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