DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16205#0013
OUTLINE OF M1NOAN CIVILIZATION
THERE is a land called Crete in the midst of the wine-dark sea, a fair land and a rich, begirt
with water, and therein are many men innumerable and ninety cities. And all have not the
same speech, but there is confusion of tongues. There dwell Achaeans and there, too, Cretans
of Crete, high of heart, and Cydonians there and Dorians of waving plumes and goodly
Pelasgians. And among these cities is the mighty city Cnossus, wherein Minos when he was nine years
old began to rule, he who held converse with great Zeus and was the father of my father, even of Deucalion,
high of heart." Odyssey, XIX, 172 ft1; Butcher and Lang's translation.
At the gates of the Aegean lies the island of Crete, about equidistant from Europe, Asia, and Africa,
and commanding the waterways between them. The value of this position is unquestionable; yet, since
the dawn of history, the islanders have failed to reap honorable advantage from it. Highly favored by
position, climate, and fertility,2 this fair land has been given over from century to century to petty strife
and oppression. For the days of Cretan greatness, one must go back to before the Trojan War.
Greek tradition associated its earliest myths with Crete. Here Zeus, Father of Gods and men,
was born3 and was hidden by his mother Rhea in a cave of Mt. Dicte in the country of the Lyctians,
or, according to another report, in a cave of Mt. Ida, in order to escape the wrath
TRADITION of his father Cronus. Such a myth clearly indicates the early importance of
Crete, but even more enticing to archaeologists were the tales concerning King
Minos, for Dr. Schliemann's success at Mycenae and Troy had raised the hope that with legend for a
guide new discoveries might be made, throwing further light on a splendid past, of which the Greeks
themselves knew nothing beyond the stories told of their semi-divine heroes. The very contradictions
in the reports about Minos were stimulating to research.
Older stories embodied in Homer4 and Hesiod5 speak of Minos as son and comrade of Zeus, father
of Deucalion and Ariadne, and grandfather of Idomeneus, a chieftain in the Trojan War. This Minos is
ruler of Knossos, ancient capital of Crete; after death he becomes a lawgiver in Hades. There is no
mention of any dark side of his character; in fact, the lines describing him as judge of the dead" are
only appropriate to one who, in his life on earth, enjoyed a reputation for justice. Very different from
this tradition is the tale handed down by Apollodorus,7 a mythographer of the second century B. C,
1 Odyssey XIX, 172 ff.
Kpi^rir] tis yai 'Istt, u.sjm eve oi'voxc xovto)
kocXt] -/.at xfetpa, xspippUTO?. ev 6' avOpwxoi
xoXXol, dexetplacoc, y.ai Ivv^xovra xoXtjs?—
aXXrj 0' aXXwv yXtoaaa (j.sy.tynlvYj. sv (xsv 'A/atot,
ev 0' 'EtsixpirjTsi; neyaX^Topsi;. sv Se Kucmvss,
Atopies? ts zpiy&'iy.sQ oiot ts IlsXaijyot—
Tflai 0' evi Kvwgioc;, ^eyccX^ xoXis, svOgc ts Mivmc,
svvsMpog jiadXsue Alb? u,eydcXou dapicrrjs
xaTpbc, Iu.010 xocrrjp, ^.SYaOu;j.ou Aeuy.ccXiwvoq.
3 Hesiod. Theog. 477 ff. Translation by C. A. Elton, 1832.
And her they sent to Lyctus; to the clime
Of fallow'd Crete. Now, when her time was come,
The birth of Jove her youngest born, vast Earth
Took to herself the mighty babe, to rear
With nurturing softness in the spacious isle
Of Crete. So came she then, transporting him
Through the swift dusky night, to Lyctus first;
And thence, upbearing in her hands, conceal'd
In sunless cave, deep in the blessed ground.
Within th' Aegean mountain, shadow'd thick
With woods.
