The true history of the Minotaur: what archaeology reveals | Hacker News Reader

The true history of the Minotaur: what archaeology reveals

nationalgeographic.fr

48 pointsjoebig14 comments

I always considered https://files.blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/wp-content/blogs.dir/397... the true one

the Master

(using an English translation of the French presented in this article. The article is worthwhile and detailed -- thank you for posting)

It appears that the author is trying to "solve" the origins of this mythos, using the commonly named Minoan culture as the core of the Bull in the story.

Yet the elements of a labyrinth, annual sacrifice, animal strength as a relative of the King, and the motifs used in the treatment and remedy.. These are not political topics.

Adding the spicy animal-human mating aspects only deepen the side of the story that exists within dream realms of human nature.

If the socio-political drives the author to make such a pleasing and informative product such as this article, then yes, I accept it. It is rare to find such aesthetics and thorough writing in public formats. However, I insist that the political change of society in that region is not enough to explain this strange and persistent storyline.

If I understand correctly, the article says the "maze" was actually the many rooms of the Cretan palace. The word "labyrinth" comes from the sacred ax called "labrys" used to kill the bulls during sacrifice. The minotaur was an invention symbolizing a foreign power that Athens fought with and will overcome?

The big problem that the article glosses over is that "labrys" is neither Minoan (to our limited knowledge) nor Greek, but Lydian: the Roman-era author Plutarch in Ætia Romana et Græca tells us that the Lydians call the double-headed axe λάβρυν, and people have assumed that it must have a nominative λάβρυς. The Lydians lived in Anatolia, not Crete. The Carians, another Anatolian people neighboring the Lydians, had a place called Labraunda, and coins minted there in Roman times have a double-headed axe, but that's more than a thousand years after the Cretans. There's no good evidence that the Minoans knew the word "labrys" or connected it to axes or the labyrinth. Moreover, it's not clear that the axes we have were or could have been functional rather than votive or ornamental, as most are thin and weak, so assuming that they were used to kill bulls is a stretch.

English version, but paywalled: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/...

(can read in FF's "reader mode").

Archive link: https://archive.ph/gsv8r

It seems disabling JavaScript on that page also loads the full content.

partially related..

the Minotaur is one of the main "characters" in Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov.

https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Sorrow-Georgi-Gospodinov/dp/1...

https://losangelesreview.org/book-review-the-physics-of-sorr...

Early mazes, like the one on the coin, are strange because they don't present any choices of direction and thus could not bewilder Theseus, even without his ball of twine.

The article mentions that Sappho referenced the Athenians sending sacrifices to Crete but I can't find the fragment anywhere and I'm guessing it doesn't exist.

The article is in french

So we know the minotaur probably didn't speak English.

This appears to be the English version : https://archive.is/gsv8r

My browser has a translate feature. I imagine it's pretty standard.

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