooms for cooking, where there were presses for olives and grapes, mills. The organization of water supply and drainage of the palace deserves special attention. In Knossos, at least three such systems were envisaged: one at a time, water from the river was supplied to the premises through pipes, warming up under the rays of the sun along the way, the other provided for a sewer drain, the third was for the drainage of rainwater during heavy rains. During the excavations of Knossos, bathrooms and toilets with a water supply system were found.

The discovered "throne room", according to Evans, contained armchairs for the ruler of Knossos and the queen, but later studies suggest that this room could be considered a place for the appearance of a female deity, since the Minoan civilization developed under matriarchy conditions.

One of the signs of the female Cretan deity was labrys, a double-sided ax - an ax, symbolizing the maternal principle. His images are found on the frescoes of the Palace of Knossos, and the labrys themselves were also found, sometimes higher than human height. It is with this word that the term "labyrinth" is associated - perhaps this name was given to the building where this sign was revered as sacred - the palace of Knossos.

There are versions according to which the Minotaur was more of a ritual character, the man in the mask of a bull took part in some sacraments in honor of the goddesses of the Cretan culture - and over time, based on these customs, the legend of the monster arose.

The reasons for the decline and disappearance of the Minoan civilization have not yet been finally established - it was previously believed that the destruction of the Palace of Knossos and the departure of residents were caused by a volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini, but the latest research does not confirm this. Be that as it may, starting from the XIV century BC, the Knossos Palace ceased to be the center of Minoan culture, in order for the next millennia to become the legendary scene of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.

The ruins of another ancient city - Pompeii - were discovered much earlier than Knossos and its labyrinth were found, and the preservation of buildings and objects of this ancient Roman city are ruins on Crete can only envy.