2 In spite of the rugged character of much of the surface, Crete has always been reputed fertile because of the great pro-
ductivity of that portion which can be tilled and irrigated. The high esteem in which Cretan products were held by the
Romans is expressed in Pliny's words (Nat. Hist. XXV. 53): praecedente persuasione ilia, quidquid in Creta nascalur, infinito
praesiare ceteris ejusdem generis alibi genitis; proxume quod in Parnaso.
3 Full references for this tradition are given by D.G. Hogarth, R.S.A. VI. 1899-1900, p. 95. Vide supra Hesiod's verse.
Callimachus in the opening lines of his Hymn to Zeus mentions both Dicte and Ida as reputed birthplaces of the god
and also refers to the preposterous tradition of his entombment on Mt. Juktas near Knossos, which caused Cretans to be
charged with impiety and untruthfulness. Apollodorus (I, 1, 6) narrates that Zeus was born in the Dictaean cave and was
entrusted to the care of the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida. According to Diodorus (V, 70), Zeus was hidden new-born in the
Dictaean cave and was taken afterwards to the cave on Ida to be reared; that this form of the myth presents the true order
of an earlier belief attached to Dicte and a later attached to Ida has been proved by archaeological discoveries in the two
cave-sanctuaries, which demonstrate that the Dictaean dates from the Bronze Age chiefly, and the cave on Ida from the
early classical period.
D. G. Hogarth, The Dictaean Cave (Psychro), B. S. A. VI, 1899-1900, pp. 94-116, Pis. VIII—XI.
F. Halbherr and P. Orsi, Scoperli nell' antro di Psychro. Museo ltaliano di Antichita Classica, II, 1888, pp. 905-912.
F. Halbherr, Scavi e trovamenti nell' antro di Zeus sul monte Ida in Crete. Mus. It. d. Ant. CI., II, 1888, pp. 689-768.
P. Orsi, Siudi Illusiravi sui bronp arcani trovati nell' antro di Zeus Ideo. Mus. It. d. Ant. CI., II, 1888, pp. 769-904.
Fabricius, Alterthumer auf Kreta, II, Die Iddiscbe Zeusgrotte, Ath. Mitt., X, 1885.
4 //. XIII, 450; XIV, 322. Od. XI, 322, 568; XIX, 178.
5 Theog. 948, also a fragment of Hesiod quoted by Pseudo-Plato, Minos §320. A tradition preserved by Hesiod (see
schol. //. XII, 292) makes Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon, foster-sons of the Cretan king Asterion, to whom Zeus
gave their mother Europa for wife. Diodorus (IV, 60) and Apollodorus (III, 1,2) report this adoption.
• Od. XI, 568.
7 Apoll. III, xv, 8; see also the Attic poets and writers of Atthides and Diod. Sic. IV, 61.
8 The theme is a favorite one on Corinthian, Attic black-figured and red-figured vases, Nolan amphorae, etc. Cj.
among many examples, a black-figured hydria in the Louvre (Dumont-Pottier, p. 327); red-figured kylikes in London (Br.
Mus. Cat. E 48), Munich (Jahn 372), and Florence (Mus. Ital. Ill, pp. 201, 239); Nolan amphorae in the Vatican (Gerhard,
160, 161).
who gives the current opinion of Athens. According to this version, Minos is a wicked, revengeful
king, who demands of Athens a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens, to be sent to Crete every
nine years to feed the hungry maw of the Minotaur or Minos-Bull. All know the story of the Labyrinth,
built by Daedalus as a den for this awful monster, and of Ariadne's love for Theseus, whereby he was
enabled to track and slay the beast. On many an Attic vase of the sixth and fifth centuries B. C,
Theseus is represented in the act of slaying the Minos-Bull; yet at the very moment that potters were
drawing the familiar picture,8 sure of pleasing popular taste, and poets were immortalizing the legend
in their verse,9 Herodotus10 and Thucydides11 were describing Minos as a mighty thalassocrat in terms
almost as moderate as a modern historian might use concerning Charlemagne or William the Con-
queror. Later, Plato12 and Aristotle18 endorse their account of him as overlord of the Aegean, foe to
piracy, and author of civilizing laws, although they are well acquainted with the story of the king's divine
parentage and the hideous tale concerning his cruelty. By Greeks of the classical period, Crete was
revered as the cradle of religion, law, and art, notwithstanding the fact that in their own era her
influence was little felt.
