Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

The Labyrinth at Knossos 475

the Minotaur emerges. E. Braun long ago suggested that the
patterned space stands for the Labyrinth1. And P. Wolters has
recently proved that the further back we trace the whole design,
the more important becomes this particular feature of it2. On
a black-figured lekythos from Vari (fig. 330)3 the Minotaur, grasping
a couple of stones, is haled out from behind a stele or broad column
covered with maeanders etc. The Labyrinth is here no palace;

Fig. 331-

it can hardly be termed a building at all. On a black-figured
skyphos from the akropolis at Athens (fig. 331)4 the resemblance

1 E. Braun in the Bull. d. Inst. 1846 p. 106. G. W. Elderkin ' Maeander or
Labyrinth' in the Journ. Am. Arch. 1910 xiv. 185—190 still thinks that the band is
the anta of a wall and that its patterns are mere filling, though he admits that ' An
exact parallel to the vertical stripe...is not at hand.' His notion that Aison on the
Madrid kylix was copying the north porch of the Erechtheion with its fiwfxbs tov Ovtjxov
is surely far-fetched. A better copy of the Erechtheion, olive-tree and all, is Lenormant—
de Witte El. mon. c^r. i. 2236°. pi. 67.

2 P. Wolters loc. cit. pp. 113—132 ' Darstellungen des Labyrinths.'

3 Collignon—Couve Cat. Vases d'Athmes p. 283 f. no. 878, P. Wolters loc. cit.
p. 122 f. pi. 2.

4 Graef Ant. Vasen Athen p. 142 f. no. 1280 pi. 73, a, P. Wolters loc. cit. p. 123
pi. 3, a fragmentary skyphos from the Persian dibris showing Theseus beside the
Labyrinth, greeted by Athena in the presence of three other figures: the inscription
is meaningless.

With this vase cp. Graef op. cit. p. 147 no. 1314 pi. 76, P. Wolters loc. cit. p. 124,