Minotaur’s labyrinth
The myth of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth has preserved the memory of the unique Minoan civilization until today - a civilization where the bull was worshipped and majestic structures like the Knossos palace existed in all its splendour.
In the ancient Greek language, the word Labyrinth means ‘the house of lavrys’ – which is a double-edged axe - one of the basic sacred symbols of the Minoan religion, etched on many sculptured stones in Minoan palaces and other buildings, as well as on vases, pots, and various other works and often seen in association with portraits of priests wearing bull masks, from which the Minotaur legend would have been drawn.
The Minoans were a mysterious people, even today research has not discovered where they came from, but they arrived in Crete about 7000 BC. Every indication shows that the Greeks feared the Minoans, which is odd because they were not a warrior nation, we can be sure of this because their cities had few fortifications. They seem instead to have been trade masters, supplying (and presumably denying) other countries – as an example, 60,000 gallons of olive oil could have been sorted in the huge jars, called pithoi, which were found in the store rooms at Knossos, which would keep most small nations of the time going for a year!
While there is no archaeological evidence of a labyrinth at Knossos, much less of a bull-headed man having sacrifices made to him in it, the palace itself is a maze of corridors, staircases and rooms – which is quite likely where the legend of the labyrinth began. The building itself was enormous, containing hundreds of rooms on many levels, grouped around a central courtyard the size of 22 football pitches! This palace had storerooms, bathrooms (with a running water toilet system), private apartments, public rooms, workshops and even what appears to be a throne room. The Minoans did not consider symmetry an important attribute and rooms and halls seem to be added almost at random, though they were undoubtedly placed with a practical purpose.
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