Historians of the last century placed as littlefaith in the words of Herodotus and Thucydides as they
did in the legend of the Minotaur itself, regarding the former as mere attempts to rationalize fables
and rating Minos as "a god or a hero, but not a man."14 Some scholars, willing to admit that at the
basis of all legend lies an element of historical truth, sought to reconcile the contradictions concerning
the Cretan ruler by resorting to the expedient proposed by Diodorus,15 who assumed that there were
two kings named Minos, one grandson of the other, "Minos I, the son of Zeus, lawgiver and judge,
Minos II, the thalassocrat," tyrant of fable, hated by Athens. But this was barren conjecture and
could give no satisfaction to students sincerely interested in discovering the truth.
Five years' work with the spade has revealed in part, at least, the grounds for the historical account,
the Attic myth, and the Homeric verse. Few acquainted with recent Cretan discoveries now doubt
that before "that which is called the generation of man,"16 i.e., in Heroic or prehistoric times, there
ruled at Knossos a powerful king with dominion over the sea. Few would deny that he was revered
at least as highly as the deified Roman emperors; and the Labyrinth1' and Minos-Bull18 seem actually
to have been found on the knoll of Knossos.
8 In Minos §321, Pseudo-Plato makes Socrates say that Athenians by their misrepresentations of Minos in tragedy had
avenged themselves for the tribute he forced their forefathers to pay. Euripides seems to have been one of these calumnia-
tors in his lost Theseus (see schol. Arist. IVasps, 312).
10 Herod. I, 171. 11 Thuc. 1,4.
12 Pseudo-Plato, Minos §§ 318-321. Plato, Gorg. §§ 524, 526; Laws, I, §§ 624, 630, 632, 706.
13 Arist. Polit. II, 10, §4; Fragm. BoTTtaftov FIoXiTela. Cf. Plutarch, Lijeoj Theseus; Ephorus ap. Strabo, §476; Ephor.
Fragm. 61; Diod. Sic. V. 78.
14 Grote I, ed. 1884, pp. 221, 223. Curtius makes a statement more in accord with recent discoveries when he says of
Minos, "er steht an der Schwelle der Geschichte."
15 Diod. IV, 60.
18 Herod. Ill, 122.
17 Dr. Evans has given excellent reasons for believing that the palace unearthed by him at Knossos was the original Laby-
rinth (B. S. A., VI, 1899-1900, p. 33; J. H. S., XXI, 1905, p. 109). The frequent appearance of the double-axe symbol
carved on the masonry and embellishing objects found within the walls makes the name 'Place of the Double-Axe' per-
fectly appropriate. An equivalent for this expression is found in the word labyrinth (Xappu.; ' double-axe' plus the place-
ending v()oq, cj. TtpuvOoc, KopivOo?, etc.; M. Mayer, Jahr. Arch. Inst. VII, 1892, p. 191; P. Kretschmer, Einleitung in die
Geschichte der Griechischen Sprache, 1896, pp. 304, 404). A considerable portion of the remains now visible at Knossos was
built not later than the Xllth Egyptian Dynasty. H. R. Hall has pointed out striking analogies in stone work between
the Knossian Palace and extant Xlth Dynasty buildings (the Mentuhetep temple at Deir el-Bahari and the Sphinx temple
at Giza), and he has demonstrated the probability that the great temple erected by Amenemhat 111 at Hawara acquired the
name Labyrinth as a result of a resemblance to the place of the Double-Axe at Knossos, assisted by a popular etymology
based on the praenomen of the Pharaoh (H. R. Hall, The Two Labyrinths, J. H. S., XXV, 1905, p. 320 ff.). Even without
testimony of classic authors as to the mazy character of the vast Egyptian structure, the derived meaning of the word
'labyrinth' is entirely comprehensible to one acquainted with the intricate plan of the palace at Knossos.
18 The type of the Minotaur with the lower body of a man and the forepart of a bull is the most frequent of a whole
class of monsters, half anthropomorphic, half zoomorphic, which appear on Cretan gems and sealings (/. H. S., XXII, 1902,
p. 76 ff., B. S.A.,\\\, 1900-01, p. 18 ff. fig. 7a, b. c; cf. B. S. A., VII, p. 133, fig. 45). In the opinion of D. G. Hogarth
(J. H. S., XX11, 1902, p. 91) these, with the possible exception of the Minotaur, are products of a "stage of art which has passed
from monsters with a meaning to monster types that are pure fancy." He considered that their relationship to Egyptian
types is clear, but not very close; "they were not taken bodily from any art" (loc. cii. p.92). It seems highly probable that
the Minotaur, after having been a genuine conception of primitive religion, became a heraldic beast like the British Uni-
corn. On the walls of the Knossian palace the bull occurs repeatedly and there are spirited representations of bull-fights,
one even with a woman as toreador (B. S. A., VI, 1899-1900, pp. 12, 51; VII, 1900-01, pp. 94, 108). The Minotaur, on
the contrary, had no place in the mural decorations of the palace, probably because Minoans of the Palace Period (c. 1500
B. C.) had outgrown the primitive stage of religious belief to which such beings belong, and retained the type only in
glyptics, which conserves in 'charms' and in heraldic devices forms that find no favor in the other arts. If at the end
of the Boer War, hostages had been sent from the Transvaal to Flngland to be imprisoned or executed, it might well have
been said that the Unicorn devoured them. Eckermann maintained that the tribute of human victims paid by Athens to
Minos was a historical fact (Lehrbuch der Religions Geschichte u. Myihologie, II, ch. XIII, p. 133), and Dr. Evans, in view
of the Knossian frescoes, thinks it probable that contests in the arena date from Minoan times and "that the legend of
Athenian persons devoured by the Minotaur preserves a real tradition of these cruel sports" (B. S. A., VII, 1900-1, p. 96).
I
THERE is a land called Crete in the midst of the wine-dark sea, a fair land and a rich, begirt
with water, and therein are many men innumerable and ninety cities. And all have not the
same speech, but there is confusion of tongues. There dwell Achaeans and there, too, Cretans
of Crete, high of heart, and Cydonians there and Dorians of waving plumes and goodly
Pelasgians. And among these cities is the mighty city Cnossus, wherein Minos when he was nine years
old began to rule, he who held converse with great Zeus and was the father of my father, even of Deucalion,
high of heart." Odyssey, XIX, 172 ft1; Butcher and Lang's translation.
At the gates of the Aegean lies the island of Crete, about equidistant from Europe, Asia, and Africa,
and commanding the waterways between them. The value of this position is unquestionable; yet, since
the dawn of history, the islanders have failed to reap honorable advantage from it. Highly favored by
position, climate, and fertility,2 this fair land has been given over from century to century to petty strife
and oppression. For the days of Cretan greatness, one must go back to before the Trojan War.
Greek tradition associated its earliest myths with Crete. Here Zeus, Father of Gods and men,
was born3 and was hidden by his mother Rhea in a cave of Mt. Dicte in the country of the Lyctians,
or, according to another report, in a cave of Mt. Ida, in order to escape the wrath
TRADITION of his father Cronus. Such a myth clearly indicates the early importance of
Crete, but even more enticing to archaeologists were the tales concerning King
Minos, for Dr. Schliemann's success at Mycenae and Troy had raised the hope that with legend for a
guide new discoveries might be made, throwing further light on a splendid past, of which the Greeks
themselves knew nothing beyond the stories told of their semi-divine heroes. The very contradictions
in the reports about Minos were stimulating to research.
Older stories embodied in Homer4 and Hesiod5 speak of Minos as son and comrade of Zeus, father
of Deucalion and Ariadne, and grandfather of Idomeneus, a chieftain in the Trojan War. This Minos is
ruler of Knossos, ancient capital of Crete; after death he becomes a lawgiver in Hades. There is no
mention of any dark side of his character; in fact, the lines describing him as judge of the dead" are
only appropriate to one who, in his life on earth, enjoyed a reputation for justice. Very different from
this tradition is the tale handed down by Apollodorus,7 a mythographer of the second century B. C,
1 Odyssey XIX, 172 ff.
Kpi^rir] tis yai 'Istt, u.sjm eve oi'voxc xovto)
kocXt] -/.at xfetpa, xspippUTO?. ev 6' avOpwxoi
xoXXol, dexetplacoc, y.ai Ivv^xovra xoXtjs?—
aXXrj 0' aXXwv yXtoaaa (j.sy.tynlvYj. sv (xsv 'A/atot,
ev 0' 'EtsixpirjTsi; neyaX^Topsi;. sv Se Kucmvss,
Atopies? ts zpiy&'iy.sQ oiot ts IlsXaijyot—
Tflai 0' evi Kvwgioc;, ^eyccX^ xoXis, svOgc ts Mivmc,
svvsMpog jiadXsue Alb? u,eydcXou dapicrrjs
xaTpbc, Iu.010 xocrrjp, ^.SYaOu;j.ou Aeuy.ccXiwvoq.
3 Hesiod. Theog. 477 ff. Translation by C. A. Elton, 1832.
And her they sent to Lyctus; to the clime
Of fallow'd Crete. Now, when her time was come,
The birth of Jove her youngest born, vast Earth
Took to herself the mighty babe, to rear
With nurturing softness in the spacious isle
Of Crete. So came she then, transporting him
Through the swift dusky night, to Lyctus first;
And thence, upbearing in her hands, conceal'd
In sunless cave, deep in the blessed ground.
Within th' Aegean mountain, shadow'd thick
With woods.
2 In spite of the rugged character of much of the surface, Crete has always been reputed fertile because of the great pro-
ductivity of that portion which can be tilled and irrigated. The high esteem in which Cretan products were held by the
Romans is expressed in Pliny's words (Nat. Hist. XXV. 53): praecedente persuasione ilia, quidquid in Creta nascalur, infinito
praesiare ceteris ejusdem generis alibi genitis; proxume quod in Parnaso.
3 Full references for this tradition are given by D.G. Hogarth, R.S.A. VI. 1899-1900, p. 95. Vide supra Hesiod's verse.
Callimachus in the opening lines of his Hymn to Zeus mentions both Dicte and Ida as reputed birthplaces of the god
and also refers to the preposterous tradition of his entombment on Mt. Juktas near Knossos, which caused Cretans to be
charged with impiety and untruthfulness. Apollodorus (I, 1, 6) narrates that Zeus was born in the Dictaean cave and was
entrusted to the care of the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida. According to Diodorus (V, 70), Zeus was hidden new-born in the
Dictaean cave and was taken afterwards to the cave on Ida to be reared; that this form of the myth presents the true order
of an earlier belief attached to Dicte and a later attached to Ida has been proved by archaeological discoveries in the two
cave-sanctuaries, which demonstrate that the Dictaean dates from the Bronze Age chiefly, and the cave on Ida from the
early classical period.
D. G. Hogarth, The Dictaean Cave (Psychro), B. S. A. VI, 1899-1900, pp. 94-116, Pis. VIII—XI.
F. Halbherr and P. Orsi, Scoperli nell' antro di Psychro. Museo ltaliano di Antichita Classica, II, 1888, pp. 905-912.
F. Halbherr, Scavi e trovamenti nell' antro di Zeus sul monte Ida in Crete. Mus. It. d. Ant. CI., II, 1888, pp. 689-768.
P. Orsi, Siudi Illusiravi sui bronp arcani trovati nell' antro di Zeus Ideo. Mus. It. d. Ant. CI., II, 1888, pp. 769-904.
Fabricius, Alterthumer auf Kreta, II, Die Iddiscbe Zeusgrotte, Ath. Mitt., X, 1885.
4 //. XIII, 450; XIV, 322. Od. XI, 322, 568; XIX, 178.
5 Theog. 948, also a fragment of Hesiod quoted by Pseudo-Plato, Minos §320. A tradition preserved by Hesiod (see
schol. //. XII, 292) makes Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon, foster-sons of the Cretan king Asterion, to whom Zeus
gave their mother Europa for wife. Diodorus (IV, 60) and Apollodorus (III, 1,2) report this adoption.
• Od. XI, 568.
7 Apoll. III, xv, 8; see also the Attic poets and writers of Atthides and Diod. Sic. IV, 61.
8 The theme is a favorite one on Corinthian, Attic black-figured and red-figured vases, Nolan amphorae, etc. Cj.
among many examples, a black-figured hydria in the Louvre (Dumont-Pottier, p. 327); red-figured kylikes in London (Br.
Mus. Cat. E 48), Munich (Jahn 372), and Florence (Mus. Ital. Ill, pp. 201, 239); Nolan amphorae in the Vatican (Gerhard,
160, 161).
who gives the current opinion of Athens. According to this version, Minos is a wicked, revengeful
king, who demands of Athens a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens, to be sent to Crete every
nine years to feed the hungry maw of the Minotaur or Minos-Bull. All know the story of the Labyrinth,
built by Daedalus as a den for this awful monster, and of Ariadne's love for Theseus, whereby he was
enabled to track and slay the beast. On many an Attic vase of the sixth and fifth centuries B. C,
Theseus is represented in the act of slaying the Minos-Bull; yet at the very moment that potters were
drawing the familiar picture,8 sure of pleasing popular taste, and poets were immortalizing the legend
in their verse,9 Herodotus10 and Thucydides11 were describing Minos as a mighty thalassocrat in terms
almost as moderate as a modern historian might use concerning Charlemagne or William the Con-
queror. Later, Plato12 and Aristotle18 endorse their account of him as overlord of the Aegean, foe to
piracy, and author of civilizing laws, although they are well acquainted with the story of the king's divine
parentage and the hideous tale concerning his cruelty. By Greeks of the classical period, Crete was
revered as the cradle of religion, law, and art, notwithstanding the fact that in their own era her
influence was little felt.
Historians of the last century placed as littlefaith in the words of Herodotus and Thucydides as they
did in the legend of the Minotaur itself, regarding the former as mere attempts to rationalize fables
and rating Minos as "a god or a hero, but not a man."14 Some scholars, willing to admit that at the
basis of all legend lies an element of historical truth, sought to reconcile the contradictions concerning
the Cretan ruler by resorting to the expedient proposed by Diodorus,15 who assumed that there were
two kings named Minos, one grandson of the other, "Minos I, the son of Zeus, lawgiver and judge,
Minos II, the thalassocrat," tyrant of fable, hated by Athens. But this was barren conjecture and
could give no satisfaction to students sincerely interested in discovering the truth.
Five years' work with the spade has revealed in part, at least, the grounds for the historical account,
the Attic myth, and the Homeric verse. Few acquainted with recent Cretan discoveries now doubt
that before "that which is called the generation of man,"16 i.e., in Heroic or prehistoric times, there
ruled at Knossos a powerful king with dominion over the sea. Few would deny that he was revered
at least as highly as the deified Roman emperors; and the Labyrinth1' and Minos-Bull18 seem actually
to have been found on the knoll of Knossos.
8 In Minos §321, Pseudo-Plato makes Socrates say that Athenians by their misrepresentations of Minos in tragedy had
avenged themselves for the tribute he forced their forefathers to pay. Euripides seems to have been one of these calumnia-
tors in his lost Theseus (see schol. Arist. IVasps, 312).
10 Herod. I, 171. 11 Thuc. 1,4.
12 Pseudo-Plato, Minos §§ 318-321. Plato, Gorg. §§ 524, 526; Laws, I, §§ 624, 630, 632, 706.
13 Arist. Polit. II, 10, §4; Fragm. BoTTtaftov FIoXiTela. Cf. Plutarch, Lijeoj Theseus; Ephorus ap. Strabo, §476; Ephor.
Fragm. 61; Diod. Sic. V. 78.
14 Grote I, ed. 1884, pp. 221, 223. Curtius makes a statement more in accord with recent discoveries when he says of
Minos, "er steht an der Schwelle der Geschichte."
15 Diod. IV, 60.
18 Herod. Ill, 122.
17 Dr. Evans has given excellent reasons for believing that the palace unearthed by him at Knossos was the original Laby-
rinth (B. S. A., VI, 1899-1900, p. 33; J. H. S., XXI, 1905, p. 109). The frequent appearance of the double-axe symbol
carved on the masonry and embellishing objects found within the walls makes the name 'Place of the Double-Axe' per-
fectly appropriate. An equivalent for this expression is found in the word labyrinth (Xappu.; ' double-axe' plus the place-
ending v()oq, cj. TtpuvOoc, KopivOo?, etc.; M. Mayer, Jahr. Arch. Inst. VII, 1892, p. 191; P. Kretschmer, Einleitung in die
Geschichte der Griechischen Sprache, 1896, pp. 304, 404). A considerable portion of the remains now visible at Knossos was
built not later than the Xllth Egyptian Dynasty. H. R. Hall has pointed out striking analogies in stone work between
the Knossian Palace and extant Xlth Dynasty buildings (the Mentuhetep temple at Deir el-Bahari and the Sphinx temple
at Giza), and he has demonstrated the probability that the great temple erected by Amenemhat 111 at Hawara acquired the
name Labyrinth as a result of a resemblance to the place of the Double-Axe at Knossos, assisted by a popular etymology
based on the praenomen of the Pharaoh (H. R. Hall, The Two Labyrinths, J. H. S., XXV, 1905, p. 320 ff.). Even without
testimony of classic authors as to the mazy character of the vast Egyptian structure, the derived meaning of the word
'labyrinth' is entirely comprehensible to one acquainted with the intricate plan of the palace at Knossos.
18 The type of the Minotaur with the lower body of a man and the forepart of a bull is the most frequent of a whole
class of monsters, half anthropomorphic, half zoomorphic, which appear on Cretan gems and sealings (/. H. S., XXII, 1902,
p. 76 ff., B. S.A.,\\\, 1900-01, p. 18 ff. fig. 7a, b. c; cf. B. S. A., VII, p. 133, fig. 45). In the opinion of D. G. Hogarth
(J. H. S., XX11, 1902, p. 91) these, with the possible exception of the Minotaur, are products of a "stage of art which has passed
from monsters with a meaning to monster types that are pure fancy." He considered that their relationship to Egyptian
types is clear, but not very close; "they were not taken bodily from any art" (loc. cii. p.92). It seems highly probable that
the Minotaur, after having been a genuine conception of primitive religion, became a heraldic beast like the British Uni-
corn. On the walls of the Knossian palace the bull occurs repeatedly and there are spirited representations of bull-fights,
one even with a woman as toreador (B. S. A., VI, 1899-1900, pp. 12, 51; VII, 1900-01, pp. 94, 108). The Minotaur, on
the contrary, had no place in the mural decorations of the palace, probably because Minoans of the Palace Period (c. 1500
B. C.) had outgrown the primitive stage of religious belief to which such beings belong, and retained the type only in
glyptics, which conserves in 'charms' and in heraldic devices forms that find no favor in the other arts. If at the end
of the Boer War, hostages had been sent from the Transvaal to Flngland to be imprisoned or executed, it might well have
been said that the Unicorn devoured them. Eckermann maintained that the tribute of human victims paid by Athens to
Minos was a historical fact (Lehrbuch der Religions Geschichte u. Myihologie, II, ch. XIII, p. 133), and Dr. Evans, in view
of the Knossian frescoes, thinks it probable that contests in the arena date from Minoan times and "that the legend of
Athenian persons devoured by the Minotaur preserves a real tradition of these cruel sports" (B. S. A., VII, 1900-1, p. 96).
I